Friends, Work has been continuing apace on the new book. I've been ignoring other things, such as straightening up the house or sending out news items. Sorry about that. I know LOTS is going on in the world. One of these days I'll DELUGE newslog and send a summary to cj & rn, with the reports I've found most informative. About two weeks ago I sent out the first 'complete' version of the book. It was not in the most accessible of formats, but I did get lots of very useful feedback. My estimate now is that that version was about 80% of the way to the final product. It was just good enough to be worth making a lot better, if you know what I mean. Some of the people reviewing the material are activists in the field, and in some cases the material has been influencing the activism! That's great, since that's actually the purpose of the book. Below is the latest version of Chapter 4. The first two sections are basically unchanged, but have been moved to the front. The remainder of the chapter is largely new and I believe more effective. Partly I'm asking for feedback, and partly I just want to keep you up to date on progress. all the best, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4 Harmonization in groups * Meeting dynamics: collaborative & adversarial Consider for a moment the many kinds of meetings that occur in our society. In business meetings are held regularly to make plans and coordinate people's activities. If parents feel that their children need a crossing guard on the way to school, then they organize a neighborhood meeting. When a country decides to go to war, that decision is made in some meeting among high-level officials. In government one wonders if they do anything but go to meetings, whether they be official government sessions, or meetings with staff, colleagues, lobbyists, backers, or constituents. If people want to start a political movement, they begin by organizing meetings. The American Revolution was born in New England pubs, where the rebellious minded held meetings and plotted against the King, inspired by the local brew. Although many of us have negative feelings about meetings, and about their effectiveness, the fact is that meetings are the place where people generally make joint plans and reach group decisions. Some of these meetings are collaborative, and some are adversarial. We are all familiar with both kinds. A typical example of a collaborative meeting would be the neighborhood gathering mentioned above, where the parents would like to see a crossing guard assigned to a dangerous local intersection. The people have a common goal, and they work together cooperatively to achieve it. People offer suggestions for actions that can be taken, the suggestions are discussed, and people volunteer to help with the actions that are agreed to. If the meeting is successful, everyone comes away better off-the concept of winners and losers is irrelevant to a collaborative meeting. A typical example of an adversarial meeting would be a city council session where a controversial development project is being discussed. The developers and business community are showing slides of beautiful landscaped buildings and talking of new jobs, while neighborhood protesters are complaining about increased traffic and the loss of a children's playground. The typical outcome of such a meeting is that one side wins and the other loses. Either the development project goes ahead, and the neighborhood suffers, or else the project is rejected and the investors may suffer considerable losses. It is very unusual for anything creative to happen at an adversarial meeting. People, or factions, come in with agendas to promote-agendas that were created somewhere else. If the meeting is unable to resolve an issue, it is typically deferred-and people are expected to go off somewhere else and create revised proposals. The somewhere else-where the creative activity of planning occurs-is generally a meeting of the collaborative variety. In our city council example, the developers and promoters have been meeting collaboratively for months preparing their project plans and their city-council presentation. Similarly, the neighborhood protestors have held collaborative meetings to assess their feelings and to decide how best to express their concerns to the city council. The adversarial meeting-the official decision making meeting-is not a discussion session, but is rather a battle of strength between the two opposing sides: Which side can muster the most support among the city council members? Which side can spout the most convincing rhetoric, painting its own proposals in the colors of the common good? Parliamentary sessions in liberal "democracies" are based on the adversarial meeting model. A chairman governs the proceedings, proposals can be introduced, time is allowed for debate, and a majority vote decides each question. The "debate" is typically rhetorical, for public consumption, and seldom affects the outcome of the vote. This is not a system designed to solve problems or to encourage useful discussion-it is a system designed to efficiently measure the relative power of opposing factions, and to promptly assign the rewards to the strongest. Just as the floor of the stock market is designed to efficiently manage the investment transactions of the wealthy elite, so is the floor of the parliament designed to efficiently referee power transactions among elite factions. A collaborative meeting operates according to collaborative dynamics, and an adversarial meeting operates according to adversarial dynamics. Collaborative dynamics are about people gathering around and agreed objectives, identifying