I had read The Fifth Discipline, and liked the book very much. I knew about the Fieldbook, but found its bulk to be intimidating. Then, Goren Carstedt gave me a copy, and asked me to read it. Although the book invites the reader to skip around, I am a front to back reader. I decided to read it while walking on the treadmill daily. My exercise regimen started to improve because I enjoyed reading this book in 45 minute segments so much. You should probably do the same. Also, if you can skip around, that is better. What I found is that there is a helpful exercise or two for implementing every key idea in The Fifth Discipline. This added much more meaning to that book for me, and also helped me identify and solve some problems that I had been thinking about. I strongly urge you to get this book, read it, and read it again. Be sure to do the exercises that intrigue you, because they will help you to a much better understanding of your business. If you just want help with systems thinking, there is a section of about a 100 pages that you could read in a few hours that would help you very much.