Otto Scharmer on Listening

Another excerpt from Otto Scharmer‘s new book, Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges, The Social Technology of Presencing. This one’s about listening.    (M55)

In my years of working with groups and organizations I have identified four basic types of listening.    (M56)

“Ya, I know that already.” The first type of listening is downloading: listening by reconfirming habitual judgments. When you are in a situation where everything that happens confirms what you already know, then you are listening by downloading.    (M57)

“Ooh, look at that!” The second type of listening is object-focused listening: listening by paying attention to factual and to the novel or disconfirming data. In this type of listening you pay attention to what differs from what you already know. You attend to ideas about reality that differ from your own rather than denying them (as you do in the case of downloading). Object-focused or factual listening is the basic mode of good science. You ask questions and you carefully observe the responses that nature (data) gives to you.    (M58)

“Oh, yes, I know how you feel.” The third and deeper level of listening is empathic listening. When we are engaged in real dialogue, we can, when paying attention, become aware of a profound shift in the place from which our listening originates. As long as we operate from the first two types of listening, our listening originates from within the boundaries of our own mental-cognitive organization. But when we listen empathically, our perception shifts from our own organization into the field, to the other, to the place from which the other person is speaking. When moving into that mode of listening we have to activate our empathy by connecting directly, heart to heart, to the other person. If that happens, we feel a profound switch; we forget about our own agenda and begin to see how the world unfolds through someone else’s eyes. When operating in this mode, we usually feel what another person wants to say before the words take form. And then we may recognize whether a person chooses the right word or the wrong one to express something. That judgment is only possible when we have a direct sense of what someone wants to say before we analyze what she actually says. Empathic listening is a skill that can be cultivated and developed, just like any other skill in human relations. It’s a skill that requires us to activate a different source of intelligence-the intelligence of the heart.    (M59)

“I can’t express what I experience in words. My whole being has slowed down. I feel more quiet, present and more my real self. I am connected to something larger than myself.” This is the fourth level of listening. It moves beyond the current field and connects to a still deeper realm of emergence. I call this level of listening generative listening, or listening from the emerging field of the future. This level of listening requires us to access our open heart and open will — our capacity to connect to the highest future possibility that wants to emerge. On this level our work focuses on getting our (old) self out of the way in order to open a space, a clearing that allows for a different sense of presence to manifest. We no longer look for something outside. We no longer empathize with someone in front of us. We are in an altered state — maybe communion or grace is the word that comes closest to the texture of this experience that refuses to be dragged onto the surface of words.    (M5A)

You’ll notice that this fourth level of listening differs in texture and outcomes from the others. You know that you have been operating on the fourth level when you realize that, at the end of the conversation, you are no longer the same person you were when you started the conversation. You have gone through a subtle but profound change. You have connected to a deeper source — to the source of who you really are and to a sense of why you are here — a connection that links you with a profound field of coming-into-being, with your emerging authentic Self.    (M5B)

Otto Scharmer’s Theory U

Last July, I spent a few days in Staunton, Virginia co-leading a strategic gathering with Kellee Sikes for the Imergence project. I had been burning the midnight oil in the days leading up to gathering, meeting with potential partners and funders during the day, and working on my other projects late into the evening. When we arrived in Staunton in the early evening, I was already exhausted, but we had dinner scheduled with the participants, and I couldn’t resist having a few beers and spending some quality time with the rest of the gang.    (M4L)

People didn’t start dispersing until 11pm, and Kellee and I still needed to finalize details on the next day’s design. I was in a weird zone — physically and mentally exhausted, but also on an alcohol-and-adrenaline-induced high resulting from both the social stimulation of the night’s activities and anticipation for the next day’s events. When I go through these phases, my guard goes down, and I am simultaneously at my most generative and receptive. I also get very punchy.    (M4M)

While Kellee and I worked, Mark Szpakowski came downstairs and started listening in on our conversations. Typically, when I design a workshop, I hide the agenda from participants. However, this was not a typical situation. Mark was one of the creators of the legendary Community Memory Project in the 1970s, someone whom I had interacted with off-and-on over email for several years, and someone I was anxious to learn from. Besides, anyone who’s willing to listen to me babble after midnight deserves to participate in the conversation.    (M4N)

I started explaining to Mark what Kellee and I were grappling with, which led to an ad-hoc discourse on the underlying philosophy behind designing emergent face-to-face events. Mark listened thoughtfully, then observed that some of the things I was saying reminded him of Otto Scharmer. I had not heard of Scharmer before, so Mark drew a big “U” on a pad of paper and started describing Scharmer’s Theory U. I was fascinated and made a mental note to follow up on his work. I later blogged this wonderful Scharmer quote, which Mark sent me later:    (M4O)

