This is an essential book for anyone interested in education. Its comprehensive coverage gives much background, even at the risk of being distracting when you want to follow-up on the leads to so many interesting source-books and links. Though you are told to dip in anywhere, you must read the first section, esp. "The Industrial Age System of Education" by Senge and "A Primer to the Five Disciplines" (Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, Team Learning and Systems Thinking) (pp. 27-93).

The authors consider this book a "prequel" to their other books about learning organizations (p.7). That's true. Though this is the most recent book, you can start with this one and go on to the others for further depth. Some repetitions may only serve well for mastery.

The whole book is very readable and informative. Concepts are clearly explained. It follows the same excellent editing format as The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook and The Dance of Change.

When you get too enthused by so many ideas and success stories of innovations, heed the advice for "The Strategy of Organizational Change". "Focus on one or two new priorities for change, not twelve. Most school systems are already overwhelmed with change. They don't need a new initiative; they need an approach that consolidates existing initiatives, eliminates "turf battles," and makes it easier for people to work together toward common ends." (p.25)

There are just too many passages that you wish to quote. The book is a treasure mine. However, for those (esp. busy administrators) who find the volume too daunting or verbose (592 pages!) and still want to get a handle on launching into transforming their schools into learning organisations, I would recommend, "Ten Steps to a Learning Organization" and start with the simple questionnaire given there.

If you are an educator, parent or administrator, this handbook will enable you to obtain the crucial, leading edge knowledge in learning styles, multiple intelligences, personal neuro-physiology that enables one to "know thyself." Self-esteem and self-awareness, cognitive learning, including the necessary skills to make one prepared for "life at 21 years old," are also main considerations when teaching students to capitalize on their individual strenghts and wisdom.

Schools that Learn also emphasizes the importance of mastery, synergizing curricula presented, and authentic assessment vs. basing students knowledge purely on standardized test-taking.

This helpful manual is extremely important for educators, administrators, and parents, to read as it combines the aforementioned information and applies it to "building strengths that will be useful in career decision making."

Finally,Schools that Learn emphasizes the importance of keeping a "spirit-filled" outlook while learning, the extreme helpfulness of a mastermind group, accelerated and lifelong education, and of course giving back what you have learned to the community. This "cause and effect" is often forgotten in busy professtional lives, but truly ensures success for those who "get it."

SCHOOLS THAT LEARN is both a visionary and practical guide for how schools must evolve to meet the needs of students in the next 20 years. The use of multiple authors and perspectives mirrors some of the changes our schools must make to meet the needs of a new age. As Professional Development Director at a diverse Jesuit high school in San Francisco, I recommend this book to any educator, K-college. Senge's work will help prepare students for an era requiring a strong traditional academic foundation coupled with the need for creativity, and the social, emotional, and intellectual skills to work in high performing teams needed to rebuild our world.

Never judge a book by its cover - particularly its blurb. On first glance, The Age of Heretics seems askew, a tract on business revolution for "corporate leaders" interested in anything but. It purportedly chronicles the "recreation" of institutions, an eccentric term when left unhyphenated. It's described in alarming code words, such as "magisterial" (read, "long"). Why would anyone bother with a book like this?

Because it's terrific. And because the bland façade is disguising a remarkable reality. The Age of Heretics offers one of the few compelling, intelligent, thoroughly researched histories of the field of organizational development. Focusing largely on the 1960s and 1970s, Art Kleiner details the origins of T-Groups, Theory X and Theory Y, scenario planning, systems thinking, and much more. He proves particularly adept at summarizing an approach or technique succinctly, as if in passing, and all the while in the context of corporate change movements. Perhaps Kleiner errs on the side of the Great Man Theory of History ("there was one man who could do it, and his name was ..."), but he does demonstrate how OD can prove revolutionary to the modern corporation. And we all know what fate befalls the revolutionary.

For that is part of Kleiner's history: how the OD early adopters so often sowed the seeds of their own downfall. Perhaps they evolved from enthusiastic to monomaniacal. Perhaps they exacerbated their cultish image by experimenting with LSD. Perhaps they merely stepped on the wrong toes. Whatever the reason, the drugs or the shoes, they blew their own trumpets, then whimpered the blues.

