🇬🇧 The emerging future ? A model to understand our times...

Ceci est pour moi l'un des meilleurs modèles pour comprendre ce qui se passe dans le monde actuel et réfléchir à la manière d'y faire face : la Théorie U d’Otto Scharmer. Il s'agit de mieux comprendre les structures sous-jacentes et les racines profondes des événements actuels.

"Le pouvoir de l'attention est le véritable super pouvoir de notre époque. L'attention, alignée avec l'intention, peut déplacer des montagnes."

Otto Scharmer, est professeur au MIT, auteur de best-sellers, et fondateur du “presencing institute”

C'est personnellement un des penseurs qui m'a le plus influencé ces dernières années puisque j’ai croisé son travail au tout de début de mon enquête en 2015. Il m’a notamment permis de découvrir la pensée systémique.

Son site officiel : https://ottoscharmer.com/

Son Blog (génial ! ) : https://medium.com/@ottoscharmer

Le Presencing Institute : https://www.u-school.org/

Le Mooc U-Lab du MIT : https://www.edx.org/course/ulab-leading-from-the-emerging-future

Julien Devaureix : Hi, what are you doing, Otto?

Otto Scharmer : Hi Julien.

Julien : I'm doing very well, thank you. So I'm really glad to have you on the podcast. I was just explaining to you off record that your book, you know, Leading from the Emerging Future, that I read back in 2015, was really right at the beginning of my own transformation process that led me to do this, you know, which is having a podcast, but also investigating about what's going on with the world right now.

So again, thanks for that. And I want us today to talk precisely about that, you know, what's going on with the world, and how can we make sense of it, and what can we do about this.

And your work is about understanding how the system as a whole functions, what are the pieces, what are the links, what are the dynamics, and then, you know, how can we change things.

I would like to start right there with the question about system. What is systems thinking, and why is it so important to you? You know, how did you get into this?

Otto : Well, systems thinking somehow deals with, you know, it’s a term… Why are we talking about that? Because it’s a term that somehow relates to the whole, right? And then the question of course is always: whose whole, and who is defining what the whole is, and what actually is the whole, and is there anything like that?

But I think a reason why we talk about systems and ask the questions in regard to the whole is because we live in situations right now, in organizations, we see it, in families and communities we see it, on the societal level, certainly also on a planetary level, that things are falling apart.

So that’s what we see. There are many levels we can go into depth there. I’m sure that whoever is joining this podcast as a listener has had similar experiences. We’re at the risk of, and in the process of, things falling apart, which means collapse.

And then the question of the whole comes back in, right? So we maybe thought that we were beyond that question, but it comes back in.

And the system, so “system” is a term that really attracted me from Europe here to the US. I joined the MIT Learning Center some 25 years ago, frankly in order to explore more the question that you are asking. And I know you have had some other interviewees from that group on your podcast earlier.

But I think systems thinking I saw as a tool to make sense of our environmental crisis, of our social crisis, and also of our inner, our mental health and spiritual crisis that we see in many situations.

You know the old saying, right, and maybe that also goes to the title of your book that you just showed to me: “If you’re not confused, you’re out of touch.” That’s going to be our line. And it deals with that.

The world is actually full of contradictions, right? Let’s not forget that only theories are contradiction-free. The moment you deal with reality, you deal with contradictions.

And I would say today we see the next iteration from that, right? And I would say today, if you’re not depressed, you’re out of touch.

So in other words, what I mean, and that speaks to our current condition, where actually the one thing that personally is irritating me most is that sense of collective depression, particularly among young people, right? And I think it’s one of the biggest issues we need to address.

But when thinking more about that, I realized it’s not just a negative. Because “depressed” means you’re no longer in denial, right? So we have been in denial for a long time in regards to environmental issues and other issues. So if many today find themselves in a state of depression, it may actually be a progression from denial.

So now we are dealing with reality. And guess what, it’s very challenging.

But of course, when you’re depressed you are still in denial of one thing. Not about the reality that you face, you’re no longer in denial of that. But you’re in denial, if you’re depressed, of your own capacity to change that system, to shift that system.

And that’s essentially what systems thinking is about, to address those deeper layers of not only how the system operates, but where we are a part of the making of the world.

Julien : Isn’t there a contradiction inside systems thinking? Because if you look at the world, you know, it’s something so complicated to be capturing a system.

And you mention it, it’s very difficult to grab the whole reality, and every time we think that we have it, that means that we’re missing something.

So what are the limits there that we need to acknowledge first within, you know, systems thinking and within our capacity to sense it all and to describe it all?

