Chapter 15: Grammar of the Social Field
Chapter 15 basically discussed the epistemological and ontological aspects of reality and our misunderstanding of the process of social reality creation. The 21 propositions of social field theory were also introduced. The first proposition, however resonates with the rest of the propositions, which is that social systems are enacted by their members in context. Basically, you enact the system in which you operate, whether its good or bad. I found desencing and absencing to create a better understanding of not being able to learn from the future. Desencing is intolerance and lack of empathy for other views, and absencing is the worldview in which the source of the problems is exterior, not interior.
Chapter 16: Individual Actions
What I found to be the most touching out of this chapter is the story of Hitler's secretary, who seemed to involuntarily get sucked into a dangerous situation. She seemed to lose connection with her authentic self, and participated in the practice of anti-emergence. She was also being self-diluding, which means that she lost her connection between her own image of the unfolding future and reality. The raging war and the ruling fist of Hitler made her look like she was a part of the violence being his secretary, when in reality she simply wanted a job.
Chapter 17: Conversational Actions
Chapter 17 discussed the generic field patterns in conversations, which are downloading, debate, dialogue, and presencing. These four fields differ in terms of the inner place in which conversation is formed, which can be because of what they want to hear, what they really think, seeing yourself as part of a larger whole, and speaking from what's moving through. These four categories, I feel are the main parts of conversations in terms of what you're thinking while talking to somebody. A lot of people, including myself, tend to not speak what they truly think in order to avoid confrontation and debate.
Chapter 18: Organizational Actions:
This chapter talks about how different businesses can be structured and organized. The two different bureaucracies discussed were machine and professional. A machine bureaucracy is organized around standardization of process, while a professional bureaucracy is organized around standardization of skills. From taking these meanings out of context, I feel that factories and more laborous jobs tend to follow the machine bureaucracy, while jobs that require more skills acquired from a four-year college education, such as computer science, education, and graphic and interactive design lean more toward a professional bureaucracy. I also found the differences between the shifts from centralized to decentralized, and decentralized to network structure interesting. The shift from centralized to decentralized basically moves from the center toward the customer, and from decentralized to network depends on the relationship of the coworkers and their coordination happens through mutual adjustments in networked relationships.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Monday, October 27, 2014
Week 9
This week I worked on the step-by-step project plan, which initially was created for just Millersville students to take on in the future if we didn't have the resources to do it. After discussing with my teammates, we decided to make it into a plan for other schools to do as well. I also made it a bit interactive, so that the people using it can write on the lines given, and can see our examples below each step.
Campus-oriented:
Oriented for Any School.
We also met up with Gerry Shehan, and discussed further about potential donations we could make, and he then referred us to the director of the Campus Grill on campus, who might have food that we could donate to the Campus Cupboard. I was not expecting it to be so difficult to donate wasted food after seeing all of the food being thrown out at my workplace, which couldn't be donated because of contamination reasons. My manager suggested the leftover cereal cups that the Anchor tries to get rid of, which has a longer shelf life and a bigger chance of being donated, versus the salads and sandwiches which only last for about a day.
Week 8
Our group also was inspired to keep trying with our project, even if it looks like it might not work out. We will learn from the mistakes and make a project plan to be used for other schools who want to donate food from their dining halls to needy organizations.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Week 7
This week, we mainly worked on our project. We got in contact with the Campus Cupboard, who is willing to pick up the food from the Anchor. The only setback is the fact that some of the foods, like salads and sandwiches, must be used within a limited period of time, so those foods must be given away as soon as possible. The Associate Director of Dining Services here at Millersville is completely happy to assist us with organizing the project. So far we are pretty well on track, but with fall break and a field trip to Community Foundations in Lancaster next week, our tentative end date for the project got pushed back by about two weeks. We are all excited to put this project to action and see less food wasted on campus.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Theory U Ch. 10-14 Reflection
Chapter 10: Sensing
Chapter ten discussed the next step of the "U," which is sensing, which is basically when the observer begins to see the system from a profoundly different view. This is a step farther than the previous step, which is seeing. I particularly enjoyed the story about Parsifal's Holy Grail. Parsifal's challenge was to act from authentic presence of his open heart versus what he was told, and what social norms expected him to do. I feel like this was a good example of sensing, and actually has that realization to change. Sharmer also discussed two different types of wholeness, as discussed in Henri Bortoft's The Wholeness of Nature." They are counterfeit whole, which is when the mind is moving away from the concrete part to get an overview, and authentic whole, which is based on when the mind operates by moving into the concrete parts in order to encounter the whole. Finally, the three principles of sensing discussed was diving into the sensory experience, redirecting your attention, and activating deeper capacities of cognition.
Chapter 11: Presencing
Presencing is the blending of sensing and presence, which means to connect with the source of the highest future possibility and bring it into the new. It is the movement in which we approach our self from the emerging future. The two root questions of creativity were: Who is my Self? (one's highest self), and What is my Worth? (one's purpose, what they were put on the earth to do). I particularly found it helpful to know the three different types of presence in terms of my own life. They are: presence of the past (current field), presence of the future (emerging field of the future), and presence of one's authentic Self. When all three collapse, there is a profound shift from which we operate. The diary entry titled I'm Falling Apart was very powerful, and I feel gave an excellent real life account versus Sharmer's numerous adventures. I enjoyed the reference of giving birth to breaking through the membrane, which is how good can can come out of pain and frustration. This is very true for giving birth, because a woman can go through a lot of pain, but once the child is born just that simple first look at your child makes all the pain worth it.
