practice · all tools
Container Building
The facilitator's meta-practice from Theory U: deliberately creating the holding space before the work — preparing one's own inner condition, co-creating ground rules, and inviting open mind, heart, and will — so that differences can arise and be worked with rather than managed away. Unhurried by design: "spaciousness in time" is named as part of the method.
- The container is tested the first time someone risks something — the facilitator's response in that moment is the real ground rule
Practical
- Time
- 30-60 min
- Group
- 3–40 · small-group, large-group
- Settings
- in-person, online
- Materials
- None fixed; agreements made visible
- Mechanisms
- dialogic-encounter, ritual-container, values-clarification
- Change scope
- state → skill · recurring-practice (at the opening of any process that will go deeper than logistics)
Instructions
- Where
- u-school.org/containerbuilding — u-school for Transformation — Theory U tools, open
- Availability
- Open online — published at the link, free to read
- Licence
- CC BY (Presencing Institute)
Source link checked 29 Aug 2026 — unchanged since we recorded it on 28 Aug 2026
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Otto Scharmer / Presencing Institute — Theory U (co-initiating)
In this directory via u-school for Transformation — Theory U tools
The tool behind every other tool in this directory: what "holding" levels describe is largely the capacity this practice builds.
status: checked · added 2026-08-26