As the title suggests, Kleiner dubs these forerunners "heretics," and even adopts a framework of comparisons to medieval knights, millenarians, Pelagians, and the like. The comparisons don't do any harm, and may even add a soupcon of panache, although a few are a stretch. Likening twelfth-century intellectual Peter Abelard to pharmaceutically enhanced 1960s visionaries does the great philosopher a disservice, not least because he's not an ideal model of universalism and holistic thinking. One might also argue that Kleiner misrepresents Parzival's dilemma when he writes of the plight of the OD consultant who fears to lose his job. Parzival encounters an obviously suffering king and must decide whether to ask "what afflicts thee?"; the consultant encounters an organization and must first recognize that there is any affliction in the first place.

Such criticisms are minor and admiring. The Age of Heretics is what the English like to call "a rollicking good read": fast-paced, persuasive, and written for adults, not sixth-graders. (Rare is the business author who would think to describe In Search of Excellence, accurately, as Manichaean.) This is not a book for generic "corporate leaders." It's for OD professionals and agents of change. If you pitch your tent in either camp, bring this book along for companionship.

This book should remind anyone of an age to be in a position of significant and high-level corporate change responsibility of opportunity lost. In a societal post-culture where it's stylish to be outlandish, different, revolutionary and heretical, Kleiner illustrates for us the substantive difficulties faced by substantive revolutionary thinkers (and doers!) in developing the plans for socially responsible corporate transformation.

The Age of Heretics is almost unfairly engrossing (I read it in a single sitting). Its superb and nuanced documentation at times reads almost like an additional narrative. And Kleiner's wonderfully accessible writing makes this intellectual history of organizational development speak to those otherwise put off by the cerebral work.

Oddly, those most in need of a recovery of revolutionary spirit or heretical passion - contemporary OD/MD/HR executives- won't read it. After all, even though interesting history, it is still history and those folks are now too busy figuring out what happy face button everyone can wear for the fiscal quarter. On my read, this is the lesson of Kleiner's history; that is, abandoning the revolutionary, hopeful,Pelagian spirit and resignation to work within the system enables the system to eat you.

Also oddly, Kleiner's history will likely be dismissed by socially conscious and critically-minded business/organization/management Marxist academics, as just not explicitly critical enough of the "one-dimensionality," technocracy and precipitous consumerism of the capitalist system, which is of course what identifies the work of McGregor, Lewin and the early NTL'ers as heresy. The lesson from Kleiner's work here is that even small scale revolutionary efforts establish precedents for larger ones, and that it's better to try something than simply continue to pontificate - as academics devoted to studying the corporate organization critically are prone to do.

Consequently, both groups miss a valuable history of the connection between the serious committed efforts to change society through corporate transformation by these early renegades and the larger macro socio-philosiohical pronouncements of counterculture theorists. Indeed, Kleiner's book is voraciously consumed by an audience with a particular spirit. Unfortunately, that is few of us. I suspect I speak for all of us in that audience in suggesting that the sequel - The Hour of Reconstruction - is eagerly awaited.

Just for the record--I've worked with Art in the past. But that has nothing to do with my admiration for this book, which provides a brilliant and passionate intellectual trip through the history of corporate vitality today. This book gives the social, historical, and cultural background to the emergence of most of today's wildest corporate excursions. Above all, this book explores how business (that domain so many of us care deeply about) can regain it's "vernacular" roots--reaching back to recognize and re-form some of the meaningful "community" ties it once had. I urge anyone who cares about business as a place where personal growth takes place, where work is more than a mere job, and where groups of people achieve great things, to read this book.

This is a wonderful book that every person who appreciates classical art will love. From Mesopatamia to the natives of Australia. This is one of my best books. Some things you will find are:

BIRTH OF ART

old stone age-Venus, cave paintings etc.

middle stone age-rock shelter paintings etc.

new stone age-stonehenge, Marching warriors etc.

ANCIENT NEAR EAST

Sumer-god Abu, ziggurats, UR, white temple, sculpture etc.

Akkad-Victory Stele, Sound box, Gold bull's heads etc.