means to achieve them, and planning how to pursue that agenda. Within collaborative dynamics people have an incentive to listen to one another's suggestions, and in the planning process the group typically converges toward a consensus perspective on the task at hand. Adversarial dynamics are about people debating from their fixed perspectives in an attempt to prevail over the other side. There is little incentive to listen to the other side, apart from looking for weaknesses that can be exploited. Each side may attempt to shift the perspective of the other side, but neither side has any intention of shifting its own perspective. Whereas people learn useful things about their shared problems within collaborative dynamics, the only thing learned within adversarial dynamics is how to better combat the other side. Collaborative dynamics tend to avoid internal divisiveness when it arises, while adversarial dynamics tend to reinforce and encourage divisiveness among factions. * A gap in our cultural repertoire These two meeting models are very common in our society, and indeed they are more or less the extent of our general cultural repertoire. We know how to get together with our allies and make plans to promote our shared interests, and we know how to fight for our side in an adversarial gathering, according to whatever rules are in play. What we don't know much about, and don't have many cultural models for, is how to resolve differences within a group of people. We don't know how to engage in productive dialog within a group of people who express conflicting interests. In an adversarial meeting the differences are accepted as a given, as a fixed quantity, and the business of the meeting is to enable the different factions to battle it out until a winner can be chosen. There is no attempt to resolve the differences: people go away with their perspectives unchanged, and the same factions retire to prepare for their next engagement. When people come into a collaborative meeting, they come in with the knowledge that they are bound by common interests to the other participants. Indeed, the people come together in order to collaborate in advancing those common interests. In order to get on with it and make progress, participants tend to avoid bringing up internal differences in such meetings. At such a meeting a good leader will be skillful at defusing differences, articulating compromises, and keeping the meeting on track. Minority factions within the group are encouraged to stifle their divisive concerns, and join the majority in a consensus that will advance the identified common interests of the group. And in the competition between different factions, success tends to go to those which are best able to submerge their internal differences, focus on their primary interests, and adopt decisive action plans. Under neither dynamics is there an attempt to engage in constructive dialog regarding the differences in the group. Under adversarial dynamics there is dialog over differences-but it is the dialog of power, expressed in the language of influence and votes. Under collaborative dynamics, discussion of differences is avoided, so that the group can focus on their identified common interests and get on with their primary business. In the one case difference are expressed competitively and are reinforced, and in the other case differences are suppressed. In neither case are differences resolved. This gap in our cultural repertoire creates a problem for popular initiatives, particularly in a society which is already split by factionalism. Indeed, the gap can lead to difficulties whenever people attempt to work together. Here's an example I observed on a recent visit to the San Francisco Bay Area. The population there is relatively progressive, and there is widespread support for an increased focus on public transport. But instead of people getting together and coming up with a common proposal, people soon divided themselves into two camps. One camp wanted to expand the conventional rail network, while another wanted to expand the rapid-transit system. Most of the available activist energy was then devoted to a struggle between these two camps. As I read over the positions of the two camps, as an outside observer, it seemed obvious to me that the best of the ideas could be usefully combined into a cost-effective hybrid proposal. The real solution, it seemed, would be to make strategic interconnecting links and upgrades, and coordinate schedules-across all available transport systems-rather than promoting one kind of transport to the exclusion of another. Of course my own arm-chair proposal probably didn't take everything into account, but the main point remains: the two camps were struggling over their differences rather than trying to resolve them-and missed any opportunity to find synergy in some creative middle ground. The collaborative meeting model could not serve the two camps, because neither side was willing to stifle its ideas-so the activists adopted the only other available cultural model: adversarial engagement. As a consequence of this split in popular activism, the transport planning decisions will most likely be made by speculative developers and their politician cronies, and whatever they decide they will be able to claim their decision has "public support." Most of us consider public meetings to be a waste of time, particularly when they attempt to deal with issues that are complex or controversial. This is because we have prior experience with the dynamics that are likely to occur. First there will be an attempt to reach a rapid consensus, most likely proposed by those