The Fifth Discipline

The Fifth Discipline by Senge (1994) refers to the learning organization as an ultimate state which may be difficult for goal-oriented Westerners to achieve. Cultural shifts may be required; learning requires constant study and practice, and team learning involves systems thinking, mental model reflection, shared vision, and dialogue, which may conflict with current goals for a successful manager to be in control, forceful, and decisive (pp. xv, xvi).

The five learning disciplines include: systems thinking, with interrelated actions; personal mastery, to include continual clarification of personal vision and seeing reality objectively; mental models, or assumptions, generalizations, etc. that influence how we learn and behave; building shared vision, or the capacity to hold a shared picture of the future to be created; and team learning, or thinking together with the discipline of dialogue (pp. 6-11). The fifth discipline is systems thinking; it needs and integrates all the disciplines (pp. 12, 69).

Organizations, like people, have learning disabilities and become prisoners of their own thinking; people do not see how their actions affect other positions, blame is prevalent, situations build and become overwhelming (pp. 17-27, 51-52). Laws of the fifth discipline include concepts such as: yesterday's solutions create todays problems; some interventions work short term only; easy solutions lead back to the problem; the cure can be wor

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sification, and application of inconsistent policies. One method includes a three -step procedure to resolve employee concerns. Getting Disputes Resolved, by Ury, Brett, and Goldberg (1988) discusses alternate ways of resolving disputes. Revising The Dispute Resolution Process The three -step process includes: raising the issue with the immediate management who attempts to work out an acceptable solution; if step one fails, taking the issue to Human Resources who will attempt to counsel the employee and management for resolution; and if step two fails, presenting the issue to a neutral third party such as peer review and/or external arbitration. Ury, Brett, and Goldberg (1988) present three major alternatives for resolving disputes: reconciling the disputant's underlying interests, determining who is right, and determining who has more power (p. xv). Six basic principles of dispute systems are discussed and include: putting the focus on interests; designing procedures to encourage disputants to return to negotiation (loop-backs); providing low-cost rights and power procedures; preventing disputes with a consultation procedure and constructive feedback after a dispute; arranging different procedures in sequence from least

Category: Psychology - T