Write a paper on the following articles, the manager?s bookshelf. Specific instructions and questions to be addressed
Question:
Write a paper on the following articles, the manager?s bookshelf. Specific instructions and questions to be addressed from each article are below. From the article, the fifth discipline: ?organizations need to be learners, and often they are not. Somehow some survive, but never live up to their potential.
What happens if what we term excellence is really no more than mediocrity? Only those firms that become learners will succeed in the increasingly turbulent, competitive global market.? compare and contrast the author?s learning disabilities and five disciplines with your company or an organization with which you are familiar. What are the five most significant and practical leadership concepts that you take away from this article that will enhance your personal management abilities?
50 READING 7 The Fifth Discipline Peter M. Senge Summary Prepared by Dorothy Marcic Dorothy Marcic is Adjunct Professor at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management. Previously, she served as Director of Graduate Programs in Human Resource Development at Peabody College and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Economics-Prague, and held academic appointments at Arizona State University and the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse. Dorothy's research and consulting interests include how to develop the kinds of struc- tures, values, and systems that help create learning organizations that are uplifting to employees. Addressing that issue is one of the 10 books she has authored-Managing with the Wisdom of Love: Uncovering Virtue in Organizations. Learning disabilities can be fatal to organizations, causing them to have an average life span of only 40 years-half a human being's life. Organizations need to be learners, and often they are not. Somehow some survive, but never live up to their potential. What happens if what we term excellence is really no more than mediocrity? Only those firms that become learners will succeed in the increasingly turbulent, competitive global market. LEARNING DISABILITIES There are seven learning disabilities common to organizations. IDENTIFICATION WITH ONE'S POSITION American workers are trained to see themselves as what they do, not who they are. Therefore, if laid off, they find it difficult, if not impossible, to find work doing something else. Worse for the organization, though, is the limited thinking this attitude creates. By claiming an identity related to the job, workers are cut off from seeing how their responsibility connects to other jobs. For example, one American car had three assem- bly bolts on one component. The similar Japanese make had only one bolt. Why? Because the Detroit manufacturer had three engineers for that component, while a similar Japanese manu- facturer had only one. Peter M. Senge. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday, 1990. Reading Seven. The Fifth Discipline EXTERNAL ENEMIES This belief is a result of the previously stated disability. External enemies refers to people focusing blame on anything but themselves or their unit. Fault is regularly blamed on factors such as the economy, the weather, or the government. Marketing blames manufacturing, and manufacturing blames engineering. Such external faultfinding keeps the organization from seeing what the real problems are and prevents them from tackling the real issues head-on. THE ILLUSION OF TAKING CHARGE Being proactive is seen as good management-doing something about "those problems." All too often, though, being proactive is a disguise for reac- tiveness against that awful enemy out there. THE FIXATION ON EVENTS Much attention in organizations is paid to events-last month's sales, the new product, who just got hired, and so on. Our society, too, is geared toward short- term thinking, which in turn stifles the type of generative learning that permits a look at the real threats-the slowly declining processes of quality, service, or design. THE PARABLE OF THE BOILED FROG An experiment was once conducted by placing a frog in boiling water. The frog, sensing danger in the extreme heat, immediately jumped out to safety. However, placing the frog in cool water and slowly turning up the heat resulted in the frog getting groggier and groggier and finally boiling to death. Why? Because the frog's survival mechanisms are programmed to look for sudden changes in the environment, not gradual changes. Similarly, during the 1960s, the U.S. auto industry saw no threat by Japan, which had only 4 percent of the market. Not until the 1980s when Japan had over 21 percent of the market did the Big Three begin to look at their core assumptions. Now with Japan holding about 30 percent share of the market, it is not certain if this frog (U.S. automakers) is capable of jumping out of the boiling water. Looking at gradual processes requires slowing down our frenetic pace and watching for the subtle cues. THE DELUSION OF LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE Learning from experience is powerful. This is how we learn to walk and talk. However, we now live in a time when direct consequences of actions may take months or years to appear. Decisions in research and development (R&D) may take up to a decade to bear fruit, and their actual consequences may be influenced by manufacturing and marketing along the way. Organizations often choose to deal with these com- plexities by breaking themselves up into smaller and smaller components, further reducing their ability to see problems in their entirety. THE MYTH OF THE MANAGEMENT TEAM Most large organizations have a group of bright, experienced leaders who are supposed to know all the answers. They were trained to believe there are answers to all problems and they should find them. People are rarely rewarded for bringing up difficult issues or for looking at parts of a problem that make them harder to grasp. Most teams end up operating below the lowest IQ of any member. What results are "skilled incompetents"-people who know all too well how to keep from learning. SYSTEMS THINKING Five disciplines are required for a learning organization: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking. The fifth one, systems thinking, is the most important. Without systems thinking, the other disciplines do not have the same effect. 