Community Development:
Those who believe in the need for shared vision have looked to groups that have this quality, and found them to be best characterized as communities. Companies redefined as communities see all employees as citizens, sharing in the decision-making and dedicated to a higher purpose.

FEEDBACK :
Any reciprocal flow of influence. In systems thinking it is an axiom that every influence is both cause and effect. Nothing is ever influenced in just one direction.

LEVERAGE :
Rather than use of a tool, it is through creative ideas, often from unexpected sources, applied to our work activities that gives leverage. A team working with a shared vision can through experimentation develop that extra edge, leverage.

SYSTEM ARCHETYPES :
Systems Archetypes are generic structures, which embody the key to learning to see structures in our personal and organizational lives. They are types of systemic structures that recur again and again. Their knowledge helps us to identify and understand the underlying causes of problems, possible leverage points, and so forth. Some examples of systems archetypes are:

• balancing process with delay

• limits to growth

• shifting the burden

• eroding goals

• escalation

• tragedy of the commons

• growth and under-investment

SYSTEMS ---> PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR ---> EVENTS :
There are three distinct levels to view reality: events, patterns of behavior, and systemic structure<. According to Senge, contemporary society focuses predominantly on events, less so in patterns of behavior, and very rarely on systemic structure. Leaders in learning organizations must reverse this trend, and focus their organization's attention on systemic structure. This is because

METANOIA - A SHIFT OF MIND :
Systems thinking needs the disciplines of building shared vision, mental models, team learning, and personal mastery to realize its potential. Building a shared vision fosters commitment to the long-term. Mental models focus on the openness needed to unearth shortcomings in our present ways of seeing the world. Team learning develops the skills of groups of people to look for the larger picture that lies beyond individual perspectives. And personal mastery fosters the personal motivation to continually learn how our actions affect our world.

But systems thinking makes understandable the subtlest aspect of the learning organization --the new way individuals perceive themselves and their world. At the heart of a learning organization is a shift of mind --from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the world, from seeing problems as caused by someone or something "out there" to seeing how our own actions create the problems we experience. A learning organization is a place where people are continually discovering how they create their reality. And how they can change it.

Generative Learning :
Generative learning, unlike adaptive learning, requires new ways of looking at the world.

In Senge's view, Generative Learning is about creating - it requires "systemic thinking," "shared vision," "personal mastery," "team learning," and "creative tension" [between the vision and the current reality].

Generative learning requires seeing the systems that control events. When we fail to grasp the systemic source of problems, we are left to "push on" symptoms rather than eliminate underlying causes. Generative learning, in other words, emphasizes continuous experimentation and feedback in an ongoing examination of the very way organizations go about defining and solving problems.

Adaptive Learning :
The current view of organizations is based on adaptive learning, which is about coping. Senge (1990) notes that increasing adaptiveness is only the first stage;

Adaptive Learning or single-loop learning focuses on solving problems in the present without examining the appropriateness of current learning behaviors. Adaptive organizations focus on incremental improvements, often based upon the past track record of success. Essentially, they don't question the fundamental assumptions underlying the existing ways of doing work. The essential difference is between being adaptive and having adaptability.

current reality :
Another aspect of personal mastery is that one has a clear concept of current reality. One must be able to see reality as it truly is without biases or misconceptions. If one has an accurate view of reality, one will see constraints that are present. The creative individual knows that life involves working within constraints and will not waver in trying to achieve the vision. Creativity may involve using the constraints to one's advantage. (Senge, 1990)