Great Throughts Treasury

"It's common to say that trees come from seeds. But how can a tiny seed create a huge tree? Seeds do not contain the resources need to grow a tree. These must come from the medium or environment within which the tree grows. But the seed does provide something that is crucial : a place where the whole of the tree starts to form. As resources such as water and nutrients are drawn in, the seed organizes the process that generates growth. In a sense, the seed is a gateway through which the future possibility of the living tree emerges."

"It?s not about ?the smartest guys in the room.? It?s about what we can do collectively. So the intelligence that matters is collective intelligence, and that?s the concept of ?smart? that I think will really tell the tale.?"

"It's not what the Vision is, it's what the Vision does."

"Learning organizations are possible because deep down we are all learners."

"Leaders are not ?special people? or heroes who command us to do things and know the answers to everything. Instead, leaders foster the growth of learning organizations in which people continuously learn and contribute to a shared vision."

"Language shapes perception. What we SEE depends on what we are prepared to see."

"Learning organizations [are] organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together."

"Learning organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together."

"Living systems have integrity. Their character depends on the whole."

"Many European cities have avoided the problems of crime, entrenched poverty, and helplessness that afflict so many American inner cities because they have forced themselves to face the balances that a healthy urban area must maintain. One way they have done this is by maintaining large "green belts" around the city that discourage the growth of suburbs and commuters... By contrast, many American cities have encouraged steady expansion of surrounding suburbs, continually enabling wealthier residents to move further from the city center and its problems."

"Learning organizations themselves may be a form of leverage on the complex system of human endeavors. Building learning organizations involves developing people who learn to see as system thinkers see, who develop their own personal mastery, and who learn how to surface and restructure mental models, collaboratively. Given the influence of organizations in today's world, this may be one of the most powerful steps toward helping us "rewrite the code", altering not just what we think but our predominant ways of thinking. In this sense, learning organizations may be a tool not just for the evolution of organizations, but for the evolution of intelligence."

"Maladaptation to gradually building threats to survival is so pervasive in systems studies of corporate failure that it has given rise to the parable of the "boiled frog." If you place a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately try to scramble out. But if you place the frog in room temperature water, and don't scare him, he'll stay put. Now if the pot sits on a heat source, and you gradually turn up the temperature, something very interesting happens. As the temperature rises from 70 to 80 degrees F., the frog will do nothing. In fact, he will show every sign of enjoying himself. As the temperature gradually increases, the frog will become groggier and groggier, until he is unable to climb out the the pot. Though there is nothing restraining him, the frog will sit there and boil. Why? Because the frog's internal apparatus for sensing threats to survival is geared to sudden changes in his environment, not to slow, gradual changes? We will not avoid the fate of the frog until we learn to slow down and see the gradual processes that often pose the greatest threats."

"Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. Very often, we are not consciously aware of our mental models or the effects they have on our behavior. For example, we may notice that a co-worker dresses elegantly, and say to ourselves, "She's a country club person." About someone who dresses shabbily, we may feel, "He doesn't care about what others think.""

"Learning to see the structures within which we operate begins a process of freeing ourselves from previously unseen forces and ultimately mastering the ability to work with them and change them."

"Metanoia means a shift of mind... a fundamental shift or change, or more literally transcendence. To grasp the meaning of "metanoia" is to grasp the deeper meaning of "learning," for learning also involves a fundamental shift or movement of mind."

"Most leadership strategies are doomed to failure from the outset. As people have been noting for years, the majority of strategic initiatives that are driven from the top are marginally effective - at best."

"Nobody likes to throw stuff away. It's just antithetical to our sense of being a person. But we're all habituated to that way of living today."

"Most people's eyes glaze over if you talk to them about "learning... Little wonder--for, in everyday use, learning has come to be synonymous with "taking in information." "Yes, I learned all about that at the course yesterday." Yet, taking in information is only distantly related to real learning. It would be nonsensical to say, "I just read a great book about bicycle riding--I've now learned that.""

