Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society (Hardcover)

~ Peter M. Senge (Author), C. Otto Scharmer (Author), (Author), (Author)
Key Phrases: requiem scenario, larger intention, grand will, Betty Sue, Science Performed, Mind of Wisdom (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Presence can be read as a both a guide and a challenge to leaders in business, education, and government to transform their institutions into powerful agents of change in a world increasingly out of balance. Since business is the most powerful institution in the world today, the authors argue, it must play a key role in solving global societal problems. Yet so many institutions seem to run people rather than the other way around. In this illuminating book, the authors seek to understand why people don't change systems and institutions even when they pose a threat to society, and examine why institutional change is so difficult to attain.

The authors view large institutions such as global corporations as a new species that are affecting nearly all other life forms on the planet. Rather than look at these systems as merely the extension of a few hyper-powerful individuals, they see them as a dynamic organisms with the potential to learn, grow, and evolve--but only if people exert control over them and actively eliminate their destructive aspects. "But until that potential is activated," they write, "industrial age institutions will continue to expand blindly, unaware of their part in a larger whole or of the consequences of their growth." For global institutions to be recreated in positive ways, there must be individual and collective levels of awareness, followed by direct action. Raising this awareness is what Presence seeks to achieve. Drawing on the insights gleaned from interviews with over 150 leading scientists, social leaders, and entrepreneurs, the authors emphasize what they call the "courage to see freshly"--the ability to view familiar problems from a new perspective in order to better understand how parts and wholes are interrelated.

This is not a typical business book. Mainly theoretical, it does not offer specific tips that organizational managers or directors can apply immediately; rather, it offers powerful tools and ideas for changing the mindset of leaders and unlocking the latent potential to "develop awareness commensurate with our impact, wisdom in balance with our power." --Shawn Carkonen

Review

Critical Acclaim for Presence

“A remarkable book, Presence is a journey from the present to an unknown future, a journey of exploration rather than dogma, and a journey toward a vision of humanity at its highest. Like a good documentary film, Presence is a book with ‘emotional truth,’ a wonderful combination of intellectual and visceral experience.”
—Robert Fritz, author of The Path of Least Resistance

“At this turbulent juncture in human history, a whole new set of social innovations promises to shift humanity away from its destructive path towards a brighter planetary civilization. Presencing and its U process is one of the most profound. It provides all who want to change the world not only with profound hope, but with a systematic and effective way to birth a sustainable planetary society.”
—Nicanor Perlas, recipient of the 2003 Alternative Nobel Prize and the U.N. Environmental Program Global 500 Award

“If you believe, as I do, that an organization is ultimately a human community, then nothing is more important than how we sense our future and act to create it together. This is something all creative business leaders know yet have found almost impossible to talk about—until Presence.”
—Rich Teerlink, CEO (retired), Harley-Davidson

“Presence is a timely and altogether important book. Drawing on a leading-edge understanding of human learning and awareness, it offers a simple but effective getaway to our capacity to become change agents of the future—in business, work, play, and relationships. Finding our presence is finding the key to creative change and to our own future.”
—Ken Wilber, author of A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality

“Presence is remarkable in at least t... --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 289 pages
• Publisher: Broadway Business (August 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038551624X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385516242
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #27,026 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

143 of 159 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Smart, Self-Absorbed Taped Conversation Unlinked to Work of Others, September 18, 2005

By	Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This is a fairly annoying book if you are at all well-read, and especially so if you read Charles Hampden-Turner's Radical Man: The Process of Psycho-Social Development. in the 1970's and are familiar with a sampling of Eastern "connectedness" thought as well as the range of human and global problems and solutions literature running from the Club of Rome to the econological economics of Herman Daly to the integrative science and humanities of E.O. Wilson and Margaret Wheatley to the World Bank and United Nations global studies.

The book is especially annoying because it is so self-absorbed and undisciplined in its presentation. Essentially, four smart people, each a world-class performer in their narrow domain (and familiar with the standard range of knowledge management and futures forecasting literature), but not at all well-read across either the spiritual or the ecological and game of nations literature, cooked up a plan for tape-recording their conversations and turning it into a book

The book is double-spaced throughout, and its obliviousness to the larger body of literature created in me, as I moved from chapter to chapter looking for gems, a growing sense of impatience and annoyance.

The "U" is a cute idea if you have not heard of self-awareness, collective intelligence, synergy (an over-used word, but one that existed with meaning long before this book or the "U"), or informal "think globally, act locally" that the Co-Evolution Quarterly and Whole Earth Review were pioneering long before these authors decided it would be cool to fund their reflections among themselves.

Don't waste your time or money. Instead, buy Charles Hampden Turner's Radical Man: The Process of Psycho-Social Development. Robert Buckman's Building a Knowledge-Driven Organization and any of Margaret Wheatley's books. This book is a very weak and rather poorly executed second-hand rendition of the thoughts of others, both those the authors' have been exposed to, and the many others the authors have not bothered to read into.

There is one serious thought in this book that bears quotation. It is on page 216. "At the heart of the challenge facing HP--and lots of other businesses--is the way information moves around the world. In order to grow in line with our business, new ways of experiencing information will be needed. When Humberto says that 'love is the only emotion that expands intelligence,' it reminds us that legitimacy and trust are crucial for the free flow of information and for how information gets transformed into value." Perhaps I expect too much, but the fact that the authors fail to cite the Nobel Prize awarded for the proof that trust lowers the cost of doing business, and they have no awareness of key works on legitimacy as the foundation for global stability, such as the edited work by Max Manwaring on The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century simply confirmed my sense that this book is "disconnected" from a larger body of thought.

