Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future

by Joseph Jaworski, Peter M. Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, et al.

Book Overview

Presence is an intimate look at the development of a new theory about change and learning. In wide-ranging conversations held over a year and a half, organizational learning pioneers Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers explored the nature of transformational change--how it arises, and the fresh possibilities it offers a world dangerously out of balance. The book introduces the idea of "presence"--a concept borrowed...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385516304
• ISBN13: 9780385516303
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Crown Currency
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Best Book on this topic

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It combines important, visionary concepts with clear illustrations and stories for a general readership. The authors present a hopeful way for humans to deal with the challenges of our time.

Learning from the future through our higher potential self

This book is a journey through our self fron the future as it emerges. The creative contribution of this book to organizational learning theory is perhaps, that is a source of sustained innovation: the ongoing synergy between the personal and the collective inner knowing. Generating new options depends both on the inner developement of individuals and on collective processes in which they mutually enact the field of the emergent future. Presence is a sort of mindfulness practice for deeper change in our individual and collective mindset, and for creating a deeper sense of real commitment of change. The U Process and its three stages: sensing, presencing and realizing, bring a group of people to a profound place of connection with one another for a common purpose. The autors write about their conversations and how to become more self aware personally and collectivelly, to transforming perception, self, will and actions. Presence help me for open my mind, heart and will to unexpected opportunities in my own life.

Read this book

While our "political" leaders are busy playing with the media and keeping the spin on, some leaders from academics and business are working on the true issues of our time. Senge, et.al., in this book Presence, are making real progress in how to approach the challenges of managing and leading during these times of great change, as decisions made today either imperil or enhance future generation's abilities to survive. Written as a dialogue, with examples from experiences by the authors and results of extensive interviews with world leaders from various fields, this book is a masterwork. Having learned from leading scientists, managers, philosophers and artists, this team explains that as we project future scenarios, and truly gain wisdom from what they can teach us, we gain the power to change the future. They further demonstrate the empowerment that is possible by inclusion of many different realities in creation of learning environments and warn of the lack of vision that wearing `Cartesian' blinders bring, when working in a global context that includes the East and the West. Introducing the "U" theory of learning, developed by Otto Scharmer (one of the authors), the reader begins to see the power of leadership based on focusing on the "whole" rather than the noise that captures so much of our leaders attention. Systems thinking principles are used throughout the book. The combination of the dialogue based style, the new ideas found in the "U" theory, and the hopeful message that we can change the world by becoming tolerant, inclusive and wise, as opposed to "busy", makes this a masterwork. It is well referenced and the bibliography is very useful. Read this book.

Worth every penny

I have to admit it, I thought this seemed like a really expensive business book. I then looked at my bookshelf and realized I had paid nearly as much for the paperback edition of one of the most useful books ever -- the author's earlier THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE FIELD BOOK, which is now required reading in just about every MBA program in the world. Peter Senge seems to me to be in a class by himself. His work is accessible yet challenging, beautiful and inspiring. I agree with the comment earlier that you feel like you are sitting around his dining room table talking about what you can do to make a difference in the world. I'd pay a premium for a place at *that* table.