Theory U: Leading from the Emerging Future

A summary (50% complete) of Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies (based on Theory U) by Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer.

The Theory U process

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?

The Three Divides

1. The Ecological Divide
   1. Water
   2. Soil
   3. Climate
   4. Eco-Systems
2. The Socioeconomic Divide
   1. Hunger
   2. Poverty
   3. Inequality
3. The Spiritual-Cultural Divide
   1. Happiness and Well-Being
   2. Burning, Depression, Suicide

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?

Structural Disconnects and System Limits

The table below lays out the eight issue areas or visible symptoms of problems in our current system. Column 1 describes the symptom broadly; column 2 explains the structural disconnect that gives rise to the issue in row 1; and column 3 spells out the limits that the whole system is hitting. Addressing the root causes of these structural disconnects is like touching eight acupuncture points of economic and social transformation. If addressed as a set, these acupuncture points hold the possibility for evolving our institutions in ways that bridge the three divides.

Structural Disconnects and System Limits
	Ecological issue	Income issue	Financial issue	Technology issue	Leadership issue	Consumerism issue	Governance issue	Ownership issue
Surface Symptoms	1.5 planet footprint	Top 1 percent own more than bottom 90 percent	US$1.5 quadrilion speculation bubble	Quick technological fix syndrome	Collectively creating results that nobody wants	Burnout, depression, consumerism without well-being	Inability to face challenges at sale of whole system	Overuse of scarce resources; tragedy of the commons
Structural Disconnect	Decoupling of unlimited growth and finite resources	Decoupling of Haves and Have Nots, of wealth and basic need	Decoupling of financial economy and real economy	Decoupling of technological solutions and societal needs	Decoupling of old leadership tools and new challenges	Decoupling of GDP and well-being	Decoupling of parts and whole	Decoupling of current ownership forms and best societal use
Systemic Limit	Limits to growth → cultivating finite resources	Limits to inequality → embodying human rights	Limits to speculation → organizing around the real economy	Limits to symptom fixes → focusing on sustainable solutions	Limits to leadership → direct, distributed, dialogic self-governance	Limits to consumerism → attending to inner and relational sources of happiness and well-being	Limits to competition → redrawing boundaries of competition and cooperation	Limits to state and private property → property rights for the commons

Common characteristics of Structural Disconnects and System Limits:

1. embody systemic structures that are designed not to learn;
2. are unaware of externalities;
3. facilitate money flowing the wrong way;
4. allow special-interest groups to rig the system to the disadvantage of the whole

The Challenge-Response Model of Economic Evolution

Societal progress happens as an interplay of challenge and response: Structural change happens when a society’s elite can no longer respond creatively to major social challenges, and old social formations are therefore replaced by new ones.

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

Journaling Questions

Take a journal (or blank piece of paper) and reflect on how the systemic disconnects show up in your world by writing your responses to the questions below.

1. Where does your food come from?
2. What roles does material consumption play in your life?
3. What makes you happy?
4. What is your relationship to money?
5. Given the four stages of economic development discussed in this chapter, how do you see the past, present, and future of your own community and country?

Circle Conversation

Form a circle of five to seven individuals and discuss the organizational or professional context that each person brings to the circle. Ask the following questions (or some variation):

1. Introduce your own organization by relating one or two formative experiences that shaped its culture as it is today.
2. Where does your organization experience a world that is ending/dying, and where does it experience a world that is beginning/wanting to be born?

Transforming Thought: The Matrix of Economic Evolution (Sensing)

Exploring the abyss between the world of new leadership challenges, and the world of old economic and management tools.

The Matrix of Economic Evolution

The Matrix of Economic Evolution maps both the journey of our economic development and the possible development space going forward. Note the boldface text in each column of the matrix, indicating the critical factor in each developmental stage. In the 0.0 stage, “Mother Nature” is is the critical factor for the production function. Then, at stage 1.0, dependent labor (serfdom and slavery) became the critical developmental factor. The production function changes from one factor (nature) to two (nature, labor). In stage 2.0, industrial capital becomes the critical developmental factor, allowing new players in the market economy to be productive (nature, labor, capital). In stage 3.0, technology emerges as a critical factor, and with that the factors of production evolve to four (nature, labor, capital, technology). And finally, in the currently emerging stage 4.0, all of the factors may turn out to be bottlenecks, or critical factors, in the economy.

