An Education for Transforming Self, Society and Business? A Conversation with Otto Scharmer

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

What I think is really the foundation for all movement building, all leadership, and also all learning is something very simple: realigning attention, intention, and agency. And what's getting into the way is a trillion-dollar industry that has an entire business model grounded on diverting our attention.

Hi everyone, welcome back to the podcast. My name's Tim Logan and the podcast is produced by Good Impact Labs. As you'll know, if you've listened to previous episodes, this podcast is really about the central question, the kind of education that we need to support and enable us all to transition effectively through this historical period of massive flux and change. This raises a whole bunch of different questions that we really need to answer as educators, parents, and people who really care about our young people. There are many people around the world putting language to these shifts and offering guidance to leaders and organizations for how to navigate them. But few are doing this as prominently and at such scale as my guest this week. Otto Scharmer's substantial work with MIT, Theory U, and the Presencing Institute for the last few decades has been helping leaders embrace cross-sector systems transformation. To quote his 2007 book on Theory U, his work opens up pathways but dealing with the resistance of thought, emotion, and will, and intentionally reintegrating the intelligence of the head, the heart, and the hand in the context of leadership, decision-making, and almost any kind of collaborative work. Otto is a senior lecturer at MIT and founding chair of the Presencing Institute. He's an action researcher who co-creates innovations in learning and leadership that he delivers through classes and programs at MIT, MITx, U-Lab, the Presencing Institute, the U School for Transformation, and through interventions with institutions in business, government, and civil society around the world. He's the author of bestselling books, Theory U and Presence, the latter co-authored with Peter Senge and others. Otto's latest book, co-authored with Katrin Kaufer, is released on April 15th and is entitled Presencing: 7 Practices for Transforming Self, Society, and Business.

Lovely. Well, thank you, Otto. It's just a huge pleasure to be able to talk to you today. It's been a year in the making. In fact, I was very proud to be connected with some of your colleagues at the Presence Institute. So long time in the making, but I'm so happy to be here today. So thank you very much.

Well, thank you for having me on. And I'm actually— interesting that you're calling from Paris because I'm actually later next month going to attend the Change Now Summit.

Excellent. Oh, fabulous. Well, maybe just to start with, because I'm conscious that some people listening to this won't necessarily know your work deeply, but just to kind of set the beginnings of the context for your work. One of the things I heard you talking about, which I thought was just a fabulous phrase, was the illusion of insignificance as a description of some of what perhaps some people are experiencing as they look around at the magnitude of some of the challenges that we're faced with. So perhaps you could start with that, opening up the space with this idea of the illusion of insignificance?

Yeah, so it's a term that came to my mind when I really reflect on my own current state, you know, of sensemaking, I would say, right? And there's like a few things that don't surprise me, and there is something else that is very much irritating me. So what's not surprising me is the planetary emergency, right? So everyone who was paying attention to the ecological crisis we are in over the past half century, of us cannot be surprised by what we see.

Absolutely.

I'm also not surprised really by after 45 years of neoliberalism and kind of the amplification of inequality, polarization, and fragmentation. So anyone who paid attention to those deeper trends can't be surprised about that. So those are the two things that are very challenging. But I also think, A, it's not a surprise, and B, in principle, we know what to do about it, right? So, so we we just haven't gotten our act together. And that leads me to the third point that does irritate me. And what irritates me most, perhaps, in life right now, I am an educator, I work with changemakers all over the place, but often also with young people, right, kind of spending part of my time at universities like MIT here. And what irritates me most is, particularly among younger people, but it's across the board also, If I am encountering the mindset that says, you know what, all of this is so big, right? All these issues just mentioned, this is so big, this is so screwed up. Whatever I can do, right, in my own small world doesn't matter because it's already too late. So this mindset is what I call the illusion of insignificance. And I think that's by far the biggest problem we have. It's not the other two. Because if we are not moving beyond the illusion of insignificance, kind of this sense of collective depression that we inhale with our culture, right, kind of with living in this moment in many different forms and shapes. If we are not really cracking that one, forget about all the rest of it, right? So if you really fall victim to the illusion of insignificance, it means you're not going to take action on any of the other things. So the illusion of insignificance is an illusion because it's not true. Because any kind of real change, if you look into history, is not composed of a few people doing big things. It's many small people doing small things.

