Otto Scharmer (born 1961) is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-founder of the Presencing Institute and its u-school for Transformation.[1][2][3] He focuses on awareness-based action research with leaders across various sectors,[3][4] anchored in the concept of presencing, a method of "learning from the emerging future", which he introduced in his books Theory U (2007) and Presence (2004, co-authored with Peter Senge and others).
Early life and education
Otto Scharmer was born and raised near Hamburg, Germany, where his experiences on his family's farm significantly influenced his future work. The principles of regenerative farming, as practiced by his father, laid the foundation for Scharmer's later concepts of social fields and systems change.[5] Scharmer earned his diploma and PhD in economics from Witten/Herdecke University.[6]
Career
Throughout his career, Scharmer has focused on cross-sector systems transformation, introducing the concept of presencing in his books Theory U (2007, 2nd edition 2016) and Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society (2004, co-authored with Peter Senge and others). In Leading from the Emerging Future (2013, co-authored with Katrin Kaufer), Scharmer explored the transition from egocentric to ecocentric economic systems, identifying key leverage points for systemic change.
Scharmer co-founded the MITx u-lab, a platform that has engaged over 250,000 participants from 186 countries in transformational learning and change initiatives.[6][7] His work extends to designing action learning labs for UN agencies and SDG leadership labs for UN country teams in 26 countries, aiming to foster cross-sector collaboration in addressing global challenges.[6][8][9][10][11][12] He serves as a consulting editor for the Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, a peer-reviewed platform focusing on the integration of research and practice in awareness-based systems change.[13]
The U Process of Co-sensing and Co-creating — PresencingTheory U is a change management method and the title of a book by Otto Scharmer.[14] Scharmer with colleagues at MIT conducted 150 interviews with entrepreneurs and innovators in science, business, and society and then extended the basic principles into a theory of learning and management, which he calls Theory U.[14] The principles of Theory U are suggested to help political leaders, civil servants, and managers break through past unproductive patterns of behavior that prevent them from empathizing with their clients' perspectives and often lock them into ineffective patterns of decision-making.[15][16]
Awards and honors
He received the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching at MIT (2015),[17] and the EU Leonardo Corporate Learning Award for the contributions of Theory U to the future of management (2016).[18] In 2017 he was ranked #1 of the world's top 30 education professionals by globalgurus.org.[19]
Scharmer, Otto; Käufer, Katrin (2013). Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-system to Eco-system Economies (1st ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. ISBN9781605099262. OCLC813920439.
Scharmer, Claus Otto (2016) [2007]. Theory U: Leading from the Emerging Future. A BK business book (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. ISBN9781626567986. OCLC944179658.
Scharmer, Claus Otto (2018). The Essentials of Theory U: Core Principles and Applications. San Francisco: Berret-Koehler. ISBN9781523094400. OCLC987657070.
^ abScharmer, C. Otto (2016) [2007]. Theory U: Leading from the Emerging Future. A BK business book (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. ISBN9781626567986. OCLC944179658.
^Scharmer, C. Otto (2007), Addressing The Blind Spot of Our Time. An executive summary of the new book by Otto Scharmer Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges. HTML, retrieved 15:53, 27 July 2007 (MEST).