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

The Eight Key Factors: In Search of 4.0

Nature: Relinking Economy with Nature

Propositions

• All economic activity arises from and returns to nature
• Exposing Commodity Fiction
• Biomimicry
• Closed-Loop Designs

Examples

• Slow Food movement
• Community-supported agriculture (CSA)
• Local food
• Local living economies
• Sustainable sourcing practices (biodynamic/organic farming)

Labor: Relinking Work (Jobs) with Work (Purpose)

Propositions

• Expose the discourse of denial
• Debunk the myth of growth
• Debunk the myth of money
• Relinking work and entrepreneurship

Examples

• BALLE

Capital: Relinking Financial with Real Capital

Propositions

• Understand that the financial system is too efficient
• Understand that money is not capital
• Understand that money is not a commodity
• Understand that money does not equal money

Examples

• GLS Bank and Triodos Bank
• BRAC Bank
• Complementary Currencies

Technology: Relinking Technology with Collective Creativity

Propositions

• Debunk the liberation myth
• Debunk the technology-fix myth
• Relink R&D investments with pressing societal needs
• Lead the third Industrial Revolution

Examples

• Wikipedia
• Linux

Leadership: Relinking Leadership with the Emerging Future

Propositions

• Shift leadership from ego-system awareness to eco-system awareness
• Debunk three leadership myths:
  • The leader is the guy at the top (vs many to everyone)
  • Leadership is about individuals (vs the whole system)
  • Leadership is about creating and communicating a vision (vs listening)
• Co-initating, co-sensing, co-inspiring, co-creating, co-evolving

Examples

• Collective sensing and prototyping

Consumption: Relinking the Economy with Well-Being

Propositions

• Debunk Myth 1: Production and consumption are separate
• Debunk Myth 2: Consumers are separate from one another
• Debunk Myth 3: Material consumption creates well-being
• A model of communication that creates missing links between the different actors in an economy.

Coordination: Relinking the Parts with the Whole

How a Society Coordinates Itself
System Integration/Degree of Interiorizing the Whole	Primacy of the Whole	Primacy of the Parts
High	4.0: ABC (Awareness-based Collective Action): head, heart and hand (intentional)	3.0: Negotiation and dialogue: head, heart and hand (ad hoc)
Low	1.0: Central planning: visible hand	2.0: Markets and competition: invisible hand

Propositions

• Debunk the myth of the antagonism of markets versus hierarchies
• The answer to 'either-or' is 'both-and'
• An economy is not a business
• ABC (Awareness-based Collective Action) closes the feedback loop between parts and whole

Ownership: Relinking Ownership with the Best Societal Use

Title
Economy	Property Rights	Types of Goods	Bundle of Rights and Responsibilities	Institutionalization
0.0	Open access	Common pool resources: ocean fisheries, atmosphere (nonexcludable, rival)	No property rights	Communal ownership
1.0	State property rights	Public goods: national defense (nonexcludable, rival)	Property rights assigned by state	State ownership: four-year election cycles
2.0	Private property rights	Private goods: food, clothing, housing (excludable, rival)	Private property rights can be exchange by market (access, use, management, exclusion, and right to sell)	Private ownership: quarterly results
3.0	Mixed (public-private) property rights	Mixed goods (public-private): eco-system services (excludable, nonexcludable, rival)	Mixed property rights that are managed and in part exchanged by markets (access, use, management, exclusion, and right to sell)	Mixed-stakeholder ownership (organized internet groups)
4.0	Commons-based property rights	Common goods: fisheries, eco-system services (non-excludable and rival)	Property rights are jointly controlled by trust-based co-owners, stakeholders, and trustees (access, use, management, exclusion, and shared cultivation)	Shared eco-system ownership (trustees representing the whole system, including future generations)

Propositions

• All ownership forms are socially constructed
• Debunk Myth 1: Only private property rights are efficient; other forms are not.
• Debunk Myth 2: There is no third form of ownership.
• Commons-Based Property Rights
• Shared Ownership

Examples

• Landshare, UK
• Mondragon Corporation, Spain

Journaling Questions

Use the table as a mini-version of the Matrix of Economic Evolution in order to assess your organization through the following five steps.

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)

Exploring the source level of social reality creation, the deepest level of the “current reality iceberg”, the level of intention and awareness, and connecting to the source of the future that is wanting to emerge.

The Matrix of Social Evolution

One of the core ideas of Theory U is that form follows attention or consciousness. We can change reality by changing the inner place from which we operate. The Matrix of Social Evolution spells out what this looks like for an individual (attending), a group (conversing), an institution (organizing), and a global system (coordinating). The table below shows how these different social fields (micro, meso, macro, mundo) transform according to the inner place — or the quality of awareness — from which we operate.

