Theory U, Leading from the Future as It Emerges

[edina]

Here's another book about communication that I like better than David Bohm's book On Dialogue.

This book, Theory U, came out in 2009, it is written by C. Otto Scharmer.

In the forward by Peter Senge, who has himself written many books about learning, and organizational thinking writes in the forward of Theory U, "Against the backdrop of deeply shared but largely esoteric knowledge, Otto Scharmer suggests that the key to addressing the multiple unfolding crises of our time-- and the future course of human development--lies in learning how to access this source of mastery collectively."

Otto talks about the Evolution of Conversational Field Structures
as four structures

1. Downloading (habitual patterns of the past)

2. Debate (factual connection, stating differences)

3. Dialogue (personal connection, sharing and listening to each other, inquiry, thinking together.

4. Presencing (source connection, authentic sharing and listening to each other, dialogue attending to the deeper space, and collective presence, connecting to Source, collective flow)

This book is a power pak of generative ideas of how we can brigde gaps, and bypass our blind spots in communicating, and soulution finding with others.

If you're serious about building community, this book and another of Organic Community building will become hugely helpful.

If any one else here has already read these books, I would love to brainstorm with you.

Think outside the box, with an open mind, open heart, and open will.

[edina]

Here's a two excerpts from the beginning of Chapter 15, The Grammar of the Social Field. pages, 231/232

"When people experience a transformational shift, they notice a profound change in the structure, atmosphere, and texture of the social field. But in trying to explain it, they have to fall back on vague language, and even though people can agree on a surface description of what happened, they don't usually know why. So, we need a new grammar to help us articulate and recognize what's happening and why."


"All human beings participate in co-creating the complex social networks that we live in and engage with. Still, despite the fact that 6 billion people are busy co-creating this field moment to moment, we don't fully understand the process of social reality creation because it is connected to our blind spot. Most of the time we experience social reality as something exterior---as a world "out there" that is doing something to us. Most of us are unaware of the process through which this exterior social reality comes into being in the first place: the source from which our attention, intention and action originate when we engage with others and with ourselves."

Otto goes on to explain about our "blind spots", four sources of attention, and how we can work with this info to co-evolve, co-create, and so on.

[edina]

There are some clips of presentations available here at this link:

Intro to Theory U + Presencing

I'm trying to bring a copy on one here but I'm having trouble doing this.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=XMPOf4iMDe8

Yeah!!!!, Thanks Bollinger, I got it done, your the man...

[Bollinger]

Was trying to help Edina by posting the video myself but not needed now so deleting from here.

[edina]

Here's another, they are from what Otto calls the "Global Classroom"

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=pbnfpUAi_lk

[edina]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7R9ObTXFqP0

¤=[Post Update]=¤

I really should point out, these are just excerpts, they are not the whole Global Classroom lesson, I just wanted to share these here so it would be easier for people to follow Otto's ideas...

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=SPZV2TeDDus

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Oops,... probably should have put this one in here first.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7lUyGBBcdJY

[edina]

I am just so happy that I have been able to finally get these youtube, mini lectures posted, you cannot believe how long I've been trying to do this. Thanks again, so much, my friend Boll!!!

I'll keep going through things and add things here about this subject as I can.

I just feel this information will come in very handy, as we move out into our other/local communities to begin to implement the soulutions,

which I know, in my heart we are going to be coming up with.

[str8thinker]

Thanks for the thread. Book available here.

I tried reading it but had to agree with this Amazon customer review:

If you like clear exposition and model-building, you'll want to pass on this book.

Core terms are never defined, but are just used over and over in a web of confusing claims.

There is probably a good core of practical advice for clearing away noise and tuning into future possibilties, but it's difficult to boil out the practical lessons from all the guru speak.

Sorry I don't have more specific criticisms, but I couldn't get through the whole thing. As terms weren't defined, I struggled to get any bearing for a while and then gave up.

When I wrote this review there were 15 reviews with 5 stars, and I got sucked into spending my $25 based on this unanimity, and on Scharmer's status as a senior fellow at MIT (shame on me). Anyway, I just wanted to warn others that it's not nearly as good as the other reviewers claim -- unless you're into vague new age gobbledygook.

I hope the videos will be easier to follow!

(Added)
Nope!

[edina]

Hi str8thinker, yep the link in your comment goes nowhere, it just spins and spins, the link in my post takes a person to the Amazon page so they can check it out.

I own this book, it is quite big, about 530 pages. It is written by an MIT professor, he worked closely with a team of additional MIT profs and other leading edge thinkers in the Social Technology field. They field tested this theory for about 10 years, wrote the results in an earlier book, and this one was written because people wanted to be able to access the info without necessarily going to the Institute.

There is a glossary at the back of the book, I had already thought of posting some of the key words related to the theory, your comment here reinforces my idea to do so. Thanks.

One of the initial points Otto makes in this book is that this phenomenon of what he calls "presencing", has already been happening naturally, and spontaneously in people all over the planet. However, since our culture does not necessarily have a vocabulary for this already occurring process, people who are experiencing this do not know how to talk about it with other people.

And, our lack of a common cultural vocabulary for this "presencing" prevents us from utilizing this process as well as we could. He defines, clarifies, gives examples, over, and over, and over again in this book, within the context of a wide ranges of uses. It is hard for me to understand how any person could have actually read this book and not gone away with an understanding of the new vocabulary that Otto offers here. It's the whole point of the book.

I'll post a few key word glossary definitions, next.

Thanks for your input.

[edina]

A few key words from glossary:

Presencing - To sense, to tune in, and act from one's highest future potential--the future that depends on us to bring it into being. Presencing blends the words "presence" and "sensing" and works through "seeing from our deepest source."

Open Heart - The capacity to redirect attention and to use one's heart as an organ of perception ("seeing with the heart"); to shift the place from which your perception happens to the other or to the field/whole; to access our sources of EQ (emotional intelligence)

Open mind - The capacity to suspend judgement to inquire; to see something with fresh eyes; to access our sources of IQ (intellectual intelligence)

Open will - The capacity to let-go of one's old identities and intentions and tune into the future that is seeking to emerge through me or us; to let-go of our old self and to let-come our emerging authentic Self; to access our sources of SQ (spiritual intelligence)

Social fields - The totality of connections through which the participants of a given system relate, converse, think, and act together.

Social grammer - The hidden rules, structures, and inflection points that enable certain types of evolution and emergence to happen. This term comes from a conversation the author (Otto)had with Reinhard Kahl.

Tacit Knowledge - embodied knowledge

Self-transcending Knowledge - Not-yet-embodied knowledge; such as inspiration in action or intuition in action.

Structure of Attention - The quality of our attention,which differs depending on the position from where our attention originates relative to the organisational boundary of the observer, ( I-in-me, I-in-it, I-in-you, I-in-now) (edina's note, these are the circles and dots in the posted video clips)

Learning - there are two types of learning: learning from the past and learning from the future as it emerges. Learning from the past is based on the normal learning cycle (act,observe, reflect, plan, act), while learning from the future as it emerges is based on the process and practice of presencing (suspending, redirecting, letting go, letting come, envisioning, enacting, embodying)

Feldgang - a field walk

Field - The total set of connections that are mutually interdependent.

These are just a few to get started, there are three pages of these at the back of the book