The Seeds of Change: Insights from Session 1 of the Presencing Series

A few months ago, nearly 1,900 people joined the launch of the Presencing Series, marking the release of Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer’s new book, Presencing: 7 Practices for Transforming Self, Society, and Business. Looking back, the recap below explores the seeds that continue to germinate.

Artwork for the Presencing Series by Jayce Pei Yu Lee

A Moment of Collective Possibility

The session opened with Otto Scharmer asking a question that echoes:

“What if this is the moment we have been born for?”

He spoke about the two competing narratives shaping our world today: one of disruption and destruction, the other of emergence and rebirth. The first fills headlines and feeds; the second, with examples around the globe of people working in their communities and regions, Otto suggested, may be “the most significant and yet least well-told story of our time.”

Grounding in Presence

Before diving into ideas, the gathering began with embodiment. Arawana Hayashi guided everyone into a felt sense of connection:

“We can attend to our own experience gathered here together… Feel your place on the planet right now. Your spot. All of us have a place on our good Mother Earth body right now, a place where we belong.”

That moment of grounding shaped the field. It was a reminder that presence is not abstract but lived, here and now, in body and earth.

Cultivating the Social Soil

Throughout the session, the metaphor of soil surfaced. Just as healthy ground determines what can grow, the quality of our “social soil” — our relationships, awareness, and habits of conversation — determines what emerges in collective life.

Otto drew attention to a striking paradox in our time:

• 68% of people feel a complete loss of collective agency.
• 69% of people say they would willingly make personal sacrifices to address climate change.

How do we bridge that gap? Otto offered this reminder (a quote widely attributed to Ilya Prigogine):

“Small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.”

The Radical Simplicity of Relationship

Katrin Kaufer highlighted how radical — and simple — this work of tending social soil can be.

“If the quality of relationship is there, we can co-create. We can easily collaborate. Trust is efficient.”

She shared examples from her work with financial institutions, where the clear intention to be a “business for good” unlocked creativity and innovation, even in highly constrained environments. She pointed to Brackbank in Bangladesh, which reimagined lending processes so illiterate entrepreneurs could access credit. The lesson was clear: whether in finance or democracy, trust and solidarity are not optional extras — they are the conditions for possibility.

Islands of Coherence in Action

The launch also brought stories from practice. Laura Pastorini shared from the Ecosystem Leadership Program in Latin America, which has brought together over 300 changemakers from 21 countries across three generations. In Mexico, they sparked seeds of 80 prototypes.

Her reflection carried the voice of Indigenous elder Nana Amalia, who said:

“We are in a time of rising, of awakening, of new light. We only need to remember.”

These are the kinds of islands of coherence — places where new light is breaking through.

Building the Social Infrastructure for Change

Closing the session, Antoinette Klatzky pointed to the deeper infrastructure being built:

“What we’re doing here is developing the social tools to be able to connect with each other, using this incredible technology.”

Building the social infrastructure — through trust, attention, shared presence — that allows transformation to unfold across social levels, from the personal to the global.

u-school 2025:

The focus from the Series launch session in cultivating presence, social soil, islands of coherence, and mutual trust — continue to surface in projects and conversations around the world and in the programs led by the Presencing Institute and u-school.

For those who feel called to step into a resonant experience now, the next cycle of u-school offers a social field to practice Presencing, cultivate social soil, and seed new possibilities. Registrations are still open for u-lab 2025, which starts this month.