Our approach
Theory U
Tools and methods for leading from the emerging future, enabling change-makers to
more clearly sense and enact breakthrough solutions that realize future possibilities.
Making you future ready.
Theory U blends systems thinking, innovation, and leading change, with awareness practices. It allows us to update our mental and organizational operating systems for effecting change.
By leveraging Theory U, you can access fresh tools, methods, and spaces for collective action to tackle complex issues
Transforming systems of Agriculture, Health, Education, Business, Finance, Technology, and Governance.
Creative Commons 4.0 International | Diagram: S. Lehmann, 2010
Our divides are growing.
Social
Polarization • Inequity • Systemic racism
Ecological
Global warming • Biodiversity loss • Wildfires • Floods
Falling water tables • Climate-related mass migrations
Spiritual
Mental health struggles • Burnout • Anxiety
Depression • Collective sense of helplessness
These divides are driven by Ego: a focus on immediate narrow interests, and growth at all costs.
How can we move from Ego to Eco: thinking and acting for all, for the planet, and for future generations?
Theory U unfolds in five movements.
As we move down the left side of the U, we allow ourselves to connect with the world outside our organizational bubble. Reaching the bottom of the U, we suspend our common assumptions and thinking, letting come our highest future possibility. Finally, as we ascend the right side of the U, we bring forth the new into the world.
"The ability to shift from reacting
against the past to leaning into and presencing an emerging future is probably the single most important leadership capacity today.”
Otto Scharmer | Senior Lecturer at MIT, Founding Chair of Presencing Institute.
Author of Theory U: Leading from the Future As it Emerges.
Introducing Theory U in 60 min
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Examples
We have generated results on a broad range of issues including public health, agriculture, regenerative business, education, humanitarian aid, philanthropy and other areas. Some of our key partners,
past and present, include:
Case Studies
Building
Systems Change Leadership Capabilities
Co-creating a seafood system vision and prototypes
Supporting Restoration of Ecosystems and Communities
Accelerating Transformation through SDG Leadership Labs
Rethinking and transforming agriculture in the Netherlands
Co-creating mission-driven banks and the future of finance
Activating a Transformational Learning
Culture
Transforming health care
across the world
Read the case of the World Health Organization
(WHO) Watch the film
Innovating
for societal wellbeing
Books
The Essentials of Theory U: Core Principles and Applications
by Otto Scharmer, 2018
A useful pocket guide for practitioners that focuses on the core principles of Theory U, the key movements that makes the process of Theory U, and social applications, to be used as an introduction to work in the field of Presencing.
Theory U: Leading from the Future
as it Emerges
2nd Edition | by C. Otto Scharmer, 2016
In this ground-breaking book, Otto Scharmer invites us to become aware that what we pay attention to, and how we pay attention - both individually and collectively - is key to what we create. Learning to become aware of inner place from which we operate, is critical to bringing forth the profound systemic changes needed in business and society today.
Sample chapters: Intro and Chapter 1 | Executive Overview: English, Chinese, French, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish
Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economics
by C. Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer, 2013
Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer ask, why do we collectively create results nobody wants? Meeting the challenges of this century requires updating our economic logic and operating system from an obsolete “ego-system” focused entirely on the well-being of oneself to an eco-system awareness that emphasizes the well-being of the whole.
Sample Chapters: Intro, Chapter 1 & 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapters 4 & 5 | Chapter 8
