Presencing Foundation Program Berlin March 2020

The Presencing Foundation Programme is a 4 day intensive introduction to concepts and practices of Theory U, a social technology for helping to bring about profound innovation and change. Theory U is being applied around the world by individuals, organizations and in multi-sector initiatives generating breakthrough possibilities around pressing organizational and societal issues.

The focus of this method is on sensing and actualising emerging future opportunities, both individually and collectively. In this program you will learn how to sense and seize future opportunities and how to connect to the deeper journey of your personal and professional life in order to become a more effective leader and change-maker in your work environment.

The program will also incorporate insights about applying Theory U to transforming business, society and self from Otto Scharmer and Katrin Käufer’s new book, Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies (2013).

The Foundation courses engage participants in the principles and practices of presencing. “Presencing,” a word that blends “presence” and “sensing,” refers to the ability to sense and bring into the present one’s highest future potential—as an individual and as a group.

Through interactive presentations, reflective exercises, case clinics, and embodiment practices, participants will learn and apply the seven capacities of the deep leadership cycle that helps change-makers to transcend old behavior patterns, realize new possibilities, and enable transformation and innovation.

Participants will explore their own blind spots as leaders and expand their awareness of what they do and how they do it. You will learn to pay attention to what’s going on in ways that lead to the opening of the mind, heart, and will. This holistic opening constitutes a shift in awareness: participants recognize the future in the present moment and learn from that spark of the future as it emerges.

During the program you will not only explore ways of enhancing your leadership presence through practices that enable you to be calm, observant, and focused; you will also explore how those practices are being used in organizations and learn what networking resources can help you to sustain the practices in your own life and work.

What is required in order to connect to and learn from the future as it emerges? What kind of attention allows our actions to be guided (and informed) by that future? To answer these questions, participants will learn and apply interdependent elements of the U-process and Presencing.

Practices of the U-Process:

• Four levels of responding to change​    
• Four types of listening and conversation
• Three (inner) instruments: Open Heart, Open Mind, Open Will
• Accessing and bringing forth one’s authentic Self
• Overcoming three barriers in one’s inner work
• Five movements of Presencing as a social technology for change (co-initiating, co-sensing, co-inspiring, co-creating, co-evolving)
• Twenty-four principles and practices of Presencing

This four-day experiential workshop is for leaders and teams at all levels. It introduces a collective leadership methodology for sensing and facilitating profound innovation and change both within organizations and across societal systems. A large portion of the Presencing workshop is dedicated to case clinics, where participants will apply what they are learning to challenges and projects in their own work. Participants will benefit the most from this workshop by coming with a concrete project or challenge that you are working on and/or by attending with one or more colleagues/ stakeholders. If you work in a consultant or facilitator role, we encourage you to participate with a client.

This workshop will be of particular value to teams in the early stages of working on joint projects. While developing their individual and collective leadership capacities, participants will simultaneously create a shared vision for their projects, engage with internal and external stakeholders, and prototype new ideas.

In our experience a good spread of participation across the sectors - corporate, civil society, government, academia - is important for this program. Since we are trying to ensure this mix, we might contact you prior to confirming your participation.

The program will be limited to a maximum of 80 participants.