Gems from Fifth Dimension

The Myth of Management Team

Most managers find collective inquiry inherently threatening. School trains us never to admit that we do not know the answer, and most corporations reinforce that lesson by rewarding the people who excel in advocating their views, not inquiring into complex issues. (When was the last time someone was rewarded in your organization for raising difficult questions about the company's current policies rather than solving urgent problems?) Even if we feel uncertain or ignorant, we learn to protect ourselves from the pain of appearing uncertain or ignorant. That very process blocks out any new understandings which might threaten us. The consequence is what Argyris calls "skilled incompetence"—teams full of people who are incredibly proficient at keeping themselves from learning.

Delusion of learning from Experience

We learn best from experience but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our most important decisions. The most critical decisions made in organizations have system-wide consequences that stretch over years or decades.

When our actions have consequences beyond our learning horizon, it becomes impossible to learn from direct experience.

Laws of fifth Discipline

• Today's problems come from yesterday's solution
• Solutions that merely shift problems from one part of a system to another often go undetected because, those who "solved" the first problem are different from those who inherit the new problem
• The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back
• Behavior grows better before it grows worse
• The cure can be worse than the disease
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Pushing harder and harder on familiar solutions, while fundamental problems persist or worsen, is a reliable indicator of non-systemic thinking—what we often call the "what we need here is a bigger hammer" syndrome.

We learn to live with uncertainty, because no matter how smart or successful you are, a fundamental uncertainty will always be present in your life. 

Cure can be worse than the disease: Sometimes the easy or familiar solution is not only ineffective; sometimes it is addictive and dangerous. Alcoholism, for instance, may start as simple social drinking—a solution to the problem of low self-esteem or work-related stress. Gradually, the cure becomes worse than the disease; among its other problems it makes self-esteem and stress even worse than they were to begin with.