Peter Senge

Peter Michael Senge (born 1947) is an American systems scientist who is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute, and the founder of the Society for Organizational Learning. He is known as the author of the book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990, rev. 2006).

Life and career Peter Senge was born in Stanford, California. He received a B.S. in Aerospace engineering from Stanford University. While at Stanford, Senge also studied philosophy. He later earned an M.S. in social systems modeling from MIT in 1972, as well as a PhD in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1978. His supervisor was Nathaniel Mass. He recommends meditation or similar forms of contemplative practice.

Work An engineer by training, Peter was a protégé of John H. Hopkins and has followed closely the works of Michael Peters and Robert Fritz and based his books on pioneering work with the five disciplines at Ford, Chrysler, Shell, AT&T Corporation, Hanover Insurance, and Harley-Davidson, since the 1970s.

Organization development Senge emerged in the 1990s as a major figure in organizational development with the book The Fifth Discipline, in which he developed the notion of a learning organization. This conceptualizes organizations as dynamic systems (as defined in Systemics), in states of continuous adaptation and improvement.

In 1997, Harvard Business Review identified The Fifth Discipline as one of the seminal management books of the previous 75 years. For this work, he was named "Strategist of the Century" by the Journal of Business Strategy, which said that he was one of a very few people who "had the greatest impact on the way we conduct business today."

Senge believes that real firms in real markets face both opportunities and natural limits to their development. Most efforts to change are hampered by resistance created by the cultural habits of the prevailing system. No amount of expert advice is useful. It's essential to develop reflection and inquiry skills so that the real problems can be discussed. Rather than focusing on the individuals within an organization, it prefers to look at a larger number of interactions within the organization and in between organizations as a whole.

Publications Peter Senge has written several books and articles throughout his career. A selection of his works: