how does the new come into the system?
the past few days i had three interesting experiences that all struck the same chord:
first, at the MIT Green Hub, we convened a roundtable conversation on transforming capitalism that included some of the foremost pioneers in social-environmental based banking. then i worked with the Minister of Education and her transformation team in an EU country. then i had a review session with a senior learning and change leader of a major global company in the car industry. three sessions, three systems, one theme: in all these cases we had plenty of great pioneers that had created really good living examples on the ground that demonstrated real innovations in leading, lending, and learning. yet, in all these cases these small scale innovations did not “go viral” to “infect” the entire system. on the contrary, the larger system, in all these cases, in spite of being challenged through new environments, happened to “strike back” by some version of immune system reaction aiming at limiting or killing the new.
So the new is already there. in small living examples. and so is a new set of challenges that would require the new to go viral, to be scaled. but that’s not what’s happening (at least not at the speed required). so how does the new become more relevant to the system? how does it enter and change the entire ecosystem at issue?
have you seen examples where small local innovations went viral and changed the old DNA and culture of a larger system? what have you learned from these examples?
–otto
inspiration infrastructures
I just return from an interesting experience in S.F., a half day public session organized by Heartland. When I entered the room it felt similar to what I described earlier re Copenhagen: you feel the buzz of an elevated energy, ripples of joyful anticipation connecting with you. a truly wonderful group of people continued to gather and soon I had—like everyone else—met a few good old friends that I appreciated reconnecting with as well as many others that I hadn’t met before. as we were mingling with our coffees and bagels in our hand I noticed the wonderful space of this venue: a former military installation turned into a culture, conference and community center. huge windows, to three sides, spectacular view (Golden Gate Bridge), spacious, high ceilings, and the seating arranged in a three row circle that was a bit open to the stage, but still giving you the nice feeling of sitting in a circle. Then, as we were sipping our coffee, I heard a familiar voice speaking the opening remarks: Michael Ray, who I had met exactly ten years ago for conducting a thoughtleaders interview, and John Renesch gave some wonderful introductory remarks. Then I did my presentation, telling a little bit the story of my self, of the U theory, and of the emerging new line of work on co-creating infrastructures for societal transformation. Then we turned into two rounds of small group conversations: “Where do you feel the presence of the future in our life and work right now?” (round 1) and “What could be a practical next step to explore that future possibility by doing” (round 2). We closed the morning with sharing what emerged from these small group conversations as well as with closing remarks by me and some others. There were about 110 of us. Maybe 75% of them were first time attendees to this type of meeting.
In spite of most people in the room meeting for the very first time, what happened throughout the morning was profound. it felt like a huge energy shift (or energy generator) that changes the state of self, awareness, and personal source connection. A bit like Copenhagen. But this morning we had a little more time and therefore could take it to a deeper level by applying the U to one’s personal situation right now, right here. The meeting closed with making personal commitments for the next 30 days. During the evening I did a similar session with a different group (of OD consultants). In that case we used journaling for the personalization part of the process. But very similar results. Having seen many of these sessions in very different places (America, Africa, Asia, Europe) across all sectors (community, companies, government, multilaterals like UN and World Bank), and seeing some of you reporting on your similar experiences on this blog site, I wonder how we could use this enormous potential for shifting the state of awareness more fully?
To me it feels as if we are dealing with a growing potential for shifting the awareness. Events like the one in S.F. tap the first surface of that potential. But what else might be possible? Could we have half day meetings like the one in S.F. on a more regular level? So that we would move from co-inspiration (which we did in S.F. yesterday) to co-creation—with the same group? And could we create these types of new inspiration and innovation infrastructures across all cities and towns? How could we help people doing it? What would it take? What kind of new places and infrastructures do we need to create that will best support the next wave of social and business innovation and entrepreneurship? And how could we put young people into the driving seat of renewing and rebuilding our communities and economies?
http://www.davidsibbet.com/david_sibbet/2009/05/connecting-with-source.html
S.F. Fort Mason--picture by FireHawk
split reality: feeling the future, reflecting the past
i just returned from a three week road trip that reconnected me with a number of people and leadership communities that work on prototyping profound innovation and societal renewal in asia, europe, africa and north america. while all these initiatives differ in many respects, there is one common characteristic that really struck me: reconnecting with these emerging leadership communities means reconnecting with a very powerful field of energy. its an energy that emerges from the presence of these groups, from their connection with each other and themselves. that connection elevates each and everyone in that group to a higher level of awareness, aspiration, and clarity about what really matters. that field of energy functions like a conduit to our future that is wanting to emerge, both individually and collectively.
this is one powerful impression: the increasing presence of that “feeling the field of the future” experience that happens when you enter the sphere of these groups. you can feel the future. and that is deeply inspiring and uplifting. but then, there is another experience that shows up in many faces these days: reflect on the current situation. global meltdown. the economic, ecological, social and spiritual crisis of our time. take all of that in. and then you are either depressed or in denial.
thats the split reality i find myself living in: the heart feels the future, while the head reflects a depressing current reality. depending on whether your thinking emanates more from your head or your heart, you end up operating in a quite different world.
that said, there is no substitute for really engaging in both of these types of thinking. one of the best pieces that i have read on the current global finanical meltdown is Simon Johnson’s “The Quiet Coup” in the Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice
Do you also experience such a split reality in your life and work?
