TogetheringPrinciples
Principles that shape the process.
Four working commitments shape every engagement. They keep us honest about how we actually move from uncertainty to direction.
Emergence over extraction.
The insight you need is already in the room. We create the conditions for collective intelligence to surface rather than delivering answers from outside. What emerges is yours, situated in your context, which is why it sticks.
The quality of sense-making depends on the quality of sensing.
How attention is paid determines what becomes visible, and what becomes visible determines what can be done. We shift how you attend across the arc of an engagement so that what you can see expands.
Humans sense in multiple modes.
Analytical thinking, intuitive recognition, emotional signal, and embodied knowing work best in concert. We engage all of these so your full capacity is working on the questions in front of you.
Embodiment is a gateway to presence.
The body carries information the analytical mind can't access directly, and stress narrows the capacities you need most under uncertainty. Somatic practice helps you regulate, arrive, and access the depth of knowing that aligned action requires.
Research
The research behind our principles.
Our work draws on decades of research across cognitive science, embodied practice, and systems change. The sources below inform how we facilitate and the principles we hold.
- 1Damasio — Descartes’ Error (1994). Patients with damage to emotion-processing brain regions make significantly worse decisions despite intact analytical reasoning. Emotion is essential infrastructure for sound judgment.
- 2Wang & Highhouse et al. — Intuition vs. Analysis (2015). Meta-analysis of 80 studies (n = 27,501) showing intuition and analysis are complementary systems. Decisions integrating both consistently outperform those relying on either alone.
- 3Critchley et al. — Neural Correlates of Interoception (2004). Greater awareness of internal bodily signals correlates with better intuitive judgment and more effective emotional integration in decision-making.
- 4Bennett / Strozzi Institute — The Somatic Enneagram (2012). Embodied practices measurably enhance leadership effectiveness and decision quality.
- 5Porges — The Polyvagal Theory (2011). Unregulated stress activates defensive nervous system states that reduce access to the prefrontal functions required for complex reasoning and collaboration.
- 6Scharmer — Theory U (2009). The quality of outcomes in any system depends on the quality of attention people bring to it. Shifting how a group attends changes what it can perceive and do.
Additional Research Informing Our Philosophy
- —Galton — Vox Populi (1907). Large, diverse groups consistently outperform individual experts when their perspectives are properly aggregated.
- —Caswell — Somatic Coaching and Leadership (2025). Somatic coaching produces lasting shifts in how leaders perceive, relate, and act under complexity.