Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organisations and Society gives the reader 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, Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski and Flowers explore their own experiences and those of one hundred and fifty scientists and social and business entrepreneurs in an effort to explain how profound collective change occurs.
Their journey of discovery articulates a new way of seeing the world, and of understanding our part in creating it - as it is and as it might be. Radical and hopeful - Presence synthesises leading-edge thinking, first-hand knowledge and ancient wisdom to explore the living fields that connect us to one another, to life more broadly, and, potentially, to what is 'seeking to emerge'.
Seven capacities underlie out ability to see, sense, and realise new possibilities. Developing these capacities accesses a deeper level of learning that is the key to creating change that serves the whole - ourselves, our organisations, and the communities of which we are a part.
Betty Sue Flowers is the director of the Johnson Presidential Library and Museum having previously held a professorship of English at the University of Texas. SoL (The Society for Organizational Learning, Inc.) an outgrowth of the former MIT Center for Organizational Learning, is a nonprofit international membership organization that connects researchers, organizations, and consultants in over thirty countries in building knowledge for systemic change.
C. Otto Scharmer is a lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, a Visiting Professor at the Helsinki School of Economics and an international action researcher.
Joseph Jaworski is the chairman of Generon Consulting, cofounder of the Global Leadership Initiative, and author of the critically acclaimed SYNCHCRONICITY: THE INNER PATH OF LEADERSHIP.
Peter Senge is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, and the founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning. He is the author of the widely acclaimed Fifth Discipline series. Senge is globally recognized as one of the most innovative thinkers about management and leadership, translating the abstract ideas of systems theory into tools for better understanding economic and organizational change.
