DESIGNING FROM AN EMERGING FUTURE

The ‘Stuck’ Practice from Presencing Institute’s Awareness-Based Systems Change

As technologists and designers, we need to empathize, sense systems, and manage people to create innovations and prototypes that solve complex challenges with elegant experiences. We need fresh methods to:

• Answer our callings (do work that’s meaningful to us and aligns with others)
• Observe, feel, and make sense (empathize with stakeholders & users and grasp systems)
• Play and create freely (brainstorm, prototype, and “make”)
• Let go of outcomes (test with stakeholders and users and be prepared to throw out our assumptions)

Inspired by Presencing Institute’s Theory U, we recognize–form follows our focus and feelings. We change our outer reality by shifting the inner place from which we operate–our Inner O.S. To cultivate our Inner O.S., we remember:

1. form follows focus (energy follows attention)
2. our three superpowers
   1. observe, observe, observe
   2. retreat and reflect
   3. act in an instant
3. our inner instruments of Open Mind, Heart, and Will
4. to ask: Who is my Self? What is my Work?
5. to remain aware of our three “inner critics”
   1. voice of judgment
   2. voice of cynicism
   3. voice of fear
6. to exercise our Inner O.S individually and within collectives.

When we deepen our sensing capabilities with our open mind, heart, and will, we engage our all our senses and intelligences.

We access creative spaces that align with ‘source.’

When we practice these sensing and intelligences together in groups we open ourselves to emergent collaboration and generative ‘making.’

Greater than the sum of our parts, we glimpse new future states as they emerge.

Pause for a moment. Relax or close your eyes.

Check in with your posture.

Notice the quality of your breathing.

What sounds can you hear around you?

Shifting our inner awareness does not mean sitting for hours in lotus posture with our index finger and thumb touching.

It can be as simple as resting the eyes softly for a moment or taking a deep breath. Shifting is a natural skill that everyone has. We may have experienced it before a meaningful conversation, committing code to prod, or sending an important email, or making a critical swing, throw, toss, brushstroke, etc.

Listening and conversation are keys to engaging our Inner O.S. and recognizing the impact our attention has on our reality. Awareness of a system affects that system.

To design or create together from an emerging future, we first understand the awareness levels we need to get there.

Let’s use Theory U’s four patterns of listening and conversing to evaluate the quality of our engagement with others.

PATTERNS OF LISTENING

PATTERNS OF CONVERSATION

When you need to become more sensitive to the feeling-qualities of your current situation.

Suspend concepts; build trust in body-knowing. By accessing additional intelligences we gain new insights.

Feel ourselves as part of a co-creative system. No “Stuck” is mine alone. A Stuck is always part of a larger system.

Feel what is emerging, a future that we want to create.

Working together during this activity invites us to listen and share in ways we may not be accustomed to. Everyone is encouraged to be as open in mind, heart, and will as is comfortable for you.

TODAY’S STUCK PRACTICE

OUR ROLES AND KULEANA

The Stuck Observer

Open your mind, heart, and will to the practitioner.

Observe and remain present. Witness the stuck and pay special attention to your own internal sensations.

Do not take written notes during the observing practice.

Your job is to reflect what you see and feed back to the stuck practitioner once they’ve completed their sculptures. You may give them vital information they cannot see themselves.

*Kuleana is a Hawaiian word roughly translated as responsibility and privilege.

INDIVIDUAL STUCK PRACTICE

ONE AT A TIME IN GROUPS OF THREE

Sculpture Two

1. In each group of three, and in the same order as before, each person remind the others of their personal stuck.
2. Then each person in turn re-embody their Sculpture One.
3. Hold Sculpture One for as long as you need, until it starts moving you into a possible future state, Sculpture Two.
4. Once in Sculpture Two, hold until you feel satisfied then release your sculpture.
5. Those observing respond with quick observations.

• “I saw, I felt, I sensed.”
• Describe how sculptures one and two were different.
• See if you can notice where the movement first started in the person’s body.

Open discussion and reflection to close the circle. Thank your collaborators.

GROUP STUCK PRACTICE

USE IN GROUPS OF THREE TO SIX PEOPLE

Sculpture Two

1. In a group stuck, everyone re-embodies Sculpture One together. Settle into the “stuck” as a group.
2. Then the group awaits an emerging change of the sculpture. They move individually and collectively to re-embody their ‘stuck’ until it starts moving the group into a possible future state, Sculpture Two.
3. Once in sculpture two, hold until the group feels satisfied.
4. Each person in the sculpture makes one “I statement” from within the sculpture, then release the sculpture.
5. Reflect as a group on your observations.

• “I saw.” Talk only about what you saw in the sculpture.
• “I felt.” Share only how you felt about what you saw.
• “I sensed.” Discuss anything you may have sensed.

Open dialogue about meanings or observations. Close the circle and thank your fellow practitioners.

REFLECTING ON SCULPTURE ONE AND TWO

GROUP DISCUSSION AND OBSERVATIONS