Introduction to reflection on The Fifth Discipline:

”The basic meaning of a ”learning organization” – An organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future.”

”The Fifth Discipline” by Peter Senge explores the concept of the learning organization, where continuous growth and improvement are at the heart of its existence. Senge identifies five disciplines essential for transforming a traditional organization into a learning organization: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking. Each discipline plays a crucial role in fostering a culture of learning and innovation.

Personal mastery emphasizes self-improvement and self-development, leading to a life aligned with one’s aspirations. Mental models involve challenging our existing beliefs and assumptions to foster learning and change. Shared vision creates a sense of purpose and commitment among individuals, driving them towards a common goal. Team learning encourages open dialogue and collaboration, allowing the collective intelligence of the team to flourish. Systems thinking, the cornerstone of the five disciplines, it’s the ability to see underlying patterns and interrelationships that influence the visible events and situations, enabling deeper leverage of change.

These disciplines are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, forming the foundation of a learning organization. Senge provides tools and techniques to support the development of these disciplines, encouraging organizational transformation.

No wonder this release is considered a book to read at Team Academy, and that it has solidified it’s position in the heart of the way we try to do things in this team-oriented environment. When I chose to read this book, I didn’t think I`d find the content this topical and relatable. Having read it, I’d recommend at least one person in a team to read it through, especially the ”younger” team entrepreneurs, since it has a lot of quality information which could’ve been useful and helpful to tackle the plateaus and recurring problems at an earlier stage than now.

Short quotes from the book that bring the author’s thoughts behind the principles closer to a reader.

Systems thinking.

”You can only understand the system of a rainstorm by contemplating the whole, not any invidual part of the pattern. Business and other human endeavors are also systems. They, too are bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions, which often take years to fully play out their effects on each other.”

Personal mastery.

”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.” Level of organizations learning is either limited by or free’d by the level of personal mastery by its individuals.

Mental models.

”The discipline of working with mental models starts with turning the mirror inward; learning to unearth our internal pictures of the world, to bring them to the surface and hold them rigorously to scrutiny. It also includes the ability to carry on ”learningful” conversations that balance inquiry and advocacy, where people expose their own thinking effectively and make that thinking open to the influence of others.”

Building shared vision.

”Polaroid had instant photography; Ford had public transportation for the masses and Apple had ”computers for the rest of us. … all these organizations managed to bind people together around a common identity and sense of destiny. When there is a genuine vision, people excel and learn, not because they are told to, but because they want to.”

”The practice of shared vision 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 counterproductiveness of trying to dictate a vision, no matter how heartfelt.”

Team learning.

”When teams are truly learning, not only are they producing extraordinary results, but the individual members are growing more rapidly than could have occurred otherwise.

The discipline of team learning starts with ”dialogue,” the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine ”thinking together.”

Each of the five learning disciplines has to do with how we think and how we interact and learn with one another.

Does your organization have a learning disability?

If so, it’s crucial to identify the symptoms early. Up next on the agenda, I’ll explore signs of a learning disability in a learning organization, drawing from examples in the book that particularly resonated with me, focusing on Venga and myself primarily.

– ”I am my position” When people in organizations focus only on their position, they have little sense of responsibility for the results produced when all positions interact.

At first, I wrote that this one doesn’t neccessarily appear that obviously, but given a second thought, I can notice this symptom occasionally within my own efforts and the teams as a whole. Although it is understandable to put your head down and focus on the projects you are currently working on, or perhaps trying to catch up with the schools mandatory standards in case you are falling behind, but these shouldn`t be in the way of advancing your team’s growth. Lately I`ve been noticing on my efforts that they`ve been self-centered, in an attempt to build good routines in order to start the third year right. Reflecting on this and the way book encourages to not settle for the easy and obvious answers, I think the main reason for my behaviour comes from the feeling of being disconnected or detached from the team. In my opinion the main cause for this was summer holiday, and the time spent without seeing each other. In effort of ”weathering the storm” and waiting for things to go back to ”normal”, I focused on my personal tasks, such as book-points, thinking that I’d handle my own position and duties in that regard. While doing so, I wasn’t participating in the dialogues as much as I should have, which consequently led to not having an effect on the results produced together.