51 52 Part Two Best-Seller "Classics" The Laws of the Fifth Discipline TODAY'S PROBLEMS RESULT FROM YESTERDAY'S SOLUTIONS A carpet merchant kept pushing down a bump in the rug, only to have it reappear elsewhere, until he lifted a corner and out slithered a snake. Sometimes fixing one part of the system only brings difficulties to other parts of the system. For example, solving an internal inventory problem may lead to angry customers who now get late shipments. PUSH HARD AND THE SYSTEM PUSHES BACK EVEN HARDER Systems theory calls this com- pensating feedback, which is a common way of reducing the effects of an intervention. Some cities, for example, build low-cost housing and set up job programs, only to have more poor people than ever. Why? Because many moved to the cities from neighboring areas so that they, too, could take advantage of the low-cost housing and job opportunities. BEHAVIOR GETS BETTER BEFORE IT GETS WORSE Some decisions actually look good in the short term, but produce compensating feedback and crisis in the end. The really effective decisions often produce difficulties in the short run but create more health in the long term. This is why behav- iors such as building a power base or working hard just to please the boss come back to haunt you. THE BEST WAY OUT IS TO GO BACK IN We often choose familiar solutions, ones that feel comfortable and not scary. But the effective ways often mean going straight into what we are afraid of facing. What does not work is pushing harder on the same old solutions (also called the "what we need here is a bigger hammer" syndrome). THE CURE CAN BE WORSE THAN THE DISEASE The result of applying nonsystematic solutions to problems is the need for more and more of the same. It can become addictive. Someone begins mild drinking to alleviate work tension. The individual feels better and then takes on more work, creating more tension and a need for more alcohol, and the person finally becomes an alcoholic. Sometimes these types of solutions only result in shifting the burden. The government enters the scene by pro- viding more welfare and leaves the host system weaker and less able to solve its own problems. This ultimately necessitates still more aid from the government. Companies can try to shift their burdens to consultants, but then become more and more dependent on them to solve their problems. FASTER IS SLOWER Every system, whether ecological or organizational, has an optimal rate of growth. Faster and faster is not always better. (After all, the tortoise finally did win the race.) Complex human systems require new ways of thinking. Quickly jumping in and fixing what looks bad usually provides solutions for a problem's symptoms and not for the problem itself. CAUSE AND EFFECT ARE NOT ALWAYS RELATED CLOSELY IN TIME AND SPACE Effects here mean the symptoms we see, such as drug abuse and unemployment, whereas causes mean the interactions of the underlying system that bring about these conditions. We often assume cause is near to effect. If there is a sales problem, then incentives for the sales force should fix it, or if there is inadequate housing, then build more houses. Unfortunately, this does not often work, for the real causes lie elsewhere. TINY CHANGES MAY PRODUCE BIG RESULTS; AREAS OF GREATEST LEVERAGE ARE FREQUENTLY THE LEAST OBVIOUS System science teaches that the most obvious solutions usually do not work. Although simple solutions frequently make short-run improvements, they commonly contribute to long-term deteriorations. The nonobvious and well-focused solutions Reading Seven. The Fifth Discipline are more likely to provide leverage and bring positive change. For example, ships have a tiny trim tab on one edge of the rudder that has great influence on the movement of that ship, so small changes in the trim tab bring big shifts in the ship's course. However, there are no simple rules for applying leverage to organizations. It requires looking for the structure of what is going on rather than merely seeing the events. YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO-BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME Sometimes the most difficult problems come from "snapshot" rather than "process" thinking. For example, it was previously believed by American manufacturers that quality and low cost could not be achieved simultaneously. One had to be chosen over the other. What was missed, however, was the notion that improving quality may also mean eliminating waste and unnecessary time (both adding costs), which in the end would mean lower costs. Real leverage comes when it can be seen that seemingly opposing needs can be met over time. CUTTING THE ELEPHANT IN HALF DOES NOT CREATE TWO ELEPHANTS Some problems can be solved by looking at parts of the organization, whereas others require holistic thinking. What is needed is an understanding of the boundaries for each problem. Unfortunately, most organi- zations are designed to prevent people from seeing systemic problems, either