The document discusses the concept of developing a shared vision within organizations, referencing Senge's five stages: telling, selling, testing, consulting, and co-creating. It includes personal assessments from different individuals regarding their organization’s progress along these stages, highlighting the importance of team learning and feedback loops to facilitate growth. The document also emphasizes that fostering interpersonal relationships and leadership adaptability can enhance team effectiveness and organizational climate.

1. According to Senge (2006), "A shared vision changes people's
relationships with the company. It is no longer 'their company;'
It becomes 'our company'" (p. 208). The Fifth Discipline
Fieldbook discusses the five different development stages of
building a shared vision: Telling, Selling, Testing, Consulting,
and Co-creating. After reviewing the 5 stages in the fieldbook
(p. 315 - 326), Make a personal assessment of where your
organization is on the path to developing a shared vision then
describe how you can help move your organization to the next
stage.
Senge further noted that "team learning is the process of
aligning and developing capacity to create the results its
members truly desire" (p. 236). Team learning is an important
component of building a shared vision. After making your
assessment, review the graphic for accelerating team learning:
http://qaspire.com/2017/04/03/how-to-accelerate-team-learning/
and discuss what actions you can take toward fostering a culture
and environment of team learning in your organization.
Additional resources and references:
Bui, H. & Baruch, Y. (2010). Creating learning organizations:
A systems perspective. The Learning Organization, 17(3), 201-
227.
Calvert, D. (2014, October 23). An introduction to Inspiring a
shared vision. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y0hWUHYwdc
Fulmer, R. M., & Keys, J. B. (1998). A conversation with Peter
Senge: new developments in organizational learning.
Organizational Dynamics, (2), 33-42.
Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: the art and science of
a learning organization. New York, NY: Currency/ Doubleday.
Senge, P. M. (2013, January 10). Peter Senge - Team learning.
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE-
ZdCDO7vA
Senge, P. M. (2013, August 13). Peter Senge on shared vision.

2. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaw_xAaxZPo
Senge, P. M., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R. B., & Smith, B.
J. (1994). The fifth discipline fieldbook: Strategies and tools for
building a learning organization. New York, NY:
Currency/Doubleday.
Thomson, S. C., & McKelvy, E. (2007). Shared vision, team
learning and professional learning communities. Retrieved from
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED497108.pdf
Vora, T. (2011, January 27). Creating a learning organization:
10 actions for a leader. Retrieved from
http://qaspire.com/2011/01/27/creating-a-learning-organization-
10-actions-for-a-leader
Vora, T. (2017, April 3). How to accelerate team learning.
Retrieved from http://qaspire.com/2017/04/03/how-to-
accelerate-team-learning/
Post #3
Kleiner, Roberts, Ross, Senge & Smith (1994) noted in the
Fieldbook that the continuum of involvement (Telling, Selling,
Testing, Consulting, and Co-Creating) indicates the level of
dependence on a “boss” for the capacity of leadership. As the
continuum moves from Telling to Co-Creating, dependence on a
boss lessens while the capacity for leadership within the group
increases. My organization is a US Air Force Maintenance
Squadron. As a military organization, being able to pinpoint a
specific point on this continuum can vary greatly when
considering sub-groups, sections, tasks, and the mission. In
some cases, specific sections could be operating at the “higher”
end of the spectrum where vision is cultivated by all members
while other sections may be operating toward the lower end of
the spectrum. Factors that dictate this could include
organizational climate, experience of the leaders in those
sections, or the turnover rate in the section. In my office

3. (squadron supervision), I would consider that we are in the Co-
Creating realm of shared vision. Our Commander, our
Superintendent, our Maintenance Ops Officer, our First
Sergeants, and I typically discuss vision, mission and goals for
the unit. Bolman and Deal (2013) note that “Teams with more
informal ties are more effective and more likely to stay together
than teams in which members have fewer connections” (p. 178).
When leaders foster environments that promote interpersonal
relationships, they set their organizations up for success. With
that being said, team learning can be facilitated when teams are
nurtured from an early stage. In order to accelerate team
learning within my unit, I would promote feedback loops. As a
unit, if we can garner feedback from all levels within our
organization, we can understand the cultural climate better and
improve our organization.
Bolman, L., & Deal, T. (2013). Reframing organizations:
artistry, choice, and leadership. San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-
Bass.
Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., Senge, P. & Smith, B.
(1994). The fifth discipline fieldbook: Strategies and tools for
building a learning organization. New York, NY: Doubleday
Post #2
My organization is definitely only at the selling stage of the
five stages; Telling, Selling, Testing, Consulting, and Co-
creating. The selling stage is describes as, “The ‘boss’ knows
what the vision should be, but needs the organization to ‘buy in’
before proceeding (Senge, Kleiner, Roberts, Ross & Smith,
1994, p. 314). A year ago I would have said we were only at
stage 1, the telling stage. This year I saw a difference in how
they rolled out the new vision company wide and I believe they
have made some improvements to include employee buy in, but
there is a long way to move toward a shared vision in our
organization.