Bablonia-Stele of Hammurabi, liopn gate, hanging gardens, Ishtar gate, bronze bells etc.

Assyria-Citadel of Sargon II, winged bulls, sculptures, limestone sculptures, etc.

Elam and Achaemenid Persia-palace of Darius, marble capitals, sculptures, bronze cauldrons, etc.

ANCIENT EGYPT

eARLY DYNASTTY+oLD KINGDOM-WOODEN ARTS, STEPPED PYRAMID, TEMPLES, GREAT PYRAMIDS, VALLEY TEMPLES, SPHINX, WOODEN SCULPTURES AND STATUES, ETC.

Middle Kingdom-Beni Hasam, paintings, temples etc. New Kingdom-temple of Hatsheput, Abu Simbel, pylon, horus, Amen-re, Ramses II, wall paintings, Nefertiti etc.

AEGEAN, CYCLADIC, MINOAN, AND MYCENAEAN

Early Minoan-Cycladic idols, jars, pots, pitchers, etc.

Middle Minoan-carved and painted pots etc. Late Minoan-palace at Knossos, Megaron's paintings, Bull paintings, pottery, sculptures, snake goddess, dagger blades, lion gate, etc.

Mycenaean-dagger blades, gold masks, warrior vases, etc.

ANCIENT GREECE

Geometric+Archaic-Dipylon vases, century pitchers, painted pots, plates, bronze early sculptures, marble statues (early), doric and Ionic colemns, Basilicas, temple of Hera, etc.

Early Classical-bronze statues,disc throwers, marble temples, Apollo statues, etc.

High Classical-parthenon, acropolis, marble statues, centaur statues, Athena Nike, porch of maidens, paintings, mature art, amphitheaters, Nike of Samothrace, temples. etc.

Late classical-Hellenistic-Aphrodite of Melos, temple of Apollo, mosaics, classical greek marble statues, temples, sculptures, Miletus etc.

ETRUSCAN-ROMAN

Etruscuns-wall paintings, painted terra cotta, sculptures, she-wolf, romulus and Remus, pots etc.

Romans-sculptures, Pompey, Pompeii, temples, colosseum, theater, circus etc.

Early-late empire-colosseum, mosaics, trajan, pantheon etc.

CHRISTIAN, BYZANTINE, ISLAMIC

Christian-catacomb, St. Pauls, St. Peters etc.

Byzantine (late+Early)-chests, mosaics, churches, sculptures, etc.

Islamic-Hagia Sophia, Al-Hambra, capitals, Blue Mosque, great mosque, Cordoba, Mshatta palace, Lahore rugs etc.

MEDIEVEL ART

Migration-jewelery, mosaics, gold and enamel, viking ships, broochs, paintings, etc.

Carolingian-gold altars, coins, St. Riquier, etc.

Ottonian-St. Michaels, gates, gothic, paintings, etc.

ROMANESQUE ART

all arts- sculpture, architecture, paintings, pottery etc. (LEANING TOWER)

GOTHIC

all gothic arts-cathedral, glass paintings, Chapelle, statues, etc.

INDUS VALLEY (PAKISTAN, INDIA)

Indus-Harrappa, Mohenjdaro, Asoka, sculptures etc.

Buddhist-Hindu-Siva, Stupa, Khajuraho, Bayon, Angkor Wat, etc.

CHINA

Shang, Chou, Ch'in, Sui dynasty-tomb of emperor, paintings, writing,flying horse, fireworks, dragon festivals etc.

T'ang, Sung, Yuan, Ming, Ch'ing-headless statues, sculpture, architecture, temple of the sun etc.

JAPAN

Archaic, Asuka, Heian, Kamakura-figures, Kondo, Japaneses houses, warriors, etc.

Ashikaga, Momoyama, Edo, domestic-paintings, gardens, Ogata Korin, the great wave painting, etc.

NATIVE AMERICAS, AFRICA, SOUTH PACIFIC

NATIVE ARTS-BONE, EMBROIDARY, WEAVING, WOODEN Sculptures etc.