by creating rigid structures or by leaving problems behind for others to clean up. THERE IS NO BLAME Systems thinking teaches that there are no outside causes to problems; instead, you and your "enemy" are part of the same system. Any cure requires understanding how that is seen. THE OTHER DISCIPLINES Personal Mastery Organizations can learn only when the individuals involved learn. This requires personal mastery, which is the discipline of personal learning and growth, where people are continually expanding their ability to create the kind of life they want. From their quest comes the spirit of the learning organization. Personal mastery involves seeing one's life as a creative work, being able to clarify what is really important, and learning to see current reality more clearly. The difference between what's important, what we want, and where we are now produces a "creative tension." Personal mastery means being able to generate and maintain creative tension. Those who have high personal mastery have a vision, which is more like a calling, and they are in a continual learning mode. They never really "arrive." Filled with more commitment, they take initiative and greater responsibility in their work. Previously, organizations supported an employee's development only if it would help the organization, which fits in with the traditional "contract" between employee and organization ("an honest day's pay in exchange for an honest day's work"). The new, and coming, way is to see it rather as a "covenant," which comes from a shared vision of goals, ideas, and management processes. Working toward personal mastery requires living with emotional tension, not letting our goals get eroded. As Somerset Maugham said, "Only mediocre people are always at their best." One of the worst blocks to achieving personal mastery is the common belief that we cannot have what we want. Being committed to the truth is a powerful weapon against this, for it does 53 54 Part Two Best-Seller "Classics" not allow us to deceive ourselves. Another means of seeking personal mastery is to integrate our reason and intuition. We live in a society that values reason and devalues intuition. How- ever, using both together is very powerful and may be one of the fundamental contributions to systems thinking. Mental Models Mental models are internal images of how the world works and can range from simple gener- alizations (people are lazy) to complex theories (assumptions about why my coworkers inter- act the way they do). For example, for decades the Detroit automakers believed people bought cars mainly for styling, not for quality or reliability. These beliefs, which were really unconscious assumptions, worked well for many years, but ran into trouble when competition from Japan be- gan. It took a long time for Detroit even to begin to see the mistakes in their beliefs. One company that managed to change its mental model through incubating a business worldview was Shell. Traditional hierarchical organizations have the dogma of organizing, managing, and con- trolling. In the new learning organization, though, the revised "dogma" will be values, vision, and mental models. Hanover Insurance began changes in 1969 designed to overcome the "basic disease of the hierarchy." Three values espoused were 1. Openness-seen as an antidote to the dysfunctional interactions in face-to-face meetings. 2. Merit, or making decisions based on the good of the organization-seen as the antidote to decision making by organizational politics. 3. Localness-the antidote to doing the dirty stuff the boss does not want to do. Chris Argyris and colleagues developed "action science" as a means for reflecting on the rea- soning underlying our actions. This helps people change the defensive routines that lead them to skilled incompetence. Similarly, John Beckett created a course on the historical survey of main philosophies of thought, East and West, as a sort of "sandpaper on the brain." These ideas exposed managers to their own assumptions and mental models and provided other ways to view the world. Shared Vision A shared vision is not an idea. Rather it is a force in people's hearts, a sense of purpose that pro- vides energy and focus for learning. Visions are often exhilarating. Shared vision is important because it may be the beginning step to get people who mistrusted each other to start working together. Abraham Maslow studied high-performing teams and found that they had a shared vision. Shared visions can mobilize courage so naturally that people don't even know the extent of their strength. When John Kennedy created the shared vision in 1961 of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade, only 15 percent of the technology had been created. Yet it led to numerous acts of daring and courage. Learning organizations are not achievable without shared vision. Without that incredible pull toward the deeply felt goal, the forces of status quo will overwhelm the pursuit. As Robert Fritz once said, "In the presence of greatness, pettiness disappears." Conversely, in the absence of a great vision, pettiness is supreme. Strategic planning often does not involve building a shared vision, but rather announcing the vision of top management, asking people, at best, to enroll, and, at worst, to comply. The critical step is gaining commitment from people. This is done by taking a personal vision and Reading Seven. The Fifth Discipline building it into a shared vision. In the traditional hierarchical organization, compliance is one of the desired outcomes. For learning organizations, commitment must be the key goal. Shared vision, though, is not possible without personal mastery, which is needed to foster