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Peter Senge

Peter Senge Biography

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“When you ask people about what it is like being part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the experience. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative. It becomes quite clear that, for many, their experiences as part of truly great teams stand out as singular periods of life lived to the fullest. Some spend the rest of their lives looking for ways to recapture that spirit.”

Organisational Culture
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“Commitment to the truth...means a relentless willingness to root out the ways we limit or deceive ourselves from seeing what is, and to continually challenge our theories of why things are the way they are. It means continually broadening our awareness. It also means continually deepening our understanding of the structures underlying current events.”

WayMeanUnderstandingChallengesSeeingAwarenessEventsTheoryLimitsCommitmentRootsStructureCurrentsInsightWillingnessDeceivingRelentlessCurrent Events
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“Trusting people to be creative and constructive when given more freedom does not imply an overly optimistic belief in the perfectibility of human nature. It is, rather, belief that the inevitable errors and sins of the human condition are far better overcome by individuals working together in an environment of trust and freedom and mutual respect than by individuals working under a multitude of rules, regulations, and restraints imposed upon them by another group of imperfect individuals.”

PeopleHumansDoeTogetherIndividualBeliefGivenSinCreativeEnvironmentGroupsConditionsHuman NatureOvercomingErrorsOptimisticInevitableWorking TogetherMutualImperfectHuman ConditionRegulationMultitudesRestraintBe CreativeConstructiveMutual RespectTrusting People
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“We tend to think that, in a traditional organisation, people are producing results because management wants results, but the essence of a high-quality organisation is people producing results because they want the results. It's puzzling we find that hard to understand, that if people are really enjoying, they'll innovate, they'll take risks, they'll have trust with one another because they are really committed to what they're doing and it's fun”

PeopleIfsThinkingWantHardFunEnjoyResultsQualityRiskEssenceManagementStrategyCommittedTraditionalOrganisationHigh QualityPuzzlingProducing Results
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“The problems with willpower are many, but they may hardly be noticed by the person focused narrowly on success. First, there is little economy of means; in systems thinking terms, we act without leverage. We attain our goals, but the effort is enormous and we may find ourselves exhausted and wondering if it was worth it when we have succeeded. Ironically, people hooked on willpower may actually look for obstacles to overcome, dragons to slay, and enemies to vanquish--to remind themselves and others of their own prowess.”

PeopleIfsThinkingFirstsLooksMayMeanLittlesPersonsProblemGoalTermEffortWonderEnemyEconomyOvercomingObstaclesFocusedEnormousDragonsWorth ItExhaustedWillpowerHookedSystems ThinkingProwessVanquish
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“Most of us at one time or another have been part of a great 'team', a group of people who functioned together in an extraordinary way-who trusted one another, who complemented each other's strengths and compensated for each other's limitations, who had common goals that were larger than an individual's goals, and who produced extraordinary results ... the team that became great didn't start off great-it learned how to produce extraordinary results.”

PeopleWayHas BeensTogetherIndividualGoalResultsCommonGroupsTeamProduceExtraordinaryLimitationOne TimeTrustedGreat TeamCommon Goal
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“Leadership exists when people are no longer victims of circumstances but participate in creating new circumstances. Leadership is about creating a domain in which human beings continually deepen their understanding of reality and become more capable of participating in the unfolding of the world. Ultimately, leadership is about creating new realities.”

PeopleWorldHumansRealityUnderstandingHuman BeingsCircumstancesCreatingCapableVictimDomainUnfoldingParticipatingVictims Of Circumstance
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“Businesses and other human endeavors are also systems. They, too, are bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions, which often take years to fully play out their effects on each other. Since we are part of that lacework ourselves, it's doubly hard to see the whole pattern of change. Instead we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system, and wonder why our deepest problems never seem to get resolved.”

YearsHumansHardPlayWholeProblemSeemsActionWonderFocusEffectsBoundsPatternsInvisibleEndeavorIsolatedFabricSnapshots
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