"Nothing will change, no matter how fascinated you are by a new idea, unless you create some kind of a learning process. A learning process is a process that occurs over time whereby people's beliefs, ways of seeing the world, and ultimately their skills and capabilities change. It always occurs over time, and it's always connected to your domain of taking action, whether it's about relationships or about your professional work. Learning occurs ?at home,? so to speak, in the sense that it must be integrated into our lives, and it always takes time and effort. That's the whole reason for emphasizing this notion of ?disciplines.? And discipline means commitment, focus, and practice. Most things that really matter in life take discipline and years of practice. But the concept of discipline has really drifted out of our culture. We've come to believe that anything we need that's important, we can go out and buy. This is not true in other cultures. There's a very deep appreciation for discipline and the idea that learning occurs over time. In fact, the very term learning in Chinese is made up of two symbols. One translates as ?study,? to take in new information or new ideas. The second is ?practice constantly.? You cannot think or say the word ?learning? in Chinese without, in effect, thinking and saying ?study and practice constantly.?"

"Mutual reflection. Open and candid conversation. Questioning of old beliefs and assumptions. Learning to let go. Awareness of how our own actions create the systemic structures that produce our problems. Developing these learning capabilities lies at the heart of profound change."

"Once people see the participatory nature of their thought, they begin to separate themselves from their thought."

"Organizations learn only through individuals who learn. Individual learning does not guarantee organizational learning. But without it no organizational learning occurs."

"Our fixation on events is actually part of our evolutionary programming. If you wanted to design a cave person for survival, ability to contemplate the cosmos would not be a high-ranking design criterion. What IS important is the ability to see the saber-toothed tiger over your left shoulder and react quickly. The irony is that, today, the primary threats to our survival, both of our organizations and of our societies, come not from sudden events but from slow, gradual processes; the arms race, environmental decay, the erosion of a society's public education system, increasingly obsolete physical capital, and decline in design or product quality? are all slow, gradual processes."

"Our fundamental challenges in education are no different than in business. They involve fundamental cultural changes, and that will require collective learning. They involve people at multiple levels thinking together about significant and enduring solutions we might create, and then helping those solutions come about."

"One of the commonalities in our work is a recognition of the deep fragmentation of the educational process, and the belief that too often we fail to capture the imagination and commitment of the learner in the way any real learning process must. We see an enormous need to integrate systems thinking as a foundation for education for kids. So, many of the changes in curriculum and pedagogy involve bringing the systems perspective into the mainstream of education, because people today must be able to make sense of systems, to learn how to use knowledge in ways that cross disciplinary boundaries. You know, they used to say that school could teach somebody 80 percent of what they need to learn in their lifetime. Today that figure would probably be more like 2 percent. Schools need to focus on thinking skills and learning skills, because those are what will prepare kids for a world of increasing interdependency and increasing change."

"Our unit of innovation has usually been the individual teacher, the individual classroom, or a new curriculum to be implemented individually by teachers. But the larger environment in which innovation is supposed to occur is neglected. So few innovations stick. Either a teacher moves away, or a teacher who successfully innovates becomes threatening to those around him or her. Significant changes in the content and process of education require coordinated efforts throughout a school: you cannot implement ?learner-directed learning,? for example, in one classroom and not others. It would drive kids nuts, not to mention the stress on the individual teacher. So there's absolutely no choice but trying to create change on multiple levels. Yes, there needs to be fundamental innovation in the classroom. Yes, you've got to find and support these teachers who are really committed to that. And no, it's completely inadequate by itself, because you have to be working simultaneously to create a totally different environment in the classroom, in the school, in the school system, and eventually in the community. And that's why it's not easy."

"Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively."

"Solutions that merely shift problems from one part of a system to another often go undetected because, unlike the rug merchant, those who "solved" the first problem are different from those who inherit the new problem."

"Seeing only individual actions and missing the structure underlying the actions... lies at the root of our powerlessness in complex situations."

