LEADING FROM THE FUTURE AS IT EMERGES
When I lead LEGO SERIOUS PLAY facilitator training, I often ask class members if they are familiar with Theory U. I am always surprised by how few people know about Otto Scharmer and his transformative concepts.

In 2007, Scharmer, a German-born lecturer at MIT, believed he had found the key to unlocking the world’s leadership. When his book Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges was first published, many of the world’s thought leaders and business gurus concurred. Professor Steen Hildebrandt, Denmark’s leading management researcher, praised Theory U as “this decade’s most important book in the field of management and organization”.

Scharmer developed Theory-U based on interviews of over 150 social leaders and experts from around the world including Tom Peters, Buckminster Fuller, Lao Tzu and Carl Jung. He realized that true leadership is a state of mind where you can envision the situation and the possibilities from outside the whole, an almost out-of-body experience, where future and present are woven together in a pattern of navigable paths.
INVENTING THE FUTURE IS TO NOT REPEAT THE PAST
Most business theories, before and after the publication of Theory U, are based on past experience. According to Scharmer, “the world’s great management achievements are not about repeating the past. They are about inventing the future. That’s what entrepreneurs, innovators and creative people do.”
 
The systemic, global challenges that Theory U addresses – including climate challenges, poverty, and health problems - are even more prominent today than when Scharmer’s landmark theory was first published. As Albert Einstein said, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
BREAKING OUR HABITUAL WAYS OF PROBLEM-SOLVING
There are three phases of the Theory-U process: (1) observe, (2) reflect, and (3) test and adjust. When you enter the observe phase, you avoid snap judgements and attempt to keep an open mind. You interview people outside the system. Then you step back, and take your time in the reflect phase. In Scharmer’s words ”we need to open our hearts to new choices and paths.” The third phase, test and adjust, is the most important. You have to be ready for resistance and criticism and to making mistakes. This phase is about rapid prototyping and learning from the knowledge you generate and you keep testing.
Many people who have participated in LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshops comment on how the process helps them break away from habitual ways of thinking and problem-solving. When teams problem-solve using the LSP process, it is, as Scharmer describes, an almost out-of-body experience. You can see alternative future paths without being bound by the emotion of the moment, similarly – and in my opinion more predictably replicable ---to the almost meditative state Theory U proponents describe.
Best wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and the New Year.
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Rasmussen Consulting specializes in using LEGO SERIOUS PLAY to effectively harvest an organization's collective intelligence to build a better business. We are also the leading organization for training and certifying facilitators in the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method. You can view our training schedule at www.rasmussenconsulting.dk.