Posted: May 13th, 2022

The Laws of the Fifth Discipline

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I‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍n Chapter 4 of Senge’s text, he describes “The Laws of the Fifth Discipline.” More specifically, he shares the metaphor of the bump in the carpet. Reflect on this image and description and share one example how someone in the military can experience this. **NOTE** Ch 4 reference is below. Chapter 4: The Laws of the Fifth Discipline 1. Today’s problems come from yesterdays “solutions”. Once there was a rug merchant who saw that his most beautiful carpet had a large bump in its center. He stepped on the bump to flatten it out and succeeded. But the bump reappeared in a new spot not far away. He jumped on the bump again, and it disappeared for a moment, until it emerged once more in a new place. Again and again he jumped, scuffing and mangling the rug in his frustration; until finally he lifted one corner of the carpet and an angry snake slithered out. Often we are puzzled by the causes of our problems; when we merely need to look at our own solutions to other problems in the past. A well-established firm may find that this quarter’s sales are off sharply. Why? Because the highly successful reba‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍te program last quarter led many customers to buy then rather than now. Or a new manager attacks chronically high inventory costs and “solves” the problem except that the salesforce is now spending 20 percent more time responding to angry complaints from customers who are still waiting for late shipments, and the rest of its time trying to convince prospective customers that they can have “any color they want so long as it’s black.” Police enforcement officials will recognize their own version of the law: arresting narcotics dealers on Thirtieth Street, they find that they have simply transferred the crime center to Fortieth Street. Or even more insidiously, they learn that a new citywide outbreak of drug related crime is the result of federal officials intercepting a large shipment of narcotics which reduced the drug supply, drove up the price, and caused more crime by addicts desperate to maintain their habit. Solutions that merely shift problems from one part of a system to another often go undetected because, unlike the rug merchant, those who “solved” the first problem are different from those who i‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍nherit the new problem.

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