Theory U: Leading from the Emerging Future

On the Surface: Symptoms of Death and Rebirth (Downloading)

We move from the toppling of tyrants to an exploration of the deeper fault lines that keep generating the disruptive changes of our time. We also look at these disruptive events from the viewpoint of changemakers: In the face of disruption, what determines whether we end up in moments of madness or mindfulness?

Journaling Questions

Take a journal (or blank piece of paper) and write your responses to the questions below. Spend no more than one to two minutes answering each question. Number your responses.

1. Where do you experience your ecosystem that is dying (in society, in your organization, in yourself)?
2. Where do you experience your ecosystem that is waiting to be born (in society, in your organization, in yourself)?
3. Where have you experienced moments of disruption? And what did you notice about your own process of presencing or absencing?
4. How do the ecological, socioeconomic, and spiritual-cultural divides show up in your personal experiences?

Circle Conversation

Assemble a circle of five to seven individuals and hold a first meeting to share the context that each person brings to the circle. Respond to the following:

1. Introduce your personal story with one or two formative experiences that shaped the person you are.
2. Where do you experience your ecosystem that is ending/dying, and where do you experience your ecosystem that is beginning/wanting to be born?
3. What do you consider to be the root causes and issues of our current crisis and the three divides?
4. What do you personally feel is going to happen over the next year? The next one to five years?
5. What would you like to do right now in order to make a difference going forward?

Structure: Systemic Disconnects (Seeing)

What are the structural issues that lead us to reenact patterns of the past and not connect to what is emerging? What is the underlying blind spot that, if illuminated, could help us to see the hidden structures below the waterline?

The Challenge-Response Model of Economic Evolution
	Primary societal challenge	Response: coordination mechanism	Primary sector/players	Primary source of power	Dominant ideology	Primary state of consciousness
Society 1.0: State-Driven, Mercantilism, Socialism	Stability	Commanding; hierarchy	State/government	Coercive (sticks)	Mercantilism; socialism (state-centric thought)	Traditional awareness
Society 2.0: Free-Market-Driven, Laissez-Faire	Growth	Competing: markets	Capital/business: state/government	Remunerative (carrots)	Neoliberal and neoclassic (market-centric thought)	Ego-system awareness
Society 3.0: Stakeholder-Driven, Social-Market Economy	Negative domestic externalities	Negotiation: stakeholder dialogue	Civil society/NGOs; capital/business; state/government	Normative (values)	Social democratic or progressive thought	Stakeholder awareness
Society 4.0: Eco-System Driven, Co-Creative Economy	Global disruptive externalities, resilience	Presencing: awareness-based collective action (ABC)	Cross-sector co-creation; civil society/NGOs; capital/business; state/government	Awareness: actions that arise from seeing the emerging whole	Eco-system-centric thought	Eco-system awareness

Transforming Thought: The Matrix of Economic Evolution (Sensing)

The Matrix of Economic Evolution
Stage	Nature	Labor	Capital	Technology	Leadership	Consumption	Coordination	Ownership
0.0: Communal: Premodern Awareness	Mother Nature	Self-sufficiency	Natural capital	Indigenous wisdom	Community	Survival	Community	Communal
1.0: State-Centric: Mercantilism, State Capitalism; Traditional Awareness	Resource	Serfdom, slavery	Human capital	Tools: Agricultural Revolution	Authoritarian (sticks)	Traditional (needs-driven)	Hierarchy and control	State
2.0: Free Market; Laissez-Faire; Ego-Centric Awareness	Commodity (land, raw materials)	Labor (commodity)	Industrial capital	Machines: first Industrial Revolution (coal, steam, railway)	Incentives (carrots)	Consumerism: mass consumption	Markets and competition	Private: exchange of private ownership in markets
3.0: Social Market: Regulated; Stakeholder-Centric Awareness	Regulated commodity	Labor (regulated commodity)	Financial capital (externality-blind)	System-centric automation: second Industrial Revolution (oil, combustion engine, chemicals)	Participative (norms)	Selectively conscious consumption	Networks and negotiation	Mixed (public-private)
4.0: Co-Creative: Distributed; Direct; Dialogic; Eco-Centric Awareness	Eco-system and commons	Social and business entrepreneurship	Cultural creative capital (externality-aware)	Human-centric technologies: third Industrial Revolution (renewable energy and information technologies)	Co-creative (collective presence)	CCC: collaborative conscious consumption	ABC: awareness-based collective action	Shared access to services and common resources

Journaling Questions

The Matrix of Economic Evolution
	Nature	Labor	Capital	Technology	Leadership	Consumption	Coordination	Ownership
1.0	Resource	Serfdom	Human	Tools	Authoritarian	Traditional	Central planning	State
2.0	Commodity	Commodity	Industrial	Machines	Incentives	Consumerism	Markets and competition	Private
3.0	Regulated commodity	Regulated commodity	Financial	System-centric automation	Participative	Selectively conscious consumption	Networks and negotiation	Mixed (public-private)
4.0	Eco-system, commons	Entrepreneurship	Cultural, creative	Human-centric	Co-creative	Collaborative conscious consumption	ABC: Awareness-based collective action	Commons: shared access

1. In each column, check one box (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, or 4.0) that best represents the currently dominant operating model in your ecosystem and context.
2. Then draw a current reality line that links all the boxes that you checked.
3. What would be the most appropriate operating model for the future work that needs to happen to address the big challenges of the next decade or two? In each row, check one box, this time using a different color.
4. Now draw the emerging future line by connecting the second set of checked boxes with the second color.
5. Compare both lines, the current reality line and the emerging future line. Do they differ, and if yes, where, and what does it mean?