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)

Stepping into the field of the future starts with attending to the opening of an inner crack. Following that crack requires us to let go of the old and “let grow” something that we can sense, but that we cannot fully know before we see it emerge. This moment, which requires us to move although we cannot yet fully see the new, feels like jumping across an abyss. At the moment we leap, we have no idea whether we will make it across.

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 the Relational Inverstion: From Ego to Eco (Prototyping)

Stakeholder Interview Questions

Identify three to five really important stakeholders in your life and/or work. Invite each of them to a conversation in which you pose the following seven questions (modify the questions as needed for your particular situation):

1. What are you seeking to accomplish in your work, and what is my contribution to that work?
2. Can you give me an example of a time when my contribution has been helpful to you?
3. Which criteria do you use to gauge whether or not my contribution to your work has been successful?
4. Which two things, if changed in my arena of influence or responsibility within the next three to four months, would create the most value for you?
5. Which issues have made it difficult for us to work together effectively in the past?
6. What best possible future would you like to see in regard to our collaboration going forward?
7. What might be a first practical next step that will move us onto that path of desired future possibility?

Circle Conversation

1. Invite each person to share some key insights from the stakeholder interviews.
2. Reflect on some emerging themes.
3. Invite those who want to share a story of when they experienced of a shift in the social field, like the one in Berlin or the one that Beth Jandernoa shared in this chapter. Share a story of a time when you saw a social field shift from one state to another—what changes did you notice in the field in how people interact? What changes did you notice in yourself?

Leading the Instituional Inversion: Toward Eco-System Economies (Performing)

Title
Stage of Economic Development	Coordination mechanism (power)	Pivotal sector	Dominant economic logic	Purpose of business	Company examples	Stakeholder relationships
1.0: Centralized State Economy	Hierarchy, regulation, control (sticks)	First sector: public	Economies of scope: vertical integration	Control over entire value chain	Old IBM	Controlling
2.0: Free-Market Economy	Market and competition (carrots)	Second sector: private	Economies of scale: horizontal integration	Profit and shareholder value	Intel, Microsoft	Transactional
3.0: Social-Market Economy	Networks and negotiations (norms)	Third sector: social	Economies of networks (and scope): circlar integration	Eco-system domination	Apple, Facebook, Google	Empathic but dominating: no shared ownership
4.0: Co-Creative Eco-System Economy	ABC: awareness-based collective action (presencing of the emerging whole)	Fourth sector: cross-sector collaboration	Economies of presencing: spiral integration	Eco-system stewardship: co-creative relationships with self, other, nature, whole	Emerging examples: Natura, BALLE, Alibaba	Generative: co-sensing, presencing, and co-creating highest future potential

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

Journaling Questions

What do you see when you turn around? What is the seed of the future or the sprout that you see in your field? Here are twelve questions for you to ponder in your personal reflection. Take a journal and a quiet moment to write for a minute or so on each of them:

1. What do you feel is wanting to transform within yourself?
2. What do you want to bring into being?
3. What do you need to let go of?
4. While reading this book, what has been your most important insight?
5. While reading this book, what has been your most important insight about yourself?
6. While reading this book, what has touched you and why?
7. While reading this book, what precious seed of the future (intention) did you become aware of?
8. How can you pull people together from across different systems in order to do something inspiring, fun, and meaningful—your version of a GNH or Society 4.0 Lab?
9. Who is your coaching circle—your circle of five or seven?
10. What practices (moments of stillness) do you use to connect to Source?
11. How do you balance beauty and truth in your life and work?
12. What are your most important next steps? Your action items for the next three days?

Circle Conversation

With other people in your circle, reflect on these points:

1. Each shares where you feel the crack
2. Each shares an observation on your own opening over the past few weeks (open mind, heart, or will). # Share your observations on a conversational shift in your group that you may have noticed.
3. Share how all these observations relate to the institutional inversion around you.
4. What initiative, if taken on jointly, could help to shift the field of your system to 4.0?
5. Who needs to be involved to make it work?
6. Dialogue on and determine your next steps.
7. Use the presencing.com as a resource to get tools, share stories, and link up with a global community of other circles that are “joining the river.” Let’s meet at one of the upcoming forum events that will allow us to connect online or in person.

Appendix

Health and social problems are closely related to inequality among rich countries.

Title