Learning organizations implement five component technologies

… five new component technologies are gradually converging to innovate learning organizations. Though developed separately, each will, I believe, prove critical to the others’ success, just as occurs with any ensemble. Each provides a vital dimension in building organizations that can truly “learn,” that can continually enhance their capacity to realize their highest aspirations…^[1]

The five “technologies” are:

• Systems Thinking
• Personal Mastery
• Mental Models
• Building Shared Vision
• Team Learning

Systems Thinking, according to Senge, is the fifth discipline as it is “the discipline that integrates the disciplines, fusing them into a coherent body of theory and practice.”^[2]

But systems thinking also needs the disciplines of building shared vision, mental models, team learning, and personal mastery to realize its potential. Building shared vision fosters a commitment to the long term. Mental models focus on the openness needed to unearth shortcomings in our present ways of seeing the world. Team learning develops the skills of groups of people to look for the larger picture beyond individual perspectives. And personal mastery fosters the personal motivation to continually learn how our actions affect our world. Without personal mastery, people are so steeped in the reactive mindset (“someone/something else is creating my problems”) that they are deeply threatened by the systems perspective.^[3]

See also:

• Systems Thinking perceives the relationships and structure of complex systems
• Personal mastery is life in service of your highest aspirations
• Mental models influence how we think and act
• Building shared vision results in intrinsic motivation
• Team learning is thinking together