4. The testing phase would be the next phase my organization
needs to move towards to get to a shared vision. The testing
phase is described as, “The ‘boss’ has an idea about what the
vision should be, or several ideas, and wants to know the
organization’s reactions before proceeding” (Senge et al., 1994,
p. 314). In January this year all the leaders from my region went
to a central location and the CEO presented us with the new
vision and we got poster boards and hand out galore, so we
could go back and tell the vision to our team. To move our
organization forward the CEO should have brought a draft
version to the meeting and gathered input. He could have asked
for our support and gauged our enthusiasm towards the vision.
It would have allowed us as lower level leaders to feel that our
opinions count, which is a sign of engagement. Also to move us
forward in the stages, smaller gatherings with local employees
to gain feedback would also be beneficial. Senge et al., (1994)
suggests that face-to-face feedback is important in the testing
phase, that paper surveys alone are not as beneficial to getting
valuable feedback. This would have put us in the testing phase,
rather than the telling or selling stages.
Team learning “starts with self-mastery and self-knowledge,
but involves looking outward to develop knowledge of, and
alignment with, others on your team” (Senge et al., 1994, p.
355). Team learning is not the same as team building and it
actually quite difficult. I can tell you that my team that reports
to me is currently not doing team learning which means we do
not have a shared vision. One area that my team could really
focus on to become a learning team is to have skillful
discussion. This is when the team has an intention to come to a
decision. “…Skillful discussion incorporates some of the
techniques and devices of dialogue and action learning, but
always focused on tasks” (Senge et al., 1994, p. 386). This
helps the team make their thought processes visible to all, to
challenge assumptions among the team and look more closely at
why the team is disagreeing. All these tactics put together will
help my team move forward in team learning.

5. Resource
Senge, P.M., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R.B. & Smith, B.J.
(1994). The fifth discipline fieldbook: Strategies and tools for
building a learning organization. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Post #3
According to Senge (2006), "A shared vision changes people's
relationships with the company. It is no longer 'their company;'
It becomes 'our company'" (p. 208). The Fifth Discipline
Fieldbook discusses the five different development stages of
building a shared vision: Telling, Selling, Testing, Consulting,
and Co-creating. After reviewing the 5 stages in the fieldbook
(p. 315 - 326), Make a personal assessment of where your
organization is on the path to developing a shared vision then
describe how you can help move your organization to the next
stage.
Unfortunately, after reading and reviewing the five stages of the
shared vision my organization is in the “Telling” stage.
According to Kleiner, Roberts, Ross, Senge & Smith (1994) the
“Telling stage” is when,” The ‘Boss” knows what the vision
should be, and the organization is going to have to follow it” (p.
314). Klein et al., also stated,” People know that if they
disagree…they jeopardize their career” (p. 315). This is so true
of my current organization. Our leader (I do not want to use his
name) came in and within two weeks had a new vision
statement. Usually every new leader works together with the
staff to develop a new vision statement, but this was not the
case. In fact, after the new statement came out he held a
townhouse meeting with everyone and I thought, “Yup, this is
where he wants feedback” but the opposite happened. He
directly told us what he did in his “last” assignment and he
wanted to repeat that here. You could feel the tension in the air
immediately! I was debating before that meeting if I should do
another year in the military and with the feeling I had I dropped
my retirement a month later. It was more than him of course but
I did not feel his vision and I certainly did not want to work for

6. a ““do as I say” arrogant mentality. Since I am a leader for my
section I still of course had to share the leader’s vision as we
are taught to support our leaders. My Colonel and I sat with our
entire section and went through the new leader’s vision
statement to ensure we understood the commander’s intent and
concept. This provided clarity even for me as although I
considered him an arrogant person (my opinion that was not
known to anyone else and by the way he proved to be one lol)
he did have a good vision statement. It is just hard to get behind
a leader if he acts to bossy and use other Army installations that
he “changed” for the better.
Senge further noted that "team learning is the process of
aligning and developing capacity to create the results its
members truly desire" (p. 236). Team learning is an important
component of building a shared vision. After making your
assessment, review the graphic for accelerating team learning:
http://qaspire.com/2017/04/03/how-to-accelerate-team-learning/
and discuss what actions you can take toward fostering a culture
and environment of team learning in your organization.
Tamney Vora (2017) said that to accelerate team learning
quickly organizations must adapt to constant changes. For my
organization I will use Tamney Vora’s (2017) “Gather feedback
on system performance”. As processes and procedures
constantly changes in my organization my boss and I frequently
(I say monthly) have a meeting with our section and discuss the
“way ahead” in ensuring we keep up with the new operating
procedures. For example, although we utilize the Military
Decision-Making Process (MDMP) to make sound decisions our
new head boss allows four Courses of actions (COA) instead of
three. Then after he looks over the four COAs instead of him
choosing one out of the four he creates a hybrid COA from the
original four. This is not usual procedure for utilizing the
MDMP, but it did create a panic among us staffers as this
changed the culture of the way we did things with the old boss.
The boss afterwards did say that this will be the new norm, so
we had to change our system staff procedures and our

7. environment that we were used to. At first, we were reluctant to
change but my boss within our section instead of fighting the
new system of planning embraced it and developed a new
PowerPoint slide to guide our planners for success. In fact, my
boss received a much-deserved kudos from the big boss for the
new PowerPoint slide and was the new standard of planning for
the entire unit. My boss authentic leadership is what truly
developed and mentored us, He taught us that change is ok, but
we must learn as a team to to succeed in a fast-changing
environment. His actions are what inspired us to work as and
our workplace is constantly a learning environment because of
him.
References
Vora, T. (2017, April 3). How to accelerate team learning.
Retrieved from http://qaspire.com/2017/04/03/how-to-
accelerate-team-learning/
Senge, P.M., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R.B. & Smith, B.J.
(1994). The fifth discipline field book: Strategies and tools for
building a learning organization. New York, NY: Doubleday.