GIVE ME A LEVER LONG ENOUGH . . . AND SINGLE-HANDED I CAN MOVE THE WORLD

From a very early age, we are taught to break apart problems.  This makes complex tasks more manageable.  But we
pay a hidden, enormous price.  We can no longer see the consequences of our actions; we lose our intrinsic
connection to a larger whole.  When we then try to “see the big picture”, we try to reassemble the fragments in our
minds, to list and organize the pieces, but the task is futile, much like trying to reassemble a broken mirror.  After a
while we give up trying to see the whole altogether.

The tools and ideas presented in this book are for destroying the illusion that the world is created of separate,
unrelated forces.  When we give up this illusion – we can then build “learning organizations”, organizations
where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and
expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are
continually learning how to learn together.

Learning Organizations are possible because:

Deep-down we are all learners;Entire global business community is learning to learn together as dramatic
improvements take place in corporations;

Needing to build organizations that are consistent with man’s higher aspirations beyond food, shelter and belonging;

We are starting to understand the capabilities such organizations must possess

Learning Organizations have been invented but they have not been innovated (that can be replicated reliably on a
meaningful scale at practical costs).  Five new ‘component technologies, though developed separately, each will
prove critical to the others’ success, are gradually converging to innovate learning organizations.

Systems Thinking.  Business and other human endeavours are systems, bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated
actions, which often take years to fully play out their effects on each other.  Since we are part of the lacework, it’s
doubly hard to see the whole pattern of change.  Instead we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the
system, and wonder why our deepest problems never seem to get solved.  Systems Thinking is a conceptual
framework, of knowledge and tools, to make the full patterns clearer, and to help us see how to change them
effectively.

Personal Mastery. People with a high level of personal mastery are able to consistently realize the results that
matter most deeply to them – in effect, they approach their life as an artist would approach a work of art.  They do
that by becoming committed to their own lifelong learning.  Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying
and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality
objectively.  An organization’s commitment to and capacity for learning can be NO greater than that of its members!  
The roots of this discipline lie in both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions and in secular traditions as well.

Mental Models  Very often we are not aware of our mental models (which are deeply ingrained assumptions,
generalizations or even pictures and images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action) or
the effects they have on our behaviour.  Many insights into new markets or outmoded organizational practices fail to
get put into practice because they conflict with powerful tacit mental models.  The discipline starts with turning the
mirror inwards, to bring the mental models to surface and hold them rigorously to scrutiny.  It also includes the ability
to carry on “learning” conversations that balance inquiry and advocacy, where people expose (advocacy) their
thinking effectively and make that thinking open (inquiry) to the influence of others.

Building Shared Vision If any one idea about leadership has inspired organizations for thousands of years, it’s the
capacity to hold a shared picture of the future we seek to create.  All too often, a company’s shared vision has
revolved around the charisma of a leader or around a crisis that galvanizes everyone temporarily.  What has been
lacking is a practice of translating individual vision into shared vision that involves the skills of unearthing shared
“pictures of the future” that foster genuine commitment and enrollment rather than compliance.  In mastering this
discipline, leaders learn the counter productiveness of trying to dictate a vision, no matter how heartfelt.

Team Learning  This discipline starts with dialogue (where members suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine
“thinking together” – the Greek dia-logos – meant a free flow of meaning through a group, allowing the group to
discover insights not attainable individually.  The discipline also involves learning how to recognize patterns of
interaction in teams that undermine learning, patterns that are often ingrained in how a team operates.

Disciplines  For an innovation in human behaviour, the components need to be seen as disciplines.  By disciplines
it does not mean enforced order or means of punishment, but a body of theory and practice that must be studied and
mastered to be put into practice.  To practice a discipline is to be a lifelong learner.  Moreover, while accounting
when practiced as a discipline, is good for “keeping score”, we have never approached the subtler tasks of building
organizations through assimilating new disciplines.  Practicing a discipline is different from emulating “a model”.  
Great organizations have never been built by trying to emulate another.

As the five disciplines converge, they will not create a learning organization but rather a new wave of experimentation
and advancement.

The Fifth Discipline - A learning organization is a place where people are continually discovering how they create
their reality and how they can change it.  It is vital therefore the five disciplines develop as an ensemble; it is harder
but the payoffs are immense.  That is why systems thinking is the fifth discipline.  Without a systemic orientation,
there is no motivation to look at how the disciplines interrelate.  At the heart of a learning organization is a shift of
mind – from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the world, from seeing our problems as
caused by someone or something “out there” to seeing how our own actions create the problems we experience.

A Shift of Mind - Taking in information is only distantly related to real learning.  The problem with talking about
“learning organizations” is that the “learning” has lost its central meaning in contemporary usage.  In everyday use,
learning has come to be synonymous with “taking in information”.  Real learning is experienced as life lived to the
fullest, a fundamental shift or change of mind.  Through learning we re-create ourselves.  Through learning we re-
perceive the world and our relationship with it.  We extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative
process of life.  For such organizations, it is not enough merely to survive.

Putting into practice - The five disciplines represent the experimentation, research, writing and invention of hundreds
of people.

Peter Senge was and still is convinced that most of the problems faced by humankind concerned our inability to
grasp and manage the increasingly complex systems of our world.  At first he felt that the solutions to Big Issues lay
in the public sector.  Gradually he came to realize the business sector shared a commitment and capacity (and
freedom) to innovate that was lacking in the public sector.  It also has a clear bottom-line so that experiments can be
evaluated, at least in principle, by objective criteria.  Yet too often, the most daring organizational experiments were
foundering and organizations which started out as booming successes were trapped in downward spirals that got
worse the harder they tried to fix.  Systems Thinking was not enough by itself.  It needed a new type of management
practitioner to really make the most of it.  Over time, soon found that the basic disciplines were also relevant for
teachers, public administrators and elected officials, students and parents.  All were in leadership positions of
importance.  All were in “organizations: that had still untapped potential for creating their future.