How important is shared vision to achieve a Learning Organisation?

Abstract

<p>Peter Senge argued that five disciplines are required to achieve a Learning Organisation. One of those is Shared Vision, characterised by organisational members holding a common aspiration, a common caring that connects them. "A vision is a picture of the future you seek to create, described in the present tense, as if it were happening now" (Senge et al 1994: p.302). Much work was done by Senge and colleagues to facilitate such vision building and sharing and it is an idea that continues to be an assumed must have in successful organisations. My research suggests that a shared vision can be a looser framing of an idea and that by not locking it down might allow it to develop and grow in ways that no one individual may have anticipated or any group articulated in explicit form. Research I have conducted at a theatre company in one of our major capitals suggests that allowing people to come to an idea even one that is not connected to the core business of an organisation can build something very rich though not necessarily anticipated.</p>