u.lab-S: Societal Transformation, the Presencing Institute’s new economy initiative launched in collaboration with HuffPost, began on Thursday 14th February. The program consists of over 300 teams, involving more than 3000 leaders and changemakers from five continents.

u.lab-S is a four-month online to offline journey that will help place-based teams evolve their project to have a wider and deeper impact on a system they are trying to affect or change.

Some teams come from well-known international organizations. Others are made up of pioneering citizens, students and local organizers. All are working to advance initiatives from within and across sectors, on key acupuncture points of societal transformation, that range from establishing local circular economies to advancing our democracies, reconnecting business with purpose, to whole-child education models, to more sustainable ways of stewarding land.

The lab offers teams:

• resources and facilitation support, provided through an online platform
• a roadmap to help teams develop a deeper understanding of the systemic forces impacting their work, identify challenges and prototype solutions
• spaces for peer learning and dialogue

This phase follows a first co-initiation and "train-the-trainer" phase that took place in January (see previous update here), during which core teams were guided through the steps of:

• building a holding space (or container)
• co-initiating a diverse team that inspires a common intention
• ensuring that the right stakeholders have been invited to participate in the journey

In this new February phase, the teams are beginning to work hands-on to map out the system and go to its edges, to gather key observations and insights. These practices establish a better understanding of how all the stakeholders experience the current situation - particularly the ones that are most marginalized, whom we often know the least about. Through this module, participants are learning new ways of perceiving blockages, needs and opportunities in their stakeholder systems, using various levels of systems-thinking analysis: from symptoms down to the deeper root issues at play.

In the kick-off live session, the u.lab-S core team virtually walked participating teams through the 3D mapping practice. After the session, core teams then facilitated these practices locally with their extended teams, adapting the practice to their respective local conditions.

As one lab participant put it:
“We are in movement. In movement there is change, and in change there is power”.

 

In March, teams will come back together online for a deep dive that focuses on sensemaking from the variety of observations that people gathered in February.

We look forward to sharing more news with the wider Presencing Institute community about the happenings, learnings and highlights of this online-offline lab as the program progresses and unfolds over the next weeks and months. Stay tuned for more!