The Fifth Discipline

At the beginning of the 21st century, technology started to advance and subsequently became present in the everyday lives of the public. The internet was becoming a market with new, promising opportunities for both individuals and companies, including communication, outreach, and profit. The development and advancement of the internet has increased the rate of globalization and made people around the world closer to one another than was previously possible. Senge explains in the Introduction that globalization in business has improved the material standards of many people and made people more aware of the world around them, creating new dialogues and giving young people the chance to create “a web of relationships that has never existed before” (xv-vi). He also notes that since the book’s original publication, “the organizational learning practices that were limited to a few pioneers fifteen years ago have taken deeper root and spread” (xvi). He explores the companies and leaders who are implementing organizational learning to address the world’s problems in Part 4. However, globalization has also had the adverse effects of increasing “performance issues” in businesses and making people’s lives increasingly busy, to the point that it is becoming harder for people to regularly “think and reflect” (xv).