Fundamentals of Level Three Leadership

111. Learning Systems

Concept

Arie deGeus and Jack Welch agree: learning is the main if not the only source of sustainable strategic competitive advantage. Organizations who want to avoid becoming ossified bureaucracies must learn how to learn and make it a habit. Without learning systems, companies become dinosaurs. Many scholars including Peter Senge at MIT have worked hard in defining and creating learning organizations.⁷⁰ Senge argued that there were five key elements in the creation of a learning organization: Personal Mastery, New Mental Models, Team Building, Building Shared Visions, and Systems Thinking. Marcia Conner and I convened a conference at one point in which scholars working on learning organizations shared their insights. The ...