“Learning Organisation” is a term coined by Peter Senge in his book “The Fifth Discipline”. It refers to an organisation that facilitates the learning of its members and continuously transforms itself. This concept is based on five key disciplines: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking.

Personal mastery is about individuals’ commitment to lifelong learning, while mental models involve deeply ingrained assumptions and generalisations that influence how we understand the world and take action. Shared vision is not just an agreed-upon mission statement, but rather a commonality of purpose that fosters genuine commitment and enrollment rather than compliance.

Team learning starts with dialogue, the capacity of members to suspend assumptions and enter into genuine thinking together. It also involves learning how to recognise the patterns of interaction in teams that undermine learning. Systems thinking, the fifth discipline that integrates the other four, allows people to see how to change systems more effectively, and to act more in tune with the larger processes of the natural and economic world.

In a learning organisation, leaders are designers, stewards, and teachers. They are responsible for building organisations where people continually expand their capabilities to shape their future – that is, leaders are responsible for learning.

Go to source article: https://stakeholderengagementnz.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/the_learning_organisation_extract.pdf