Book Review: The Fifth Discipline

Grade: C+

This is the third book I have recently chosen not to finish.

Time is precious.  I am not a businessman.  I am not a CEO, or a manager.  This book was not worth the time and not worth the energy needed to learn a new language.

The Fifth Discipline is very dense, very detailed, and it makes up its own terms and then uses them extensively. 

There were many parts I loved, examples that were eye-opening, and stories that were inspiring.  I finished 85% of the book over 11 months of reading and finally gave up. 
The author appears to have spent too much time inventing terms.  He has his own name for each kind of system, and interaction, and leadership style etc...
After about 300 pages I got lost in the new lingo and couldn't even understand what he was trying to say.
Others will say this book is the businessman's bible.  To me, it is now a book to be given away or sold in a garage sale.  As my friend Jim would say "The juice ain't worth the squeeze."

Here are a few parts I liked and want to remember:

"Today's problems come from yesterday's 'solutions'."
 

"How do we see a business, as a human community or as a machine for making money?"

"If people don't have their own vision, all they can do is 'sign up' for someone else's. The result is compliance, never commitment."