http://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Discipline-Practice-Learning-Organization/dp/0385517254/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285452956&sr=1-1
This is a truly profound book. The pun is inescapable for the book itself is inspired by the thought of Edwards Deming the advocate of Profound Knowledge and one of the most influential quality-control management thinkers of the twentieth century the others being Peter Drucker and in our own century, Eliyahu Goldratt. In this book, Peter Senge quotes Deming, "Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning...the forces of destruction begin with toddlers -a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school...Management by objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable." As he goes on to say, the present system of education is based on the industrial age of assembly-line requirements. The student-teacher relationship that gets established in the school gets carried over into the employee-boss relationship. The virtue of obedience glorified during those times now stands as a barrier to independence, originality, creativity and responsibility required of the modern almost post-information era. It seems to me that the solution to most problems facing humanity lies in redefining the function of the school so as to naturally pave way for the competitive-cooperation spirit needed in the corporate world and in life. This book also inspires in one the hope that the increasingly evolving work-culture of the corporate world may serve as a model for government structure as well. The Fifth Discipline is especially captivating as it incorporates Complexity Theory and Systems Thinking which have origins in Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science fields expected to be far removed from human behaviour. I would recommend this book, along with John Holt's book "How Children Fail" as profound sources for corporate professionals and educationists alike.
This is a truly profound book. The pun is inescapable for the book itself is inspired by the thought of Edwards Deming the advocate of Profound Knowledge and one of the most influential quality-control management thinkers of the twentieth century the others being Peter Drucker and in our own century, Eliyahu Goldratt. In this book, Peter Senge quotes Deming, "Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning...the forces of destruction begin with toddlers -a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school...Management by objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable." As he goes on to say, the present system of education is based on the industrial age of assembly-line requirements. The student-teacher relationship that gets established in the school gets carried over into the employee-boss relationship. The virtue of obedience glorified during those times now stands as a barrier to independence, originality, creativity and responsibility required of the modern almost post-information era. It seems to me that the solution to most problems facing humanity lies in redefining the function of the school so as to naturally pave way for the competitive-cooperation spirit needed in the corporate world and in life. This book also inspires in one the hope that the increasingly evolving work-culture of the corporate world may serve as a model for government structure as well. The Fifth Discipline is especially captivating as it incorporates Complexity Theory and Systems Thinking which have origins in Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science fields expected to be far removed from human behaviour. I would recommend this book, along with John Holt's book "How Children Fail" as profound sources for corporate professionals and educationists alike.
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