It seems to me that many of us spend a lot of our time trying to be all things to all people. Does this resonate with you? We have made many commitments, or have several irons in the fire, as they say, and yet are not getting traction in any one area.
I understand this, and support the process of trying on different hats and exploring possibilities when we want to create something new. In fact, that is one of my practices – Shift Out of Normal to Experience New Possibilities. So, I’m good with that. My next two practices, however, are about paying attention and going with the energy. This helps us to focus our attention and our energy on what actually “wants” to be born – to listen to what life calls us to do. This is where I think we sometimes get lost. Instead of focusing, we end up diffusing our energy and not seeing any real movement forward.
In his book, Theory U, Leading from the Future as It Emerges, C. Otto Scharmer presents some practices that not only mirror my own practices, but provide a way to ensure that we are connecting with our true potential – our authentic dimension and all the information, wisdom and power that come with that – and also use that to move with the ball as it goes forward.
This book is content-rich and presented in an academic framework. He interviewed hundreds of people from all around the world, and is doing some work based on his Theory U approach. It took me months to get through it. I wanted to read it because I wanted to learn of others’ approaches to bringing this kind of leadership into the world, for business, academia, or any other industry. I wanted to see what I could apply to my own work, learning from great minds who are open and have adopted this kind of leadership model.
In Chapter 21, Scharmer presents his Principles and Practices of “Presencing” for Leading Profound Innovation and Change. He breaks these down into five processes that move through the U – co-initiating, co-sensing, co-presencing, co-creating and co-evolving. He then presents 24 practices that support these. My process involves three principles and seven practices. No wonder I had a bit of a time getting through these! But, I was so happy to read that while he had much more detail and objective evidence to support his theory, our approaches were very congruent.
Here are Scharmer’s first few practices:
1. Attend: Listen to what life calls you to do. He recommends we take four minutes each evening and review our day as if looking at ourselves from the outside. We pay attention to how we interacted with others and what information we picked up. We do this without judging ourselves or others – we just observe.
2. Connect: Listen to and dialogue with interesting players in the field. Here is where we listen to our inner voice, and to the people we connect with. We persevere even if we receive information that is not in keeping with our original intention, because often there is a time-lag between conception and manifestation. And, we continue to nurture and maintain our original “holding space” until the messenger shows up with an invitation to do something we can’t “not” do.
3. Co-initiate a diverse core group that inspires a common intention. In this practice, we create a checklist that sparks a common intention among the diverse core players, trusting our heart’s intelligence when connecting with people and exploring possibilities.
What these practices do is put you in a position to start to listen to what life calls you to do. Living or leading from this position means letting go of any sense of “control,” and “allowing” the future to pull us forward. It requires us to choose to trust the process.
I can say, from personal and professional experience, that this works. And if we do this, the outcome is much better than had we tried to force things to work based on our own limited understanding. It also helps us stay focused and on track, not scattered, because “the way” becomes so clear that it seems foolish to do anything else. Plus, it’s much more fun, and who doesn’t like that?!
True Potential Tip
Listen to what life calls you to do. Set aside your normal way of doing things, just for an hour, or a day, and try Scharmer’s first three practices, or my seven practices. See what happens.
Life was calling me to get more exercise! Here I am on North Mountain in Phoenix enjoying the weather and the view. Love it!