Personal mastery is the second of the five disciplines advocated by Senge. It emphasises that the development of staff within an organisation is not just good for business but has intrinsic value to the individuals in the organisation. People like learning to be good at things. Why do they like it? They like it because they like it. Some of the ideas around supporting the development of personal mastery may seem to be somewhat idealistic. Again, you are invited to read the book itself to develop your own judgement on this. Personal mastery starts with some very key assumptions or starting points.

Key themes

• Theories of organisational development need to have an explicit set of ideas as to why staff learn new skills. Senge argues that this is intrinsically rewarding for people.
• Learning happens more easily in people when work connects with their own sense of purpose. Purpose is different from vision. For example, a purpose could be to make the world a better place for children to grow up in. The vision might be what the organisation could do to contribute to that. For organisations, it is important to be interested in the perceived purpose of their staff.
• Learning may be inhibited by feelings of powerlessness and by negative beliefs about whether the vision of where a person wants to get to can be achieved.
• Organisations need to have an explicit psychology about how people function. Senge advocates for a balance between reason and intuition, a recognition for the role of the sub-conscious and for the place of compassion in supporting individual development and 'mastery'.

Implications for AMBIT

1. Mentalization invites curiosity as to why people do things. Senge's approach similarly places investment in people's intrinsic motivation (or sense of purpose) at the centre of the organisation.
2. AMBIT is an open system which explicitly advocates for on-going development of the approach. This is dependent on supporting the development of those working in AMBIT teams to be able to improve the models by moving form positions of powerlessness to an increasing sense of 'mastery'.