Otto : Well, I would say the power of systems thinking is grounded in the power of science, right? And science and technology have been amazingly successful.

We live in the age of intricacy. And why is that? Because of the age of science and technology. It also came with a shadow, right, with some negative unintended side effects.

So I would say the limitation… The credibility and the power of systems thinking is its groundedness in science. Its limitation is based on the same condition, right, because systems thinking, the way it’s usually applied, is looking at the world from outside.

And while, when you look even at 20th-century quantum physics, right, you say, well, that’s actually a lot less clear. You actually cannot separate the observer from the observed, right? There is an intimate relationship.

So even though that has been working in physics for quite a while, now it is in question through quantum physics, at least for certain areas.

Certainly what we know is that in social science that’s not enough, right? In social science we participate in the world in a much more intimate way than we do when we observe, for example, other species.

So I studied with… My thesis advisor was the peace researcher Johan Galtung, and he liked to say… So what really, when I caught fire as a student, was his concept of social science, which is not “let’s find the laws that tell you what are the rules that govern behavior of humans or social behavior or societal behavior.”

No. His question was: social science is seeking and breaking of invariances. So it’s not cementing these rules, but exploring the conditions under which the patterns that we collectively enact can evolve and change.

And that’s really what separates, I think, the difference between natural sciences and social sciences, that we have a more intimate connection with what we observe.

And that’s why the concept I’m using instead of “systems”… okay, the concept of systems, or the concept of social systems, is the concept of social fields.

And what is the social field? It’s basically a system with a soul.

Or you could say it’s a system that’s seen from outside and inside, right, that has an interiority like we have as humans. And what is interiority? It means it has feelings, it has ways of reflecting and making sense, and so on. It might even have a sense of purpose, or kind of like a spiritual core or something like that.

But it definitely has this interiority, really that sense-making patterns and also the relational patterns.

So that’s where, for me, that is systems thinking applied to social sciences. But because most of traditional systems thinking is based on a third-person view, right, I look at the world from outside, I’m using the concept of social fields as a concept that looks at social systems not just from outside – yes, that’s necessary too – but also from inside.

And that’s where the main category, the main differentiator, is to differentiate between different qualities of relationship, between different qualities of listening, and so on. And that’s kind of where we get more granular into these qualitative patterns.

Julien : I would like to go back also to what you mentioned, talking about depression, because you created something called Theory U, which is described as a process of transformation.

We need to go down into the depression and then go up and build something new. And we find this idea of the U-shape, you know, across many theories, many traditions, also in all sorts of cycles that you can find in many traditions. You find it also in the Kübler-Ross grief, you know, like a U-shaped process.

I would like you to introduce Theory U: what’s with the U and the transformation process, and how do you explain the theory, and how what you said in your introduction illustrates that process that you’re working on and that is so central to your work?

Otto : Yeah. So Theory U essentially is two main things. One is a framework, and the other one is a set of methods and tools.

So the framework part is basically making visible… The framework part is essentially based on two main propositions.

One is that you cannot change a system unless you change consciousness. So that means you cannot really change a social system unless you transform or evolve the mindsets of the people who are enacting that system.

Most people who deal with real change situations are very aware of that, right? Yet most of social science is not based on that, because we look at how people behave and we describe rules that are always true only under the condition of certain qualities of awareness.

So there are certain third variables that cannot change, but if you change the quality of awareness of people in the system, that immediately is changing the patterns, how they interact with each other.

So that’s the first one: to change the system, you need to change consciousness.

And the second one is: the way you do that is by making systems see and sense and invert themselves.

So making systems see themselves is the classical systems thinking, right, basically holding up the mirror. And we know that from our personal lives, right? If you go through a period of behavioral change, what do you do? You get yourself a coach, you talk to a friend, you have some way of getting insights on your own system that you cannot see.

So we all know that. We do that. That’s how.

Now, what do we not have in society? Exactly these structures, right?

So yes, the mirroring, the seeing yourself, is the first part. But what we’ve found is that in social life that’s not enough, because that’s just looking into the mirror from a head-to-head, right? I see what’s broken with you, I see what’s broken with the system.

But you know, what’s the biggest problem we have today in society? It’s not that we don’t know what the solution is. We know what the solutions are. It’s the knowing-doing gap.

And you cannot bridge the knowing-doing gap by more knowledge, right? What you need to do is…

So if the knowing-doing gap is the disconnect between the head and the hand on the level of the collective, the way to bridge it is to activate the knowing of the heart, right. In other words, what we learned in many practical projects is: if you want to unlock collective creativity in any kind of system, the gateway is the feeling. I need to feel the pain on the other side of the divide.