Yeah.

I mean, that's actually a line that I saw verbatim that way written out on the Berlin Wall. Right. So when you go through the former East Berlin, kind of, you can read it there someplace. And that's actually what has brought about historic shifts like the end of the Cold War in 1989, and so on and so forth. Yeah. And today, of course, the challenge is larger, because usually when you look at the making of movements, right, and you can, you know, go to back then East Germany, East Europe, you can go to the civil rights movement, to the anti-apartheid movement, the anti-colonialism movement that Gandhi and others led, All of these movements kind of that really shaped the face of society one way or another are the result of an enabling infrastructure, right? Small groups that meet in places. So are the results of solid roots, I would say. Roots in terms of connecting with the deeper layers of our intention and creating shared attention around that and specifying actions that you take. Any kind of social movement needs this root system, just like any plant needs healthy soil and healthy roots. And today, the biggest problem that we have, that we see a lack of movement, if you want, above the ground, has to do with the quality of the social soil. It's the quality of our relationships, it's the quality of spaces. I remember back then, back in the day, in the 1980s, in East Berlin and these other cities in East Germany, there were small apartments, all private. People would come together, read poetry, that there was an underground culture that was really the cultural foundation for the structural shifts that happened years later. The problem today is the quality of this underground culture, these holding spaces where we really connect with the deeper levels of our own sense of purpose of what we're here for on Earth, kind of to make happen together. These quality spaces are eroding, right, and are often overwhelmed by targeted messaging by a trillion-dollar industry whose entire business model is based on diverting our attention into a direction that some advertisers pay money for, right? But it's definitely, it's definitely not connected with our deeper layers of intention of what we really want to make happen. And eventually, what I think is really the foundation for all movement building, all leadership, and also all learning is something very simple: realigning attention, intention, and agency. And what's getting into the way is a trillion-dollar industry, among others, right? That's by far not the only factor, but it's one that has an entire business model grounded on diverting our attention rather than helping us to align our attention with our intention. Is that in principle possible? Absolutely. I think that's what good leadership, what good education, and also what civic engagement really is about. But we need to regenerate the soil and the quality of relationships and spaces for that. And that's kind of basically what I'm trying to be in service of.

Amazing. Absolutely. And maybe continuing your father's legacy in the soil, cultivating the soil perhaps. So I would love to ask you about Dieter later in the conversation if we can, but just to stay for a moment on that point, cuz I, the other thing that I, I heard you speak about very powerfully was, and it connects with that idea of this perpetuation of the illusion through perhaps the social media and the attention economy and all of those things, is that there is an incredibly significant story that is not being told. So it's, you called it the, the most significant story of our time that is being least well told. And what I understand from you saying that is that there is some rich soil where some of these things are happening. All over the world, but we're not hearing about them somehow. Absolutely.

So what is the most important, least well-told story of our time? I think that essentially has to do with an awakening of a new awareness that gradually more and more is manifesting into action, right? Often local action and small actions. In many, many places across the world, and that over time will more and more connect with each other. So that would be in part my observation in small ways, and in part my prediction, right? Kind of the connecting parts. It's in part happening, but in many parts, it hasn't quite happened yet. So you could say one thing that is holding this movement back is seeing itself. So we are all part, and perhaps also the listeners of your podcast here, and many others, right? Kind of. So what is it that makes us listening to these things? And so on? Why are we spending our quality attention on that? Because so we are part of this process, right? Where we wake up to something that really matters to us. Can I really articulate what that is? Not in, you know, fully polished words?

No.

