The information above doesn't really explain what organizational learning is. The literature describes how organizations learn as a result of individuals learning, especially through personal mastery and dialogue. Yet, organizational learning is more than the sum of the parts. But, what is it, exactly?

Based on the work I'm doing with students at Chapman University in Sacramento, California, I believe organizational learning is the new story individuals create together as a result of sharing their individual stories and discovering common ground. This process resonates with Thomas Berry's identification of a widespread need for a new story.

I'm not sure I understand -- by "what organizational learning is" are you trying to describe the process or the purpose? It seems to me that "organizational learning" as "the new story individuals create together" is a vague concept, and that the five disciplines described in the article are far more specific. Are you disagreeing with those as techniques and offering an alternative? Or does "creating a new story together" include by its nature such concepts as system thinking, personal mastery, etc.?

The purpose of organizational learning as the authors describe it in the article linked above is to enable the organization to change and adapt "so that they fulfill their function effectively, encourage people to reach their full potential, and, at the same time, help the world to be a better place." It seems to me that "creating a new story" may be a way to describe some part of the process, but I don't see where the story has a connection to action, and without changes in action, those goals aren't fulfilled.

I suppose I'm skeptical of "creating a new story" as the definition of how organizations learn to change and adapt in constructive ways, because I've seen many organizations that get stuck with simply redefining themselves in the minds of the individuals, but they don't really act any differently. One only has to look at the Enron scandals to see what the "story that's created by individuals" may be that's destructive, by ignoring the larger issues of purpose, values, systems, etc.

How does the process of "creating the new story," for instance, avoid self-delusion as to how ideas will work? That's one reason that Senge stresses systems thinking, I believe.

Certainly the idea of meaningful conversations together, and taking individual purposes and goals and values and exposing them to the purposes and goals and values of others in creating a group purpose and direction, are both crucial, but they seem to me to be very incomplete.

So perhaps I've misunderstood. As I originally assumed that perhaps you did -- because the article is very clear about what organizational learning needs to consist of.