U Theory

A summary of:
Senge, P., Scharmer, C.O., Jaworski, J. & Flowers, B.S. (2004). Presence: Exploring Profound Change inward People, Organizations together with Society. Nicholas Brealey Publishing: London.
Part 2 – Into the Silence:
Chapter half-dozen – An Emerging Understanding: The U Theory
& Chapter vii – The Eye of the Needle: Letting Go together with Letting Come

In this department nosotros are introduced to a concept the authors telephone vociferation upward U Theory – a framework for a novel procedure of thinking. They receive got drawn a diagram, inward the shape of a U, representing the path that the bully thinkers take:
1) (At the top, left) “Sensing”: “‘observe, observe, observe’ – move 1 amongst the world”;
2) (Down to the bottom of the U) “Presencing”: “‘retreat, together with reflect” – allow inner knowing to emerge”;
3) (Up again, top right) “Realizing”: “‘act swiftly, amongst a natural flow’” (88).

The key seems to live inward the ‘presencing’ step, which they say, “constitutes a 3rd type of seeing, beyond seeing external reality together with beyond fifty-fifty seeing from inside the living whole” (90). But the authors move fifty-fifty further, clearly seeing this phase every bit a spiritual set down of being: “The bottom of the U is where, inward Joseph’s words, y'all discovery ‘who y'all genuinely are every bit a retainer or steward for what’s needed inward the world” (91). In many ways, this is non dissimilar meditation: “We remove the term ‘presencing’ to depict this set down because it is virtually becoming totally nowadays – to the larger infinite or plain around us, to an expanded sense of self, and, ultimately, to what is emerging through us” (91); “Getting to the ‘different place’ that allows presencing to occur begins every bit nosotros prepare a capacity to allow move together with give upward our perceived demand to control”; together with “The seeds for this transformation prevarication inward seeing our reality to a greater extent than clearly, without preconceptions together with judgments” (131).
(96).

The authors, indeed, link this do amongst Buddhist tradition: “Developing a capacity to allow move allows us to live opened upward to what is emerging together with to do what Buddhism together with other meditative traditions telephone vociferation upward ‘nonattachment.’ In Buddhist theory, 2 Sanskrit terms, (96) vitarka together with vicara, are used to depict the subtle attachments of mind. Vitarka characterizes the set down of ‘seeking,’ when our attending is attached to what we’re trying to brand happen. Vicara characterizes the set down of ‘watching,’ when, fifty-fifty though we’re non trying to forcefulness something to happen, we’re withal attached to an outcome nosotros are waiting for. With either, our mental attachment makes us blind or resistant to other aspects of what is happening correct now. Overcoming the traps of vitarka together with vicara requires continual letting go” (97).

The indicate of this U trajectory is non to live spiritual, per se, but to meet results. The authors debate that engaging inward what amounts to a spiritual procedure volition atomic number 82 to meliorate outcomes. The difference, if nosotros were to brand an analogy to scientists: “‘most scientists receive got existing frameworks together with overlay them onto some situation,’ land ‘first-rate ones sit down dorsum together with report the province of affairs from many, many angles together with and thus ask, ‘What’s fundamentally going on here?’” (85). And land the latter are non whatsoever to a greater extent than intelligent than the former, they are able to brand the existent breakthroughs. Eleanor Rosch, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of California at Berkeley talks virtually the demand for all scientific discipline to live done amongst the “‘mind of wisdom’” (98). And she sees this every bit an almost artistic outlook: “Great artists naturally operate from this other degree together with ever have.’ This ‘other level’ entails a different assort of knowing, what is called inward Tibetan Buddhism ‘wisdom awareness.’” (98). Rosch suggests that the play a trick on is inward recognizing that “‘mind together with the world are non separate’” (98), every bit Buddhism teaches.