Because if I do, then I’m much more willing to, say, give up some of my own privilege.

So that’s kind of number two: it’s making the system see and sense itself. The moment I experience the system through the eyes of the most marginalized, immediately new ideas show up, immediately new connections manifest. And that’s something we have seen in many cases before.

And the third one is “invert itself”. That’s essentially about taking in and internalizing externalities, really taking in the concerns of other stakeholders in a system and also sharing your own. It’s basically the inner and the outer.

And if you put these three conditions into place, that’s when we have seen awareness shifting, and then shifting the pattern of relationships and the quality of results.

Julien : There’s a lot to unpack here, obviously, and I will go back to how we change things and how we touch emotions a little bit later.

I would like to stay with the analysis part, the diagnostic you make, which I found also very interesting, which is about what you mentioned about knowledge, which is knowledge about understanding what’s going on with the world right now.

And the difference there is between the symptoms that we see in the news, that we see every day in different events that are reported to us, and the deep causes of these symptoms that we almost never discuss.

According to you, there are three divides that can define our current age and that are forcing us, as you said, to look into the mirror and see what we are doing to ourselves. And these three divides are the symptoms of something deeper that we need to address, that we need to fix.

Can you share that analysis, that kind of iceberg that you describe? And is it really defining our times, defining what is so special to our era? What is so unique about it right now?

Otto : Yes. So if you look at the world today from a systems lens, what do you see? You see that in most larger systems the following description applies: we collectively create results that nobody wants.

What are examples of results that nobody wants? You mentioned one: environmental disruption, right, the ecological divide.

Another one is the socio-economic divide, right. It’s essentially kind of obscene levels of inequality. We see polarization. We basically see societies falling apart. You can clearly witness it here in the US, you know, a journey into that direction.

And then the third one, of course, coming out of the pandemic, we all know it, it’s like the mental health issues. In the US, according to a recent CDC study, 60 – six-zero – percent of teenage girls report about consistent, persistent hopelessness and symptoms of depression.

So there is, according to a recent study in the G20 countries – so that is 60% of the world’s population and 80% of the world’s GDP, so it’s essentially all the polluters, right, on Earth – 74%, so three out of four people in G20 countries today support the transformation of our economic and social system to better address climate change and inequality.

So the awareness is there, that there is something broken. But what’s not there is how we actually do that.

And that’s now… So systems thinking is, you know, starting on that level that we mentioned, the level of symptoms. So we have these three major issues: the ecological, the social, and the inner, or you could say the spiritual-cultural divide.

And why is it a divide? Because I believe that at the end of the day… So when we… At the end of the day these symptoms that I just described are a social manifestation of a disconnect that I have from my environment, that I have with my… with other fellow humans, right, on a social level – disconnect with others, disconnect with nature.

And the symptoms of depression and mental health issues are essentially alienation, right, so it’s a disconnect from myself.

And so, to address these issues – that’s why I’m calling them divides – the other side of the divide is that they are a mirror, where we can recognize ourselves in these collective behaviors and wake up and therefore activate a new level of awareness and new types of behaviors.

What we actually see happening in many places around the planet right now.

So I think this awakening… Everyone knows about the story of destruction that I shared before, the ecological, the social and the mental health issues. But what is much less… And that’s one big story of our time, of our moment.

But the other story, which I believe is the most important, least well-told story of our time, has to do with the awakening of a new awareness.

It’s the 74% that I mentioned. It’s that not only most leaders you talk to in institutions, but also on a graduate level, most people today know that what we are doing today is not sustainable, and they want to be part of a new story, but they don’t know how.

And systems thinking is unearthing some of these deeper structures that need to be addressed.

Because no one gets up in the morning and says, “Look, today I want to destroy more of nature, apply more violence to others and myself.” And yet, somehow, collectively, we are doing that.

Julien : But don’t you think that there is still, you know, a long way to go before having a certain level of consciousness, especially from the people that are in charge, regarding the roots?

Because everybody agrees on the fact that there is a problem, that we don’t want the results of that, but I don’t find the conversations related to why this is happening very interesting so far.

What’s your view on: okay, what are actually the roots of these divides? And then we can go into how we fix that.

Otto : Yes. So I would say… I would phrase that slightly differently. I would say: where do I not see change?

Where I agree with your statement is mostly on the levels of collective behaviors. In spite of climate change, we are still putting all the subsidies into coal and oil and fossil fuel. We are still putting all the subsidies into extractive industrial agriculture, not into regenerative, and so on.