This mentality probably comes from football, where one coach used to say ”If you have a bad game/day, the least you can do is run and do your part that way.” In this case running being one of the disciplines: Personal mastery.

-”The fixtation on events” ”The Dow Jones average dropped sixteen points today.” announces the newspaper, ”because low fourth-quarter profits were announced yesterday.” Such explanations may be true, but they distract us from seeing the longer-term patterns of change that lie behind the events and from understanding the causes of those patterns.

”Generative learning cannot be sustained in an organization if people’s thinking is dominated by short-term events. If we focus on events, the best we can ever do is predict an event before it happens so that we can react optimally. But we cannot learn to create.” Continuing from this quote, I’d say patience combined with a shared vision is what helps with seeing these shorter- and longer-term patterns pan out in alignment with the hoped results of actions. Our competitive advantage at Team Academy is the pace at which we can adapt and respond to change, allowing us to handle quick shifts and react to situations seamlessly. Short- and long-term goals are important, but it is equally important to figure out what are the patterns behind the events that happen, whether them being positive or negative.

-”The parable of the boiled frog” Maladaptation to gradually building threats to survival is so persiasive in systems studies of corporate failure that it has given rise to the parable of the ”boiled frog.” Learning to see slow, gradual processes requires slowing down our frenetic pace and paying attention to the subtle as well as the dramatic. We will not avoid the fate of the frog until we learn to slow down and see the gradual processes that often pose the greatest threats.

This symptom highlights why it is so important to stop and look around once in a while at Tiimiakatemia. It is easy to get caught up in the hustle, working with blinders on and not noticing ways how one could be more efficient. Missing obvious things that would come up while reflecting, that could result in positive changes and a happier entrepreneur.

I’m not even sure whether that upper text fits this part which showcases once again why it is important to take a break and try to really see if there is slow, gradual, negative processes building up within the team.

How Venga can develop by acknowledging and learning from the systems archetypes.

Identifying the patterns that control events.

”One of the most important, and potentially most empowering, insights to come from the young field of systems thinking is that certain patterns of structure recur again and again. These ”systems archetypes” or ”generic structures” embody the key to learning to see structures in our personal and organizational lives.”

This quote might seem familiar to a few people in Venga: ”Because the signs are subtle, when the archetypes arise in a family, an ecosystem, a news story, or a corporation, you often don’t see them so much as feel them. Sometimes they produce a sense of deja vu, a hunch that you’ve seen this pattern of forces before. ”There it is again,” you say to yourself.” This is what makes it hard to grasp, hard to put into words, and hard to start working on, especially without some sense of direction provided by understanding of the structure.

So far, researchers have identified about a dozen archetypes, one of which I will be taking a closer look at. This part is/was hard to reflect and understand since there is quite a lot of complex words and hard to reflect explanations of the processes. The solutions aren’t easy or obvious to come by either, so solving this type of problem is a challenge that we must face as a team if we want to progress closer to a learning organization.

Archetype 2: Shifting the burden

Definition:

An underlying problem generates symptoms that demand attention. But the underlying problem is difficult for people to address, either because it is obscure or costly to confront. So people ”shift the burden” of their problem to other solutions – well-intentioned, easy fixes which seem extremely efficient. Unfortunately, the easier ”solutions” only ameliorate the symptoms; they leave the underlying problems unaltered. The underlying problem grows worse unnoticed because the symptoms apparently clear up, and the system loses whatever abilities it had to solve the underlying problem. We’ve had quite a few discussions about the way how our money ”politics” work, our group spirit and how to improve it, but I will try to focus on sticking to joint agreements/goals since it has been the most talked topic.

