Theory U: Learning from the Future as It Emerges

The journey of Theory U is basically an inquiry into this question: How can we access these deeper sources of time, being, and self in a way that is reliable, practical, and collective—and that works without your family farmhouse going up in flames every morning? These questions eventually prompted me to leave Germany for the United States in 1994

took this to mean that, to paraphrase Steiner, we have to investigate our own experience and our own thought process in a clearer, more transparent, and more rigorous way. In other words, trust your senses, trust your observations, trust your own perception as the fundamental starting point of any investigation—but then follow that train of observa

This emerging synthesis links all three of these angles: science (let the data speak), action research (you can’t understand a system unless you change it), and the evolution of consciousness and self (illuminating the blind spot).

When groups begin to operate from a real future possibility, they start to tap into a different social field from the one they normally experience. It manifests through a shift in the quality of thinking, conversing, and collective action. When that shift happens, people can connect with a deeper source of creativity and knowing and thus move beyon

my most important insight has been that there are two different sources of learning: learning from the experiences of the past and learning from the future as it emerges.