Learning for a Change

1990: Daniel Kim founds the "Systems Thinker," a newsletter devoted to "fifth discipline" issues. The following year, the newsletter's parent organization, Pegasus Communications, launches an annual conference series called Systems Thinking in Action.

1993: Harvard University professor David Garvin publishes an article on organizational learning in the Harvard Business Review, arguing that only learning that can be measured will be useful to managers.

1994: "The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook" is published. Authors of the book, which Senge edited, include Charlotte Roberts, Rick Ross, and Bryan Smith (president of Innovation Associates of Canada), and Art Kleiner (who serves as editorial director). The "Fieldbook" becomes a new management-book genre.

1994: The use of "learning histories" as a method of assessment begins at the Center for Organizational Learning.

1994: The first major Organizational Learning Center projects reach completion. Many of them have produced remarkable results. But a few have resulted in disappointing career prospects for some of the line leaders who were involved in them.

1995: Working with Dee Hock, the Organizational Learning Center begins a two-year process of building an ambitious international consortium called the Society for Organizational Learning, with Peter Senge as chairman.

1996: "The Age of Heretics," by Art Kleiner, and Synchronicity: "The Inner Path of Leadership," by Joseph Jaworski, are published.

1997: "The Living Company," by Arie de Geus, is published.

1999: "The Dance of Change" is published.

Alan M. Webber (awebber@fastcompany.com) is a founding editor of Fast Company. You can visit Peter Senge on the Web (www.sol-ne.org). Time line compiled by Art Kleiner (art@well.com).