Who we are

What we do

What moves us

Our purpose is the (future) purpose

Our work as knowledge and innovation architects is all about the vitality of organizations and the people who work there. For both of them – people and organizations – vitality means being authentic in the midst of life and contributing to our world in a meaningful way. Orientation, the creation of new meaning, and purpose are key in a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (“VUCA world”). Living systems handle these challenges by finding a good balance between stability and renewal.

At theLivingCore, we follow this principle in our work with companies. It helps us turn the challenges of a digitized VUCA world into something positive by transforming and accompanying organizations on their path from their living core toward the future. Our approach of “learning-from-the-future” enables us to develop living and thriving organizations and spaces.

Team

We are committed people from very different backgrounds. Together with our customers, we shape desired futures.

Thomas Fundneider

Founder & CEO

Oliver Lukitsch

Agency Catalyst

Tim Bendig

CEO theLivingCore in Germany

Isabel Kreitner

Chief Design & Manufacturing Officer

Lena Müller-Naendrup

Urban Ecosystems Architect

Markus F. Peschl

Founder & Chief Science Officer

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How we work

Our 7 principles

Radical Openness

Our method is characterised by unconditional openness. We look at the reality (of an organisation) without fear or bias and develop effective innovation systems from there.

Sensing the Core

Our method is characterized by an empathic approach to the object. We allow ourselves to become fully involved in reality in order to develop a deep understanding from this “sensing”, the meaningful grasp of the given.

Cultivating Latent Potentials

Potentials of innovation exist in all organizations. We do not engage We do not organize wild brainstorming sessions, but identify and cultivate the development opportunities and potentials that are already present, but not always obvious.

Co-creating Desired Futures

Change is not a one-way street. That is why we develop innovations together with our clients on a long-term and sustainable basis. In terms of “deep understanding” (see “sensing and deep understanding”), the aim is to work with the organization to create the future that is truly meaningful and desired for it in cooperation with all relevant stakeholders.

Emergence

Where does the new come from? We assume that new things do not fall from the sky, but neither do they always grow from the same earth. “Emergence” means that new patterns and qualities arise from interacting elements although these elements did not contain anything movel per se. As with creative or evolutionary processes, a new idea or a new pattern supposedly emerges “out of nowhere”, but in fact emerges from the dynamics of the existing elements. Our expertise lies in creating supportive framework conditions for such processes of emergence of the new.

Enabling

The emergence of something new cannot be caused mechanically or "according to a recipe". However, it is possible to create an environment that favors emergent processes. If you want butterflies, you have to sow a meadow for them. This is precisely our definition of “enabling”: we create environments that dramatically increase the likelihood that something new can emerge.

Learning from the Future

Traditional innovation processes extrapolate from the past into the future. We reverse this perspective and try to identify focal points or latent potentials in the emerging future and make them fruitful for innovation. We are driven by the question of what we can “learn from the future” today.

Austria,
Lange Gasse 29, 
1080 Vienna

Germany,
Hanauer Landstraße 154,
60314 Frankfurt am Main

Germany,
Harmsmühlenstraße 77, 
31832 Springe