Week 2 – Reading Observations & Questions

5 insights and 5 questions

Insights

After this week’s readings I had a multitude of observations specifically regarding the laws of the 5th discipline. For example, there are a total of 10 “laws” that explain why corporations manage to get or to keep themselves in problems. My first though revolved around rule number 2, “The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back.” In this scenario, Senge uses the analogy of Boxer, the horse from Animal farm. Boxer works tirelessly and is being used and taken advantage of by the pigs. In this analogy, I was thinking about the pigs like a corporation and Boxer like an employee of the firm, it appears that all too often this is a very familiar and normal workplace behavior… Boxer goes to work everyday and works tirelessly, seeing little in return and not capturing value in return…

My question following this is: What causes people like Boxer to stay within their workplace environments where they are not valued? How does one put up with/feel fulfilled by staying submerged into an environment?

Continuing on with the laws of discipline and observations from rule number 2, I remember when Harry Arnett came to speak to the management course I took with you. He spoke about how Callaway was attempting to help their falling profits by just doing the same thing they were doing before but with more intensity. Ultimately, this tactic was unsuccessful.

When companies decide they need to make a change because of solid decline in a company, who decides it’s time for a change and how do you motivate people to do that?

Moreover, if you aren’t in management and you want to create a change and urgency, what is the best way to do that?

After reading chapter 5: A Shift of Mind, I have a few specific reflections to the discussion of long-term goals and short-term goals. I have the questions specifically because of my own personal life experiences right now. In the book it states that the U.S. was focusing on their short-term goals and therefore was making their long-term outcomes worse off.

How does one find the balance of working on a short-term basis to accomplish things but also work toward achieving correct long-term goals?

Also, what is the best approach to navigating short and long term goals? Sitting out to write out a monthly plan, yearly plan seems like maybe a good solution but how does one hold himself accountable for it?

Senge claims this has to do with Dynamic Complexity, how does one switch to being more of a dynamic thinker than a linear thinker?

After reading chapter 6: Nature’s Templates, I wanted to focus on Archetype 2: Shifting the Burden… when someone shifts the burden of a problem, the true problem or burden never gets solved. How does one actually do a good job at uncovering the true burden? Obviously within oneself the answer to this would be self reflection and analyzing yourself. But, within an organization how does the blame not continuously get shifted from one person to another or one problem to another?

Clearly, there will always be organizational challenges but how do you completely resolve one challenge before the next one arrives?

Lastly, in Chapter 7 he speaks about a company called WonderTech. They had a problem with delivery time that never got resolved and eventually could have been the reason the company failed. They use a term called “growth and underinvestment,” companies frequently do not hire or problem solve as they scale to size, therefore one minor challenge could be why they fail.

How does a growing company create and find a balance of good investment vs under or over investment? For example, I am working for a start-up company and we are scaling to size rapidly… It seems there is always more work to do and constantly needing more hands on deck… are these just growing pains?

This is something I want to look into for the purpose of management and understanding company structure.