The book provides practical tools and techniques to help people to build learning organisations. It’s a compendium of exercises, methods, tools and reflective pieces. It describes itself as being for people who want to learn, whilst they are working within an organisation. Whilst not written specifically for them, the pragmatic learning focus of the book makes it a rich source of techniques and exercises for executive coaches and their clients.
Why I rate this book
This book is full of valuable snippets and usable tools, and points the reader towards further resources to explore. It focuses on five disciplines:
- Systems thinking
- Personal mastery
- Mental models
- Shared vision
- Team learning
Every one of these is relevant to someone who is in a leadership role in an organisational setting.
As well as a wholly accessible piece on systems thinking, which helps coaching clients to take a much broader perspective when looking at the challenges and opportunities facing them, the book also looks at our mental models. I have found this material really useful with coaching clients to help them to unpick what is going on in a difficult working relationship, or to understand and/or plan for a tricky discussion with a colleague. It helps clients to understand where their own balance is between pushing their own opinion hard and listening to their colleague’s point of view when there is a difference of opinion.
The book is cleverly laid out with exercises, illustrations and example conversations.
Overall, the book is a well-written and accessible collection of practical tools and techniques that a coach can use either when working with his/her client or can leave with the client to take away as “homework”. It is particularly good when working with clients on the assumptions that they bring to their interactions with colleagues and in suggesting new habits that clients can learn to make those interactions more fruitful.
Visit Amazon for more reviews, and a competitive price. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies for Building a Learning Organization.
Paperback: 608 pages
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing (24 Jun 1994)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1857880609
ISBN-13: 978-1857880601
Product Dimensions: 22 x 18.8 x 3.6 cm