The Essentials of Theory U: Core Principles and Applications - Softcover

Scharmer, Otto

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1523094400 ISBN 13: 9781523094400

Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

A powerful pocket guide for practitioners that distills all of the research and materials found in Otto Scharmer's seminal texts Theory U and Leading from the Emerging Future.

Creating a Better Future

This book offers a concise, accessible guide to the key concepts and applications in Otto Scharmer's classic Theory U. Scharmer argues that our capacity to pay attention coshapes the world. What prevents us from attending to situations more effectively is that we aren't fully aware of that interior condition from which our attention and actions originate. Scharmer calls this lack of awareness our blind spot. He illuminates the blind spot in leadership today and offers hands-on methods to help change makers overcome it through the process, principles, and practices of Theory U. And he outlines a framework for updating the "operating systems" of our educational institutions, our economies, and our democracies. This book enables leaders and organizations in all industries and sectors to shift awareness, connect with the highest future possibilities, and strengthen the capacity to co-shape the future.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

C. Otto Scharmer is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and cofounder of the Presencing Institute and the MITx u.lab. He received the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching at MIT and the Leonardo European Corporate Learning Award.

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The Essentials of Theory U

Core Principles and Applications

By C. OTTO SCHARMER

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2018 C. Otto Scharmer
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5230-9440-0

Contents

Preface, ix, 
Part I: A Framework for Seeing the Field, 1, 
1. The Blind Spot, 3, 
2. Theory U — Form Follows Consciousness, 16, 
3. The Matrix of Social Evolution, 33, 
4. The Eye of the Needle, 59, 
Part II: A Method for Consciousness-Based Systems Change, 75, 
5. One Process, Five Movements: Innovating from the Future, 77, 
Part III: A Narrative of Evolutionary Societal Change, 131, 
6. Upgrading Society's Operating System, 133, 
7. Returning to the Roots, 150, 
About the Author, 159, 
About the Presencing Institute, 160, 
Index, 161, 

CHAPTER 1

The Blind Spot

We live in a moment of profound possibility and disruption. A moment that is marked by the dying of an old mindset and logic of organizing. And one that is marked by the rise of a new awareness and way of activating generative social fields. What is dying and disintegrating is a world of Me First, bigger is better, and special interest group-driven decision making that has led us into a state of organized irresponsibility.

What is being born is less clear. It has to do with shifting our consciousness from ego-system to eco-system awareness — an awareness that attends to the well-being of all. In many places around the world we can actually witness the awakening of this awareness and its underlying force: an activation of the intelligence of the heart. Groups that begin to act from such an awareness can, in the words of UC Berkeley cognitive psychologist Eleanor Rosch, "be shockingly effective."

The beginnings of this shift may seem small and insignificant in comparison with the vast challenges that we face worldwide. And in many ways they are. Yet I believe that they hold the seeds for a profound civilizational renewal that is called for in order to protect and further activate the essence of our humanity.

My friend and Presenting Institute co-founder Kelvy Bird captures this felt sense in the image of an abyss (figure 1).

If we picture ourselves on the left-hand side of the image, we can see a world that is disintegrating and dying (the structures of the past); on the right-hand side we see the new mental and social structures that are emerging now. The challenge is to figure out how to cross the abyss that divides the two: how to move from "here" to "there."

This picture, in a nutshell, depicts the journey of this book: the journey across the abyss, from a current reality that is driven by the past to an emerging future that is inspired by our highest future potential.

Three Divides

Today this journey matters more than ever. If we look into the abyss, we see three major divides. They are:

• The ecological divide: unprecedented environmental destruction — resulting in the loss of nature.

• The social divide: obscene levels of inequity and fragmentation — resulting in the loss of society — the social whole.

• The spiritual divide: increasing levels of burnout and depression — resulting in the loss of meaning and the loss of Self. With the capital 'S' Self I mean not the current ego self but the highest future potential.

The ecological divide can be summed up by a single number: 1.5. Currently our economy consumes the resources of 1.5 planets. We use 1.5 times the regeneration capacity of planet earth. And that is just the average. In the United States, for example, the current consumption rate has surpassed five planets.

The social divide can be summed up by another number: 8. Eight billionaires own as much as half of mankind combined. Yes, it is true. A small group of people that you can fit into a minivan owns more than the "bottom half" of the world's population: 3.8 billion people.

The spiritual divide can be summed up by the number 800,000. More than 800K people per year commit suicide — a number that is greater than the sum of people who are killed by war, murder, and natural disasters combined. Every forty seconds there is one suicide.

In essence, we are collectively creating results that (almost) nobody wants. These results include the loss of nature, the loss of society, and the loss of Self.

In the nineteenth century many countries saw the rise of the social divide as a major issue, and it has shaped our public awareness ever since. In the twentieth century we saw the rise of the ecological divide, particularly during the last third of the century. It too has shaped our public awareness.

And at the beginning of the twenty-first century we are seeing the rise of the spiritual divide. Fueled by the massive technological disruptions that we have experienced since the birth of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, advances in technology will replace about half of our jobs by 2050. We are now facing a future that "no longer needs us," to borrow the words of computer scientist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems Bill Joy, and that in turn forces us to redefine who we are as human beings and to decide what kind of future society we want to live in and create. After the various types of tyrannies that we saw throughout the twentieth century, are we now moving into a tyranny of technology? This is one of the questions we face when we look into the abyss.

In other words, we live in a time when our planet, our societal whole, and the essence of our humanity are under attack. That may sound a bit dramatic. Still, I believe it understates the significance of our current moment.

So where is the hope? The biggest source of hope in our time is that more and more people, particularly the younger population, realize that the three divides are not three separate problems. They are essentially three different faces of one and the same root issue. What issue is that? The blind spot.

The Blind Spot

There is a blind spot in leadership, management, and social change. It is a blind spot that also applies to our everyday social experience. The blind spot concerns the inner place — the source — from which we operate when we act, communicate, perceive, or think. We can see what we do (results). We can see how we do it (process). But we usually are not aware of the who: the inner place or source from which we operate (figure 2).

Let me explain. I first stumbled onto this blind spot when talking to Bill O'Brien, the longtime CEO of Hanover Insurance. From his many years of leading transformational change, Bill summed up his greatest insight like this: "The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener."

Bill's statement opened my mind: What counts is not only what leaders do and how they do it but also their "interior condition" — that is, their inner source.

It dawned on me that Bill was pointing at a deeper dimension (the source) from which our actions, communication, and perceptions arise, and which allows us to sense and connect with a whole new set of future possibilities.

The quality of how we pay attention is a largely hidden dimension of our everyday social experience — whether it is in organizations, institutions, or even our personal lives. As we conduct our daily business, we usually are well aware of what we do and how we do it —...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1523094400
• ISBN 13: 9781523094400
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 192
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: eucomply OÜ, Pärnu mnt; hello@eucompliancepartner.com; ; 139b-14; Tallinn; 11317; Estland