continued commitment to a lofty goal. Team Learning Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics wrote about being on a team of specialists whose performance depended on one another's individual excellence and how well they worked together. Sometimes that created a feeling of magic. He is talking about alignment, where a group functions as a whole unit, rather than as individuals working at cross purposes. When a team is aligned, its energies are focused and harmonized. They do not need to sacrifice their own interests. Instead, align- ment occurs when the shared vision becomes an extension of the personal vision. Alignment is a necessary condition to empower others and ultimately empower the team. Never before today has there been greater need for mastering team learning, which re- quires mastering both dialogue and discussion. Dialogue involves a creative and free search of complex and even subtle issues, whereas discussion implies different views being presented and defended. Both skills are useful, but most teams cannot tell the difference between the two. The purpose of dialogue is to increase individual understanding. Here, assumptions are suspended and participants regard one another as on the same level. Discussion, on the other hand, comes from the same root word as percussion and concussion and involves a sort of verbal ping-pong game whose object is winning. Although this is a useful technique, it must be balanced with dialogue. A continued emphasis on winning is not compatible with the search for truth and coherence. One of the major blocks to healthy dialogue and discussion is what Chris Argyris calls defensive routines. These are habitual styles of interacting that protect us from threat or embar- rassment. These include the avoidance of conflict (smoothing over) and the feeling that one has to appear competent and to know the answers at all times. Team learning, like any other skill, requires practice. Musicians and athletes understand this principle. Work teams need to learn that lesson as well. OTHER ISSUES Organizational politics is a perversion of truth, yet most people are so accustomed to it, they do not even notice it anymore. A learning organization is not possible in such an environment. In order to move past the politics, one thing needed is openness-both speaking openly and honestly about the real and important issues and being willing to challenge one's own way of thinking. Localness, too, is essential to the learning organization, for decisions need to be pushed down the organizational hierarchy in order to unleash people's commitment. This gives them the freedom to act. One thing lacking in many organizations is time to reflect and think. If someone is sitting quietly, we assume he or she is not busy and feel free to interrupt. Many managers, however, are too busy to "just think." This should not be blamed on the tumultuous environment of many cri- ses. Research suggests that, even when given ample time, managers still do not devote any of it to adequate reflection. Therefore, habits need to be changed, as well as how we structure our days. 55 50 READING 7 The Fifth Discipline Peter M. Senge Summary Prepared by Dorothy Marcic Dorothy Marcic is Adjunct Professor at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management. Previously, she served as Director of Graduate Programs in Human Resource Development at Peabody College and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Economics-Prague, and held academic appointments at Arizona State University and the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse. Dorothy's research and consulting interests include how to develop the kinds of struc- tures, values, and systems that help create learning organizations that are uplifting to employees. Addressing that issue is one of the 10 books she has authored-Managing with the Wisdom of Love: Uncovering Virtue in Organizations. Learning disabilities can be fatal to organizations, causing them to have an average life span of only 40 years-half a human being's life. Organizations need to be learners, and often they are not. Somehow some survive, but never live up to their potential. What happens if what we term excellence is really no more than mediocrity? Only those firms that become learners will succeed in the increasingly turbulent, competitive global market. LEARNING DISABILITIES There are seven learning disabilities common to organizations. IDENTIFICATION WITH ONE'S POSITION American workers are trained to see themselves as what they do, not who they are. Therefore, if laid off, they find it difficult, if not impossible, to find work doing something else. Worse for the organization, though, is the limited thinking this attitude creates. By claiming an identity related to the job, workers are cut off from seeing how their responsibility connects to other jobs. For example, one American car had three assem- bly bolts on one component. The similar Japanese make had only one bolt. Why? Because the Detroit manufacturer had three engineers for that component, while a similar Japanese manu- facturer had only one. Peter M. Senge. