Personal Mastery

Student Response

Autumn

When exploring this question I came across a publication that wrote about Peter Senge and what he wrote as the five basics characteristics of a learning organization. They are systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared visions, and team learning. Each of these characteristics, according to Senge, play a vital role in an organizations ability to collaborate successfully. “Systems – thinking states that all the characteristics must be apparent at once in an organization for it to be a learning organization.” (Senge) Personal mastery involves each person in the organization being willing to understand the goal and learn from the past in order to grow. Mental models encourages the individual and the organization to challenge their thinking and move beyond what they consider to be normal or expected. Building shared visions focuses on motivating employees to learn and create a common identity that focuses on the organizations goals. Finally, team learning looks at “…problem solving capacity of the organization is improved through better access to knowledge and expertise. A learning organization has structures that facilitate team learning with features such as boundary crossing and openness.” (Senge)

These characteristics help managers and employees work together by allowing open discussions and challenging the “norm.” Many organizations want to focus on what they have always done and this can stall them in the developing world of technology and forward thinking. Managers and employees have to look within and force themselves to be able to see past what they think should happen and be willing to be open to ideas that the team puts into the conversation. Many managers and individual employees have a hard time seeing past the immediately problem but with building these characteristics into the organization, it can move forward with new and innovative ideas.

-Curtis

References

Senge, P. (1990). Peter Senge and the learning organization. Rcuperado de.

Senge, P. M. (1990). The art and practice of the learning organization.