Peter Senge

Peter Michael Senge (born 1947) is an American scientist and director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is known as author of the book "The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization" from 1990 (new edition of 2007). Besides he is still lecturing as a senior lecturer at the [http://web.mit.edu/sdg/www/ System Dynamics Group] at MIT Sloan School of Management.

Biography

Peter Senge was born in 1947. 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. He also earned a Ph.D. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1978. [ [http://www.solonline.org/PeterSenge/bio/ Society for Organizational Learning biography for Peter Senge] ] [ [http://www.wie.org/bios/peter-senge.asp Peter Senge Bio] ]

He was the Director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and is presently (2005) on the faculty at MIT.

He is the founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL).

He has had a regular meditation practice since 1996 and began meditating with a trip to Tassajara, a Zen Buddhist monastery, before attending Stanford. [http://kaipagroup.com/newsletter/January2007_newsletter.html Prasad, Kaipa (2007) "Excerpt from an Interview with Peter Senge"] ] He recommends meditation or similar forms of contemplative practice. [Senge (1990) pp.105,164] [ [http://www.shambhalainstitute.org/Fieldnotes/Issue1/Article_Senge.pdf Senge, Peter (2004) Excerpt "Spirituality in Business and Life: Asking the Right Questions" ] ]

Work

An engineer by training, Peter was a protegé of Jay Wright Forrester and has followed closely the works of Chris Argyris and Robert Fritz and based his books on pioneering works with the five disciplines in Ford, Chrysler, Shell, AT&T, Hannover Insurance, Harley-Davidson since the 70s and 80s through today.

Organization development

Senge emerged in the 1990s as a major figure in organizational development with his book "The Fifth Discipline" where he developed the notion of a learning organization. This views organizations as dynamical systems (as defined in Systemics) in a state 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. [http://www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm Peter Senge and the Learning Organization at the Infed Website] ] For this work, he was named by "Journal of Business Strategy" as the 'Strategist of the Century'. They further said that he was one of a very few people who 'had the greatest impact on the way we conduct business today'.

See also

* Organizational learning
* System Dynamics
* Systems thinking
* Strategy dynamics
* Strategic management
* The Fifth Discipline

Publications

Peter Senge wrote several books and articles. A selection:
* 1990, "", Doubleday, New York, 1990.
* 1994, "The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook"
* 1999, "The Dance of Change"
* 2004, "Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future", published in 2004
* 2005, "Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society"Organizations, and Society"
* 2008, "The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World"

References

External links

* [http://solonline.org/ SoL, Society for Organizational Learning - which Senge founded]
* [http://www.presence.net/ Presence.net - another SoL web site based on his more recent publications]
* [http://www.presencing.com/ Presencing Institute]