calling the meeting. Then someone in the back stands up and disagrees, voicing some objection. That sparks other suggestions and objections. The meeting threatens to get out of control-to revert to adversarial dynamics. The organizers attempt to bring the dynamics back into collaboration. If they succeed, then some of the participants go away feeling their interests have been betrayed; if they fail, then everyone goes away with the feeling that yet another meeting has been a waste of time. Did you exchange a walk-on part in a war for a leading role in a cage? -Roger Waters, Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here Because of these circumstances, anyone with a motivation to pursue political activism soon learns to flock with birds of the same feather. Environmentalists flock under a green banner, animal rights activists follow their drummer, other groups rally around their opposition to corporate power, or their stance in favor of or against abortion rights, etc. In order to get anything done, collaborative dynamics are required, and gathering together in interest groups seems to be the natural thing to do. Those gathering together already agree on what's important, and they are thus able-depending on their organizational ability-to get on with a program, rather than wasting time debating the priority of different issues. In this way the energy of popular initiatives gets sucked into the game of adversarial factionalism-a game whose rules are set down by elites for their own advantage. Just as in Las Vegas or Wall Street, this is a game where the house always wins in the end. If we want to overcome factionalism in the macrocosm, at the level of society, we must first learn how to overcome differences at the microcosm, down in the grassroots where people meet face to face. We need to extend our cultural repertoire to include gatherings of a third kind, where people neither compete to win or lose, nor submerge their differences in order to reach a shallow consensus. We need a third dynamics, a dynamics of harmonization, a dynamics that encourages us to express our concerns fully, and which enables us to work creatively with that information-to find ways forward that benefit everyone involved. If our cultural repertoire can be extended in this way, in the microcosm, then we may find that there are new ways of working together on a larger scale as well-ways that avoid the quicksand of adversarial politics. * Some remarkable meetings In June, 2004, twenty four diverse "opinion leaders" were invited to a conference in Michigan which had the following stated purpose: The purpose of this gathering is to [initiate] a new kind of public conversation that moves us beyond polarization so we [can] effectively address the issues we care most about. . . The participants were from all across the political spectrum, including a former FBI agent, the National Field Director of the Christian Coalition, a founding member of the National Congress of Black Women, a board member of the National Rifle Association, the president of a left-leaning legal-issues organization, former Weather Underground supporters, and former speakers at white racist gatherings. Is this gathering intended as a joke? From such a radically diverse conference one might expect fistfights and shouting matches to emerge, rather than any kind of agreement or consensus. Tom Atlee, a participant, expressed his misgivings prior to the gathering this way: Using Google, I researched the people who were coming to the conversation. I read articles by the conservatives and listened to their radio talk shows-and I got triggered by what they said. I reacted with anger, frustration and rejection of who they were. I thought silent counter arguments and felt the rise of adrenaline. Friends warned me to be careful-or couldn't even imagine going to talk with such people.* But somehow, at the conference in Michigan, the outcome transcended these negative expectations. It turned out to be a very productive meeting. Another of the participants, Mark Satin, wrote an article* about the experience; he describes the first evening's activities this way: On Friday night, we broke into three groups (of eight participants and one facilitator each) to discuss such questions as, What did you understand about being an American when you were 12 years old? How have you experienced political differences and how did that affect you personally? It was impossible to participate in that exercise without coming to see (and feel and know) that every participant, whatever their politics, was a complex and caring human being. Reporting on an afternoon's conversation later in the conference, Mark says: Someone tried to classify participants' approaches as "left" or "right." Someone on the right took umbrage with that, feeling that the qualities cited as "right" were insulting stereotypes; and that pressed many people's buttons; and round and round and round we went, and the afternoon shadows grew longer. But the end result of that conversation is we all realized-I mean, we all really "got"-how misleading and even infantilizing the old political spectrum had become. Mark's comments on a later session: In another exercise, the participants were asked to tell about each of the key decisions they'd made in their political lives: Everyone stared, some of us open-mouthed, as various "left"-wingers and "right-" wingers, former Weather Underground supporters and former speakers at white racist gatherings, shared the incidents that shaped their lives. And revealed without even trying that every caring person is a brother or sister under the skin. And that our values are at