Traditional & Learning Organizations

Introduction Peter Senge is a Senior Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of the widely-acclaimed book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990). He can be said to be responsible for the popularity of the concept of a ‘learning organization’ today. Peter Senge argues that not only we humans learn, but organizations also. However, learning itself may not be enough for the organization to survive in this ever-challenging era. In his book, The Fifth Discipline, Senge introduced five ‘disciplines’, namely systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, and team learning, that characterizes an organization as a learning organization.

Traditional Organization A traditional organization can be defined as a formal, common, and pyramid-like organization where one person at the top is in charge of all functional areas with subordinates handling all the other sub-functions. It is hierarchical where the higher levels have complete control over all the levels below, have greater superiority and domination, and the chain of command goes from the top to the bottom. Frederick Winslow Taylor was the prominent theorist of traditional hierarchical organizations. His book, Principles of Scientific Management, introduced the principles for designing and managing mass-production facilities such as Ford's automobile factory in Michigan and Carnegie's steel works in Pittsburgh (Thomas, 2006). Examples of traditional organizations are like the various governments around the world, the Catholic Church, the Armed Forces, certain old-fashioned businesses, and others.

Learning Organization There are various definitions of what a learning organization is. According to Peter Senge (1990),
“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