SYSTEMS CONSCIOUSNESS
Integrating Psychodynamic and Systems Thinking for Organizational Leadership
Develop systems consciousness through theatre pedagogy integrating psychodynamic depth with systems thinking—holding complexity and unconscious dynamics to drive whole-system transformation and organizational learning every senior leader needs.
What This Programme Is
The Generative Leader integrates Otto Scharmer's Theory U (presencing: sensing and actualizing emerging future), Chris Argyris's Action Science (double-loop learning: questioning governing variables), and David Kantor's Structural Dynamics (generative dialogue: orchestrating four voices across power, meaning, affect) into embodied practice for leading when the future is not an extrapolation of the past. This program develops capacity to sense what's emerging before it's obvious, question the assumptions that blind you to possibilities, and orchestrate collective intelligence generating unprecedented solutions.
Who This Is For
Senior leaders navigating discontinuous change and business model shifts
Innovation leaders creating futures that don't yet exist
Transformation leaders whose organizations must become fundamentally different
Multi-stakeholder conveners working across sectors, cultures, competing logics
Strategic leaders sensing that incremental change is insufficient
Format
Highly experiential including phenomenological observation, collective sensing circles, presencing journeys, left-hand column case work, four-player dialogue practice, and generative conversation facilitation. 15% theory, 85% embodied practice.
What You'll Develop
Core Capabilities:
Presencing: sensing and actualizing emerging future possibilities (Scharmer)
Double-loop learning: questioning governing variables and mental models (Argyris)
Generative dialogue: orchestrating four voices (move, follow, oppose, bystand) across three domains (power, meaning, affect) (Kantor)
Suspending judgment, redirecting attention, letting go of control
Working with collective intelligence across diverse perspectives
Theory-in-use awareness and Model I to Model II transformation
Key Competencies:
Theory U journey: downloading, seeing, sensing, presencing, crystallizing, prototyping, performing
Ladder of Inference and climbing down for inquiry
Espoused theory vs. theory-in-use gap closing
Four-player system fluency and propensity flexibility
Open mind, open heart, open will (Scharmer)
Productive reasoning and valid information (Argyris Model II)