Management principle

Beware the symptomatic solution. Solutions that address only the symptoms of a problem, not fundamental causes, tend to have short-term benefits at best. In the long term, the problem resurfaces and there is increased pressure for symptomatic response. Meanwhile, the capability for fundamental solutions can atrophy.  I mentioned earlier how I’ve experienced a sense of deja vu, when discussing a topic with the team. This effect comes as a result from using symptomatic solutions on matters that need to be addressed fundamentally. Coming back to the same topic might cause frustration among the team members, which makes it even harder to stick to the aim of fixing the problem from the ground up.

A shifting the burden structure lurks behind many ”solutions” which seem to work effectively, but nonetheless leave you with an uneasy feeling that they haven’t quite taken care of the problem. This can be due to ignorance, due to the pressure caused by frustrated team members, causing a sweeping of the matter under a matt as soon as possible, or just the matter not being seen important enough.

In my opinion these discussions should be held even if they cause resistance or frustration, because not being on the same page is also energy-consuming and pointless, especially for those trying to be at the forefront of developing the team.  The same issues repeatedly arise because they are yet to be resolved and are tied to matters of importance to individuals within the team.

Pattern of behaviour

Imagine a team of entrepreneurs stuck in a loop, like a “figure eight,” caused by too much work. To handle the growing demands, the team begins to work extra hours and looks for quick fixes, offering a brief solution. This instant relief hides the real problem of too much work and makes it feel unnecessary to look at the workload and think about how to share tasks better or get extra help. As a result, nothing changes, the amount of work keeps growing, and the stress increases.

How to achieve leverage

Dealing effectively with shifting-the-burden structures requires a combination of strenghtening the fundamental response and weakening the symptomatic response. The character of organizations is often revealed in their ability (or inability) to face shifting-the-burden structures. Strenghtening fundamental responses requires a long-term orientation and a sense of shared vision.

Weakening the symptomatic response requires willingness to tell the truth about palliatives and ”looking good” solutions. In the business example of managers becoming more and more dependent on HR consultants, the managers’ own abilities must be developed more strongly, even though that may mean a larger initial investment. This may take a while but once the first hill is conquered it will get easier.

First, there’s a problem that gets gradually worse over the long term – although every so often it seems to get better for a while. Second, the overall health of the system gradually worsens. People start out feeling euphoric – they`ve solved their problem! – but instead end up feeling as if they are victims. In particular, look for situations of dependency, in which you have a sense that the real issues, the deeper issues, are never quite dealt with effectively.

This section particularly resonated with me, because we’ve been talking time and time again about how we don’t commit to the decisions we make as a team. On top of that, the part ” you have a sense that the real issues, the deeper issues, are never quite dealt with effectively.” is around the atmosphere of the team. Could just be me and it is a thing that is hard to explain or pinpoint to a exact thing.

Start by identifying the ”problem symptom.” This will be the ”squeaky wheel” that demands attention – such as stress, subordinates` inabilities to solve pressing problems. Then identify a ”fundamental solution” (there may be more than one) – a course of action that would, you believe, lead to enduring improvement. Then, identify one or several ”symptomatic solutions” that might ameliorate symptoms for a time. Then identify the possible negative ”side effects” of the symptomatic solution.

The primary insights in shifting the burden will come from (1) distinguishing different types of solutions; (2) seeing how reliance on symptomatic solutions can reinforce further reliance. The leverage will always involve strenghtening the bottom circle, and/or weakening the top circle. Just as with limits to growth, it`s best to test your conclusions here with small actions – and to give the tests time to come to fruition. In particular, strenghtening an atropied quality will most likely take a long period of time.

Especially after reading this book, I’ve thought about the team and how we are going to make the most out of the academy era, at least in terms of Venga as a whole and how good of a team we end up as. In my opinion, as long as we keep team academy as just a secondary priority, or on level with the job outside of it, we will keep getting secondary outcomes. This includes me, searching for a job when it is possible to earn while learning at the academy. It will be interesting to see which route we will take after having the ”kassamalli-keskustelut” and what are the aftermaths of the decisions made in that meeting. As long as everyone is on the same page regarding what we want to achieve as a team, im happy. Being inbetween of visions is a waste of time and energy.