Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future

How would the world change if we learned to access, individually and collectively, our deepest capacity to sense and shape the future? This is just one of the questions posed by the authors of a book that combines unusual personal honesty with rigorous critical thinking.

Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future gives the reader an intimate look at the development of a new theory about change and learning. In wide-ranging conversations held over a year and a half, Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, and Flowers explore their own experiences and those of one hundred and fifty scientists and social and business entrepreneurs in an effort to explain how profound collective change occurs. Their journey of discovery articulates a new way of seeing the world, and of understanding our part in creating it-as it is and as it might be.

Radical and hopeful, Presence synthesizes leading-edge thinking, first-hand knowledge, and ancient wisdom to explore the living fields that connect us to one another, to life more broadly, and, potentially, to what is "seeking to emerge." Seven capacities underlie our ability to see, sense, and realize new possibilities. Developing these capacities accesses a deeper level of learning that is the key to creating change that serves the whole-ourselves, our organizations, and the communities of which we are a part.