The Blind Spot of Economic Thought
The crisis of our time is not about a financial bankruptcy (which is part of the symptom). the crisis of our time is about an intellectual bankruptcy (which has more to do with the underlying root issue): the bankruptcy of contemporary economic thought. not only was the entire mainstream of economic thought caught by surprise when the meltdown started to happen in Fall 08. even now, several months into the depression economics, we are still at a loss. millions of words. talkshows. and detailed expert analysis. yes, we know a lot about all the details. but what do we really know? what do we really know about what is going on and what is going to happen and what is required of us to do now?
when i watch the current conversation i am almost in disbelieve how narrow the analytical economic frameworks are that we apply to understanding the current situation: more markets was the mantram yesterday. more government is the mantram today (although the obama administration still does not dare to use the N word–nationalization–which probably only means that the nationalization, which is going to come anyway, will come a little later, a little less voluntarily (that is, forced upon by circumstances) and a lot more expensive (trillions more).
what strikes me is how conventional the economic thought is that the current public discussion (including the Obama economic team) is applying to the situation. no one doubts that stimuli packages, re-regulation and temporary nationalization of banks are necessary. but is that all we can do? this still sounds like a 20th century mindset (markets vs. government) applied to a 21st century type of challenge (meltdown). what we will probably find out soon is that this no longer works. we cannot be successful by applying 20th century mindsets to 21st century problems. we need to approach problems of our age in new ways. in ways that illuminate the blind spot of contemporary economic thought: collective awareness based leadership.
conventional economic thought and policy assumes that the awareness (and preferences) of econmic actors are given. but in reality we know that this is not true. all real world deep change work revolves around helping communities and people to wake up to and start operating from a highler level of awareness (and self) which then gives rise to new types of collective creativity and action. that is the missing piece not only in the current approach to the crisis, but also in our way of making sense of what is going on. and that is the line of thought that our Presencing Institute iniative on transforming capitalism will bring into the conversation over the next couple of months (see Theory U, chapter 19, as a first outline).
the interesting thing is that even in the heartland of conventional economic thought–like The World Bank–you find today a real openess towards these questions and issues. why? because we deal with massive institutional failure and we simply have to rethink economic theory and institutional designs not only from a Field 1 or Field 2 perspective (that is, ego-system awareness) but also from a Field 3 or Field 4 perspective (that is, eco-system awareness). the biggest blind spot today is how we can create Field 3 and Field 4 innovations in infrastructures that faciliate ecosystem awareness, collective leadership action and profound social innovation across all systems levels? we know how to do it in smaller settings. but how does that apply to the macro and mundo scale of societal renewal today?
what do YOU see going on in your environment? how do you see people make sense of the current depression economics? where do you feel drawn to re next steps?
–otto
a rising global movement?
Friday i had an interesting experience in denmark. i gave a talk at the occasion of the Danish translation of the book Theory U. it turned out that the room was packed with 500 or so people. many of them, i was told, had read Theory U or parts of it. since most of the time i focus on applied project work i do not happen to give that many public speeches. so it was really interesting to see what would happen with such a group. when i entered the room you could feel an elevated field of joyful anticipation of the moment and the moments to come. just about everyone was relaxed and joyful. it was SO BEAUTIFUL to watch all these great people, from all strands of live (business, academia, artists, consultants, students, educators, journalists, NGO change makers, government people) coming together in order to celebrate the moment—and to jointly attend to new ways of learning and leading that are more personal, practical, relational, and collectively creative. SOMETHING is drawing all of us together here. what is it? a sense that we could create a future that is different from the past.
seeing these people just moments before the talk was a truly inspiring moment. it reminded me of other smaller moments like this in several other countries. it feels as if this might be part of a beginning global movement. a global movement of renewing society from the roots: renewing learning and living, regenerating business and the economy and deepening the democratic system.
what on earth would happen if we managed to figure out how to actualize this emerging potential–this heightened awareness and willingness to collectively create an entirely different social field?
it feels as if there is a growing potential that so far is largely unseen and unutilized…
–otto
Transformation of Capitalism (ToC)
something happened over the past few days, weeks, months. something that has changed and sharpened the context and focus of my work. so far i have always focused on very specific projects and initiatives in concrete institutional settings. i always knew that all these projects are situated in a larger systems context that one day needed to be addressed head on. i have often referred to this larger systems context in terms of “transforming capitalism.” with the continued collapse of financial institutions and markets worldwide and with the Obama administration moving into office only hours away, that moment now has arrived. now is the time to address these larger systems issues more head on. which is why at the dec Presencing Institute (PI) core meeting we decided to launch an action research initiative on that topic. transformation of capitalism is really just a placeholder name. what we talk about is the evolution of the global economic and political and cultural system such that we begin to recreate the foundations of society from a “field 4 awareness.” field 4 in Theory U is a state of individual and collective attention that is defined as “seeing and acting from the emerging whole.” (see TU, chapter 19, or this paper). so the question on the table is:
how can we regenerate an economy that works for all (rather than just a few of us) and that unlocks our full creative potential?
