Presence - Exploring Profound Change in People, Organisations and Society

By Peter Senge, C Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue flowers
Published by: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
ISBN: 1857883551
Price: £10.49
Review by John Lucey

Radical and hopeful, Presence synthesises cutting-edge thinking, firsthand knowledge and ancient wisdom. Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organisations and Society gives the reader an intimate look at the development of a new theory about change and learning.

A book built around a series of wide-ranging conversations over a year and a half, Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, and Flowers explore their own experiences and those of 150 scientists and social and business entrepreneurs in an effort to explain how profound collective change occurs. Their journey of discovery articulates a new way of seeing the world, and of understanding our part in creating it - as it is and as it might be.

Presence explores the living fields that connect us to one another, to life more broadly, and potentially, to what is ‘seeking to emerge.’ Seven capacities underlie our ability to see, sense, and realise new possibilities. Developing these capacities accesses a deeper level of learning that is the key to creating change that services the whole - ourselves, our organisations and the communities of which we are a part.

About the Authors
Peter Senge is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, and the founding chair of the Society for Organisational Learning. He is the author of the widely acclaimed Fifth Discipline series. Senge is globally recognised as one of the most innovative thinkers about management and leadership, translating the abstract ideas of systems theory into tools for better understanding economic and organisational change.

C Otto Scharmer is a lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, a visiting professor at the Helsinki School of Economics and an international action researcher.

Joseph Jaworski is the chairman of Generon Consulting, co-founder of the Global Leadership Initiative, and author of the critically acclaimed Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership.

Betty Sue Flowers is the director of the Johnson Presidential Library and Museum having previously held a professorship of English at the University of Texas.