Now, psychologists are non the most receptive audience when it comes to pithy spiritual sayings; thus inward price that are to a greater extent than palpable for the academics, Rosch has come upward up amongst 2 categories of knowing: ‘primary knowing’ together with ‘analytic knowing.’ The former, “arises past times agency of ‘interconnected (98) wholes, rather than isolated contingent parts together with past times agency of timeless, direct, presentation’ rather than through stored ‘re-presentation.’ ‘Such knowing is opened upward rather than determinate, together with a sense of unconditional value, rather than conditional usefulness, is an inherent usage of the human activity of knowing itself,’ said Rosch. Acting from such awareness is ‘spontaneous, rather than the termination of determination making,’ together with it is ‘compassionate… since it is based on wholes larger than the self’” (99). And:

…all these attributes – timeless, direct, spontaneous, open, unconditional value, together with compassionate – move together every bit 1 thing. That 1 thing is what some inward Tibetan Buddhism telephone vociferation upward ‘the natural state’ together with what Taoism calls ‘the Source’ (99).

Primary knowing has likewise been described every bit tapping into a plain of knowledge. The authors over again push clit on Buddhist teaching: “Tibetan Buddhism talks virtually emptiness, luminosity, together with the knowing capacity every bit inseparable. That knowing capacity genuinely is the plain knowing itself, inward a sense, or this larger context knowing itself’” (99).

Of course, nosotros do non tend to operate on this plane. And furthermore, our engineering is beating the capacity to reach that plane correct out of us. As the authors say matter-of-factly, “The employment is that most of us receive got spent our lives immersed inward analytic knowing, amongst its dualistic separation of plain of report (‘I’) together with object (‘it’). There’s zero incorrect amongst analytic knowing. It’s useful together with appropriate for many activities – for example, for interacting amongst machines. But if it’s our alone way of knowing, we’ll tend to apply it inward all situations” (99). To me this signals a potential indicate of intervention, though I hardly know yet what this agency inward price of novel pattern concepts. Can nosotros prepare technologies that are non built on – together with thereby reinforce – this dualistic thinking? My initial reaction is that blurring the boundary betwixt ‘I’ together with ‘it’ seems similar the misguided destination of VR technology. But together with thus again, immersion, which I receive got argued elsewhere is sure non a spiritual evil, does merely that – blurs the distinctions. How could y'all laid a organization that allows for the variety of immersive sense that something similar meditation does? And if usage of analytic knowing is it’s linear nature, is in that location a way of designing for to a greater extent than nebulous, non-linear interaction amongst a computer? Do nosotros always, for example, demand to live oriented around our selves, our avatars together with profiles, when nosotros engage amongst the Internet? Could nosotros live together with sense multiple perspectives simultaneously? Is in that location a way of attaining what Ohashi calls ‘alien self’?:

Ryosoke Ohashi, a scholar of Japan’s leading twentieth-century Zen philosopher, Kitaro Nishida, used the give-and-take ‘alien self’ to depict what arises when the localized sense of self fades: ‘Something which is quite alien to me enables my existence.’ Eastern traditions oftentimes label this ‘nothingness’: ‘This nothingness enables my existence together with likewise my relation amongst all.’ But ‘in traditional Christian terminology, this absolute alienness could live said to live God. God is inward me – although Nishida doesn’t straight say ‘God.’ But something that is quite alien to me is inward my ain self’ (101).

More evidently than at nowadays suggesting pattern interventions together with concepts, this department really clearly advocates a detail methodology that I should belike endeavor to usage inward my PhD. My supervisor had been describing a non-linear pattern procedure to me, that sounds much similar this: virtually doing the linear fleck that’s necessary for the literature review, but simultaneously allowing the intuition, completely uninhibited, to brand leaps. The thing that I genuinely similar virtually this department is that I at nowadays receive got a spiritual justification for using this pattern methodology. This ‘presencing’ inward my PhD is, effectively, spiritual do applied to pattern thinking.

And lastly, I shout upward 1 of the points I should debate inward my PhD is that this spiritual procedure – which the pattern community would to some extent comprehend (though maybe non ever inward Buddhist terms) – would live tremendously helpful for coming upward amongst radical innovations inward computing, which is to a greater extent than biased toward together with traditionally linear. Infusing computing thinking amongst spiritual ‘knowing’, together with borrowing methodologically from design, I volition argue, powerfulness merely live the key to genuinely changing the world.