Quotes from Peter M. Senge

the bad leader is he who the people despise; the good leader is he who the people praise; the great leader is he who the people say, "We did it ourselves

Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we never were able to do. Through learning we reperceive the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life

The most effective people are those who can "hold" their vision while remaining committed to seeing current reality clearly

Courage is simply doing whatever is needed in pursuit of the vision

In the presence of greatness, pettiness disappears. In the absence of a great dream, pettiness prevails.

Reality is made up of circles but we see straight lines.

It is not the absence of defensiveness that characterizes learning teams but the way defensiveness is faced

breakthroughs come when people learn how to take the time to stop and examine their assumptions.

If we see each problem—be it water shortages, climate change, or poverty—as separate, and approach each separately, the solutions we come up with will be short-term, often opportunistic, "quick fixes" that do nothing to address deeper imbalances.

vision without systems thinking ends up painting lovely pictures of the future with no deep understanding of the forces that must be mastered to move from here to there.

vision is an idle dream at best and a cynical delusion at worst - but not an achievable end

We will never transform the prevailing system of management without transforming our prevailing system of education. They are the same system.

When young people develop basic leadership and collaborative learning skills, they can be a formidable force for change.

When asked what they want, many adults will say what they want to get rid of.

When people who are actually creating a system start to see themselves as the source of their problems, they invariably discover a new capacity to create results they truly desire.

I believe that, the prevailing system of management is, at its core, dedicated to mediocrity. It forces people to work harder and harder to compensate for failing to tap the spirit and collective intelligence that characterizes working together at their best. Deming saw this clearly

The core leadership strategy is simple: be a model.

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.

The practice of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared "pictures of the future" that foster genuine commitment and enrollment rather than compliance. In mastering this discipline, leaders learn the counterproductiveness of trying to dictate a vision, no matter how heartfelt.

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come," said Victor Hugo

A shared vision is not an idea. It is not even an important idea such as freedom. It is, rather, a force in people's hearts, a force of impressive power. It may be inspired by an idea, but once it goes further—if it is compelling enough to acquire the support of more than one person—then it is no longer an abstraction. It is palpable. People begin to see it as if it exists. Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as shared vision.

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. As such, it is an essential cornerstone of the learning organization—the learning organization's spiritual foundation.

the basic metaphor of prototypes still seems apt to me. There are no answers or magic pills. There is no alternative to learning through experimentation. Benchmarking and studying "best practices" will not suffice—because the prototyping process does not involve just incremental changes in established ways of doing things, but radical new ideas and practices that together create a new way of managing.

The committed person doesn't play by the rules of the game. He is responsible for the game. If the rules of the game stand in the way of achieving the vision, he will find ways to change the rules.