how can we evolve our political and deepen our democratic process by creating infrastructures that give all people that are affected by a decision a voice that inputs into that decision making process accordingly?
how can we renew the educational and cultural root system of our society such that every single human being can find resources to reflect and connect to the sources of one’s creativity and self?
as the old social structures around us will continue to crumble, these (and other) root questions of societal renewal will move more and more center stage. the PI ToC initiative will contribute to this global conversation by
–creating a global action research community of change makers that actively explore these questions and share their findings in the PI Community (a community that has been joined by more than 1000 change makers from 73 countries in less than four weeks)
–developing a network of places (planetary accupuncture points) in which these root questions are explored by doing, by locally renewing the community and regenerating the economy bottom up
–creating a network of innovation ecosystems that links up highly innovative institutions and change makers (across all three sectors) to collectively generate different ways of co-sensing and co-creating a future that resonates with our highest aspirations
–a thoughtleader dialogue forum that will stage global classroom sessions through a regular event series in the PI Community.
summing up: the REAL work is starting right now!
–otto
global co-sensing in the making
a week ago we launched the Presencing Institute Community, a global social network on presencing practice. within about a week we have 430 people signing up from all over the place. really cool. the site has a Global U map where u can see from what places people are joining the community. watching that map becoming more and more populated and watching this global community to come into being over the past few days has been an interesting process: it is as if a new web of human connection and heightened awareness is being born globally. NOW. being a part of this opening is a really interesting process. it will be a key area of prototyping this year to further evolve this community into a global community of co-sensing and co-creating a new world. we need entirely new connections across institutional and sector boundaries. maybe this platform can be one of these new vehicles that we will need to meet the challenges that are ahead of us in 2009 and the next ten or so years.
–otto
breaking the ice between me and myself
in a reflection paper one of my korean MIT students described her experience of a reflective practice in class like this: “it felt like breaking the ice between me and myself.” i read that line and thought: what a great way to describe this deeper experience: breaking the ice between me and myself. isn’t that also whats happening in our collective global crisis right now? something is breaking up. but we haven’t quite learned yet to walk collectively through that newly opened space from “me” to “myself”…. have we?
“awakening a giant within me”
a week ago in namibia we had a design team meeting preparing a workshop with the top team at the ministry of health. one of the participants of that meeting happened to be a director of the Ministry who had participated in the first offsite workshop that we had conducted with that group back in August. asked what his experience of that first offsite was like he responded by giving several examples in terms of changed behavior (leading through listening) and higher level of self awareness and self reflection. he summed up his account by using a phrase that i had never heard before: IT FELT LIKE AWAKENENING A GIANT WITHIN ME. the moment i heard that phrase it connected to a whole set of other experiences that resonate with that phrase. i realized that over the past few weeks the intensity and the transfomative power and presence of collective workshop experiences has probably gone even more up. its true for many different settings, sectors, and cultures over the past few weeks.
Mary in her comment to the last post gave her own account by talking about the boston presencing program: “the experience created a sense of personal power (with not over others!) to contribute to making the world different… I have made one or two first steps at engaging others to create the future but am still a bit dazzled by the light of the workshop. The door feels open for us to walk through- I’m making some early steps…”
Just now the past 5 days i spent in bali with a group of 29 amazing young leaders from indonesia: its a tri-sector group from business, government and from civil society that uses the ELIAS model of a U type collective transformation and renewal journey, with the intention to prototype new ways of innovating across sectors. i first met this group at MIT in september. this was the second longer workshop (sensing and presencing). very moving and powerful what happened among us throughout this process. it just takes my words away… AND it resulted in a powerful outburst of collective creativity and the crystallization of five prototyping initiatives…
what is your experience? do you also experience that the intensity, sacred presence and the transformative power of the collective experiences you are having is going up? is it a more widely spread phenomenon? or is it different?
–otto
A Dream Come True I
Yes we can! What an unbelievable week. Barack Obama is president elect. I experienced this historic shift this week with a group of 70 people from 15 different countries (who came to boston for the Presencing Foundation Program). WOW. i still cannot believe what just happend. its still sinking in. its the second major historic shift i see in my lifetime. the first one being the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. now we see another wall collapse. the wall of racial (and other) divides that seperate us as a global community. the collapse of the Berlin wall marked the end of the cold war era. what is the era that ends and what era begins in this current historic shift? something is opening up. an opportunity we have been waiting for all our live… YES WE CAN!