TogetheringTakeaway 01
A working toolkit
Fluency in the core Theory U practices: 4D Mapping, Dialogue Walks, Stakeholder Embodiment, Presencing Journeys, Social Presencing Theater, Case Clinics, and 0.8 Prototypes. Knowing when each one is the right move.
4-Week Training · For Individuals
Embodying strategies for change
A 4-week training for change agents, consultants, coaches, and leaders who want to learn, embody, and apply the Theory-U method we use in the Clear Action Intensive.
Not another framework deck. You leave with working facilitation tools, an embodied practice, and one real prototype run inside your own organization.
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Placeholder: intro video
Length
4 Weeks
Format
Live Virtual
Cohort
8–14 People
Investment
$1,750$3,500
Launch pricing
Why This Training Exists
Most change initiatives fail not for lack of plans — but for lack of presence.
The quality of results in any social system depends on the quality of attention the people in it bring to their work. Two leaders in identical circumstances can produce completely different outcomes depending on the inner place from which each operates.
This is what Theory U names and what the Clear Action Intensive practices. This training hands you the method — not as a deck, but as something embodied. So you can carry it into the rooms you already work in.
— After Otto Scharmer, MIT Presencing Institute
What You Walk Away With
Method, embodiment, and a live prototype.
The 4 weeks build toward three durable outcomes. None of them are theoretical.
Takeaway 02
An embodied practice
The inner instruments — Open Mind, Open Heart, Open Will — trained as actual capacities in your nervous system, not concepts on a slide. The part of facilitation that can't be faked.
Takeaway 03
One real prototype
A 0.8 Prototype designed, run, and reflected on inside your own organization during the program — with cohort and facilitator support. Proof, to yourself, that the method lands where you actually work.
The Framework
The U, and why it holds.
Theory U, developed by Otto Scharmer at MIT, has been used globally in large-scale systems change for over two decades. Its spatial logic — descent, threshold, ascent — is the structural spine of the training.
Moving down one side of the U connects us to the world outside our habitual frame. At the bottom, we connect to what wants to emerge. Moving up the other side, we bring it back into the world.
Each descent opens an inner instrument — Open Mind, Open Heart, Open Will — and each instrument has an inner obstacle: the Voice of Judgment, the Voice of Cynicism, the Voice of Fear. Most change work fails at one of those three thresholds. The training walks you through all three, deliberately.
What makes this different from a strategy course
Most strategy training lives on the right side of the U — crystallize, prototype, perform. This training spends most of its time on the descent and the threshold. Because that is where the quality of the ascent is actually determined.
The 4-Week Journey
Descend, cross, ascend.
Each week maps to a stage of the U. Each week weaves theory, embodiment, and application — so what you learn travels home with you.
Week 01
Descending
Seeing
"Suspend what you already know."
Inner Instrument
Open Mind
Theory
Theory U begins with a descent from habitual "downloading" — the routine patterns we project onto every new situation — into factual observation. The first inner instrument is the Open Mind, and its enemy is the Voice of Judgment. Your first move as a facilitator is holding a space where people can actually show up.
Embodiment
You practice suspension in your own body. Noticing the rehearsed narrative, the internal commentary, the automatic conclusion — and choosing not to act from it. Somatic check-ins, grounded presence, and listening drills build the physical capacity for an Open Mind.
Tools & Practices
- 4D Mapping — ecosystem, patterns, outputs, edges
- Opening Circle & intentional check-ins
- Iceberg Model — surfacing systemic structures
- Level-1 / Level-2 listening practice
Apply It This Week
Bring a current system from your own work. Map it honestly. Notice where you have been downloading — and where you have not yet truly seen.
Week 02
Descending
Sensing
"See the system from the inside."
Inner Instrument
Open Heart
Theory
The shift from Seeing to Sensing is the move from head to heart — from observing a system to feeling into it from within. The enemy of the Open Heart is the Voice of Cynicism: protective irony, "we've tried that," reluctance to care openly. Your job is to move through cynicism by creating conditions of genuine connection.
Embodiment
You practice empathic attention: dropping your own viewpoint and inhabiting another's. Partnered listening, co-sensing, and relational somatics build the literal capacity to let another person's experience register in your system without collapsing your own.
Tools & Practices
- Dialogue Walks — empathic listening in motion
- Stakeholder Embodiment — speaking from another's perspective
- Mapping the Deeper Currents — unspoken tensions, grief, hope
- Level-3 listening practice
Apply It This Week
Run a Dialogue Walk with a colleague or stakeholder in your work this week. Notice what shifts. Notice what you hear that was always there — but you were not listening for.
Week 03
Bottom & Ascending
Presencing & Crystallizing
"Let go. Let come."
Inner Instrument
Open Will
Theory
Presencing is the threshold at the bottom of the U — where the current self and the future self meet and begin to listen to each other. The enemy is the Voice of Fear: fear of losing what you have, fear of who you might become. Crystallizing is the first ascent: the vague felt sense begins to take form as shared intention.
Embodiment
Letting-go cannot be argued into being. You practice it. Guided presencing journeys, Social Presencing Theater, silence, and sustained generative listening train the nervous system to stay with not-knowing long enough for something new to arrive.
Tools & Practices
- Guided Presencing Journey (3-stage)
- Social Presencing Theater — Stuck Exercise
- Seed Images & crystallized intentions
- Level-4 (generative) listening
Apply It This Week
Run an SPT Stuck Exercise on a question you hold in your own work. Let your body sculpt current reality. Let it move toward what wants to emerge. Document what you sensed, not what you concluded.
Week 04
Ascending
Prototyping & Performing
"Move an idea into a conversation with reality."