But I have a feeling around that. I can feel it, right? I cannot tell you exactly what it is. But I can feel it. That's how deep creativity starts. That's how deep entrepreneurship starts, kind of that's how the new is arriving through basically the deeper layers of human intentionality. And that's really what the core is of the U process of making that more available wherever we are. So I would say the most important, least well-told story has two parts. So let me take the example of January 20th, right? You look into the first row, right? Who sits in the first row? I mean, that the US government is owned by the most powerful interests, that's not new, right? Remember what Clinton did? He was the one who deregulated Wall Street, right? And so on. So it was the Democrats. No, that's not new. It has always been that way, right? That the most powerful industrial interests or financial interests have had a major hand in what you see, particularly over the past 45 years on the political stage enacted. But what is new is that these people sit in the first row, right? You see basically who is sitting in the first row of the inauguration, it is the attention industry. And so that already gives you some information there, right? Because so it's no longer the Wall Street people sitting there, it's the attention industry. So there's a shift in the most fundamental power base. You see it, you know, who's owning the trillion-dollar companies and so on. So we have the richest man on earth who is basically slashing the small giveaways, right, for the most vulnerable people, both globally, kind of with USAID, and then also domestically. And it's so visible to everyone. So it means that on the backside of these developments that are very disruptive and very painful for so many people now, we see the awakening of a new awareness. We see kind of new clarity, which is that we need to rebuild something that's no longer there. We also realize what's burning down now wasn't perfect, right? In fact, kind of we now have an elected government here running through this program that is the result of a status quo that so many people were frustrated by that they said, "Well, whatever." And the current administration was the only one kind of who offered a disruption, right? Who offered really transformative change. This is exactly what's happening, but it's perhaps not in the direction that many people may have hoped. So that's the first one, basically an awakening, but it's just awareness. And it's also planetary awareness, right? Now, if there's more than 2 out of 3 people today globally are willing to sacrifice part of their personal income to combat climate change. More than 2 out of 3. So there's a massive awareness on the planet right now about what the key issues are and what we need to do. And that I want to contribute to that, right? Beyond my own kind of limited self-interest, right? So all of that is there. What is not there? Collective action. Based on that. And that's kind of, I would say, the second part of this movement, where we see some beginnings now, but we are just at the very early beginning. And the beginnings are often to be observed in local systems, right? Because on a community level, maybe you and I have very different political views. Okay, but you know, we both have an interest that our kids have a good school. That the forest and the commons, right, and the rivers kind of in our community have good quality, are not poisoning everyone, that the food has— so in a way, even though we may have political different ideologies, if we look at the commons that are right in our face in the community, we can actually agree on, and what we need to learn society-wise is not how to organize around ideology. That's actually part of the problem that we are limited to that. We need to learn how to organize across ideologies, right? Across hyperpolarized situations that are the result of a discourse that gives the loudest megaphone to the most crazy voices, right? And everyone who has a more differentiated view is kind of muted out. So that's happening quite organically on a local level. But then you also see it happening in part on a systems level. So we mentioned at the outset when we were signing on here, a project that I have been involved in with the Presencing Institute and the OECD, working with 3 of the most innovative countries in terms of education, which is Estonia, Finland, and British Columbia in Canada, and with the leadership team of the IB school system. And so it's really kind of a group of educators, administrators, top civil servants, and some of the really most outstanding innovators and that system come together in order to reimagine how in the face of AI, we really need to not only reimagine but also reshape what education and learning is all about. And therefore, what leadership also across institutions should look like. In order to make, as the head of the OECD Education Group, Andreas Schleicher, sometimes likes to say, he says, education should really be focusing on creating first-rate humans rather than second-rate robots, right? And, you know, as a result of the industrial age of the past, a lot of the current systems are still geared towards the second-rate robots that, of course, in the face of AI, everyone now realizes require a very different response in our day and age. And that's another example where I would say you see a movement, you see kind of these innovative approaches and islands where the future begins to happen already now in a variety of systems. So I would say this, this movement really happens both on a grassroots level, but also in the most innovative pockets of the existing system.

Yeah.

Particularly where we face the challenge of profound disruption.

