Presencing - Learning from the Future as it Emerges
Presencing is a key part of a process to create successful collective leadership and transformational change. Presencing, as described by the Presencing Institute, is the point in the process of change where we are called to connect to our source of inspiration and will - our purpose or that or our organizations - a place of silence that allows the inner knowledge to emerge.
Presencing addresses the common "blind spot" found in leadership, that is the awareness of self, inner intention, purpose. As explained by C. Otto Scharmer in The Essentials of Theory U, the success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener.
https://www.presencing.org/aboutus/theory-u
By tapping into this purpose we connect with larger forces beyond ourselves. We shift from ego to eco-centric as we realize our place within a system and how we are affecting the system through following our purpose and noticing how that aligns with the collective intention. As the Presencing Institute explains, we become open to "the source dimension from which effective leadership and social action come into being".
Be being present to purpose we also become aware of learning by sensing and actualizing emerging future possibilities. Scharmer notes that “as human beings we are unique in that we can break the patterns of the past and create new patterns at scale.” To do this we must slow down and recognize different qualities of time. One is the present moment that is shaped by what has been and the other is the present moment that functions as a gateway to future possibilities. By becoming aware of this gateway through intention, attention and listening we can build a good holding space for a generative social process.
Making this shift to embracing the emerging future allows us to operate from an inner place of purpose as situations shift. We begin to cultivate the "social field" Scharmer define as “the relationship among individuals, groups, and systems that gives rise to patterns of thinking conversing, and organizing that produce practical results.” We suspend judgement and experience empathy which opens us up beyond our normal patterns and we can set intentions for new patterns. We begin to co-create our future by exploring doing with others and create new matter as energy follows intention. The quality of the results achieved by systems is a function of the quality of awareness that the people in the system operate from. This can be summed up in three words: Form follows function. So through setting intentions on a transformational change founded on positive purpose we share our emerging future and til the social field to enrich the fruits of its collective efforts.