Mesoamerica-Olmec statues, easter island, terra cotta figures, tenochtitlan temple sculptures, Incan gold crafts, Machu Picchu, Jaguar pyramid, Mayans, Aztecs, Incas etc.

North America-Pueblo houses, Cliff palace, masks, totem poles etc.

Africa- sculptures, masks, bronze arts, dancing costumes, etc.

Oceania-engraving, sculptures, boomerangs, animal paintings, wooden tools, palm houses etc.

I'm sure you'll love this book, it is fantastic. It would appeal to anyone who appreciates art and architecture. These series can be collected and this one is Helen Gardner's first issue so would help your collection. This book includes history facts, lovely pictures, paintings in 591 pages!

-------------AHMED MASHHOOD AGE 12-------------- HOPE YOU FOUND IT USEFUL!

i used this book in an art history course and upon comparison with various other art history texts, it proved itself to be the best resource available. i recieved a perfect score on the art history AP test thanks to this book.

This book has the most famous and interesting works of art and has very interesting things to say about them. A great book for an art lover, or someone who's just starting out. Highly recommended!

It's a very readable and well researched book on "the Roman women" with nice pictures. Therefore, I recommend the book for everyone who is interested in the ancient Roma and gynaikologia...

Las personas que han venido siguiendo la serie de libros sobre el tema de la quinta disciplina - The Fifth Discipline y The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook - opinan que La danza del cambio es, de lejos, el más importante de todos porque responde la pregunta más frecuente que se les hace a sus autores: ¿Cómo ir más allá de los primeros pasos del cambio corporativo y cómo sostener el impulso? El libro está diseñado de manera que usted pueda empezar a leerlo en cualquier parte y cualquier dirección. Marque las páginas. Escriba en los márgenes respuestas a los ejercicios. Dibuje. Sueñe despierto. Anote los resultados de lo que ha ensayado y las ideas de lo que le gustaría ensayar. Use los ejercicios y las técnicas. A medida que se acumulan, sus notas se convierten en un registro de prácticas eficaces y una herramienta para reflexionar sobre el diseño de la próxima etapa de su iniciativa de cambio.

Lleve a los demás a pensar sobre el cambio. Las organizaciones, como todo grupo humano, operan mediante la conversación. Las ideas de este libro son valiosas, no como respuestas para aceptarlas como están, sino como puntos de partida para conversar con otros. Hablando, poniendo a prueba y escogiendo conjuntamente sus próximas acciones usted puede crear sus propias respuestas.

Escrito para altos directivos y ejecutivos de todos los niveles, muestra cómo pueden los líderes de los negocios trabajar de acuerdo para anticiparse a los retos que el cambio profundo obliga a las empresas a afrontar. En una forma práctica y con una presentación convincente, los lectores aprenden cómo crear las capacidades personales y organizacionales necesarias para hacer frente a esos retos.

I know that there is infinity of books that contribute teachings to the nowadays managers. But Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline goals offering a lot of different forms of approaching the problems, many different forms of thinking solutions, especially today, when managers should make decisions with very little time and very little information of the environment... or who has time today of reading all day's newspaper, know changes day by day in the market? Senge helps to invent every moment analysis tools, to synergy the company and all its members in that search, and those book is without doubts a pleasant reading for the bussinessman and woman.

Ms. Kleiner does indeed show how eclectic Roman sculpture is/was. But she also shows and explains how artists wrought texture out of stone, their flare for facial features, the thoughtful tilt of the head or the significance of a raised eyebrow. There is more to Romans than conquest. This book makes that clear. This book also does an excellent job of relating historical events to tastes in sculpture.

This book is a collection of theoretical summaries, reports, analyses, and strategies all quite useful to anyone interested in generating some thinking and action around change. The team of five writers (Peter Senge, Richard Ross, Bryan Smith, Charlotte Roberts, and Art Kleiner) provide some original work, but also serve as editors to a vast quantity of material drawn from practitioners, theorists, and writers in the field of organizational improvement. According to Senge, "great teams are learning organizations - groups of people who, over time, enhance their capacity to create what they truly desire to create." (p.18) This book is really about creating and building great teams. The learning organization develops its ability to reflect on, discuss, question, and change its current and past practices. To do this, people and groups in the organization need to meaningfully pursue the study and practice of the five disciplines - personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking.

