Reflections on the Theory U Masterclass in São Paulo, Brazil
This article can also be read in Portuguese.
On Wednesday, March 29th, we had the pleasure of hosting a hybrid event at FIAP, developing Theory U as a tool for ecosystemic leadership, innovation, and transformation, specifically focused on education.
We, along with 6 other universities from 5 different countries, connected for a 5-hour event featuring a broadcasted masterclass with Dr. Otto Scharmer, professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, co-founder of the Presencing Institute, and author of Theory U.
This Masterclass was part of a training for leaders from various sectors, future change makers who will build our future. It belongs to a larger program with 3 editions over 3 years, traveling throughout Latin America, focused on building a network of students and professionals who will shape the next generations.
The first part of the event was the broadcast of the masterclass itself. Within the overview that Dr. Scharmer presented, what stood out to me was his testimony about the existential dimension of the crisis in our current model. As the focus of his talk was on education, he expressed his concern about the state of our youth, whose self-esteem is challenged by social media, anxiety, and depression.
He also emphasized the youth as representatives of the emerging future, bringing the reflection of always being aware of whether we are reactive to changes or if we are able to bring actions grounded in intention. Some other important points emphasized by Professor Dr. Scharmer during the masterclass broadcasted were:
“You cannot understand a system unless you try to change it. You cannot change a system unless you transform consciousness. You cannot transform consciousness unless the system sees, perceives, and turns towards itself. You cannot lead the transformation of a system unless you perceive and presence the future as it emerges.”
Therefore, Otto Scharmer emphasized the relevance of investing in the promotion of connection architectures as essential to promoting systemic change. And this is a great guiding principle for those who work in education today.
The last point I want to bring, highlighted during the masterclass and in response to the question we sent as FIAP, is that change begins with oneself. When we asked about ways and best practices to increase the quality of presence of students and teachers in the education system, he reminded us:
“The tool is yourself.”
Throughout the event, we addressed a more systemic vision and leadership skills to promote knowledge exchange and participation. In this experience, participants were able to learn innovation tools directly from the team of the Presencing Institute from the US and Latin America.
In addition to the theoretical presentation and the question and answer session with Dr. Otto Scharmer, we also experienced two other tools of the Theory U in this event.
The first was scribing, the use of visual facilitation as a tool for the system to see itself.
We are very accustomed to a lack of stimuli to our senses. We attend lectures just by listening. We think only with our heads.
Scribing visually brings a different view of a topic or system, and with that, it gives us different stimuli to understand the topic in different ways.
At our event at FIAP, the person responsible for this activity was Jess Tenório, who was once my Theory U student and is now my colleague. She graduated from our Business Innovation MBA program and took scribing courses at the Presencing Institute with Kelvy Bird, a global expert in the field. In Uruguay, the official scriber for the event was Geisa Paganini De Mio, who usually does scribing for Presencing Institute activities here in Brazil.
Take some time to read, look, absorb, and feel the generated images.
After this part of the activity, following a short break, we dove into a hands-on activity to put all of this into practice: 3D Mapping. This is a tool we use to bring multiple dimensions and perspectives to understand how an idea, initiative, or system can evolve.
We are very trained in mechanistic thinking and often systemic thinking can be challenging. The 3D Mapping, by making the system tangible, helps us to unlock biased views and perceive things differently, including what we do not know.
I had the pleasure of leading this activity alongside our director Guilherme Pereira and a professor whom I admire greatly, Rose Longo.
Divided into 5 groups, workshop participants came together to build the current map of the education system with and around FIAP. As we had teachers, companies, students, alumni, and supporters (FIAP fans without any formal connection), the activity was very rich!
Once the map was created, Mariana Suniata Miranda, remotely, led the groups to reflect on relationships between the actors, perspective, vision, purpose, and practical sense regarding the change that each group senses wanting to emerge from this map.
After the reflection, each group modified the map by creating a vision for the future, changing what the reflection experienced by the group brought the need to change. From there, all perspectives were shared among the groups at FIAP and the six other participants around the five countries.
We left the event revitalized, with new perspectives and understandings not only about education but also about possibilities for change and building the future we want for ourselves.
The educational institutions that participated in this masterclass were: FIAP (Brazil), Universidad del Desarrollo (Chile), Universidad Metropolitana (Venezuela), Universidad de las Américas (Chile), Universidad de Cantabria (Spain), UTEC- Fray Bentos (Uruguay), Universidad de la Rebublica Uruguay (Uruguay) e FIA Faculdade Integrada de Administração (Brazil) — considered founding members of the Latin American Network of Universities working with Theory U.
I would like to express my immense gratitude to the organizers for enabling this partnership and for the invitation: in Brazil, Janine Saponara, Geisa Paganini De Mio, and Mariana Miranda; in Latin America, Laura Pastorini and Viviana Galdames, and the University of the Republic of Uruguay.
To conclude, I hope that those who were present have learned as much as I did, and for those who were not there, I hope you could get a glimpse of this experience through these words.