Absolutely. No, I mean, that's incredibly useful. And obviously there's a huge amount that you've just said there, but perhaps if I can tease out a few things. One is the point about attention and awareness. And I think that feels, I mean, it was very interesting to notice the language that you use. And as I was doing the research for this conversation, as you said, attending, intending, and tending. And as I said to you in our correspondence, I I then went and looked up the etymology of that and it comes from this idea of care, right? And that it just, I found that a really interesting underlying thread of this work that is like a careful awareness firstly of, in fact, I was just in Wales with UWC Atlantic College and hosting a Warm Data Lab there. And one of the things I brought into that space was Iain McGilchrist's phrase, attention is a moral act. And I think again, there's more and more recognition that, as you talk about ecosystem awareness, moving from egosystem awareness to ecosystem awareness, and perhaps you could say a little bit about that because I think I'd love to get onto the collective action piece, but I do think the awareness is critically important because perhaps what we're seeing with Trump and many others around the world is a doubling down on the egosystem awareness of, as Indy Johar talks about, control, the paradigm of control. And if we're shifting towards this more of a paradigm of care, tending. We're tending the ecosystem, but we, but to become aware of the ecosystem, I think that's, that feels like a really important part of the journey for leaders, for organizations. And it's not always obvious what that means to people.

Right. Yeah, I would agree on what you said. So there is like, we face a lot of disruption and there's like two main reactions to that, right? So it's one, you know, is moving back to the ecosystem awareness, right, kind of, and controlling things. So that's one logic we see playing out. And the other one is what you termed caring for the ecosystem or caring for the larger whole or caring, I would say, what happens outside of the boundaries of what we see, right, or currently see. And that's also something that happens, right, as I mentioned, kind of often on a local level, but you know, talk with business leaders and so on, no one talks about business as an organization issue. It's always an entire ecosystem, right, of supply chains that often span the planet or across regions. And we have invented as humanity many institutions that can somehow steward and manage these complexities. And yes, that we formed these institutions is historically new, right? If you look into evolution, and yes, there are issues, right? That's why people were frustrated and want to see something new. So that's, I would agree with that. However, the care aspect came when you look at the word root of attention and intention, that came up pretty late in the English language. Originally, what it means is kind of, it goes back to an Indo-European word root, tent, and it basically means stretching towards. So that's what attention, intention really means, is stretching towards. So attention is stretching towards something that is outside of yourself, right? So for example, I observe a tree that's in front of me, or I am reading a book or listening to a person that's speaking to me, whatever it is. Now, that's attention, right? And as you said, they're all three words have the same word roots, right? So both words, attention, intention, and intention is also stretching towards, but it's not something outside myself. It's kind of something that is within myself, right? So it has kind of this self-reflective dimension. And it's also, it's often used for purpose and future, right? So in other words, it's a reality that isn't quite formed yet outside myself that I draw my attention to. But it's something that's emerging from within and through me. So that's kind of the intention bit. And aligning attention and intention is a fundamental procedure I think in human consciousness that is beneath all meditation practices and all mindfulness practices. It's essentially whatever you're instructed to do, it's essentially always the same thing, realigning attention and intention. And we do that usually when we use meditation or mindfulness on the level of the individual. And that is in the age of ever shortening attention span, which is what we operate in right now, of course, more difficult now than ever before and more important now than ever before, right, for all the obvious reasons. But what I believe really in working with institutions, changemakers community, you know, I would say it's also sometimes the blind spot of the mindfulness movement, right, focusing the power of mindfulness. And I think it's It's a fantastic starting point, right, focusing on the cultivation of the interior condition of the individual. But as we all know, an organization or a system is more than just the sum of the parts, right? So for me, the key questions that we need to orient ourselves to as educators and as leaders is how to use the power of awareness or consciousness, so how to use the power of mindfulness for the transformation of the collective, right, for the transformation of the whole. And that has to do with this core process of realigning attention and intention, not only for me, as in, you know, I do like a meditation practice, but for us, when as a group, we really listen to each other, right. So that's kind of where the attention— where I begin to internalize your perspective, and someone else's perspective, and someone else's perspective. So As humans, how do we do that? We sit in a circle, we listen to each other, we have this kind of shared space of awareness. We look at a topic from the various angles of the various stakeholders. We go to place A, talk to stakeholder A, place B, stakeholder B, and so on. We internalize all of that. That's applied systems thinking. That's the attention bit, right? But then we need to connect that to the intention part, right? And the intention is really our sense of purpose, our sense of the story of the future that is worth our highest commitment, right? Kind of. So the story of the future that we are here for, to help to manifest, and it's something that maybe is not fully spelled out in my brain, but something I can tune into, right? Kind of when I— usually the gateway into that is really focused stillness, right? Kind of an intentional stillness that allows some deeper layer of resonance to come up. So the way I would summarize this process is by saying attention, if truly deepened, right? And considered from all the different angles and held, gives rise to intention, gives rise to a shared sense of what it is we are here for. And intention, if truly clarified, gives rise to agency, right? And agency is our capacity to really take action in a way that is embodying this intention.