The essence of leading profound change is about shifting the inner place from which a system operates: the source and structure of the social field — that is, the source from which our actions come into being.  T    (M4P)

Of course, I never got around to reading anything by Scharmer until he unexpectedly popped back into my life today. Next week, I’m flying to Baltimore to participate in the Leadership Learning Community‘s Creating Space VIII conference. I’ll be on a panel with Allison Fine and moderated by Elissa Perry. In preparation, Elissa sent us links to several background papers on Collective Leadership.    (M4Q)

To my surprise, one of the links was to an excerpt from Scharmer’s latest book, Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges, The Social Technology of Presencing. It was absolutely wonderful. My reading list is already too long, but this book has jumped up to the top of my list.    (M4R)

Here’s an excerpt describing the underlying motivation behind Theory U:    (M4S)

Across the board, we collectively create outcomes (and side effects) that nobody wants. And yet, the key decision-makers do not feel capable of redirecting this course of events in any significant way. They feel just as trapped as the rest of us in what often seems to be a race to the bottom. The same problem affects our massive institutional failure: we haven’t learned to mold, bend, and transform our centuries-old collective patterns of thinking, conversing, and institutionalizing to fit the realities of today.    (M4T)

…    (M4U)

The rise of fundamentalist movements in both Western and non-Western countries is a symptom of this disintegration and deeper transformation process. Fundamentalists say: “Look, this modern Western materialism doesn’t work. It takes away our dignity, our livelihood, and our soul. So let’s go back to the old order.”    (M4V)

This reaction is understandable as it relates to two key defining characteristics of today’s social decay that peace researcher Johan Galtung calls anomie, the loss of norms and values, and atomie, the breakdown of social structures. The resulting loss of culture and structure leads to eruptions of violence, hate, terrorism and civil war, along with partly self-inflicted natural catastrophes in both southern and northern hemispheres. It is, as Vaclav Havel put it, as if something is decaying and exhausting itself.    (M4W)

What then is arising from the rubble? How can we cope with these shifts? What I see rising is a new form of presence and power that starts to grow spontaneously from small groups and networks of people. It’s a different quality of connection, a different way of being present with one another that moves us beyond the patterns of the past. When groups learn to operate from a real future possibility that is seeking to emerge, they begin to tap into a different social field that manifests through an altered quality of thinking, conversing, and collective action. When that shift happens, people can connect with a deeper source of creativity and knowing. One they don’t normally experience. They step into their real power, the power of their authentic self. I call this change a shift in the social field because that term designates the totality and type of connections through which the participants of a given system relate, converse, think, and act.    (M4X)

When a group succeeds in operating in this zone once, it is easier to do so a second time. It is as if an unseen, but permanent, communal connection or bond has been created. It even tends to stay on when new members are added to the group.    (M4Y)

The crux of his theory stems from his thoughts on organizational learning:    (M4Z)

Having spent the last ten years of my professional career in the field of organizational learning, my most important insight has been that there are two different sources of learning: learning from the experiences of the past and learning from the future as it emerges. The first type of learning, learning from the past, is well known and well developed. It underlies all our major learning methodologies, best practices and approaches to organizational learning. By contrast, the second type of learning, learning from the future as it emerges, is still by and large unknown.    (M50)

A number of people to whom I proposed the idea of a second source of learning considered it wrongheaded. The only way to learn, they argued, is from the past. “Otto, learning from the future is not possible. Don’t waste your time!” But in working with leadership teams across many sectors and industries, I realized that leaders could not meet their existing challenges by operating only on the basis of past experiences. Sometimes, the experiences of the past aren’t exactly that helpful in dealing with the current issues. Sometimes, you work with teams in which the experiences of the past are actually the biggest problem and obstacle for coming up with a creative response to the challenge at hand.    (M51)

When I started realizing that the most impressive leaders and master practitioners seem to operate from a different core process, one that pulls us into future possibilities, I asked myself: How can we learn to better sense and connect with a future possibility that is seeking to emerge?    (M52)

I began to call this operating from the future as it emerges, presencing. Presencing is a blending of the two words “presence” and “sensing.” It means to sense, tune in and act from one’s highest future potential — the future that depends on us to bring it into being.    (M53)

Beautiful stuff. Can’t wait to read the book.    (M54)

The Essence of Profound Change

From Mark Szpakowski comes this wonderful quote by Otto Scharmer in Principles and Practices of Presencing for Leading Profound Change:    (L23)

The essence of leading profound change is about shifting the inner place from which a system operates: the source and structure of the social field — that is, the source from which our actions come into being.    (L24)