Presencing is sensing the highest future possibility and acting from it — the bottom of Scharmer's U. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0548, within the Decision family. The core principle: sensing the highest future possibility and acting from it — the bottom of Scharmer's U. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Sensing the highest future possibility and acting from it — the bottom of Scharmer's U.
Plain-English Definition
Sensing the highest future possibility and acting from it — the bottom of Scharmer's U.
Feynman Explanation
It's not visioning. It's listening to what the situation is asking of you.
Core Principle
Sensing the highest future possibility and acting from it — the bottom of Scharmer's U.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Sensing the highest future possibility and acting from it — the bottom of Scharmer's U.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The state most innovation workshops claim to produce and almost never do.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
It's not visioning. It's listening to what the situation is asking of you.
Examples
- Scharmer's interviews with 150+ innovators across science, business, and the arts.
- The state most innovation workshops claim to produce and almost never do.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
The mistake with this element is treating it as irrationality. It is almost always a rational response to a payoff nobody wrote down. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: sensing the highest future possibility and acting from it — the bottom of Scharmer's U. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: it's not visioning. It's listening to what the situation is asking of you. Every element in the Cognition dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, the state most innovation workshops claim to produce and almost never do. It is amplified whenever the state most innovation workshops claim to produce and almost never do. Inside organizations that shows up as the state most innovation workshops claim to produce and almost never do. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to combine deep listening, stillness, and prototyping before scaling. Watch for it at the boundaries: handoffs, promotions, incident reviews, and budget cycles are where this element gets its power.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Combine deep listening, stillness, and prototyping before scaling.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Combine deep listening, stillness, and prototyping before scaling.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
How will I feel about this in 10 minutes / 10 months / 10 years?
Inattention or forgetfulness caused by low attention, hyperfocus, or distraction.
Forgetting to compare an offer with the next-best alternative.
Outcomes that could have happened but did not.
Overthinking a situation so that decision-making stalls.
The first number on the table silently sets the range for every number after it.
Tversky & Kahneman's classic: identical outcomes flip from 'risk averse' to 'risk seeking' when framed as lives saved vs. lives lost.
Our perception is shaped by what we selectively pay attention to.
Favoring suggestions from automated systems over conflicting human judgment.
A color appears different depending on adjacent colors.
Decisions are constrained by available information, cognitive limits, and time.
The ability to focus on one voice in a noisy environment.
Where Presencing is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayGoodhart's Law in the Real World
How measurable proxies capture judgment.
- EssayThe Perverse Incentives Hiding in Your KPIs
Cognitive shortcuts turned into scorecards.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
Questions about Presencing
- What is Presencing?
- Presencing is sensing the highest future possibility and acting from it — the bottom of Scharmer's U. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0548, within the Decision family. The core principle: sensing the highest future possibility and acting from it — the bottom of Scharmer's U. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Presencing?
- The state most innovation workshops claim to produce and almost never do. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0548).
- How is Presencing exploited?
- The state most innovation workshops claim to produce and almost never do.
- How do you design around Presencing?
- Combine deep listening, stillness, and prototyping before scaling.
- Which behavioral dimension does Presencing belong to?
- Presencing is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Decision", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0548 and its evidence grade is B.