Human beings, born with a drive to explore and experiment, thrive on learning. Unfortunately, corporations are oriented predominantly toward controlling employees, not fostering their learning.

Ironically, this orientation creates the very conditions that predestine employees to mediocre performances. Over time, superior performance requires superior learning, because long-term corporate survival depends on continually exploring new business and organizational opportunities that can create new sources of growth.

To survive in the future, corporations must become "learning organizations," enterprises that are constantly able to adapt and expand their capabilities. To accomplish this, corporations must change how they view employees. The traditional view that a single charismatic leader should set the corporation's direction and make key decisions is rooted in an individualistic worldview. In an increasingly interdependent world, such a view is no longer viable. In learning organizations, thinking and acting are integrated at all job levels. Corporate leadership is shared, and leaders become designers, teachers, and stewards, roles requiring new skills: the ability to build shared vision, to reveal and challenge prevailing mental models, and to foster broader, more integrated patterns of thinking. In short, leaders in learning organizations are responsible for building organizations in which employees are continually learning new skills and expanding their capabilities to shape their future.