Peter Senge Quotes

Big doors swing on little hinges.

An organization's reason for being, like that of any organism, is to help the parts that are in relationship to each other, to be able to deal with change in the environment.

In terms of the actual curriculum for management education, my own view is very simple-minded: The world is incredibly complex, it changes all the time, and we should not even hope that we could create a general model that accurately describes the world in all its possible states.

People are always waiting to be discovered.

It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.

Success requires first expending ten units of effort to produce one unit of results. Your momentum will then produce ten units of results with each unit of effort.

No expectations, no tension between goals and performance, no outrage, resolve or intention, no action, no results. There's only one way to get a government - and a nation - to stop drifting to low performance. That's to wake up and insist on higher standards.

Mobilize people and resources to get results, Not small results but big results. Spend 80% of your time doing development work. Only 20% your time doing administrative work. Never be bureaucrats. Always be leaders.

Sometimes, what you're looking for is already there.

For so long, I looked at myself as literally a kid who was talented who would go up and down the pool. That's it. Nothing else. Very few people knew who I really was.

I have so much in me that people don't even know, and I can't wait to offer it to them.

There's always a momentum in how users do stuff. Making small changes can have huge knock-on effects for whole companies.

Opportunities are everywhere. Needed are eyes to see the pitiable plight and ears to hear the silent pleadings of a broken heart.

Half my life is an act of revision; more than half the act is performed with small changes.

Little hinges swing big doors.

New insights fail to get put into practice because they conflict with deeply held internal images of how the world works...images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting. That is why the discipline of managing mental models - surfacing, testing, and improving our internal pictures of how the world works - promises to be a major breakthrough for learning organizations.

Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire brings a small amount of heat.

Sometimes the most modest changes can bring about enormous effects.

Most of us are inclined to look upon success as coming in some mysterious way through advantages that we do not have. Perhaps because we do have them, we don't see them. The obvious is often unseen.

Get maximum effect from minimum effort.

What I really like is minimum effort for maximum effect.

What can I contribute that will significantly affect the performance and the results of the institution I serve?

Noticing small changes early helps you adapt to the bigger change that are to come

Loyalty publicly results in leverage privately.