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday, 1990. Reading Seven. The Fifth Discipline EXTERNAL ENEMIES This belief is a result of the previously stated disability. External enemies refers to people focusing blame on anything but themselves or their unit. Fault is regularly blamed on factors such as the economy, the weather, or the government. Marketing blames manufacturing, and manufacturing blames engineering. Such external faultfinding keeps the organization from seeing what the real problems are and prevents them from tackling the real issues head-on. THE ILLUSION OF TAKING CHARGE Being proactive is seen as good management-doing something about "those problems." All too often, though, being proactive is a disguise for reac- tiveness against that awful enemy out there. THE FIXATION ON EVENTS Much attention in organizations is paid to events-last month's sales, the new product, who just got hired, and so on. Our society, too, is geared toward short- term thinking, which in turn stifles the type of generative learning that permits a look at the real threats-the slowly declining processes of quality, service, or design. THE PARABLE OF THE BOILED FROG An experiment was once conducted by placing a frog in boiling water. The frog, sensing danger in the extreme heat, immediately jumped out to safety. However, placing the frog in cool water and slowly turning up the heat resulted in the frog getting groggier and groggier and finally boiling to death. Why? Because the frog's survival mechanisms are programmed to look for sudden changes in the environment, not gradual changes. Similarly, during the 1960s, the U.S. auto industry saw no threat by Japan, which had only 4 percent of the market. Not until the 1980s when Japan had over 21 percent of the market did the Big Three begin to look at their core assumptions. Now with Japan holding about 30 percent share of the market, it is not certain if this frog (U.S. automakers) is capable of jumping out of the boiling water. Looking at gradual processes requires slowing down our frenetic pace and watching for the subtle cues. THE DELUSION OF LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE Learning from experience is powerful. This is how we learn to walk and talk. However, we now live in a time when direct consequences of actions may take months or years to appear. Decisions in research and development (R&D) may take up to a decade to bear fruit, and their actual consequences may be influenced by manufacturing and marketing along the way. Organizations often choose to deal with these com- plexities by breaking themselves up into smaller and smaller components, further reducing their ability to see problems in their entirety. THE MYTH OF THE MANAGEMENT TEAM Most large organizations have a group of bright, experienced leaders who are supposed to know all the answers. They were trained to believe there are answers to all problems and they should find them. People are rarely rewarded for bringing up difficult issues or for looking at parts of a problem that make them harder to grasp. Most teams end up operating below the lowest IQ of any member. What results are "skilled incompetents"-people who know all too well how to keep from learning. SYSTEMS THINKING Five disciplines are required for a learning organization: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking. The fifth one, systems thinking, is the most important. Without systems thinking, the other disciplines do not have the same effect. 51 52 Part Two Best-Seller "Classics" The Laws of the Fifth Discipline TODAY'S PROBLEMS RESULT FROM YESTERDAY'S SOLUTIONS A carpet merchant kept pushing down a bump in the rug, only to have it reappear elsewhere, until he lifted a corner and out slithered a snake. Sometimes fixing one part of the system only brings difficulties to other parts of the system. For example, solving an internal inventory problem may lead to angry customers who now get late shipments. PUSH HARD AND THE SYSTEM PUSHES BACK EVEN HARDER Systems theory calls this com- pensating feedback, which is a common way of reducing the effects of an intervention. Some cities, for example, build low-cost housing and set up job programs, only to have more poor people than ever. Why? Because many moved to the cities from neighboring areas so that they, too, could take advantage of the low-cost housing and job opportunities. BEHAVIOR GETS BETTER BEFORE IT GETS WORSE Some decisions actually look good in the short term, but produce compensating feedback and crisis in the end. The really effective decisions often produce difficulties in the short run but create more health in the long term. This is why behav- iors such as building a power base or working hard just to please the boss come back to haunt you. THE BEST WAY OUT IS TO GO BACK IN We often choose familiar solutions, ones that feel comfortable and not scary. But the effective ways often mean going straight into what we are afraid of facing. What does not work is pushing harder on the same old solutions (also called the "what we need here is a bigger hammer" syndrome). THE CURE CAN BE WORSE THAN THE DISEASE The result of applying nonsystematic solutions to problems is the need for more and more of the same. It can become addictive. Someone begins mild drinking to alleviate work tension. The individual feels better and then takes on more work, creating more tension and a need for more alcohol, and the person finally becomes an alcoholic. Sometimes these types of solutions only result in shifting the burden. The government enters the scene by pro- viding more welfare and leaves the host system weaker and less able to solve its own problems. This ultimately necessitates still more aid from the government. Companies can try to shift their burdens to consultants, but then become more and more dependent on them to solve their problems. FASTER IS SLOWER Every system, whether ecological or organizational, has an optimal rate of growth. Faster and faster is not always better. (After all, the tortoise finally did win the race.) Complex human systems require new ways of thinking. Quickly jumping in and fixing what looks bad usually provides solutions for a problem's symptoms and not for the problem itself. CAUSE AND EFFECT ARE NOT ALWAYS RELATED CLOSELY IN TIME AND