The Fifth Discipline [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION The vision that became The Fifth Discipline was bom one morning in the fall of 1987. During my meditation that morning, I suddenly became aware that "the learning organization" would likely become a new management fad. Having watched similar fads (such as "creating shared visions") develop in the past, I knew that the work being done at MIT, Innovation Associates, and by colleagues elsewhere represented a unique perspective and body of practical knowledge that could contribute to organizational learning. I also realized that if we were to influence the fad, we needed to "put a stake in the ground"—to establish a position concerning what was possible, a position that would become a point of reference as the fad cycle developed. Being an incurable systems thinker, in my mind that morning I saw a "pattern of behavior" graph over time that represented the inevitable rise and fall of fads. I imagined that like all fads that catch on, interest in learning organizations would grow rapidly. Then there would be a leveling off, followed by a decline. While advocates of a new fad typically do everything they can to accelerate the growth period, in fact the most important questions concern the decline phase. How precipitous will the decline