A version of this post originally appeared on Devex. Reposted with permission.
As human development practitioners, we have been talking a lot recently about how a changing world is demanding new approaches to development in the way we finance, implement our projects and measure the results of our work. But what has been missing is a discussion about how to change the way we think about the world and mental models we use as we try to make our world a better place. While we all agree that the world has changed, our mental models lag behind, and we desperately need a mental model upgrade.
Otto Scharmer, an economist, organization theorist and keynote speaker at the upcoming Challenge Conference in Washington, DC, wrote in Leading from the Emerging Future, “The success of our actions as change-makers does not depend on what we do or how we do it, but on the inner place from which we operate.” In other words, our awareness provides the underlying ground out of which our thinking and doing emerge.