The Fifth Discipline

The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization

By: Peter M. Senge

Narrated by: Peter M. Senge

Create your own guide to mastering the disciplines of organizational learning with this invaluable guide based on the national bestseller The Fifth Discipline.

“The Fieldbook is a must read for anyone serious about building communities of common purpose, collective action, and continuous learning.”—H. Thomas Johnson, author of Relevance Lost and Relevance Regained

Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline revolutionized the practice of management by introducing the theory of learning organizations. Now Dr. Senge moves from the philosophical to the practical by answering the first question all lovers of the learning organization ask: What do they do on Monday morning?

The Fieldbook is an intensely pragmatic guide. It shows how to create an organization of learners where memories are brought to life, where collaboration is the lifeblood of every endeavor, and where the tough questions are fearlessly asked. The stories here show that companies, businesses, schools, agencies, and even communities can undo their “learning issues” and achieve superior performance. If ever a work gave meaning to the phrase hands-on, this is it. Senge and his four co-authors cover it all, including:

• Reinventing relationships
• Being loyal to the truth
• Strategies for developing personal mastery
• Building a shared vision
• Systems thinking in an organization
• Designing a dialogue session
• Strategies for team learning
• Organizations as communities
• Designing an organization’s governing ideas

The Fieldbook is designed to be referred to in meetings, planning sessions, during reflections, or anytime a conflict or challenge arises. Open it up anywhere and icons and cross-references will lead you from defining the problem to thinking about how to solve it. Mark up the pages, write in the margins, draw, scribble, and daydream—and watch your own guide to mastering the disciplines of organizational learning evolve.©1994 Peter M. Senge; (P)1994 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, a Division of Random House Inc., All Rights Reserved

Critic reviews

“Forget your old, tired ideas about leadership. The most successful corporation . . . will be something called a learning organization.”—Fortune

“One of the seminal management books of the past seventy-five years.”—Harvard Business Review

“Senge’s book has achieved the status of a management classic.”—Boston Globe

“The job of management in education, industry, and government should be the optimization of a system . . . Peter Senge’s book The Fifth Discipline, from which I have learned much, is a good place to begin.”—Dr. W. Edwards Deming, pioneer of the Total Quality Management movement

would like unabridged and latest version

seemed overly simplified to shorten for audio. would like unabridged release and please update to latest version.

A most powerful listen

A very well thoughtful and organized book. The presentation on systems thinking and learning organizations fits right into my field of integral theory and process/humble consulting.

Not the book

Good audio that hits the points made in the book, but this is not an actual reading of the book text. It is a great accompaniment to the book.

This is an abridged version

The ideas are great, really intriguing, and normally I would give this book 5 stars. But this is an abridged version, apparently an old version, and nowhere is this fact stated. Also, only half the content is read by Mr. Senge, the rest by some anonymous guy.

On the other hand, the reviews of the complete book (Kindle edition) indicates that that version is too long, so maybe an abridged version is OK? But please inform me before I buy.

I wanted a book, not a lecture

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would only recommend this book if someone wanted a summary.

What did you like best about this story?

I love the concepts presented in this book.

How could the performance have been better?

I would have preferred the book to have been read. I thought the pausing and added insights were more lecture style. While that is not a bad thing, I wanted to hear the book, not a lecture.

Did The Fifth Discipline inspire you to do anything?

Buy the book.

Any additional comments?

I wish I could have listened to a section of this before I used up a credit on it. I would have simply purchased and read the book. I wanted to hear the book: Chapter 1…. Instead, it ended up being lecture style/one sided discussion style and I didn't like that. Pausing is different when lecturing as opposed to reading and it simply threw me off. Shoot. I will have to be more careful about reading reviews before I purchase an audiobook.