In 1990 Peter Senge published a book that has become a classic, a book that most people in leadership and management roles in business, most who consult or coach within organizations, and those who seek to stay on the cutting edge of business have read. I’m speaking, of course, about the book The Fifth Discipline. The theme and central focus of this book is on learning to think and work systemically.
Senge was convinced that the key to business success rested in five disciplines, which when synergized by leaders and managers, will launch an organization or business into a creative mode and take it to a whole new level of effectiveness. Like the five critical component technologies that came together in 1935 for the McDonnell Douglas DC-3 and which ushered in the era of commercial air travel— Senge argued that the five components he discovered would create great companies.
What are those five components? Systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, and team learning. Together “each provides a vital dimension in building organizations that can truly ‘learn,’ that can continually enhance their capacity to realize their highest aspirations” (p. 6). Then unlike most contemporary organizations that are reactive, companies can become responsive or even generative.
Senge focuses on enabling companies to become “learning organizations.” He writes about organizations going beyond the old traditional hierarchical structures to an enlivening vision, people collaborating and experiencing team learning, a whole new level of openness, and leadership that evolves beyond being politically power oriented. Now does that sound like self-actualization or the self-actualizing leaders and companies that I describe in Unleashing Leadership? That’s what I also thought! The Fifth Discipline is about self-actualization in organizations.
Yet because Senge did not use the term self-actualization or frame things in terms of moving beyond Theory X to Theory Y of management, I did not make the connection. In spite of not using the language, throughout the work the vision and premises of self-actualization psychology informs his argument for the emergence of a whole new kind of organization— self-actualizing organizations.
In fact, for Senge “systems thinking” and “personal mastery” are two of his expressions for self-actualization. What I suddenly now realize in re-reading The Fifth Discipline is that “personal mastery” in this model is what we call “self-actualization” in Maslow’s model! Here’s my evidence.
Senge described “personal mastery” as a high level of proficiency in an area that deeply matters to you. And to develop that level of mastery, you need to do two things: 1) Clarify what’s truly important to you and 2) See current reality more clearly. (p. 141). Senge says that personal mastery goes beyond competence.
“It goes beyond spiritual unfolding or opening, although it requires spiritual growth. It means approaching one’s life as a creative work, living life from a creative as opposed to reactive viewpoint.” (p. 141)
In an amazing paragraph where he described people of personal mastery, Senge’s description sounds very, very similar to how Maslow described self-actualizing people.
“People with a high level of personal mastery share several basic characteristics. They have a special sense of purpose that lies behind their visions and goals. For such a person, a vision is a calling rather than simply a good idea. They see ‘current reality’ as an ally, not an enemy. They have learned how to perceive and work with forces of change rather than resist those forces. They are deeply inquisitive, committed to continuing seeing reality more and more accurately. They feel connected to others and to life itself. Yet they sacrifice none of their uniqueness. They feel as if they are part of a larger creative process, which they can influence but cannot unilaterally control.
“People with a high level of personal mastery live in a continual learning mode. They never ‘arrive.’ … Personal mastery is not something you possess. It is a process. It is a lifelong discipline. People with a high level of personal mastery are acutely aware of their ignorance, their incompetence, their growth areas.” (p. 142)
“People with high levels of personal mastery are more committed. They take more initiative. They have a broader and deeper sense of responsibility in their work. They learn faster. For all these reasons, a great many organizations espouse a commitment to fostering personal growth among their employees because they believe it will make the organization stronger.” (p. 143)
And systems thinking? Senge describes this as “contemplating the whole as a pattern,” being able to see the unity of snapshots of isolated parts and how they work together. He describes the building blocks of systems thinking as feedback loops and delays in the system and from there the recognition of patterns that arise that indicate specific kinds of systems (archetypes).
When we apply systems thinking to human beings, we recognize that our experiences are made up of multiple systems—our mind-body system, our meaning-making system, our neuro-semantic system. And within these systems are reinforcing processes, limiting processes, balancing (stabilizing) processes. And as in a business or political system, we also experience problems at various levels. Some of our problems are mere symptoms of the system rather than the fundamental causes. That’s why the symptoms keep resurfacing over time. That’s why “solutions” which work at one level or for the short-term, never actually takes care of the real problem.
So what do we discover when we “contemplate the whole” and look for patterns in human beings? We discover that there is within us an inner drive to self-actualize and that this is itself our most fundamental inner dynamic system. This is our primary system for growing, developing, and actualizing our highest meanings and performances. And Self-Actualization Psychology is the psychology that describes this whole.
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