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Transformation, change and developmental levels

Submitted by Erik Mathijs on October 3, 2008 - 11:57.
Recently I asked a question to Otto Scharmer during the second class whether the stage of personal development matters for getting to the bottom of the U. Otto replied that an alternative path is that a collective situation can be a gateway to deeper levels of consciousness.

The latter works when there is an immediate and shared sense of urgency, for example when there is an urgent problem to be solved.  Hence, the effort is REACTIVE.

But what about PROACTIVE processes? And particularly multi-stakeholder proactive action? Because they are proactive, an immediate sense of urgency is lacking. So, does personal developmental level matter in such endeavors after all?

That has been my experience of participating in several such projects, including the Sustainable Food Lab, a global multi-actor innovation and leadership lab using the U process.

But, that means that most proactive multi-actor projects are doomed to fail, aren't they?

Erik

Re-active, pro-active, regenerative

Submitted by Ria Baeck on October 9, 2008 - 12:02.
I think people in different levels of development can make different kind of U processes. From where you start you can take the next step, but not two or three at once. This is knowledge of the developmental theories.
Of course when we really take every letter of Theory U to heart it is about ‘learning from the emergent future’, sensing and acting from Source, from a place of full Self-causation. When I look around, not too many people act from there, and I see myself acting from there only now and then.

To me, there is no sense of urgency in my immediate individual life. I still have a house to live in, I have a car when needed, I have enough food to eat. When I look at the wider world, I know very well things go wrong, but like Hazel Henderson writes: the crisis is too good a thing to waste! So, it is not about ‘solving a problem’ but more about letting the really new emerge, and about finding the innovative solutions that might be so great!

The terms ‘reactive’ and ‘proactive’ are too old fashioned here. To me it is about facilitating, hosting the emergent; or as Otto calls it the (re)-generative, responding based on the future that is wanting to happen.

The thing is that we don’t create conditions for the emergent to happen, if we design our meetings in the good old ways. If there is no good design of the flow of the conversation, when there hasn’t been a process about finding out what is the real question at stake, then people will tend to fall back into their default behavior.

My two cents…