Otto Scharmer developed the U Process to provide a language for exploring different ways of being in the world.
To transform our habitual ways of doing things, we must see them differently with an open mind and heart. We must reach a quiet, deep reflection where we focus on being present and available to our intuition or inner voice.
The power of presencing
This presencing process is challenging to explain and master because it takes us beyond human understanding. It requires us to let go of our existing mindset and have a different relationship with the world around us.
Joseph Jaworski describes synchronicity as “sensing and actualising new realities before they emerged,” Otto Scharmer distinguished different depths of perceiving reality by reflecting on what is being observed externally and from inside ourselves. In this way, we become one with the world by sensing, presencing, and realising our creative human capacities.
Think of presencing as ‘pre-sensing’ or bringing into the present a different way of being that represents your highest and the noblest intention as a human being and is to be found deep inside yourself – not out there. This is an intention you build for yourself that takes the form of leadership for your life – who you are yet to become.
Moving from sense-making to “possibility space.”
Growing present thoughts into future possibilities is a practice that requires powerful observation and empathetic listening to find the disharmonies in relationships, ideas, arguments, assertions and solutions to ask – What is possible? This involves intuition and sensing changes in your mind, body, and feelings. If you hold on to the disharmony, you can engage with it as a puzzle.
Sometimes, common sense and logic can lead to conflict or failure. It makes sense to pay attention to your concerns and see them as opportunities for new thinking and action. Your inner Director can take you to places you may not have thought to look, engage in a learning process, explore possibilities from different worldviews and attend to subtle sensations felt in the body.
How can the future be different and better than the past? List the likely opportunities and then ask – What else? What if one or more of the factors were to change? What assumptions are being made, and are they verifiable? There is no substitute for reading relevant or contrasting books, articles and websites. You could go on courses, gather opinions or look for anomalies to find new connections that generate new thought patterns.
Sometimes, just speculating about what a different story or context might lead to can be enlightening. More often than not, ideas begin with a sense of disharmony with existing thoughts and a struggle to find the words to explain them. This is not so much creating or discovering as this suggests that an idea already exists. Innovation has to come before design and operation.
Peter Drucker suggested that sensing often led to insights that could be stimulated by the unexpected, incongruities, bottlenecks, gaps, failures, disruptive behaviour, demographics, research findings, concerns, marginal issues, new rules, a mess, etc. Tony Buzan advocated Mind Mapping as a vehicle for sensing new connections in complex situations using a visual stimulus. It brings awareness to what you know and what’s missing as you reflect on your assumptions.
Otto Scharmer’s Theory U enables people to work together synergistically and generate solutions by listening, observing, and stimulating an inner knowing or sensing new thoughts and possible actions. These emerge from thoughts that descend into feelings and then back into the world of thoughts. A possibility in the mind becomes an idea resulting from sensing, noticing, paying attention, and articulating new emotions, thoughts, and actions. It’s then a question of deciding what you can influence or control.
