In his book, Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges, Otto Scharmer introduces the idea of presencing. Presencing comes from two words combined presence (presence) and sensing (sensing). Presencing state of consciousness characterized by a high level that allows individuals and organizations to change the inner place (the inside) its existence. When this change occurs, a person or organization able to bring the future space. The essence of leadership according to Theory U is the ability to facilitate change in a person or organization to capture and explore the future with great creativity.
The following text will guide you get a brief description of what it is and how to apply the theory of U in the context of the facilitation process both at the individual, organization or community.
We are facing an increasingly uncertain life and erratic. Living systems is characterized by failure of giant institutions and together we create situations that we do not want such a change iklik, HIV / AIDS epidemic, famine, poverty, violence, terrorism, genocide of indigenous peoples, environmental degradation and collapse of living systems – the foundation of social, economic, ecological, and spiritual welfare.
It is time, you are called to create a new awareness and a new collective leadership to overcome the challenges in advance. Where possible our new ability to create a different future and better.
Illuminate the “Blind Spot” (Weakness)
Why are our efforts to face the challenges of age often fail? Why are we stuck in so many holes today? The cause of our collective failure is that we are blind to the dimensions of leadership and transformational change more deeply. This weakness not only in the collective leadership but also in everyday social interaction. We are blind to the source dimension (first dimension), the place of effective leadership and social action materialized.
We have a lot to know about what leaders do and how they do it. But we know little concerning inner energy, the source of their decision.
Successful leadership depends on the quality of attention and intention to bring in what circumstances. Two leaders in the same situation, doing the same thing, can bring very different results, depending on their inner leader.
The nature of mysticism is the leader of a mystery to us. We know something about the inner dimensions of athletes because many studies have been done on what happens in the mind and imagination of an athlete in preparation for a competitive event. This knowledge has encouraged practices that are designed to enhance athletic performance from the “inside out”.
But in the arena of management and leading transformational change, we know little about the inner dimension, and very rarely specific techniques are applied to improve management performance from the inside out. In short, the lack of knowledge is a “blind spot” in our approach to leadership and management.
Understanding with the Slow-Slow
In essence, leadership is shaping up and moving how individuals and groups view and then respond in a particular situation. The problem is that most leaders can not recognize, let alone change, how the organizational structure of the habit of attention to something.
To know the habits of attention to organizational structures, leaders must be able to hear and listen with the mind, heart and soul. So far there are four types of listening that disenaraikan below.
Learning to recognize and pay attention to the cultural habits of any business requires, among other things, certain types of listening. More than a decade of observing human interaction in organizations, I found four types of listening.
1. Listening 1: Downloading
“Yes, I already knew about it”. This is the type of downloading listen – listen while reinforcing the habit of judging. When you hear something and then assess what you already know you’re done downloading eat.
When you are in a situation where all that happens confirms what you already know, you listen with “downloading”.
2. Listening 2: The Facts
“Oh, look at that!” The second type of listening by looking at the facts or focus on an object. On the way to listen to the type of factual, you do not do assessments but looking at the data, stories and facts presented. You focus on what is different or new. This type is suitable as a hearing called by way of science. Let the data speak.
3. Listening 3: Empathy
“Yes, I know how you feel”. A deeper level of listening is listening with the heart. When we are in a real dialogue and really pay attention, we become aware of a major shift from where we first listen. We move from looking at the world of objects, figures, and facts (“it-world”) to listen to stories of life and self-development (“you-world”).
Sometimes, when we say “I know how you feel”, our emphasis is on what kind of mental or abstract knowledge. To really get to feel what he feels people are talking, we must have empathy or open heart.
Leaving open the hearts of high interest in something. In situations like that we can activate a sense of empathy. In these circumstances we forget our selfhood and begin to see the situation through the eyes of others.
4. Listening 4: generative
“I can not express what I experienced with the words. The whole of me slowed down. I feel more calm and present and more to me actually. I connected with something greater than myself”. This type of listening is to move beyond the present and connects us to the emergence of a deeper nature. Listening level is known as a generative listening or hearing of the future dimension.
Generative listening level not only requires an open heart, but the will of the open (letting go). We do not see anything from inside or outside we have exceeded them. We see from the future. Often people refer to as a blessing, wisdom, enlightenment and so forth.
When you operate on a typology of listening, there are conversations that reaffirm what you already know. You reaffirm your thinking habits: “This again! This again”. When you operate on the typology of listening to 2, you do not affirm what you already know and try to identify what is new: “It looks different today”. When you choose to operate in the typology of listening to 3, perspektifmu is directed to look at the situation from the eyes of others: “I really understand how you feel. I can feel it”. Then, when you operate on the typology of listening to 4, you realize at the end of the conversation, you will not be the same person during the initial start up a conversation. You have gone through major changes that have connected you to a deeper source of knowledge, including knowledge of future possibilities and the discovery of human greatness.