Chapter 12: Crystallizing
This chapter discussed the next step in the "U", which is sustaining connection from presencing and beginning to operate from it. Crystallizing clarifies vision and intent of the emerging future. The principles of crystallizing are: Power of Intention, Letting Come, Grand Will, and Venues for Waking Up. All these are basically ways of letting go of the old and digging into the new in order to change the world and learn from the emerging future.
Chapter 13: Prototyping
When I first read the title of this chapter, I immediately thought of app or website page prototypes, and had no idea of the different context Sharmer puts them in this chapter. It has basically the same concept of presenting a concept before you're done, and allows fast-cycle feedback learning and adaptation as any prototype for an app or website would have. The field structure of prototyping takes the movement from presencing and crystallizing to its next stage by deepening the holding space and advancing the letting come process in the center of the figure from envisioning to enacting. An effective prototype includes three types of intelligence is head, heart, and hand. I found the phrase "mindless actions and action-less minds", which are major dangers and pitfalls, to be very useful, because they are both ineffective when progressing through a process. I particularly enjoyed the principle 0.8: fail early to learn quickly. It's not quite version 1.0, but regardless of how much you have done, you need to present a prototype preferably within 3-4 months in order to get feedback which will ultimately make your first version even better in the end.
Chapter 14: Performing
Chapter 14 was pretty much straightforward with performing, and operating from a larger field that emerges from our deep connection with the audience and place around us. Sharmer also touched on the Evolutionary View of the Modern Health Care System, which was discussed about needing to be changed for the future. The four stages of development are: Institutional Care, Managed Care, Integrative Care, and Integral Health.
Chapter ten discussed the next step of the "U," which is sensing, which is basically when the observer begins to see the system from a profoundly different view. This is a step farther than the previous step, which is seeing. I particularly enjoyed the story about Parsifal's Holy Grail. Parsifal's challenge was to act from authentic presence of his open heart versus what he was told, and what social norms expected him to do. I feel like this was a good example of sensing, and actually has that realization to change. Sharmer also discussed two different types of wholeness, as discussed in Henri Bortoft's The Wholeness of Nature." They are counterfeit whole, which is when the mind is moving away from the concrete part to get an overview, and authentic whole, which is based on when the mind operates by moving into the concrete parts in order to encounter the whole. Finally, the three principles of sensing discussed was diving into the sensory experience, redirecting your attention, and activating deeper capacities of cognition.
Chapter 11: Presencing
Presencing is the blending of sensing and presence, which means to connect with the source of the highest future possibility and bring it into the new. It is the movement in which we approach our self from the emerging future. The two root questions of creativity were: Who is my Self? (one's highest self), and What is my Worth? (one's purpose, what they were put on the earth to do). I particularly found it helpful to know the three different types of presence in terms of my own life. They are: presence of the past (current field), presence of the future (emerging field of the future), and presence of one's authentic Self. When all three collapse, there is a profound shift from which we operate. The diary entry titled I'm Falling Apart was very powerful, and I feel gave an excellent real life account versus Sharmer's numerous adventures. I enjoyed the reference of giving birth to breaking through the membrane, which is how good can can come out of pain and frustration. This is very true for giving birth, because a woman can go through a lot of pain, but once the child is born just that simple first look at your child makes all the pain worth it.
Chapter 12: Crystallizing
This chapter discussed the next step in the "U", which is sustaining connection from presencing and beginning to operate from it. Crystallizing clarifies vision and intent of the emerging future. The principles of crystallizing are: Power of Intention, Letting Come, Grand Will, and Venues for Waking Up. All these are basically ways of letting go of the old and digging into the new in order to change the world and learn from the emerging future.
Chapter 13: Prototyping
When I first read the title of this chapter, I immediately thought of app or website page prototypes, and had no idea of the different context Sharmer puts them in this chapter. It has basically the same concept of presenting a concept before you're done, and allows fast-cycle feedback learning and adaptation as any prototype for an app or website would have. The field structure of prototyping takes the movement from presencing and crystallizing to its next stage by deepening the holding space and advancing the letting come process in the center of the figure from envisioning to enacting. An effective prototype includes three types of intelligence is head, heart, and hand. I found the phrase "mindless actions and action-less minds", which are major dangers and pitfalls, to be very useful, because they are both ineffective when progressing through a process. I particularly enjoyed the principle 0.8: fail early to learn quickly. It's not quite version 1.0, but regardless of how much you have done, you need to present a prototype preferably within 3-4 months in order to get feedback which will ultimately make your first version even better in the end.
Chapter 14: Performing
Chapter 14 was pretty much straightforward with performing, and operating from a larger field that emerges from our deep connection with the audience and place around us. Sharmer also touched on the Evolutionary View of the Modern Health Care System, which was discussed about needing to be changed for the future. The four stages of development are: Institutional Care, Managed Care, Integrative Care, and Integral Health.
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