What led Senge to Develop His Ideas on The Discipline of Mental Models

Peter Senge’s development of the discipline of mental models in The Fifth Discipline was deeply rooted in the work of Chris Argyris—but with some key extensions.

What Led Senge to Develop the Discipline?

Senge’s overarching aim was to equip teams and organizations to learn continuously and systemically. He saw that systems thinking—his central discipline—could not take root unless people also surfaced and questioned the assumptions they used to interpret systems. This is where mental models came in.

Senge drew directly from Argyris’s tools (like the Ladder of Inference, Left-Hand Column, and Balancing Advocacy and Inquiry) but wove them into a holistic learning framework. His contribution was to frame these tools not just as interpersonal or reflective techniques, but as part of a broader transformation process that linked individual thinking to organizational behavior and systemic results.

How Senge’s Work Was Rooted In (or Deviated From) Argyris

Element	Argyris & Schön	Senge
Focus	Interpersonal effectiveness, organizational learning, and personal accountability	Systemic change across whole organizations; building learning organizations
Key Tools	Ladder of Inference, Double-Loop Learning, Defensive Reasoning	Ladder of Inference, Left-Hand Column, Advocacy & Inquiry — contextualized within systems thinking
Mental Models Framing	Tacit beliefs that guide action and lead to defensive routines	One of five core learning disciplines; essential to overcoming structural blindness
Emphasis	Courageous individual reflection and reasoning transparency	Team-based learning and culture-shifting; making the invisible visible
Tone	Candid, rigorous, emotionally challenging	Visionary, holistic, and accessible across audiences

In summary, Senge did not deviate from Argyris as much as he expanded the terrain: from courageous individual reflection to systemic organizational learning. He repackaged rigorous insights into a broader, more teachable practice that linked with other disciplines like shared vision and personal mastery — making the inner work of mental models visible as a collective tool for change.

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