Mental Models By Peter Senge in Pakistan

Peter Senge, renowned author and trainer, recently visited Karachi to conduct a workshop. A few of us were fortunate to meet him at a small gathering where he shared some of the insights he has had since the publication of his well-known book, The Dance Of Change and The Fifth Discipline. Those of us who have worked at companies that have adopted many of his philosophies may not even be aware how influencial these were or where they came from.

Here ar three concepts he presented at the workshop:

1. Building a shared vidion. This hss been a staple of many leadership competency models used across the world.This idea is that the vision for the organisations should not that is imfused through all the internal stakeholders. At a subordinate level, shared vision also works  for groups and projects just as it does  for lines of businesses.

2. Achieving personal mastery. This is the best accomplished through continually clarifying and depending our personal vision, focusing our energies, developing patience and seeing reality objectively. When expanded,it also includes mastery over our emotions, our relationships across our professional and personal lives,as well as a multitude of areas where we have an influence and a stake.

3. Developing mental models. These are the deeply ingrained assumptions , generalizations or even images we hold that influence how we understand the world and how we act. This is my favorite as it help us take a deep dive into what is happening below the surface that drives the events that we see. Every behavior that we see around us is driven by the mental models we hold- be they our attitude to safety or the way we treat others.

Additionally, Senge’s thoughts on what causes organisational learning disabilities (“I am my position”, “The enemy is out there”) have contributed greatly towards moving companies forward His society for Organisational Learning has many chapters worldwide and perhaps we can soon have one in Pakistan too.

Lastly, his 11 Laws mentioned in the The Fifth Discipline are simple and insightful. They include: today’s problems came from yesterday’s solutions; dividing an elephant in half does not make two smaller elephant; and thee cure can be worse than the disease.

By Leon Menezens. The writer is a professor-of-practice at IBM-Karachi a senior HR practitioner and an Executive Coach.

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