Attention and awareness in
The condition of the deepest attention and awareness are well known to world-class athletes in the sport. For example, Bill Russell, a key player in the most successful basketball team that ever existed (Boston Celtics, who won 11 championships in 13 years), describes her experience playing in the Celtics as follows:
“Often the Celtics game would heat up to more than physical or mental game, and it will feel magical. The feeling was hard to explain, and I never talk about it when playing. As it happens, I can feel my game to a new level. It rarely happens and lasted from five minutes to a quarter of an hour, or more. Three or four games is not enough. It does not just surround me and the other Celtics, but also the other team’s players and even referees.
At that special level, all the odd things happen: The game is very competitive but I do not feel competitive, it is itself a miracle. I exert maximum capacity, filling the lungs while running, but I do not feel pain. The game will be very fast so that each trick, breakthroughs, and will oper surprising but it would not surprise me. As if we were playing in slow motion. During the magic, I can feel how the next game will evolve and where the next shot will occur. Even before the other team brings the ball, I can feel it I wanted to scream to the other colleagues – unless I knew all would change if I do it. My prediction is consistently true, and I always felt not only knew the Celtics by heart, but also opposing players, and that they also know me. Many times in my career I felt humbled and excited, but this moment is what makes me ‘goose bumps’.
In five or ten events, when the game ends at a special rate, I really do not care who wins. If we lose, I will remain free and high like an eagle in the sky. ”
(William F. Russell, Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opionated Man, 1979)
According to the description of Russell, as you move toward peak performance, you will experience a slow-moving time, more space, the kind of panoramic perception, and there are no boundaries between people, even with people on the opposing team.
When top athletes and winning teams worldwide began working with refined techniques to reach peak performance, in which Russell’s experience is more likely to occur, are leaders of organizations or communities operate without this technique – or of course, without the realization that techniques exist.
Become effective leaders, we must understand the terrain, or mind, from which they operate. Theory U identifies four “field structures of attention”, the result is four different ways to operate. Structural differences affect not only the way we listen to but also how group members communicate with each other, and how institutions shape the geometry of their strength.
Albert Einstein said that problems can not be solved with the same level of consciousness with consciousness while making it. If we look at the challenges of the 21st century with a reactive mindset that better reflect the reality of 19th and 20th centuries, we can increase frustration, cynicism, and anger. Through the four meta-processes, we see the need to learn to respond from the generative source.
In conclusion, the way we look at the situation, individually and collectively, determine the path taken by the system and how it appears. In the fourth level – personal, group, institutional, and global – a shift from reactive responses and quick fixes at the level of symptoms (fields 1 and 2) a generative response that identifies the root of systemic problems (areas 3 and 4) is the most important leadership challenges.
U: One Process, Five Steps
To move from a reactive response fields 1 and 2 into the field of generative response 3 or 4, we have to travel. In an interview on innovation projects and major changes which included many practitioners describe various basic elements of this journey. One person who works is Brian Arthur, chief inventor economic groups in the Santa Fe Institute. When Joseph Jaworski and I visited him, he explained to us that there are two sources of cognition are two fundamentally different. The first is an application framework that already exists (downloading) and others are accessing the knowledge within. All innovations in science, business, and society based on the latter, not the kind of everyday cognition downloading. So, we ask “how to do it? If I want to learn as an organization or as individuals, what should I do?” He responded by inviting us to walk through three core steps.
The first step is that he called to observe, observe, observe. The point is to stop downloading and start listening. Stop doing surgery that has become our habit and let us go into places with the highest potential, a very important place in the situation we face.
The second movement Brian Arthur refers to as “step back and reflect: allow inner knowing to appear.” Go to where the silence in which knowledge comes to the surface. We listen to everything that we learned during the “observe, observe,” and we deliver what you want appears. We give special attention to the role and our own journey.
The third movement, according to Brian Arthur, is about to act instantly. This means to build a new foundation to explore the future by way of acting. To make a little foundation for the future that allows for direct testing and experimentation.
The whole process – watching, observing, accessing resources and knowledge silence, act immediately – I mean as a process of U can therefore be described and understood as a journey of U. In a practical context, the journey usually takes the form U two additional steps: the initial phase of building a common base (co-initiating) and phase inference that focus on reviewing, maintaining, and advancing practical results (co-evolving).