Yeah.

And that's, in a way, I would say, kind of the core process that we begin to see happening in parts spontaneously, but that needs a lot more intentional support.

Yeah, no, that, I mean, that's fascinating. And I was kind of, as I was listening to you, I was feeling that a sense of needing to ground it in, cuz you talk about collective action and how does it ground out, particularly in a collective space? Cuz you know, I'm sure, you know, people are quite familiar to some extent with the more individual practices and then the beginnings of the deep listening. With each other, but then how does it, particularly intention, how does it ground out into action itself, into movement towards better futures, human flourishing, et cetera? Because I sometimes, I think some of the criticism of this kind of work is that it, it's quite reflective and contemplative, but there are urgent challenges that we're faced with. And I'm wondering, I actually like the way you talk about tending, I think is a powerful, and that brings in the third word in relation to the root, because that, that I find that powerful personally. But yeah, wonder what, how will you reconcile those tensions? Action. Yeah.

Let me just kind of rephrase the question that you asked. So let's say we have succeeded to some degree with aligning attention and intention, right? And then how do we move forward is your question. And I would say that is the question, right? Because as in our evolutionary, right? If we just zoom out and look at the bigger picture. So what is it really that sets human beings apart evolutionary from all other species? And the answer is our capacity to organize and collaborate at scale. So it is the question on the table. It's in the polycrisis that we face is another way of saying, hey guys, you need to step up, right? So you have developed forms of collaborating around intentionality, but in the face of the polycrisis, you need to step up your game, right? You need to improve the way you collaborate and coordinate on a planetary scale. So I would say historically, as an economist, humanity has, I would say, delivered 3 answers to that question thus far. The first answer is central planning, right? And we know how that worked in the Soviet Union and so on, right? So it's like, yes, central planning to some degree is good. Because you have a shared— so if you work at a smaller scale and if you co-generate that plan and it's agreed on. But if that plan is separate from the real complexity on the ground, it's a real obstacle. And that basically led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, if you simplify a little bit from an economic point of view. So that's answer 1. Answer 2 is the market. It's kind of the opposite. It's not kind of one central plan and then I tell you what you need to do. Anyone can do whatever they want and the invisible hand of the market, right, will coordinate in a magic way. And that is a fascinating, I mean, we just need to see the market has been an amazing success story, right? It's just amazing what we have been able to create and coordinate on a planetary scale, right? On a national, regional, and then planetary scale. But we will be blind if we don't acknowledge there have been massive, you know, what economists call negative externalities, right? Which is what we talked about at the outset of this conversation. So we know, yeah, okay, we need some planning, we need some market, no problem, right? And perhaps a lot of market, but that cannot be all. And why not? Because look at the ecological collapse that we are moving towards and the inequality and all the other things.. So now, we are in the, let's say, from a Eurocentric perspective, we are now in the late 19th century. And in the US, it happens in the early '20s that we say, oh my God, we have all these externalities. We need a regulatory framework that is mitigating these externalities. So that led to legislation around labor, environment, but also the Federal Reserve System and all these things. So basically, all these regulations do the same things, which is suspending the market where it is creating adverse result in terms of the commons that we— and public goods that we need. So that leads us right into the current moment, right? Because what's happening now, right? The chainsaw operating out of Washington, DC, what does it do? It's kind of removing that contract. So this third stage with this advanced regulatory framework, and yes, it's true, a lot of regulations, right? And the people adding to these regulations often miss the perspective of the people who actually do this stuff, right? The educators in front of the classroom or the farmers on the field and the social health workers and so on. So you have a bureaucracy that is almost disabling to you to get anything done. So there is some valid criticism as well, don't get me wrong. But what's happening now, the chainsaw is basically the march back, right? So those are the 3 answers, right? I would say the 3rd answer has to do with the rise of the 3rd sector, the social sector, the NGOs, basically via public opinion evolving the regulatory frameworks, right? And that's basically the 3 sectors of modern society. As we know it. But what's happening now is really interesting. Because on the one hand, we have people who say, okay, let's take the chainsaw, we need to move back, right, make our country great again, that was prior to all these redistribution efforts, and so on and so forth. But then there's a fourth answer, right? It's not central planning, it's not just the market, it's not just kind of multi-stakeholder coalitions, But it's essentially, I would say, ecosystem awareness, which is bringing all the stakeholders together and creating a shared awareness of the whole that allows something I have been called ABC, awareness-based collective action, right? From an awareness of the whole to let that inform your action in a way that you create benefits not just for yourself, but also kind of for the other ecosystem partners across the system. And that is a force in the world. That's kind of where we see many examples. That's where, you know, you see a whole movement around, particularly around regeneration, particularly around really integrating the supply-demand chain, particularly around new standards. When you look at the more recent discussion between the connections of soil health and human health, right? Kind of how it's really, you cannot have one without the other. So we are becoming more and more aware of all these interdependencies. And so that's what I mean, that's kind of the most important, least well-told story of our time, because it is happening on a root level right now. Some of that is visible, a lot is not yet visible. But there's a lot in the making. And it's, I would say, it is a regeneration of our our core institutions in civilization, which in many ways are up in flames in part, or like under attack at least, in a way that is grounded in a new awareness, which is an awareness and a caring for, as you said, the entire ecosystem.