Inner Instrument
Head · Heart · Hand
Theory
On the ascent, the intelligences of head, heart, and hand must reintegrate. Prototypes in Theory U are not MVPs to prove a hypothesis — they are sensing instruments: the smallest possible experiment that lets you learn something you could not have discovered by thinking. Performing is the return to the world, carrying the quality of attention forward.
Embodiment
You practice acting from presence rather than reaction. Disciplined pacing, embodied commitment, and regular rhythm — in meetings, in decisions, in conflict — become the place where the rest of the work actually lands.
Tools & Practices
- 0.8 Prototypes — designed to learn, not to prove
- Case Clinic format — peer coaching
- Personal commitment statements & Witnessing Circles
- Designing "mini-U" rhythms into your org
Apply It This Week
Design one 0.8 Prototype and run it in your work within two weeks. Bring what you learned back to your own team as a practice, not a presentation.
Live Cohort Sessions
4 × 2hr
One per week. Theory + practice.
Guided Somatic Labs
4 × 60min
Between sessions. Embodiment reps.
Cohort Peer Clinic
2 × 60min
Case Clinic format on your live prototype.
Who This Is For
Anyone who has to hold a room.
This training is for individuals who sit inside or alongside organizations and are responsible for how groups move through change. Prior facilitation experience is welcome but not required.
Internal Change Agents
Leading transformation from inside the system.
Consultants & Strategists
Wanting a deeper alternative to workshop templates.
Coaches & Facilitators
Adding Theory U and embodiment to your toolkit.
Leaders & Founders
Guiding your team through real strategic inflection.
A strong fit if…
- You have a real current situation in your work you want to apply the method to.
- You are willing to practice embodied work alongside analytical thinking — and comfortable not-knowing.
- You want durable capacity, not a certification badge.
Probably not right if…
- You want a self-paced asynchronous course — this is a live cohort with real commitments.
- You are looking for proprietary methodology. Theory U is open; we teach the practice, not a trademark.
- You want to absorb the content without running a real prototype in your own work.
From past participants.
[Placeholder testimonial about running their first prototype inside their organization and what shifted.]
— Name, Role, Organization
[Placeholder testimonial about the embodiment practices and how they changed the participant's facilitation presence.]
— Name, Role, Organization
[Placeholder testimonial about moving from theory to actually using Theory U in live work.]
— Name, Role, Organization
Investment
Launch cohort pricing.
$1,750
$3,500
50% off — pilot cohort pricing
We are running our first cohort at half the standard rate. In exchange, we ask for your engaged feedback as we refine the program. Sliding scale is available for accessibility, and team discounts are available for 3+ participants from the same organization.
Apply for the Next CohortIncluded
- 4 weekly live virtual cohort sessions (2 hours each)
- 4 guided somatic labs between sessions (60 min each)
- 2 peer-coaching Case Clinic calls on your live prototype
- Facilitation playbook with every practice from the Clear Action Intensive
- Cohort community space for ongoing dialogue
- Post-program alumni call at Week 8 to reconvene on outcomes
How This Relates to the Clear Action Intensive
Same method. Different vantage point.
Clear Action Intensive
We facilitate your team.
A 2.5-day intensive where we guide your leadership team through the U — with you inside the experience, not running it. The outcome is your team's direction, crystallized and prototyped.
See the Clear Action Intensive →Embodying Strategy Training
You learn to run the method.
4 weeks of training for individuals. You learn the theory, practice the embodiment, and apply the method — one real prototype, in your own organization, during the program. The outcome is a durable personal capability you can use for the rest of your career.
Ready to carry this into your work?
Apply for the next cohort.
We'll talk about the situation you want to apply this to and decide together whether this cohort is the right fit.
Led By
Chris Lunney & Maximilian Lauter
We teach this training the same way we facilitate the Clear Action Intensive — by practicing it with you. Between us we have spent years running Theory U–informed work with startups, cultural institutions, nonprofits, and global technology companies. The training you take is the method we actually use.
Chris Lunney
Co-founder. A master facilitator with deep training in product management, somatic coaching, contemplative practice, and artistic practice, Chris leads with methods that engage the full range of our collective intelligence. Recipient of the Innovative Facilitator Award at the 2026 Facilitation Lab Summit.
Maximilian Lauter
Co-Founder. As a multidisciplinary facilitator, Maximilian leads strategic innovation that integrates methods from art, design, technology, and mindfulness. For over 15 years he has created original programs and run R&D for global brands and cultural institutions. As a certified yoga instructor he guides people to find authentic expression through grounded, creative frameworks and practices.
FAQ
Common questions.
Do I need prior facilitation experience?
No. We meet you where you are. What is required is a real current situation in your work you want to apply the method to, and a willingness to practice embodied work alongside analytical thinking.
Is this a certification?
No. We deliberately avoid certification language. Theory U is a living practice developed by the Presencing Institute at MIT, and we teach it as an open framework. You leave with durable capability, not a credential.
How does the live prototype work?
In Week 1, you bring a real current situation from your work. Over Weeks 2–3, you sense into it using the practices we teach. In Week 4, you design a 0.8 Prototype — the smallest possible experiment — and run it in your own organization within two weeks, with cohort support.
What if I can't attend a live session?
Recordings are available. However, the live sessions are where the embodied practice happens — we strongly encourage making them work. Miss more than one and we'll have a conversation about whether to defer to a later cohort.
Can my team take this together?
Yes — we offer a team discount for 3+ participants from the same organization. Doing the training as a team accelerates adoption significantly, because you return to shared context.
What's your cancellation policy?
A 50% deposit secures your place in the cohort. Balance is due one week before the program begins. Withdrawal more than 2 weeks before start: full refund minus deposit. Within 2 weeks of start: deposit non-refundable, but we can transfer your spot to the next cohort.