The learning organization - Senge's vision for the productive, competitive, and efficient institutions of the future - is in a continuous state of change. Four fundamental questions continuously serve to check and guide a group's learning and improvement (see page 49): (1) Do you continuously test your experiences? ("Are you willing to examine and challenge your sacred cows - not just during crises, but in good times?") (2) Are you producing knowledge? ("Knowledge, in this case, means the capacity for effective action.") (3) Is knowledge shared? ("Is it accessible to all of the organization's members?") (4) Is the learning relevant? ("Is this learning aimed at the organization's core purpose?") If these questions represent the organization's compass, the five disciplines are its map.

Each of the five disciplines is explained, and elaborated in its own lengthy section of the book. In the section on "Systems Thinking" (a set of practices and perspectives, which views all aspects of life as inter-related and playing a role in some larger system), the authors build on the idea of feedback loops (reinforcing and balancing) and introduce five systems archetypes. They are: "fixes that backfire", "limits to growth", "shifting the burden", "tragedy of the commons", and "accidental adversaries". In the section on "Personal Mastery", the authors argue that learning starts with each person. For organizations to learn and improve, people within the organization (perhaps starting with its core leadership) must learn to reflect on and become aware of their own core beliefs and visions. In "Mental Models", the authors argue that learning organizations need to explore the assumptions and attitudes, which guide their institutional directions, practices, and strategies. Articles on scenario planning, the ladder of inference, the left-hand column, and balancing inquiry and advocacy offer practical strategies to investigate our personal mental models as well as those of others in the organization. In "Shared Vision", the authors make the case for the stakeholders of an organization to continually adapt their vision ("an image of a desired future"), values ("how we get to travel to where we want to go"), purpose ("what the organization is here to do"), and goals ("milestones we expect to reach before too long"). The section offers many strategies and perspectives on how to move an organization toward continuous reflection. In "Team Learning", the authors rely mostly on the work of William Isaacs and others, and make a case for educating organization members in the processes and skills of dialogue and skillful discussion.

This book is enlightening and informative. It has already found a place on my shelf for essential reference books.

Everyone who reads THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE comes away excited about the benefits of having a learning organization. Yet many get stuck in a rut as they try to implement what they learned in that superb book. THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE FIELD BOOK helps fill in that lack of understanding with dozens of questions, examples and exercises. You'll have a ball with this, even if you only use a little part to focus on where you need help. A great related book for building a learning organization is THE 2,000 PERCENT SOLUTION, which teaches a new thinking process that simplifies and speeds up learning for an organization. It also shows you where you need to get rid of old thinking that is holding you back. You should read and use both.

Bridging the gap between text and context, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook offers everyone a deep and refreshing look at what work can be and should be. The authors ground their stories, examples, exercises in five conceptual touchstones--personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking. And these disciplines accurately reveal three core tasks in leadership: looking at self, developing others, and seeing the larger picture in order to chart a meaningful course. Stories enliven the ideas while examples and exercises offer practical models to use in any organization. Generous side margins, different colored ink, and graphic icons are visual treats as well as immediate graphic guides. And the narrative references to related issues make reading the book more intuitive, more interesting.

In fact, these physical details model the whole point of the book--that learning is essential for sustainable growth, for organizational and personal development.

Perhaps many of those who had previously read The Fifth Discipline were not aware (until now) that Peter Senge later co-authored this book with Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Richard Ross, George Roth, and Bryan Smith. Why read The Dance of Change? Its in Learning Organizations." Yes, there are challenges. Lots of them...and many are indeed formidable. And yes, obviously, without momentum, efforts to energize or re-energize any organization will fail.

My own experience suggests that there will then be at least three whatever was undertaken was doomed to fail; also, therefore, that such efforts should never be undertaken again; finally, defenders of the status quo (whatever it may be) will become even more aggressive in their opposition to change in almost any form.