Yeah, I know, I love that because I mean, it really resonates with me what you said about the awareness-based collective action because that feels very connected to what we are doing with young people through some of the work with IB and through Festival of Hope and the Systems Transformation Pathway with the IB is increasing those systemic competencies, you might say, or systemic awareness, ecosystem awareness in young people as they're thinking about taking action. So I think that's one piece, but I think what you're saying there, I mean, what I find one of the most exciting and interesting areas is that idea of what are the new emergent institutional forms that are coming up. That are growing in the context of an enhanced ecosystem awareness, because it strikes me that the containers in which, so for example, in education, the containers in which we do the work, whether it's the, the regulatory framework of a formal school or a university or all these, there have been historically a limited range of options to choose from in which you do this work, or you opt out and you homeschool or. And I think as we are clearly seeing are really under threat, they're cracking in all sorts of ways and struggling to respond. And so the fascinating, and I think extremely exciting question is how are new emergent institutional forms kind of growing in that new soil, right? It's, I think that seems to me to be a, a very interestingly developing area. And I think the institution, the containers in which the work happens will probably look really quite different to the things we've been used to. Again, schools, universities, limited companies, etc. There's been such a kind of a limited range of what has been available. I don't know how, how that, any of that lands with you in what you're seeing.

Yes, I think there's two things that come to my mind. I mean, number one, I find that interesting that, that you say kind of this is so much of what you do with young people right now. And you're right, kind of. So if that's schools are for. If you are not learning in school, right, kind of this, how to create an awareness of the whole and how to, in a more fluid way, organize awareness-based collective action, which is neither I'm just a robot of some central plan, right, that someone is handing to me, nor like Norm Morten too, I do whatever I want. And then the invisible hand of some market or whatever is making sure that everyone is taken care of. That's not working either. I think kind of what we need to learn is practice fields where I see the others and I attend to an unfolding situation that is very complex in which I take agency in the face of not knowing.

Right.