But where I do see the changes is on the level of individual awareness. So have our… You know, more and more conversations on a community level and on informal leadership levels, you see a very new awareness showing up and happening quickly.

And it’s happening not in public often, but it’s happening in smaller circles, where people feel safe enough to address their not-knowing. Because most people feel: I learned at school, at university, I got the tools how to operate in the old world, which is basically an extractive economy, but I don’t have the tools and the equipment that I need to be successful in the new era that many feel is beginning now.

So what I would say is that, when you look at the deeper issues, there is a first layer of structural disconnects. We can… I mentioned some, right. We know we need to move out of fossil fuel, we are still putting all the subsidies… So there’s a disconnect between what we say and what we do.

But then you can go… And there’s, I would say, seven different acupuncture points that I could go into, if we have the time or if you have more interest in that. But we just mentioned one, so let’s just drill deeper a little bit and say: why is it that we are still stuck in the old patterns of collective behavior?

And I think that leads then to patterns of thought, to mental models – Peter Senge uses that term – you know, I would say it’s paradigms of thought.

And when you look, for example, into economic theory, you see that all our key categories of economic thought, the classical economic thought, is based on an economy of extraction, where we don’t value nature, and an awareness that is best described as ego-system awareness, homo economicus.

And yet, when we take the challenges of this century seriously, we know that we need to move from an extractive to a regenerative economy – circular, and so on and so forth – and we need to move from a consciousness that’s just organized around my own ego, around ecosystem awareness.

To one that I would describe as ecosystem awareness. What is ecosystem awareness? It’s awareness of my own well-being and what serves that, but also of the situation from all the other stakeholders in the system, so I can factor that into my own decision-making.

And that’s actually something… I’m talking as a realist here. So you can go into any industry, that’s happening, right. For example, the emissions Scope 1, Scope 2, Scope 3 – all of that is basically we are forced to think in terms of the whole supply chain, to internalize the concerns of others into our own decision-making.

And so I think it is a change that’s already a lot more underway than often acknowledged. But it’s also true that there’s a lot of choice in that, and certain companies, certain leaders, certain countries are further along this way than others.

Julien : You wrote – I’m quoting you, I think this is on your website – “The power of attention is the real superpower of our age.”

Can you explain that, why it is so important to pay attention to our attention?

Otto : So for those of the listeners to that podcast, I mean, probably everyone has noticed that mindfulness is a topic that went from obscure, like 20 years ago, to almost mainstream today.

I’m not sure about France, but it’s probably true here. It’s definitely true here.

Julien : Here too, yeah.

Otto : So why is that? And it’s happening in health and education and also in management and leadership.

It’s because it’s underpinned with science, right. And the science bit says: look, if you…

You know, when you look at brain science, neuroplasticity, right, it’s something… So that our brain keeps changing according to the behavior, so according to the way we pay attention. That’s something that in the past we thought is only applicable for very young people, right, kids, teenagers maybe, and then you got what you got.

No. Now we know it’s actually true for many, many additional decades in a human’s life. That basically the structure and the connectivity of your brain is a function of your own behavior, is a function of how you pay attention.

And that’s essentially… In other words, if you meditate 30 minutes a day, after two weeks you can measure the results, right, and that’s in the growth of certain areas, certain structures of your brain.

So that’s kind of the underpinning there.

So what is meditation? Meditation is essentially paying attention to our attention, right. It’s activating a meta-level awareness. And it’s also aligning attention and intention.

You usually use an object. It can be the feeling of your body, it can be your breathing, it can be a mantra that you’re using, it can be an object. Actually, you place your attention. So you align attention and intention. That’s kind of the essence of meditation.

But when I first heard that from Jon Kabat-Zinn, who explained it to me, I thought: well, that’s funny, because I always thought paying attention to your attention, which is essentially focusing, that’s what leadership is about.

Because what you do as a leader, you focus your organization, right. You shape fields of attention on something that is more important, something that is less important, and so on.

And in this century, what’s the essence of the 21st-century economy? It’s attention. We live in an attention economy. Everyone is, you know, essentially competing around that.

And that’s why I think our capacity as humans to not only work with a reactive mind – so I focus on whatever I want to avoid or something, or what’s distracting me – but that we have the capacity to align attention and intention, to place our attention on a future we want to bring into reality, and to effectively reshape the future and reshape the patterns of our own behavior.

