This book describes a learning organization and reports on experiments carried out at four levels--individual, team, organizational, and societal--illustrating the action imperatives for creating a learning organization. Part 1 (chapters 1-3) explores the shifts that are leading companies to become learning organizations. It offers a framework for understanding how to design a learning organization and looks at the changes individuals must make and ways to build learning into the fabric of everyday work experiences. Part 2 (chapters 4-6) builds the framework for a learning organization to the team level. Models for creating collaborative learning through teams help illustrate how to work with an organization to begin the process of creating a sustained learning and change capacity. Part 3 (chapters 7-10) clarifies what learning looks like at the organizational and societal levels. It first describes experiments that hold promise as springboards to learning at the organizational level and then shows that learning can extend beyond the organization to enhance society at large. Part 4 (chapters 11-12) examines the constraints and dilemmas faced by designers of the learning organization and concludes by summarizing the action imperatives presented. Seven characteristics of a learning organization provide a template for evaluating the organization's current capacity to learn. Appendixes include 119 references and an index. (YLB)