"Systematic structure is concerned with the key interrelationships that influence behavior over time."

"Police enforcement officials will recognize their own version of this law: arresting narcotics dealers on Thirtieth Street, they find that they have simply transferred the crime center to Fortieth Street. Or, even more insidiously, they learn that a new citywide outbreak of drug-related crime is the result of federal officials intercepting a large shipment of narcotics--which reduced the drug supply, drove up the price, and caused more crime by addicts desperate to maintain their habit."

"Problems only appear as rigid "either-or" choices, because we think of what is possible at a fixed point in time."

"So long as such myths prevail, they reinforce a focus on short-term events and charismatic heroes rather than on systemic forces and collective learning."

"Sometimes, the knottiest dilemmas, when seen from the systems point of view, aren't dilemmas at all. They are artifacts of "snapshot" rather than "process" thinking, and appear in a whole new light once you think consciously of change over time."

"Team learning is vital because teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations."

"Systems thinking is a sensibility--for the subtle interconnectedness that gives living systems their unique character."

"Team learning is the Process of aligning and developing the capacity of a team to create the results its members desire. It builds on the discipline of developing a shared vision. It also builds on personal mastery, for talented teams are made up of talented individuals."

"Teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations. This is where the "rubber stamp meets the road"; unless teams can learn, the organization cannot learn."

"The discipline of team learning starts with "dialogue," the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine "thinking together"... allowing the group to discover insights not attainable individually."

"The company-as-a-machine model fits how people think about and operate conventional companies. And, of course, it fits how people think about changing conventional companies: You have a broken company, and you need to change it, to fix it."

"The art of systems thinking lies in seeing through complexity to the underlying structures generating change?it means organizing complexity into a coherent story than illuminates the causes of problems and how they can be remedied in enduring ways."

"The earth is an indivisible whole, just as each of us is an indivisible whole. Nature (and that includes us) is not made up of parts within wholes. It is made up of wholes within wholes. All boundaries, national boundaries included, are fundamentally arbitrary. We invent them and then, ironically, we find ourselves trapped within them."

"The first principle of systems thinking [is that] structure influences behavior."

"The essence of the discipline of system thinking lies in a shift of mind: seeing interrelationships rather than linear cause-effect chains, and seeing processes of change rather than snapshots."

"The further human society drifts away from nature, the less we understand interdependence."

"The education enterprise is especially complicated because not only does the organization have different levels, it's very stratified. You've got teachers, principals, off-site administrators, school board members. I'm not convinced many of them see themselves as having a lot of power. One characteristic of an organization that has very low ability to learn is that people at all levels see themselves as disempowered; they don't think that they have leverage to make any difference. Last but not least, this whole enterprise is embedded within the community. So it's an extraordinarily complex organization and very stratified, very fragmented. And so it really should come as very little surprise that it's almost incapable of innovation."

"The fragmentation that exists in the education process is extraordinary. Part of it is embedded in our theory of knowledge. Our theory of knowledge puts knowledge in cubbyholes; in our society we consider an expert to be someone who knows a great deal about very little. So part of the problem here has to do with very deep issues regarding the fragmentation of knowledge and our incapacity to really integrate. A second dimension of the problem is that educational institutions are designed and structured in a way that reinforces the idea that my job as a teacher is as an individual teaching my kids. I have literally heard teachers say, ?When I close that classroom door, I'm God in my universe.? This focus on the individual is so deeply embedded in our culture that it's very hard for people to even see it."

"The Industrial Age is not sustainable. It's not sustainable in ecological terms, and it's not sustainable in human terms."

"The long-term, most insidious consequence of applying non-systemic solutions is increased need for more and more of the solution. This is why ill-conceived government interventions are not just ineffective, they are "addictive" in the sense of fostering increased dependency and lessened abilities of local people to solve their own problems."

"The more you learn the more acutely aware you become of your ignorance."