Remember in COVID, within a couple of months, three to three months, we, on a global scale, changed the way we were washing our hands. That’s unheard of. There’s no other species that can do that, such a fundamental practice, change that in such a short time.

And of course, that was a challenge in our face, and there have been many experiences with the pandemic that were less successful, granted.

But now, of course, the challenge is to apply the transformative power of our attention when we are onto the right Olympics, right – on the big challenges that are just so…

Julien : I would like to go into practical things, to see how it works, how can we change all this.

Because I understand that there are many deep roots explaining what’s happening today. Some people will say it’s related to our fears – fear of not belonging, fear of death, fear of, you know, being out of the game.

Some other people, like Richard Heinberg, will talk about power games and the fact that we want to be powerful, and nations want to be powerful, individuals want to be powerful, and therefore we are in that race and we cannot stop it.

What’s also interesting is that we have a lot of structures that are preventing us from changing, you know. That could be indicators, that could be technological structures, etc.

If we start with attention, we have the attention crisis today, which is partly explained by social media, screens everywhere, the way traditional media function. We have huge corporations making tons of profit by basically stealing and selling people’s attention, and creating anger and polarized opinions because that’s good for business.

And this is destroying democracies, preventing us from building consensus on important issues, etc.

How do we approach this? Because you say attention is so key, but today we have an attention crisis. So, for example, where do you start? Is it at micro levels, working with a small group of individuals? Or can we scale it? How do you apply your framework to this to accelerate things?

Otto : You’re very right. We live in a moment of attention crisis. And we are experiencing, just in the past 10–15 years, a profound transformation of capitalism.

What was the land grab, in the beginning of the laissez-faire capitalism, now is the data grab – the appropriation of data. You mentioned stealing data, right, and then applying analytics to that, and thereby transforming our lived experience and behaviors into the capacity to manipulate behavior on the level of the collective very, very effectively.

So that’s very much an issue that worked well for companies – trillion-dollar valuations – and that is also ruining trust and truth, right, the post-truth, and also it’s a destruction really of our social cohesion and the foundations of democracy, essentially.

So that’s the challenge we are facing.

And I think what it’s calling for, and what you see beginning now even in Silicon Valley, because when you travel around the world, yes, in Europe you have awareness for that, right. You go to China, you go to Silicon Valley, “What are you talking about?” So there was not a lot of traction for a long time. But that’s changing now.

It’s changing both in China and in Silicon Valley. This discussion has arrived. And it doesn’t mean that those people in power have changed, but the conversation has started. And I think it’s one of the most important conversations that we need.

And essentially, the EU is actually an interesting leader in that. Usually, Europe is behind in everything technology – it’s a non-player, it’s a non-entity, it’s a two-horse race essentially between China and the US in many fields. But there’s one exception, and the exception is regulation that is actually bringing in the social impact and the citizen perspective, not on an equal footing – that’s not where we are, we wish we would be there – but on more of a step into the direction of equal footing.

And I think that’s… So the problem with the EU regulation is basically its risk, and it’s only looking at downstream applications.

Out of the White House a few months ago came some regulation, it’s called the “AI Bill of Rights”, and it’s a really radical… It’s a suggestion how we might deal with and collectively regulate AI in the future, not just downstream, but really at the level also of generating it.

The weakness of that is it’s just a thought paper. And you know who owns the US democracy, right, so I don’t think we will see something very quickly there.

But everyone, particularly the tech people themselves, are very concerned.

Julien : This is interesting, what you say, because you’re basically saying that the level of awareness is shifting and that you start having people that are asking the good questions, basically. People like Tristan Harris…

But how can we accelerate? What do you see changing? How can we accelerate that, and how does your ego-to-eco-system methodology apply there, to accelerate things?

Otto : So I would say this certainly has three levels. Your original question also.

The first level is: what can I do as an individual? And I think that starts with creating your own awareness practice on an everyday level, because we need to support ourselves.

The only thing we know about the future is: it’s tough today, tomorrow will be more crazy in terms of the diffraction of our attention, right. That’s the only thing we know. So that problem is not going to go away overnight.

We need to strengthen ourselves. We need to strengthen our capacity to focus, essentially. Paying attention to your attention is essentially about focusing. And what is focusing? It’s honing in on what’s most essential, and tuning out the noise, right. It’s that kind of capacity. And it’s ever more important, not just for leadership, but for life.

That’s number one: it’s personal practices that you use. Some people meditate, some people do other awareness practices, but whatever it is, you need to support yourself.

The second leverage point on that level, the personal level, is interpersonal. You need… No one can do this alone.

