Leadership, Presencing, and That Thing Called Tadhana

by Elmer S Soriano

"Tadhana" is an old Filipino word that means fate or nature. Recently, the 2014 romatic comedy movie That Thing Called Tadhana made the term fresh and popular again. These days, tadhana connotes recognition of an emerging future and the need to move past old feelings, memories, and prisons (as Scharmer would call them) and operate from an openness to one's highest positive tadhana.

Which makes "tadhana" resemble "presencing". According to Scharmer, presencing means:

"liberating one’s perception from the “prison” of the past and then letting it operate from the field of the future. This means that you literally shift the place from which your perception operates to another vantage point. In practical terms, presencing means that you link yourself in a very real way with your “highest future possibility” and that you let it come into the present. Presencing is always relevant when past-driven reality no longer brings you forward, and when you have the feeling that you have to begin again on a completely new footing in order to progress...I use the presencing approach to facilitate profound innovation and change processes both within companies and across societal systems."

http://www.ottoscharmer.com/sites/default/files/2002_ScharmerInterview_us.pdf

Now it might seem a stretch to liken a theory of social evolution with a romantic comedy theme, but then again, the intention is to popularize the understanding of leadership theories by looking for similar terms in the vernacular. In the movie, the girl struggles to liberate herself from her attachment to her past boyfriend. The boy journeys with her and challenges her to open herself up to the emerging future, instead of clinging to the past.

In societies burdened by class structures, marginalization of the poor, leaders need to similarly invite others to open themselves to get past their history and perhaps even identities anchored on poverty.

The video below shows how a social worker Jo Mateo uses stories to invite poor farmers to work toward a more liberating tadhana narrative. Through her story, she articulates how structural barriers and social exclusion are realities which will perpetuate poverty (choosing karit scenario), and how responding/pursuing a positive tadhana (choosing panulat) allows poor farmers to liberate themselves from poverty, first through their dreams, and then through their daily actions choosing (presencing) to respond to the call of their preferred tadhana.

Image credits: https://presencing.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Screen%20Shot%202013-11-04%20at%203.37.04%20PM.png?itok=38580jfY

Dynamics of Ownership based on Scharmer and Heifetz

by Elmer S Soriano

A young female physician friend shared recently how she had not yet started the program for drug-users in her town, despite the fact that rehabilitating 800,000 drug users is an urgent and large scale problem in the Philippines these days. She said she had not yet been trained to address this problem. A hidden perspective is that a young female physician faces personal security risks when she interacts with drug users in a small rural town. 

The Bridging Leadership framework (by AIM and Zuellig Family Foundation) propose "ownership" as a core principle in Bridging Leadership. Heifetz and Scharmer both describe the "ownership" mindsets of leaders but from slightly different perspectives. 

Heifetz could describe the doctor's mindset as a form of "work avoidance" because the thought of doing the adaptive work on local drug-users could feel too "distressing", or "too hot" for this female physician. She may be conscious or only subconsciously aware of this distress or disequilibrium that she faces. She therefore conveniently declares that she has not yet been trained as a polite way of dis-owning the problem. (See Figure 1). 

Scharmer would describe the situation as the doctor operating from "me-world" and "it-world", resorting to polite talk or talking tough as opposed to owning the issue at Level 3 and Level 4. (See Table 1 and Figure 2).

This is part of the Adaptive Leadership-Bridging Leadership Dictionary initiative.  

Fig.1: Adaptive  Learning

Table 1: Phrases as Reflections of Structures of Attention/Ownership

Structure of Attention	Thinking  (Individual)	Phrases (Individual)	Phrases (Group)	Phrases (Institutions)
Level 1 - Operating from the old me-world	Downloading habits of thought	That's not my job description. That could be my job but I don't have the required inputs (training, budget, etc) so I can't do it.	I'm already doing my job and fulfilling my role.	That isn't on our plan for this year. Let's include that in next year's plan and budget. (Or some other organizational excuse.)
Level 2 - Operating from the current it-world	Factual Object focused	What are the performance gaps? Of the gaps, which are assigned to me?	That's not my job. I've done my part.	Let's refer the client to the assigned service provider (whether or not the providers are adequate.)
Level 3 - Operating from the current you-world	Empathic Listening	How can I care for the client-partner as myself?	How can we help the client-partner as if we were the client?	How can we change our rules so that we thrive and create shared value with our client-partner?
Level 4 - Operating from the highest future possibility that is wanting to emerge	Generative Listening	What is emerging? What patterns are being formed? What is called of us?	How can we do things differently? What rules are getting in the way of our preferred future? How can we modify the rules that don't work?	How can we create a space so that we have ongoing adaptation/ transformation?

Sources:

https://www.presencing.com/sites/default/files/page-files/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading (2002) by Martin Linsky , Ronald A. Heifetz

http://irregularleadership.com/wp-irregdir/uploads/2015/04/Screen-Shot-2015-04-10-at-12.38.59-AM-1024x591.png

http://www.adaptiveleadership.civika.com/home/resources/al-bl--dictionary
www.bridgingleadership.aim.edu
www.zuelligfoundation.org