Theory U and Presencing Explained

hello and welcome to today's lesson where we're looking at theory u a change management model by otto charmer now a core concept of theory u is the blind spot if you think just for a minute what leadership is then really it's about shaping how one or more individuals understand and then respond to a situation and if you think how leaders do this then you might quickly identify the two most obvious ways firstly what the results the leader achieves and secondly how or the how the processes and strategies they use to achieve those results however there is another less obvious mechanism at play the why meaning the inner workings that drive and direct the leader in athletes we call the why the mental game this mental game has been studied and books have been written about enhancing your mental game so you can become a better athlete yet very little is known about the leadership mental game and it's often overlooked which is why it's called the blind spot according to theory you and you need to access your blind spot according to the model to be an effective leader doing this will enable you to make decisions by drawing on your past experiences and what you aspire to be in the future now you can think of theory u as a journey that allows you to tap into and explore your blind spot it enables you to let go of how things were done in the past and embrace new ideas and ways of doing things theory u consists of three phases and seven capacities that you can see here now you can think of each capacity as a skill that you need to develop capacities are often thought of as skills an individual must learn and grow but groups need to practice them and grow them too now as you travel down the left side of the u you overcome your own resistance and as you travel up the right side of the u you prototype and build out your solutions turning your ideas into reality let's examine each of the phases in a little more detail along with the seven capacities so the first phase is sensing and this is all about collecting information so try to listen to people with an open mind by letting go of your preconceptions better yet imagine yourself in their shoes how do they see the problem how do they see you your aim in this phase is to open yourself up so that you can uncover the reality failure to truly see can often be the biggest barrier to conquering your challenges now while this sounds simple enough it's difficult to do in practice as it means letting go of the lifetime of biases that we all have to help you with this you need to build and develop two capacities so the first is suspending judgement which means being aware of your personal biases and then trying to suppend them temporarily to enable you to understand in an unbiased way and the second is redirecting which means being able to understand from a different perspective so for example instead of thinking about how you see the problem consider asking each of your team members how they see the problem the second phase is presencing and this happens at the bottom of the u where you listen to your blind spot you need to let go of any solutions you might want to come next and allow new ideas to float into your consciousness now presenting isn't about attempting to have a novel idea simply pop into your head instead it's about arriving at a place where it's obvious what you need to do you now see and understand the situation clearly and have 100 belief in what you must do now now note the presence is difficult and it will take time and practice for you to master there are two capacities that support presencing and you can see here that they're labeled three and four in total we're going to look at seven that's why we've already looked at two so that's why these are labeled three and four so firstly we have letting go so this means letting go of your ego and yourself your sense of self maybe you have a favorite solution let it go maybe you think things should have been done a different way in the past let it go let everything go leave behind everything you know and welcome the unknown the fourth capacity is letting come and this means taking action this is the first point in the model in which you begin to take action your role is to develop new ideas that are fully formed and obvious so two activities you can do to support presencing include meditation and walking in nature now both of these activities allow you to step outside of yourself and see yourself as part of a larger bigger picture which will be conducive to coming up with possible solutions the third phase is realizing you enter this phase with total clarity about how to proceed you have an image of the future you want to create in your mind now you may not understand or see every brushstroke of that picture but nevertheless you know where you're trying to get to so now in this phase you already need to make it a reality starting quickly but in a small way now this phase is supported by three capacities so capacity five is crystallizing and this means defining your ideas and vision clearly but it also means getting a small group of people to commit to the vision and the outcomes of the project as margaret mead an american anthropologist said never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world indeed it is the only thing that ever has now the sixth capacity is prototyping theory you advocates bypassing traditional planning approaches and leaping in as quickly as possible by building quick rough and ready models that you can work with try an idea out and then evaluate it if it doesn't work as you hoped change it by failing fast and failing often you learn more this is better than having one massive failure on your hands later on prototyping helps you avoid avoid paralysis of planning and paralysis of analysis and the final capacity is institutionalizing to institutionalize your project you need to scale it to the macro level that can be done by finding the right leaders and technology to take the project forward and embed it so theory u is a complex model and it really is beyond the scope of this video to give anything more than an introduction to the subject if you want to learn more i recommend reading the book but let's look at an extremely simple example of how you might begin to use the model in practice so for this example imagine you work in a large corporation and have just been promoted to a senior leadership role you decide to leverage theory u to determine how best to succeed in this new role and you might begin by listening and by using the suspending judgment and redirecting capacities now to do this you're going to ask questions from all your key stakeholders and perhaps a large number of your direct and indirect reports too the kind of questions you might ask will be things like what is your most important target how can i help you realize it what criteria will you use to assess if my contribution to your work has been successful what challenges have made it difficult for people in my role previously so when you hear the answers to this you should have a greater understanding of the issues and you might decide to perform your presence by taking walks in nature while contemplating where you should be trying to get to and once you've gained clarity on your vision the next step is to work to get stakeholders bought into it and not necessarily on your side but bought into the vision so finally once a core group of key people have bought into the vision you move quickly to holding workshops so crude with working prototypes can be iterated through these sessions serve to get everyone moving in the same direction and deepen your relationship with your key stakeholders now there are several advantages and disadvantages associated with the model in terms of advantages then the model gives you a mechanism to attempt to solve the major seemingly intractable issues of our day in a win-win way the model moves directly from vision to action enabling you to take small but productive steps forward quickly and unlike many other models it helps you explore the self your blind spot now in terms of disadvantages then the model is difficult to understand and can be challenging to use in practice secondly the process surrounding presencing is vague without specific steps to take even though it's the core part of the model nor does it provide a mechanism to improve your presencing skills over time so in summary theory u is a change management model consisting of three phases and seven capacities now unlike many other change management models theory u encourages you to listen openly and deeply to the opinions of others and engage the self in the idea generation and selection process the goal being that by engaging the self you will know with absolute clarity the path you need to follow once you know what must be done theory u encourages you to begin prototyping as quickly as possible so that's it for this lesson i really hope you enjoyed it and i look forward to speaking to you again soon