Peter Senge

Peter Senge is an American systems scientist and senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, best known for his 1990 book The Fifth Discipline on learning organizations. His work focuses on systems thinking and organizational learning; the quote emphasizes how small, strategic changes—high-leverage interventions—can produce large results.

Quotes by Peter Senge

Quotes: 1

Small changes can produce big results, but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious. - Peter Senge

Finding Hidden Leverage in Small Changes

Finding high-leverage points is less about genius insights and more about disciplined inquiry. Teams can map causal links, test assumptions, and run small experiments—treating change as learning rather than as a one-shot rollout. Over time, this builds what Senge calls a “learning organization,” where people become better at distinguishing between noise and structure. Ultimately, the quote offers a hopeful constraint: you don’t need massive force to get massive results, but you do need better perception. When you learn to see the system—its incentives, information flows, and feedback—small changes stop being random tweaks and become precise interventions with outsized payoff. [...]

Created on: 1/24/2026