Introduction

I have thought about all the topics discussed in the book prior to reading it, quite a bit. This made the main takeaway parts of this book quicker to read and grasp. This book is an inspiration to people who may be frustrated with certain aspects of themselves, and the communities they find themselves in. There are excellent truths in this book that if continually exercised by all will reap many benefits, not only in the enterprise world but in society.

The 5 Disciplines

1. Systems Thinking: This is the “Fifth Discipline” that integrates all the disciplines. This is the ability to see underlying systemic structures first.
2. Personal Mastery: Continually learn, achieve clarity & depth of vision, see reality objectively, and close the reality-vision gap.
3. Mental Models: Uncover limiting beliefs & flaws in our worldview.
4. Shared vision: Commitment to a shared long-term aspiration.
5. Team learning: Align & develop the capacity of the team as a whole, building on individual talent and vision.

My thoughts

The discipline that stood out the most to me, was the shared vision, and team learning. The concepts provided in shared vision stand out to me because it is one thing to work on yourself, although challenging there is no one else involved, we spend the most time with ourselves. We mostly know what we believe or think, but to take that personal vision and passion and find someone else who shares the same goals and perspective, is challenging.  I am 27 years old, I love meeting and interacting with new people. For the past 9 years or so, I have moved to 6 entirely new cities with their own cultures, values, views, and backgrounds. One small observation, people are different. The book describes how one could respond to a vision, ranging from fully committed to noncompliance, or another option would be apathy. When applying to ProAkatemia they ask us all this question, “Are you committed?” Now that we are into a couple of months of this thing, I have come to conclusion, that was a terrible question. What are we committing to? How can I answer that question? I knew briefly, who in the group everyone was. But, deep conversations with all of them were lacking. We as a group were not aware who & what we were committing to yet. If you were like myself, I answered that question yes, without hesitation. Why? Because of the people and things I had already made commitments to in my life, and saw it through. I will use the example of my relationship with my wife. Prior to meeting my wife, I had met many people to see if our vision and values matched. My point is it took time to meet someone you Share a vision with. Of course, there were many times in the past 5 years of our relationship I had to make sacrifices but none of them were very important to me. With this said the group I am working with, I think they are all amazing individuals. But, I feel is challenging for me to find a shared vision anyone or others, I can truly buy in. I feel I find myself in the formal compliance category. What makes this so challenging to me is that, I do not have a clear path of execution in my own vision so I find myself stuck trying to create something. So, this has become an opportunity for a means to an end. I want to Emphasize that this is a personal dilemma but none the less a dilemma. I would like to truly find someone or a group/organization I can buy into to be fully committed doing what I love, creating a future I would like to see.

The Team Learning Discipline stood out to me because it goes into the root of the words between discussion and dialog, it was very interesting to me. The book clarified to me in greater detail how people may feel if an argument is defended within a dialog. It makes me think about the content of the statement in which is made. If it is a statement that has been presented to you before against other ideas and perspectives, then it is truly challenging to not defend. The deeper you examine a topic, the more perspectives present themselves, and the statement still stands to be true, it is hard to not have an argument against a contradicting statement. It is difficult to allow the idea to stand, not because I think my argument is better, but to genuinely bring the contradicting perspective into the dialog, for its own benefit. In the same way, I would like to hear statements and perspectives that contradict mine. The book described dialog as a suspension of assumptions, in other words, holding our own assumptions up for examination. I love this idea.

Summary

Simply put, very good book, very detailed, missing little.