SPACE Effects here mean the symptoms we see, such as drug abuse and unemployment, whereas causes mean the interactions of the underlying system that bring about these conditions. We often assume cause is near to effect. If there is a sales problem, then incentives for the sales force should fix it, or if there is inadequate housing, then build more houses. Unfortunately, this does not often work, for the real causes lie elsewhere. TINY CHANGES MAY PRODUCE BIG RESULTS; AREAS OF GREATEST LEVERAGE ARE FREQUENTLY THE LEAST OBVIOUS System science teaches that the most obvious solutions usually do not work. Although simple solutions frequently make short-run improvements, they commonly contribute to long-term deteriorations. The nonobvious and well-focused solutions Reading Seven. The Fifth Discipline are more likely to provide leverage and bring positive change. For example, ships have a tiny trim tab on one edge of the rudder that has great influence on the movement of that ship, so small changes in the trim tab bring big shifts in the ship's course. However, there are no simple rules for applying leverage to organizations. It requires looking for the structure of what is going on rather than merely seeing the events. YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO-BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME Sometimes the most difficult problems come from "snapshot" rather than "process" thinking. For example, it was previously believed by American manufacturers that quality and low cost could not be achieved simultaneously. One had to be chosen over the other. What was missed, however, was the notion that improving quality may also mean eliminating waste and unnecessary time (both adding costs), which in the end would mean lower costs. Real leverage comes when it can be seen that seemingly opposing needs can be met over time. CUTTING THE ELEPHANT IN HALF DOES NOT CREATE TWO ELEPHANTS Some problems can be solved by looking at parts of the organization, whereas others require holistic thinking. What is needed is an understanding of the boundaries for each problem. Unfortunately, most organi- zations are designed to prevent people from seeing systemic problems, either by creating rigid structures or by leaving problems behind for others to clean up. THERE IS NO BLAME Systems thinking teaches that there are no outside causes to problems; instead, you and your "enemy" are part of the same system. Any cure requires understanding how that is seen. THE OTHER DISCIPLINES Personal Mastery Organizations can learn only when the individuals involved learn. This requires personal mastery, which is the discipline of personal learning and growth, where people are continually expanding their ability to create the kind of life they want. From their quest comes the spirit of the learning organization. Personal mastery involves seeing one's life as a creative work, being able to clarify what is really important, and learning to see current reality more clearly. The difference between what's important, what we want, and where we are now produces a "creative tension." Personal mastery means being able to generate and maintain creative tension. Those who have high personal mastery have a vision, which is more like a calling, and they are in a continual learning mode. They never really "arrive." Filled with more commitment, they take initiative and greater responsibility in their work. Previously, organizations supported an employee's development only if it would help the organization, which fits in with the traditional "contract" between employee and organization ("an honest day's pay in exchange for an honest day's work"). The new, and coming, way is to see it rather as a "covenant," which comes from a shared vision of goals, ideas, and management processes. Working toward personal mastery requires living with emotional tension, not letting our goals get eroded. As Somerset Maugham said, "Only mediocre people are always at their best." One of the worst blocks to achieving personal mastery is the common belief that we cannot have what we want. Being committed to the truth is a powerful weapon against this, for it does 53 54 Part Two Best-Seller "Classics" not allow us to deceive ourselves. Another means of seeking personal mastery is to integrate our reason and intuition. We live in a society that values reason and devalues intuition. How- ever, using both together is very powerful and may be one of the fundamental contributions to systems thinking. Mental Models Mental models are internal images of how the world works and can range from simple gener- alizations (people are lazy) to complex theories (assumptions about why my coworkers inter- act the way they do). For example, for decades the Detroit automakers believed people bought cars mainly for styling, not for quality or reliability. These beliefs, which were really unconscious assumptions, worked well for many years, but ran into trouble when competition from Japan be- gan. It took a long time for Detroit even to begin to see the mistakes in their beliefs. One company that managed to change its mental model through incubating a business worldview was Shell. Traditional hierarchical organizations have the dogma of organizing, managing, and con- trolling. In the new learning organization, though, the revised "dogma" will be values, vision, and mental models. Hanover Insurance began changes in 1969 designed to overcome the "basic disease of the hierarchy." Three values espoused were 1. Openness-seen as an antidote to the dysfunctional interactions in face-to-face meetings. 2. Merit, or making decisions based on the good of the organization-seen as the antidote to decision making by organizational politics. 