And as I'm generating feedback from others, but also from my own experience, I adjust. What I'm doing and the way I am doing it in real time. So, and that's why the arts, the social arts, playing in an orchestra, playing in a band and so on is so critical because that's exactly what you do, right? That's why team sports matter. And so it's kind of an awareness of the whole and adjusting the way you offer your best contribution to the team. And yes, the team is not just kind of you against the opponents, quote unquote, but you know, it's the entire ecosystem, right? Including the opponents, including the audience, including everyone, including perhaps the land, right, on which you are standing. So these are not kind of dead heaps of materials. Those are living entities and beings that we need to learn how to connect with, right, in a more fluid, in a more coordinated way.

So, and I would say in a more embodied way. And I know that is a part of what the work that you do with the social presencing and the Presencing Institute. I'm actually gonna speak with Arowana Hayashi soon in a special that I'm doing about embodied education, because I think that also feels to me that critically important that again, we've been sold this illusion that learning happens from the neck up and there's a broader ecosystem awareness thing happening with how we learn. Through our bodies, through multiple senses, through things that have not been taken seriously by the kind of cognitivist and modern frame.

Yes, fantastic that you are going to interview Arana. I think she is one of the major innovators in that field on the planet right now. What I would say is this, kind of what's coming to my mind, coming also back to your earlier question. So what is it, what we should pay attention to? So a lot of innovation we have seen. So when we talk about innovation in the school systems, what does it often result into? Changing the curriculum, but not much else. And so it's basically content. So if you look at it from the metaphor of the field, or, you know, I grew up on a regenerative farm, and it's basically the one thing I learned from my father was, well, the quality of what's growing above the ground is a function of the quality of the soil, right? The quality of the roots. So too much in our educational reforms, we pay attention to just changes in curriculum and changes in content, right? You add one other class and now we have mindfulness and yet something else. But what really matters in everything that we just talked about— attention, intention, and agency, right? What really matters there is all the invisible stuff, right? It's the learning environment. It's the quality of relationship that I have, right, as an educator with the learners. It's the quality of how we listen to each other, right, of a conversation, whether it's just one way or kind of multiple, of whether people in the classroom can quite organically move from, you know, listening to someone else to a dialogue, right? Dialogue just as another word for the capacity of thinking together and thinking from multiple angles, right, at the same time. And it's kind of these capacities that I refer to in Theory U as the social field, right, the social soil. I mean, the social field is essentially that, you know, in education has these two main pieces. A, what's visible to the eye above the ground, that's kind of usually what we call social systems. And in education, it has a lot to do with the curriculum and the hardware and all of that. And then the social soil, right? And that's what's least visible to the eye.

Yeah.

And it has to do with the soil and the roots. And that has to do with the holding spaces that we hold as educators. The most important impact I have as an educator is the holding space that I create. It's the quality of my listening. It's the quality of my awareness, how all the learners and the context that they bring are present in my own awareness and practices that, let's say, as a community of educators, we build around that so that we kind of really have dedicated spaces where we increase the quality of how we are holding the learners in our awareness and bring together the multiple perspectives that we hold.

Yeah.

And so on and so forth. So it's kind of It's the social soil and the social field dimension that matters most. What is a good school? A school that is breathing generative and regenerative field, right? So it's a generative social field. It's a set of relationships that is connecting us in our deeper dimensions of creativity and not just on an intellectual cognitive surface level.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that idea of educators holding spaces and the quality of that holding is such a significant and under-talked-about part of the work of being an educator. 100%. I love it. Thank you so much. I'll link to this— you wrote a beautiful piece about your mother and father and the farm you grew up on, and I'll put a link to that in the show notes. And yeah, I'd really encourage people to read that 'cause that's a very visceral version of the soil and how, you know, the soil you grow up in perhaps, and how important the self-cultivation of soil, community, community and conversation, as you describe in that article. But no, thank you, Otto. I know you've got a book coming out very soon, I think, perhaps I could just mention so that we can— what's that called?

That's Presenting Seven Practices for Transforming Self, Society, and Business. So it's coming out in mid-April.

Great.

And so if you go to my homepage, just my name, ottoscharmer.com, you'll see a link to the book page.

Perfect. Well, I'll share all of that in the show notes. And now just deep gratitude. Thank you so much, Otto. I appreciate the time.

Yeah, thank you so much, Tim Logan. All the best.

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