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Communities of Commitment: the Heart of Learning Organizations

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Communities of Commitment: the Heart of Learning Organizations Work at the MIT Center for Organizatiotial Learning shows that developing new organizational capabilities requires deep reflection and testing. Communities of Commitment: The Heart of Learning Organizations FRED KOFMAN PETER M. SENGE hy do we confront learning opportuni- breakthroughs via partnership between re- W ties witb fear rather than wonder? Why searchers and practitioners. do we derive our self-esteem from knowing Two years of intense practice and reflec- as opposed to learning? Why do we criticize tion have gone by. Some pilot projects are be- before we even understand? Why do we cre- ginning to produce striking results. But we ate controlling bureaucracies when we at- also have learned that it is crucial to address tempt to form visionary enterprises? And the opening questions. We have not found why do we persist in fragmentation and any definitive answers—nor were we looking piecemeal analysis as the world becomes for them—but, dwelling in the questions, we more and more interconnected? have found guiding principles for action. Such questions have been the heart of our Building learning organizations, we are work for many years. They led to the theories discovering, requires basic shifts in how we and methods presented in The Fifth Disciptine. think and interact. The changes go beyond in- They are the driving force behind a new vi- dividual corporate cultures, or even the cul- sion of organizations, capable of thriving in a ture of Western management; they penetrate world of interdependence and change—what to the bedrock assumptions and habits of our we have come to call "learning organiza- culture as a whole. We are also discovering tions." that moving forward is an exercise in person- The Fifth Disciptine generated significant al commitment and community building. As interest, but a book is only one step toward Dr. W. Edwards Deming says, nothing hap- bringing a new set of ideas and practices into pens without "personal transformation." And the mainstream of management. Shortly after the only safe space to allow for this transfor- the book appeared, a group of us at MIT es- mation is a learning community. tablished the Center for Organizational So, we are coming to see our efforts as Learning. The center now involves many or- building "communities of commitment." ganizations—including Ford, Harley David- Without commitment, the hard work re- son, Electronic Data Systems, Federal Express, quired will never be done. People will just AT&T, Philips North America, Herman keep asking for "examples of learning organi- Miller, Armco Steel, and Intel—seeking major zations" rather than seeking what they can do to build such organizations. They will keep believing that the purpose of learning is the survival of an organization rather than its gen- erativeness. And the larger meaning of this work will elude them. Without communities of people genuinely committed, there is no real chance of going forward. BUT COMMITMENT TO WHAT? In this paper we will explore basic shifts in the guiding ideas of contemporary management. We argue that the main dysfunctions in our Fred Kofman is an assistant professor of ac- institutions—fragmentation, competition, and counting and management at MIT's Sloan reactiveness—are actually byproducts of our School of Management and an associate re- success over thousands of years in conquering searcher at both the Center for Organiza- the physical world and in developing our sci- tional Learning and the Leaders for Manu- entific, industrial culture. So, it should come as facturing Program. He teaches in such areas no surprise that these dysfunctions are deeply as accounting for manufacturing, manage- rooted. Nor should it surprise us that our first ment accounting and control, and systems response, "to overcome these problems" is thinking for organizational learning. part of the very mindset that generated them. Dr. Kofman came to systems thinking and Fragmentation, competition, and reactiveness organizational learning through an atypical are not problems to be solved—they are path. This started with a Licenciatura en frozen patterns of thought to be dissolved. Economia from the University of Buenos The solvent we propose is a new way of Aires and continued with a Ph.D. in eco- thinking, feeling, and being: a culture of sys- nomics at the University of California, Berke- tems. Fragmentary thinking becomes sys- ley. After concentrating in the design of so- temic when we recover "the memory of the cial mechanisms for several years, he found whole," the awareness that wholes actually the abstract approach of game and contract precede parts. Competition becomes coopera- theory unsatisfactory. The search for a more tion when we discover the "community na- practical framework took him to Berkeley's ture of the self" and realize our role as chal- philosophy department, where he studied lengers to help each other excel. Reactiveness cognitive science, philosophy of language, becomes creating