Theory U is a framework for deep change, developed by Otto Scharmer. It invites individuals and groups to move through a U-shaped process: from sensing and observing the current reality, down to a place of stillness and letting go, and then rising up the other side with emerging insight and co-creative action.
One of the appealing parts is that Theory U is a practice of attunement. The phrase “listening to the future” is used. This is the realm of possibility that often escapes structured dialogue. Before we are ready to listen, we “download” the information we do have, ideally without judgment.
In my words, it’s like we first meet to review the context the way it is. Then we pause and attune. Then we turn our attention to the desire and the directionality that everything is pointing to to see what can be possible or even wants to emerge. It’s the organizational version of sitting with a block of marble, get to know the block, attune to it and try to understand what kind of statue or being is hidden in it that wants to emerge. It’s about getting comfortable with exactly what we can’t know or do not yet know.
Theory U seems to get close to direct context work, trying to find places where alignment is necessary to flow and move forward with a new sense of clarity.
In addition, Theory U adds a phase of prototyping which serves for closer attunement with the context by experimenting and learning from that. With that, while there is planning in a later stage, Theory U invites us to act in a way that is co-generated with the context itself, not imposed upon it. In the end, it does not produce a fixed plan. Instead, it produces a shared sense of what the context is asking for that can be acted upon across the organization.
Wiser organizations 