I think there’s a movement in the world right now around circles. Small circles, not big groups, but maybe it’s one person, maybe it’s three, four, often it’s groups of five or so, that come together and really support each other with deep listening.

So you can use processes… We have developed processes also at the Presencing Institute for that, but whatever you use, you come together in this kind of structure of deep listening, and not just socializing with each other, but really helping each other to navigate the edge that we are facing in our life and in our work.

And then the third leverage point is, of course, that is very alive in many people today: do what you love and love what you do. It’s essentially following our life’s journey, and really as the workplace transforms, and as more and more functions of our economy are being played through technologies, that we more and more focus our work and realign that with where our passion is and where our intention lies, in terms of the story of the future we want to be part of.

So that’s on the personal level.

On the macro level, that’s what we just talked about, the Bill of Rights, and essentially we need a new social contract.

Today we have technology and big data that works for very few people. And the task is to figure out what it takes to make AI and big data work for all. And “for all” means not only all citizens, but also future generations. And that’s not what’s happening today.

That will essentially require a new social contract.

In between those two layers, I think there is an organizational dimension, and that has to do with ego-to-eco, with really… In any kind of leadership challenge that we face today, what we… In organizational challenges that we face, almost all of them are of a nature that no single organization can solve alone, but that require the collaboration of multiple organizations, across multiple sectors.

Just think about, for example, sustainable mobility, right. You need the cities, you need the national regulators, you need the private-sector companies, you need the citizens, you need the urban-planning people, so you need a really rethink of where we live and where we work and why it’s so separate, and so on and so forth.

So all these really fundamental areas of transformation – there are not that many actually, but they are really at issue in this decade and the few ones to come – require multi-stakeholder processes. That’s the only way.

Yes, sustainable development goals and so on and so forth. The only way of accomplishing and realizing them is to shift the patterns of our relationships from toxic or just merely transactional to co-creative and generative.

And the only way of doing that – that’s what I have learned as an action researcher the past 25 years – is by providing support structures. Providing support structures that support us, not just as individuals but also on an organizational level, to deal with our differences in ways that are more co-creative and more generative, and then help us to manifest emerging future possibilities that many people feel are wanting to happen right now, but don’t know how to realize as of yet.

Julien : I would like to stay a little bit on this. Unfortunately we don’t have the time to spend more time on your system analysis of all the symptoms, so it was the question in two parts, which is about, as individuals, we have so many things that we can do by listening better, paying better attention, and going to the edges.

Can you develop a little bit this in terms of practical ways, and also: what are the main levers to pull for the people who really want to have an impact?

Otto : All right, so two main things.

So the main levers… You can look at that question from a big-picture view and then from a personal-agency view.

The big-picture view is… There is a book that just came out a few months ago, 50 years after the Limits to Growth study, that was referenced in your series earlier. The Club of Rome put together a two-year commission on economic transformation – I was part of that – and they basically re-ran the model under the assumption: how can we now respond? How could the transformation work? Can it, and if so, how?

And the result of that study, that brought together a lot of these key systems thinkers and economists like Kate Raworth and so forth as well, came out with five transitions. It’s essentially just five transitions.

And that is energy – the energy transition – the food and agriculture transition – so regenerative energy, regenerative agriculture – then it’s poverty, inequality, and gender / women’s empowerment. So those are the five things.

Now, interesting, wherever you are in an organization, I think much of our daily decision-making somehow relates to that. But the issue is not just individual decision-making around it, but also the collective decision-making.

So that’s answer one. What I find interesting, if you put some deeper structural changes into place, you can see how the climate challenge is actually quite solvable, if we just get our act together in terms of realigning attention and intention on the level of our collective behavior.

So that’s interesting. What I found interesting in running these models is how doable it actually is, even though our current collective behaviors are not suggesting that.

Now, the second answer I want to give is more informed by the recent conversation. Because in a way, to say “oh, there are these five levers, and that needs to happen”, it’s all very abstract, collective.

What does that do with me? It does this, right. So, yes, okay, I see that, great, what can I do? I’m just this small person here. That’s what happens to most people, and that’s the problem with this analysis.

So what’s actually interesting in systems thinking is that we need to move beyond that. And here is where the real lever is, I believe, today. Where is the real lever for changing all of these things?

It needs to change from everywhere, right. It’s not just agriculture and energy – of course it is those fields, no question – but in order to make these five transitions work, we need to start the change from everywhere.

That’s what I’m saying. And “everywhere” means: I need to look into my environment where my agency is.

