Leadership Training
Based on Scharmer's Theory U that I laid out previously there are interesting concepts of leadership trainings. The U process describes 7 leadership capabilities that help leaders or teams in complex situations to find decisions, ideas and solutions by letting go of the past to realize the future as it emerges and connect to the best future possibility.
At Daimler, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Fujitsu more than 150 leaders in each organization went through leadership programs designed by Scharmer based on the U approach. Within such a program at Daimler for example the newly promoted directors conduct interviews with key stakeholders and do job shadowing with some peers. In a 5-day U-based workshop they discuss the results of those activities in small groups, reflect the basic questions of authentic leadership in a room of intentional silence and find their own authentic communication style by practicing with professional theatre coaches and their colleagues to give feed-back. Directors who experienced this learning environment have reported personal behavioral changes (such as better listening skills and a greater capacity to deal with pressure) that have led to new leadership techniques, behaviors and results.
The U process works really well in an environment that is facing the challenge to provide constant innovation to be ahead of the market. A successful top executive at Nokia shared with Scharmer that her focus was on facilitating the opening process. Working with an engineering team in the automotive industry he used a development approach adapted to the U process. The team went through a learning journey (observing and opening), a retreat with intentional silence and an exercise of instantly building prototypes. As the topic was to develop an electronic self healing mechanism for the car engine aspects of an interview with practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine were integrated into the prototypes.
Theory U is also one basic element of leadership development and training for Wolfgang Bischoff and his Human Culture Academy. Together with Andy Logan he is offering a three day course for senior leaders “The Essence Workshop”. Details for the next course can be found
here. The venue is a really nice location at the Baltic sea East of Hamburg.
Posted at
03:53PM May 20, 2008
by Volker Seubert in Human Resources |
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