when we see the "genera- and philosophy of mind. tive power of language," how language brings He has led research projects in such areas forth distinctions from the undivided flow of as activity based costing, cycle time reduc- Ufe. tion, and supply chain management at Gen- Together these changes represent a new eral Motors, Chrysler, Boeing, Electronic "Galilean Shift." Galileo's heliocentric revolu- Data Systems, Digital Equipment, and other tion moved us from looking at the earth as the companies. center around which all else revolved to see- He received the Sloan Teacher of the Year ing our place in a broader pattern. In the new Award and Outstanding Professor-Graduate systems worldview, we move from the prima- Course Award in 1992. cy of pieces to the primacy of the whole, from absolute truths to coherent interpretations, from self to community, from problem solving to creating. Thus the nature of the commitment re- quired to build learning organizations goes beyond people's typical "commitment to their organizations." It encompasses commitment to changes needed in the larger world and to seeing our organizations as vehicles for bring- ing about such changes. This is a theoretical paper for practition- ers. Contradictory as it may sound, there is nothing more practical than a good theory. The problem with "seven step methods to suc- cess," "keys to successful organizations," and similar "how-tos" is that, ultimately, they aren't very practical. Life is too complex and effective action too contextual. Real learn- ing—the development of new capabilities— Peter M. Senge is a faculty member of the occurs over time, in a continuous cycle of the- Massachusetts Institute of Technology and oretical action and practical conceptualization. director of the Center for Organizational The impatient quest for improvements all too Learning at MIT's Sloan School of Manage- often results in superficial changes that leave ment. He is the author of the widely ac- deeper problems untouched. Herein lies a claimed book. The Fifth Discipline: The Art core leadership paradox: Action is critical, but and Practice of the Learning Organization. the action we need can spring only from a re- published by Doubleday. He is also a found- flective territory that includes not only cogni- ing partner of the management consulting tion but body, emotions, and spirit as well. and training firm, Innovation Associates. Dr. Senge has lectured extensively throughout the world, translating the abstract ideas of systems theory into tools for better AREAS OF CULTURAL understanding of economic and organization- DYSFUNCTION al change. His areas of special interest focus Organizations are microcosms of the larger so- on decentralizing the role of leadership in an ciety. Thus, at the heart of any serious effort to organization to enhance the capacity of all alter how organizations operate lies a concern people to work productively toward common with addressing the basic dysfunctions of our goals. Dr. Senge's work articulates a corner- larger culture. We believe that there are three stone position of human values in the work- fundamental problems with our current place; namely, that vision, purpose, align- paradigm: fragmentation, competition, and ment, and systems thinking are essential if reactiveness. organizations are to realize their potentials. He has worked with leaders in business, ed- ucation, healthcare, and government. Fragmentation Dr. Senge received a B.S. in engineering We continually fragment problems into from Stanford University, an M.S. in social pieces; yet the major challenges we face in our systems modeling and a Ph.D. in manage- organizations and beyond are increasingly ment from MIT. He lives with his wife and two systemic. children in central Massachusetts. The analytic way to address a complex sit- uation is to break it into components, study each component in isolation, and then syn- thesize the components back into a whole. For a wide range of issues, there is little loss in as- suming a mechanical structure and ignoring systemic interactions. But for our most impor- "walls" or "chimneys" that separate different tant problems, linear thinking is ineffective. functions into independent and often war- Problems like runaway costs in our health ring fiefdoms. Product designers, for instance, care system or the decline of a corporation's disregard marketing surveys and "throw the vitality and innovativeness resist piecemeal, product over the wall" to manufacturing, analytic approaches. We live in a world that is which finds the design impossible to produce. more like Humpty Dumpty than a jigsaw After making the "appropriate" changes (ap- puzzle: All the king's horses and all the king's propriate in their minds, since they never men can't put the system together again. bother to check back with design) and pro- Our enchantment with fragmentation ducing the product, manufacturing "throws it starts in early childhood. Since our first school over" to sales. Salesmen find themselves stuck days, we learn to break the world apart and with a low-quality product that does not meet disconnect ourselves from it.
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