And when we look into historic examples, when we look into how change is happening actually in nature, what do we see? How does change happen in nature? And the answer is: small, and in seeds.

It starts with a seed. The seed has already the entire future in it, right, but it’s very small. Often you don’t even see it in the beginning, when it’s still… when it’s taking roots and so forth.

And where does it grow? In the midst of the old, right. So yes, it has certain clusters, it has certain conditions.

I think the one thing we miss most – and it has everything to do with the collective depression that we talked about earlier – is that it is a misnomer to believe: just because what I can do is very small, it is not of utmost significance and importance for the future.

Because a) we all need to do our part, we all need to show up, and b) that’s how change works, right. It starts very small.

Any kind of bigger, profound story of systems change that I have seen or studied is actually composed of a story that has very modest, very small beginnings.

And if a system is moving into a period of disruption, we all know from chaos theory that small causes, small changes can have a huge impact in a bifurcation point, whether a system is moving one way or another.

So that’s really, on an individual level, it means to address – I almost said “combat”, now you see my American mindset showing up – I would say, from a European perspective, to address the issue of collective depression by realizing that all significant changes start small, and that whatever we give our attention to, that’s what keeps growing.

We develop in the direction of the questions we ask. So whatever it is you pay attention to, that’s where growth will be happening.

And that’s why being more intentional with our intentions, and placing our attention on the seeds of the future that are already existing in our environment right now, or that we can connect with in our own experience, that’s of utmost importance.

And that’s why these other two levels – not just the macro, but the personal, interpersonal, and also the organizational level – are so important that I talked about before.

Julien : But I guess also what I find important is to forget about the bigger issues somehow, because you can get stuck there.

Even theoretically when you know that, when you say “okay, it’s always how history happens, you know, small changes that you don’t see coming when you are in it, at your level”, it’s really difficult to integrate it emotionally, because, as you said, you’re facing despair.

You don’t see how your little impact that you’re having will make a difference. So I guess that’s something also you’re working on, at an individual level.

You pay attention to yourself, you pay attention to your small community, to the things around you, and then you have a little bit more lever on things, and you don’t start with climate.

Is it insightful, what you say, when you talk to your students? Or do we need actually to have these bigger goals?

Otto : I think we need a little bit of both. But what we also need is a conversation about the future that we want to create.

And I would say, having been part for many years of the environmental movement in different places, one of the things we have been weakest on is to move beyond threatening people.

We have: “okay, this is the end of the world, here’s how it’s going to happen”, so basically activating fear and anxiety only takes you thus far. Sometimes it does a little bit of the trick, but it’s not sustainable.

Particularly, I mean, I’m noticing that myself. I used to be that person that talks about these long-term consequences and so on, because when you entered the room you often were in front of people more in denial.

What is it that you face today? People are… particularly when I talk to younger people, people are already depressed, they’re already aware, they already know it’s broken. And if I give the old speech, what value do I add? Because…

Julien : You’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Otto : Exactly, exactly.

So what has my interest these days is really moving beyond this old type of activism that I just described.

And you see that in the environmental movement. There is a shift of focus. The old key term, of course, that we all know is “sustainability”, right. And how is that defined, what’s the limitation of that term? It’s “less bad”.

So sustainable agriculture is: you don’t use poison, you don’t use chemical fertilizers and pesticides and herbicides. Now, that’s a step forward, that’s great. But is it good enough? I don’t think so.

Because the real future agriculture that we need is regenerative agriculture, where food is a medium for healing planet and people.

So that’s really… And you can do the same reframe in health and learning, right, where we move from student-centric good “schools of learning” towards really whole-person, whole-systems learning.

The same you have in health, where we need to move from just a patient journey in effective healthcare delivery systems to what’s called salutogenesis, which is strengthening not the symptoms of sickness, but strengthening the sources of health and well-being.

And so on and so forth. I could go through all the sectors.

But the key is that all these transitions are sparked by very personal decisions, right. And almost every one of us is… You know, every one of us is actually participating in the learning systems and the food – we all consume food – what are the choices we make there? Then you can talk about health and the business and the finance and the other verticals as well.

So I would say what we see in the shift of focus from sustainability to regeneration and ecosystem awareness, we see a shift that is only going to happen if it’s coming from many different angles and starting very small.

And it’s a much wider movement already than is often acknowledged. It is, in my view, the most important, least well-told story of our time.

And I believe that the future that many people project out there – 2030, 2050, and so on – that future is already here. The solution is already here. It’s just that they are not fully manifested yet. Often they’re in seed format.

And “here” means in certain places in our community, certain places in our society, but also in certain places in my own experience.

