Cofounder of MIT Business Leadership Lab Otto Scharmer Discusses How to Pre-Sense the Future and Create Change

Lenox, MA (PRWEB) May 28, 2005

We’ve all heard that the future is in our hands. But how exactly do we shape that future? And how do we know that we are creating something better than what came before? Business and change guru Otto Scharmer, with the help of colleagues Peter Senge, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers, set out to find out, and their findings are published in their latest book Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future. Scharmer will present this new theory and discuss its transformative impact on organizations, capitalism, and democracy itself as part of the Voices from the Edge speakers series, sponsored by What Is Enlightenment? magazine, on Saturday, June 11, 7:30pm, at Foxhollow Forum, Route 7, Lenox, MA.

Across the ideological spectrum, in boardrooms and over coffee, within environmental organizations and multinationals, one question keeps tugging at the edges of human consciousness and conscience: Will we wake up in time? Will we awaken to new ways of seeing each other and working together before we bring about a real disaster?

Scharmer and his associates took this question very seriously. It motivated them to begin a profound and personal exploration into the nature of real change. This meant paying close attention to those moments when individuals and organizations tap into deeper capacities for creative transformation. It meant interviewing 150 scientists and entrepreneurs to learn from where successful innovation comes. It meant exploring the power of envisioning new futures. And most importantly, it meant reaching for a new way to understand the depth and complexity of who we are and the challenges we face in our organizations, our cultures and our global community.

Together, through a series of conversations that took place over a year and a half, these visionaries began to recognize something new emerging in human consciousness: the capacity to “presence” (pre-sense)—to become present to an emerging future that is our highest purpose and potential.

How does presencing work? Utilizing awareness of the present moment, intention, self-reflection, and awareness of the whole, the process of presencing replaces habitual and deeply ingrained ways of knowing and doing, or “downloading” as they call it. According to Scharmer, the development of this innate ability could dramatically alter our lives by enabling communities and collectives to tap into an intelligence considerably greater than the sum of its parts. “It’s a social technology of freedom,” as Scharmer puts it, “a way to access our deepest capacity to sense and shape the future so that people, independently and collectively, can become active participants in creating their destiny.”

Scharmer has consulted with multinational firms and international institutions in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He is a senior lecturer at the Sloan School of Management and cofounder of the Project ELIAS (Emerging Leaders for Innovations Across Systems) at MIT. With Peter Senge he cofounded the Global Leadership Initiative and SoL (Society for Organizational Learning), a nonprofit global community of corporations, researchers, and consultants, who in their own words, “are committed to increase our capacity to collectively realize our highest aspirations and productively resolve our differences” through the mutual development of people and institutions. He’s a visiting professor at the Center for Innovation and Knowledge Research, Helsinki School of Economics, and a faculty member of the Fujitsu Global Knowledge Institute in Tokyo. Scharmer’s forthcoming book is entitled Theory U: Leading from the Emerging Future. In it, he elaborates on the theory of presencing.

The evening will include a talk followed by Q&A and a reception/book signing with Dr. Scharmer. Tickets: $12, students $6, are available online at http://www.mktix.com and at the door. For more information, log on to http://www.wie.org/voices or call 413.637.6000. Reservations strongly recommended since space is limited.

Otto Scharmer is available for interviews through Hope Cohen 413.637.6060.

Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future (Society for Organizational Learning, 2004) was coauthored by Otto Scharmer, Peter Senge, Joseph Jawoski, and Betty Sue Flowers.

“Presence is a timely and altogether important book. Drawing on a leading-edge understanding of human learning and awareness, it offers a simple but effective getaway to our capacity to become change agents of the future—in business, work, play, and relationships. Finding our presence is finding the key to creative change and to our own future.”—Ken Wilber, author of A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality

What Is Enlightenment? magazine (WIE) was founded by Andrew Cohen in 1991. It is published quarterly by What Is Enlightenment? Press, a nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to a revolution in human consciousness and culture. WIE also sponsors the Voices from the Edge speakers series which offers an annual calendar of lectures and seminars featuring innovative thinkers and prominent leaders in various fields of expertise. WIE has an international readership of 75,000 and growing. wie.org

Foxhollow Forum, the international base for Voices from the Edge, is an elegant turn-of-the-century public venue. Drawing to the podium those pathfinders who are expressing the visions and values of an emerging global culture, Foxhollow Forum also functions as a conference center for events related to the evolutionary work of Andrew Cohen, founder of WIE magazine and the Voices speakers series. andrewcohen.org

submitted by Hope Cohen for What Is Enlightenment? magazine and Voices from the Edge

PO Box 2360, Lenox, MA 01240

413.637.6060, 413.281.4888 (cell)

"dedicated to a revolution of human consciousness and culture"

wie.org

Social/Cultural/Spiritual Lecture

May 2005

Contact for Voices from the Edge:

Hope Cohen, Publicist

413.637.6060

[digital images available upon request]

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