Circle Conversation

1. After completing the tasks above individually, have each member share with the group what the answers might mean going forward.
2. What interesting prototypes can you think of for exploring 4.0 types of operating models in the context of your own work and life right now?

Source: Connecting to Intention and Awareness (Presencing)

The Matrix of Social Evolution
Field: Structure of Attention	Micro: Attending (Individual)	Meso: Conversing (Group)	Macro: Organizing (Institution)	Mundo: Coordinating (Global System)
1.0 habitual awareness	Listening 1: downloading habits of thought	Downloading: speaking from conforming	Centralized control: organizing around hierarchy	Hierarchy: commanding
Suspending 2.0: ego-system awareness	Listening 2: factual, open-minded	Debate: speaking from differentiating	Divisionalized: organizing around differentiation	Market: competing
Redirecting 3.0 stakeholder awareness	Listening 3: empathic, open-hearted	Dialogue: speaking from inquiring others, self	Distributed/networked: organizing around interest groups	Negotiated dialogue: cooperating
Letting Go 4.0 eco-system awareness	Listening 4: generative, open-presence	Collective creativity: speaking from what is moving through	Eco-system: organizing around what emerges	ABC: Awareness-based collective action: co-creating

Journaling Questions

Use the Matrix of Social Evolution table to assess your current situation by answering the following questions.

The Matrix of Social Evolution
Awareness	Micro: Listening	Meso: Conversing	Macro: Organizing	Mundo: Coordinating
1.0 habitual	Level 1: downloading	Downloading	Centralized control	Central planning
2.0: ego-system awareness	Level 2: factual	Debate	Divisionalized	Markets and competition
3.0 stakeholder	Level 3: empathic	Dialogue	Networked	Negotiation and dialogue
4.0 eco-system	Level 4: generative	Collective creativity	Eco-system	ABC: seeing/acting from the whole

1. What percentage of your time do you spend on each level of listening? Write down the percentage.
2. What percentage of your time do you spend on each level of conversing?
3. What percentage of your time does your institution make you organize around centralized, divisionalized, networked, or eco-systemic structures?
4. What percentage of your time do you spend on connecting to the whole through the mechanisms of hierarchy, competition, stakeholder negotiation, or ABC (shared awareness of the whole)?
5. With a different-colored pen, indicate in the table what you would like the future to look like (using percentages).
6. Compare the two sets of percentages, notice the gaps, and develop ideas for bridging them.

Circle Conversation

1. After answering the six questions above individually, have each member of your circle share their insights, questions, and intentions in regard to their personal profile.
2. What interesting small prototypes can you think of for exploring 4.0 types of operating that can move your profile from actual to desired?

Leading the Personal Inversion: From Me to We (Crystalizing)

The Three Conditions for self to Self, me to We

1. Bending the Beam of Observation - Enabling presencing between Levels 2, 3, 4 of listening.
2. A Holding Space for Embracing the Shadow - The cultivation of a holding space allows a shift of the social field to happen, the mind and the heart to open.
3. Going to the Edge of Letting Go - The willingness to go to the edge of the abyss, to let go, to lean into the unknown—and take the leap.

Twelve Principles for self to Self, me to We

1. Practice, don't preach.
2. Observe, observe, observe: Become a black belt observer.
3. Connect to your intention as an instrument.
4. When the crack opens up, stay with it - connect and act from the now.
5. Follow your heart - Do what you love, love what you do.
6. Always be in dialogue with the universe.
7. Create a holding space of deep listening that supports your journey.
8. Iterate, iterate, iterate.
9. Notice the crack to the field of the future.
10. Use different language with different stakeholders.
11. If you want to change others (other stakeholders), you need to open to changing yourself first.
12. Never give up. Never give up. You are not alone.

Journaling Questions

Take a journal and some quiet time to answer these sixteen questions. Spend about one to two minutes per question.

1. What in your life and work is dying or ending, and what wants to be born?
2. Who have been your “guardian angels,” the people who have helped you to realize your highest potential?
3. Where, right now, do you feel the opening to a future possibility?
4. What about your current work and/or personal life frustrates you the most?
5. What are your most important sources of energy? What do you love?
6. Watch yourself from above, as if from a helicopter. What are you trying to do at this stage of your professional and personal journey?
7. Watch the journey of your community/organization/collective movement from above. What are you trying to do in the present stage of your collective journey?
8. Given the above answers, what questions do you now need to ask yourself?
9. Look at your current situation from the viewpoint of yourself as a young person at the beginning of your journey. What does that young person have to say to you?
10. Imagine you could fast-forward to the very last moments of your life, when it is time for you to move on. Now look back on your life’s journey as a whole. What would you want to see at that moment? What footprint do you want to leave behind on this planet?
11. From that future point of view, what advice would your future Self offer to your current self?
12. Now return to the present and crystallize what it is that you want to create: your vision and intention for the next three to five years. What vision and intention do you have for yourself and your work? What are the core elements of the future that you want to create in your personal, professional, and social life? Describe the images and elements that occur to you. The more concrete, the better.
13. What would you have to let go of in order to bring your vision into reality? What is the old stuff that must die? What “old skin” (behaviors, thought processes, etc.) do you need to shed?
14. Over the next three months, if you were to prototype a microcosm of the intended future in which you could discover “the new” by doing something, what would that prototype look like?
15. Who can help you make your highest future possibilities a reality? Who might be your core helpers and partners?
16. If you were to take on the project of bringing your highest intention into reality, what practical first steps would you take over the next three days?

Circle Conversation

Invite each person in your group to share the most meaningful things that surfaced through this sixteen-step journaling experience. Listen deeply and go with the flow of the conversation.

Leading from the Emerging Future: Now

The U process of learning from the emerging future follows three movements:

1. Observe, observe
2. Retreat and reflect: allow the inner knowing to emerge
3. Act in an instant