3. Localness-the antidote to doing the dirty stuff the boss does not want to do. Chris Argyris and colleagues developed "action science" as a means for reflecting on the rea- soning underlying our actions. This helps people change the defensive routines that lead them to skilled incompetence. Similarly, John Beckett created a course on the historical survey of main philosophies of thought, East and West, as a sort of "sandpaper on the brain." These ideas exposed managers to their own assumptions and mental models and provided other ways to view the world. Shared Vision A shared vision is not an idea. Rather it is a force in people's hearts, a sense of purpose that pro- vides energy and focus for learning. Visions are often exhilarating. Shared vision is important because it may be the beginning step to get people who mistrusted each other to start working together. Abraham Maslow studied high-performing teams and found that they had a shared vision. Shared visions can mobilize courage so naturally that people don't even know the extent of their strength. When John Kennedy created the shared vision in 1961 of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade, only 15 percent of the technology had been created. Yet it led to numerous acts of daring and courage. Learning organizations are not achievable without shared vision. Without that incredible pull toward the deeply felt goal, the forces of status quo will overwhelm the pursuit. As Robert Fritz once said, "In the presence of greatness, pettiness disappears." Conversely, in the absence of a great vision, pettiness is supreme. Strategic planning often does not involve building a shared vision, but rather announcing the vision of top management, asking people, at best, to enroll, and, at worst, to comply. The critical step is gaining commitment from people. This is done by taking a personal vision and Reading Seven. The Fifth Discipline building it into a shared vision. In the traditional hierarchical organization, compliance is one of the desired outcomes. For learning organizations, commitment must be the key goal. Shared vision, though, is not possible without personal mastery, which is needed to foster continued commitment to a lofty goal. Team Learning Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics wrote about being on a team of specialists whose performance depended on one another's individual excellence and how well they worked together. Sometimes that created a feeling of magic. He is talking about alignment, where a group functions as a whole unit, rather than as individuals working at cross purposes. When a team is aligned, its energies are focused and harmonized. They do not need to sacrifice their own interests. Instead, align- ment occurs when the shared vision becomes an extension of the personal vision. Alignment is a necessary condition to empower others and ultimately empower the team. Never before today has there been greater need for mastering team learning, which re- quires mastering both dialogue and discussion. Dialogue involves a creative and free search of complex and even subtle issues, whereas discussion implies different views being presented and defended. Both skills are useful, but most teams cannot tell the difference between the two. The purpose of dialogue is to increase individual understanding. Here, assumptions are suspended and participants regard one another as on the same level. Discussion, on the other hand, comes from the same root word as percussion and concussion and involves a sort of verbal ping-pong game whose object is winning. Although this is a useful technique, it must be balanced with dialogue. A continued emphasis on winning is not compatible with the search for truth and coherence. One of the major blocks to healthy dialogue and discussion is what Chris Argyris calls defensive routines. These are habitual styles of interacting that protect us from threat or embar- rassment. These include the avoidance of conflict (smoothing over) and the feeling that one has to appear competent and to know the answers at all times. Team learning, like any other skill, requires practice. Musicians and athletes understand this principle. Work teams need to learn that lesson as well. OTHER ISSUES Organizational politics is a perversion of truth, yet most people are so accustomed to it, they do not even notice it anymore. A learning organization is not possible in such an environment. In order to move past the politics, one thing needed is openness-both speaking openly and honestly about the real and important issues and being willing to challenge one's own way of thinking. Localness, too, is essential to the learning organization, for decisions need to be pushed down the organizational hierarchy in order to unleash people's commitment. This gives them the freedom to act. One thing lacking in many organizations is time to reflect and think. If someone is sitting quietly, we assume he or she is not busy and feel free to interrupt. Many managers, however, are too busy to "just think." This should not be blamed on the tumultuous environment of many cri- ses. Research suggests that, even when given ample time, managers still do not devote any of it to adequate reflection. Therefore, habits need to be changed, as well as how we structure our days. 55
Expert Answer:
The Fifth Discipline Learning within the organizational setup is always a continuous process That is why organizations are required to be learners so that they can compete favorably in the industries ... View the full answer
Accounting Information Systems
ISBN: 978-1133935940
10th edition
Authors: Ulric J. Gelinas, Richard B. Dull
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