Reading this book was like being forced to sit next to four active cell-phone users for three hours in a cramped space. Not fun at all.

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not For Everyone, January 7, 2007

By	William Veltrop (Soquel, California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

That this book is not for everyone is quite clear from the mix of reviews.

So, why am I giving it five stars?

I can measure of the value (to me) of a non-fiction book by the amount of "damage" I've inflicted in terms of annotations, turned-up page corners, highlighting and underlining. By this measure Presence easily earned all five of my stars.

Where am I coming from?

I've been involved with large corporations for over 50 years and have focused on organizational learning, design and change for over 30 years. Though I deeply respect the miracle of large organizations, I'm also convinced that they're at a very early stage of their evolution. As I see it, our corporations and other major institutions have only reached adolescence, at best. Some might argue that they're at an even earlier stage of development. Considering how our systems are collectively fouling their nest they've got a point.

James Carse, in his wonderful book, Finite and Infinite Games, suggests:

There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.

The finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play,
...and bringing as many persons as possible into the play.

Finite players play within boundaries;
infinite players play with boundaries.

In the last several decades it's become increasingly clear that our various institutions are collectively engaged in devastatingly finite games. Our western culture tends to most reward players who master finite games, e.g., in business, sports, entertainment, communications and politics.

As I see it, the future of life on our planet is dependent on our developing the capacities needed to make the journey, as a collective, from finite to infinite games. This is new territory for us as a species. We have no maps.

Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski and Flowers have given us a unique multifaceted gift--a beginning map. The following three facets of this gift were particularly important to me:

1. I get to sit in on a dialogue involving four highly informed and deeply committed "infinite players" as they share those aspects of their journeys that seem most relevant to our larger journey as a species. I respect the unique gifts that each brings to this conversation and enjoyed the unfolding process.

2. Their "Theory of U" has legs. I'm excited about the huge implications it has for the fields of organizational learning, design, change and leadership development. It describes seven special learning capacities that leaders, and the systems they serve, will need to master if we are, to use David Korten's language, to make the shift from the "Great Unraveling" to "The Great Turning." The seven capacities all seem foundational to our shifting from finite to infinite games.

3. I greatly appreciate their picturing our great learning journey as necessarily involving both inner and systemic work every step of the way: "As within, so without. As without, so within."

I very much look forward to Otto Scharmer's forthcoming book, Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges. I understand that it builds on Presencing and makes Theory U more accessible to and useful for practitioners in the field.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A passionate plea, but (institutionally) naive ..., August 26, 2006

By	Philippe Vandenbroeck (HEVERLEE, BELGIUM) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Presence" emerged from the fear that our world is going to hell in a handbasket. If we are not careful, its authors tell us, we are headed for a "requiem scenario" that spells doom over our planetary society. We all in affluent industrialised societies have a responsibility to stop this slide towards a final armageddon, to renew ourselves and our institutions, particularly those engaged in making money. "Presence" proposes a 7-step plan to help us doing just that. It starts with a downward movement along a U-diagram, leading us (as individuals) away from our trusted mental maps towards a higher sense of purpose. The bottom of the U-diagram is a state of "presence" (hence the book's title) from which we can perceive our highest future possibility as a particular human being. This awareness leads us up on the other side of the U, into a co-creative field of building new partnerships and institutions.

I think this book is a brave attempt to bring spirituality to the heart of doing business. It's true there have been quite a few others who have gone this path before. But given the resistance of our institutions to these kinds of ideas, it's definitely worthwhile to keep on trying. Furthermore, the concept of "presence" is really powerful. Again, it's something that many authors writing from a spiritual tradition have highlighted. But I find that Senge and Co offer a nuanced and persuasive argument about what it means - for our sense of purpose and our level of commitment to realise it - if we can develop the capability to visualise our own, full "opportunity space".

That being said, the book shows a few manifest weaknesses. Its conversational tone sounds contrived and I have difficulties in seeing real-world people behind the four voices. Also, the argument is developed in a fairly rambling, undisciplined way - veering off too often into distracting storytelling and showering the reader with a sprawling, new agey jargon.

On the more substantive side, I have a real issue with the naiveté, particularly related to institutional matters, that is reflected by this book. First, although it criticises many aspects of the business world, structurally limiting governance issues such as the stranglehold of anonymous shareholders and their quest for the highest return are hardly mentioned.

Second, I think it is willfully naïve to assume that a personal transformation process will "effortlessly, almost automatically" lead to more "integrative solutions" at an institutional level. (This reminded me of a cartoon showing two scientists debating a long and complicated equation on either side of a blackboard, linked in the middle by an amorphous blob mentioning simply "... and here happens a miracle".) Even when we are completely aware and fully committed, the business of building new institutions remains a very long, messy affair.

Finally, despite all the nice words of these authors about their higher purpose in life, we shouldn't forget that behind this "presencing" sits a handsome business model. The "Global Leadership Initiative" that emerged from the story told in this book is actually about codifying, packaging and selling the U-process to mixed consortia of global corporations, NGOs and foundations. To my mind, putting a U-process in a commercial, project-driven straightjacket is tantamount to trivialising it. It makes me wonder whether a world governed by this kind of "presence" will be so different after all.