Learning Organizationspeter M. Senge

peter senge and the learning organization

Peter Senge's vision of a learning organization as a group of people who are continually enhancing their capabilities to create what they want to create has been deeply influential. We discuss the five disciplines he sees as central to learning organizations and some issues and questions concerning the theory and practice of learning organizations.

contents: introduction • peter senge• the learning organization • systems thinking – the cornerstone of the learning organization • the core disciplines • leading the learning organization • issues and problems• conclusion • further reading and references • links

Peter M. Senge (1947- ) was named a ‘Strategist of the Century' by the Journal of Business Strategy, one of 24 men and women who have ‘had the greatest impact on the way we conduct business today' (September/October 1999). While he has studied how firms and organizations develop adaptive capabilities for many years at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), it was Peter Senge's 1990 book The Fifth Discipline that brought him firmly into the limelight and popularized the concept of the ‘learning organization'. Since its publication, more than a million copies have been sold and in 1997, Harvard Business Review identified it as one of the seminal management books of the past 75 years.

On this page we explore Peter Senge's vision of the learning organization. We will focus on the arguments in his (1990) book The Fifth Discipline as it is here we find the most complete exposition of his thinking.

Peter Senge

Born in 1947, Peter Senge graduated in engineering from Stanford and then went on to undertake a masters on social systems modeling at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) before completing his PhD on Management. Said to be a rather unassuming man, he is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also founding chair of the Society for