BRENDEL, William

(United States)

Title of contribution:

Advancing the emerging field of Presencing

Where & when:

 Ibiza II (U-Lab)

Thursday, May 28th, 11:30 – 13:30

Presentation: Advancing the emerging field of Presencing

Over the past fifteen years Otto Scharmer and colleagues’ work with Theory U and presencing has played a catalyzing role in bringing together an international community of practice comprised of progressively minded organizations, communities and leaders who are committed to stewarding a more promising future for humanity. Our presentation draws on the insights and learning from numerous worldwide presencing practitioners to illustrate how this growing body of work is seeding the participation of future streams of research (both critical and appreciative) on: the different methods of presencing, their respective communities of practice and the value derived from such scholar-practitioner undertakings. Pulling from a larger body of practitioner stories, captured in our recently co-edited book Advances in Presencing, we provide a synthesis of emerging themes in the field, including: embodied, existential, ontological, consciousness and participatory dimensions of presencing that would be beneficial to explore thereby evolving this emerging field in greater depth and breadth. By looking more closely at some of the current prevailing assumptions about presencing, in our presentation we also endeavor to introduce new perspectives and possibilities for innovative presencing research and practices capable of augmenting, inspiring and in certain cases transforming existing presencing practice and this exciting new emerging field.

About William Brendel:

Dr. Bill Brendel is an assistant professor of Organization Development and Change at Penn State University. He earned his doctorate in adult learning and leadership at Columbia University. Bill’s research investigates how the ancient wisdom tradition of mindfulness practice may be utilized as an approach to developing resilient leaders, cohesive teams, and healthy organizational cultures.