Images: OttoScharmer.com
Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges by Otto Scharmer
Cambridge, MA: SoL Press, 2007
From his experience with some of the most experienced leaders and innovators today Otto Scharmer explains in this book that the quality of attention that a leader brings to a situation determines success. This inner space, of which we know very little, Scharmer calls the blind spot. This is what often prevents us from "attending", becoming aware of this is key to creating profound systematic change needed in business and society today.
Theory U deepens and expands on Presence, which introduced the "U" process of leading profound change. By moving through the "U" and presencing (being present and sensing) and connecting with our essential Self, we can see our blind spot and can pay attention in a such a way that we can experience the opening of our mind, our heart and our will. This invisible dimension is the source dimension- the sources from which social action comes into being.
There's listening and listening...
In this process Scharmer distiguishes four different types of listening; downloading, factual, empathetic and generative.
Theory U identifies four places in which leadership is the capacity to shift the inner place of a system. These phases are called “field structures of attention”.
- micro, indidual level: attending and thinking
- meso, group level: conversing and languaging
- macro, institutions: organizing and structuring
- mundo, global systems: coordining and integrating
Scharmer sees that what is happening is that we are responding to challenges of the 21st century with 19th and 20th century mindset and responses. Therefore the most important leadership challenge of our time is to shift from phase 1 and 2 to phase 3 and 4.
The U: One Process, five movements
- Co-initiating common intention
- Co-sensing the forces of change: Go to the places of most potential and listen with your mind and heart wide open
- Co-presencing inspiration and common will: Go to the place of silence and allow the inner knowing to emerge
- Co-creating strategic microcosms: Prototype the new to explore the future by doing
- Co- evolving through innovations in infrastructures that facilitate seeing and acting from the emerging whole.
The U process creates a holistic opening for a shift in awareness that allows us to learn from the future as it emerges, and to realize that future.
A new social technology: Seven core capacities
The following core capacities are the enabling environment for the U process and its five movements to be realized:
- holding the space
- open mind
- open heart
- open will
- power of intention
- integrating head, heart and hand
- playing the macro violin
Theory U in practice
The regional health care system in Germany.
ELIAS: Creating Global Change www.elias-global.com
(emerging leaders for innovating across sectors)
The sustainable food lab www.sustainablefoodlab.com
Zambia: cross sectoral leadership for collective action on HIV and AIDS