Of course, Senge understood full well when he wrote The Fifth Discipline that those who attempted to implement an appropriate (emphasis on "appropriate") combination of his ideas and suggestions would encounter all manner of resistance. In my opinion, that is why he then co-authored the Fieldbook. (I strongly suggest that it be read only after reading The Fifth Discipline.) Here is how The Dance of Change Change)

The Challenges of Initiating (Not Enough Time, No Help [Coaching and Support], Not Relevant, Walk the Talk)

The Challenges of Sustaining Transformation (Fear and Anxiety, Assessment and Measurement, True Believers and Nonbelievers)

The Challenges of Redesigning and Rethinking (Governance, Diffusion, Strategies Purpose)

As you can see, Senge and his co-authors provide a cohesive and comprehensive system with which to achieve and then sustain (emphasis on "sustain") "profound change." Once again, I want to stress the importance of carefully selecting what is most appropriate from this wealth of material. The selection process should be unhurried but expeditious. It should include only those who are wholeheartedly committed to achieving "profound change." Moreover, their number should not threaten effective communication and collaboration. My final suggestion (not necessarily Senge's) is to proceed with a "Big Picture" clearly in mind but to focus on the sequential completion of specific tasks according to plan. Like buildings, learning "blueprint," sufficient resources, materials of the highest quietly, inspiring leaders and effective managers, talented associates, and (most important) a shared commitment. Obviously, your organization will need its own "blueprint." Success or failure when implementing it will depend upon its own people. It cannot be otherwise. View The Dance of Change created by Senge and his co-authors, therefore, as an invaluable resource...and proceed accordingly.

You may also wish to consult Isaacs' Dialogue in which he addresses many of the same issues but from somewhat different perspectives. I also recommend Bennis and Biederman's Organizing Genius as well as O'Toole's Leading Change. Their own experiences, insights, and suggestions may also prove helpful to your efforts. I wish you great success!

The core premise of the book is that the key to achieving and sustaining significant change lies in changing people's basic ways of thinking. Those of us who have worked with organizations to achieve meaningful change, quickly come to realize that the central challenge is the engrained patterns of thought in the minds of people. That is the ultimate challenge that this work sets out to tackle.

The question one is left with, as with many books of this type, is not the value of the book (it is excellent), but How many leaders of change will read this volume, take its insights to heart, and ACT upon them?

The book is divided into three sections around the challenges of initiating, sustaining, and redesigning and rethinking. Within these sections are the ten key challenges to profound change. The notes from the field provide a record of organizational change initiatives and specific approaches taken by GE, Hewlett-Packard, British Petroleum, Ford, Dupont, and others. The book includes case histories, round-table discussions, team exercises, checklists, and solid guidance.

This work is densely packed with valuable insights, guidance, and developmental techniques. It offers enormous potential to receptive and motivated readers who are able to move from thought to action. Highly recommended. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder: The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and Stern's Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

Of the FIFTH DISCIPLINE SERIES books, THE DANCE OF CHANGE is by far the most important for you to understand. THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE and THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE FIELDBOOK are wonderful, valuable books, but they largely avoid the tough question of how to sustain a Learning Organization initiative. Based on lots of experiences in different companies, THE DANCE OF CHANGE is the most realistic, thorough, thoughtful work on achieving large-scale organizational change that has ever been my pleasure to read. I immediately found it helpful in overcoming some of my bad habits (including falling in love with my own jargon rather than using common English). Since I first read the book about 9 months ago, I have found it affecting my consulting practice by causing me to focus more on lasting change, than immediate change. That's an important lesson for everyone. Like THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE FIELDBOOK, THE DANCE OF CHANGE allows you to focus on the areas where you need help the most. The beginning is a wonderful systems-dynamic analysis of how successful change occurs, and how it can be derailed. Like THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE FIELDBOOK, you do not need to read THE DANCE OF CHANGE from front to back. I found myself skipping around, and enjoyed the experience. Even if you do not want to have a Learning Organization, you will find THE DANCE OF CHANGE very valuable for giving you direction on how to achieve permanent, valuable changes. On the subject of achieving the strategy you wish to implement, I strongly urge you to also read THE BALANCED SCORECARD. These books are good complements to each other. For picking up on your most important issues, you will find Peter Drucker's MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY to be invaluable.