And then what we need to pay attention to – and that’s kind of where we need to build new relationships and also our practices, social practices, around that – that’s what’s happening in many places right now.

Julien : And that would be my question, very much related to this.

For the people who are listening to us, do you have a practical piece of advice related to rebuilding better connections with themselves, with people around them, and with the world?

Where do you start to be effective, for people listening?

Otto : Well, where do you start? I think in my experience the best starting point is your own personal practices that you find.

Yes, many of us are busy, but find 5, 10, 20, 30 minutes a day – many people do it in the morning, but it could also be midday or evening – where you build something I would call an awareness practice, something that allows you to focus on what’s most essential for you and zoom out, basically filter out the noise that’s distracting you from that.

So it’s a moment of intentional stillness. It can be a mindfulness practice, can be some other practice. Many people are already doing something.

That’s where I would say is the first starting point, because in order to speed up, we first need to slow down.

And the second one is: you can’t do it alone. You need to find your two, three, four, five partners. Look around, these people already exist in your environment. If not, there are many communities.

Go to, for example, the Presencing Institute, u-school.org website. There are many resources where you can team up with other people from your own region and from your own city of the world, and so on.

And the third one, I think everyone has agency on, and where we see a lot of change the last three–four years, is your own journey with your work. How you really realign and strengthen the connection between your own work – which is kind of my small-“w” work, my current role or assignment, whatever it is, a project – and your capital-“W” Work, which is kind of your sense of purpose, your journey, what your sense is that you’re here for.

And obviously those are not things other people can tell you what it is, but you can also not just discover that alone. You need this deeper conversation around that “why”, which is why the second… I would say those are the three personal and interpersonal leverage points.

And then the only other thing is, I would say: there are so many initiatives, I’m sure also in your city and in your region of the world, where people begin to act or begin wanting to act – maybe that’s better – where there’s new awareness that something is broken with our current way of operating, and we need to move towards more regenerative ways of leadership, of running our systems, of bringing in a more ecosystem-awareness point of view into shaping the community or also our economic relationships.

That too, I see that with many entrepreneurs, where I see that it’s not informing collective behavior yet, but it sits in many individuals.

And I’m sure when you look, when you really create these new conversational spaces where this awareness can be articulated and collectively inquired into – “what are we going to do about it?” – that will have a big resonance also in your community.

Though at the beginning you may think, “Well, I’m the only odd person here and everyone else is still…”, but you know, that was my experience.

Then you talk to people, you offer a space of listening, and then everyone says, “Well, I’m the only one, but I can’t say it because everyone else is just normal.”

No. It’s a planetary movement that is just at the very beginning, and it happens in many more places than people usually think.

Julien : You know what helped me a lot when I did your course, your training, eight years ago now, was realizing how listening is important.

This is the beginning of the process in one of your models, and I found it really powerful to realize that we are bad listeners, that we just, you know, download information most of the time.

To me, that was a great starting point. I just wanted to share that. The fact to be able to listen differently, listen without talking…

Otto : It’s very true, Julien. That has been one of the biggest surprises to me, because I never thought, when I first developed these layers and had observations around that, that this would resonate so much.

I also would have thought at the beginning: okay, if you’re like a grown person like you or I, listening, that’s very habitual, right. Whatever we do, that’s what we keep doing, it’s very hard to change that.

It’s not true. I mean, to my surprise, these patterns, if you apply a more intentional support structure for yourself – for example, U-Lab, that’s one that’s freely available and that also has a good French-speaking community there – you can do that within six weeks.

Julien : Yeah, that’s the one I did, actually.

Otto : And that’s… I would have never thought that these deep behavioral changes are possible in six weeks. I have the same experience when I teach at MIT.

So that’s actually very encouraging. Shifting the inner place from which we operate, from more habitual awareness to open-mindedness – open-mindedness, to compassion – more open-heartedness – and open will, which is really kind of letting go and letting come, which is the capacity to let go and allow something new to emerge, that’s a lot… It can happen in a much more organic way than I would have thought.

And why is that? Because many of us already face crisis situations on a collective level that make a pretty convincing case that we need to let go of something and we need to let come something else.

And so I found that, 15–20 years ago, much harder to argue. Now it’s like common sense, and the only question is: all right, how do we do it, where’s the space where we can practice that?

Julien : Well, thanks so much for your time, Otto. That was a very insightful conversation. I hope the people will like it, and I will put on the website all the resources and all the books and everything.

Thanks so much for your time.

Otto : Thank you so much, Julien. All the best.