Senge described the characteristics of organisations which were in his phrase 'learning disabled'. These were:-

• I am my position. - the focus of individual staff being on doing their job well without consideration of the wider purpose.
• The enemy is out there - focus on external factors outside of control
• The illusion of taking charge - the tendency for management to become increasingly 'proactive' in difficult situations, often making things worse.
• The fixation on events- focus on short term performance rather than longer term strategy
• The parable of the boiled frog - not noticing small but important changes in the system which over time will be critical to organisational prosperity.
• The delusion of learning from experience - many of the most important decisions are the ones in which the impact of the decision will only be realized after several years. Not easy to learn from these.
• The myth of the management team - management teams rarely function as a team and often individual managers mainly concerned about protecting their part of the organisation.