Quotes from Peter Senge

Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist — someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations.

People don't resist change. They resist being changed.

You cannot force commitment, what you can do…You nudge a little here, inspire a little there, and provide a role model.  Your primary influence is the environment you create.

The only sustainable competitive advantage is an organization's ability to learn faster than the competition.

The world is made of Circles And we think in straight Lines

Business and human endeavors are systems…we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system. And wonder why our deepest problems never get solved.

Collaboration is vital to sustain what we call profound or really deep change, because without it, organizations are just overwhelmed by the forces of the status quo.

People with high levels of personal mastery...cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition, or head and heart, any more than they would choose to walk on one leg or see with one eye.

All great things have small beginnings.

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.

When all is said and done, the only change that will make a difference is the transformation of the human heart.

Governments, especially democratic ones, are short-term and nationalistic.

I do not believe great organizations have ever been built by trying to emulate another, any more than individual greatness is achieved by trying to copy another 'great person'.

Collaboration is vital to sustain what we call profound or really deep change, because without it, organizations are just overwhelmed by the forces of the status quo.

Structures of which we are unaware hold us prisoner.

I'm really interested in how you create a whole new economy of recycling. It's literally the 'underground economy.' All this stuff that on the surface creates growth and profit, ends up with waste, junk, and CO2. So how do you make it economic to bring new players into the ball game?

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

Business has a way of talking about how to create value, which is in some way isn't bad... We just need to start thinking about if the value we want to create is consistent with all social and environmental well being.

Knowledge is constructed, not transferred

I often say that leadership is deeply personal and inherently collective. That's a paradox that effective leaders have to embrace.

Leadership is about creating new realities.

A learning organization is an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future.

Learning is all about connections, and through our connections with unique people we are able to gain a true understanding of the world around us.

Over the long run, superior performance depends on superior learning.