some deep level fundamentally the same. ...for the first time in many years, I feel enthusiastic enough about an incipient political movement to want to put my shoulder to the wheel. At the end of the conference the group came up with a remarkable declaration: Before leaving, we all signed our names to a document titled "We the People." Many of us signed with flourishes, as if we were signing something akin to the Declaration of Independence. Here are the key passages: "We respect our differences and recognize America needs every one of our viewpoints, ideas, and passions-even those we don't agree with-to keep our democracy vital and alive; "We recognize that meeting here and across our land for dialogues across differences builds trust, understanding, respect, and empowerment-the conditions necessary for freedom and democracy to live in us and around us; "And, therefore, each still grounded in our own considered views (conscience and convictions), we commit ourselves and our communities of interest to foster dialogue across the many divides in America, in large and small groups, to build trust, insight, and inspired action toward the more perfect union we all desire." We can find considerable encouragement in these results. Factionalism keeps us divided as a society, and yet these diverse and dedicated factionalists were somehow able to appreciate one another's perspectives-and even discover an explicit common identity as "We the People." They even felt motivated to publish their shared sentiments as a declaration, and went on to make plans to follow-up in an enthusiastic and newfound spirit of collaboration. Consensus does not mean agreement. It means we create a forum where all voices can be heard and we can think creatively rather than dualistically about how to reconcile our different needs and visions. -Starhawk, Lessons from Seattle and Washington D.C., from Democratizing the Global Economy, Kevin Danaher, ed., Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 2001. In this microcosm, we have seen that it is possible to break through the barriers of factional divisiveness, even in cases where the divisions run very deep. The breakthrough did not come by resolving ideological differences-no one changed their political allegiances-but rather by dissolving the feeling of separateness that usually exists at a personal level between members of different factions. Instead of seeing their dialogical relationship as being dominated by their differing beliefs, they came to experience that relationship in terms of their deeper shared identity-as fellow citizens and caring human beings. The structure of the conference and the influence of the facilitators both contributed significantly to the success of this event. The sessions were designed to give people an opportunity to share their relevant life experiences, and the facilitator helped maintain an environment of respectful listening. Apart from these process contributions, neither the organizers nor the facilitators tried to push the discussion in any particular direction. The content of the discussions-and the outcomes of the conference-were entirely the spontaneous expression of the participants themselves. In this conference a certain kind of listening was going on, a kind found in neither collaborative nor adversarial meetings. In collaborative meetings the objective is to adopt a common agenda, and there is little reason to listen seriously to comments that that are off that topic. In adversarial meetings the objective is to struggle for dominance, and there is little reason to listen seriously to comments that are irrelevant to the debate. In the Michigan conference, the participants were listening to understand, rather than to advance some program. Because of the gap in our cultural repertoire, we seldom experience this kind of listening when we dialog in groups. In our search for a dynamics of harmonization, we can identify this kind of deep listening-listening to understand-as being one of the elements contributing to such dynamics. When that kind of listening occurs, we have seen that it can help dissolve factionalism, enable common concerns to be identified, and even lead to a sense of shared identity and purpose. Because most of us have grown up in adversarial cultures, a facilitator is usually necessary if a group hopes to achieve this kind of deep listening. This is particularly true if the group is diverse or if it is likely to be dealing with divisive issues. Appropriate, non-directive facilitation is another element that can contribute substantially to achieving a dynamics of harmonization in a group setting. Let us move on and consider another example of a facilitated conference that has produced promising results in terms of harmonization. Here's how the event is described on the website of Tom Atlee's Co-Intelligence Institute, (http://www.co-intelligence.org/S-Canadaadvrsariesdream.html): One weekend in June, 1991, a dozen Canadians met at a resort north of Toronto, under the auspices of Maclean's , Canada's leading newsweekly. They'd been scientifically chosen so that, together, they represented all the major sectors of public opinion in their deeply divided country. But despite their firmly held beliefs, each of them was interested in dialogue with people whose views differed from theirs. That dialogue was facilitated by "the guru of conflict resolution," Harvard University law professor Roger Fisher -- co-author of the classic Getting to Yes -- and two colleagues. Despite the fact that they'd never really listened to the viewpoints and experiences of others so unlike themselves and the tremendous time pressure (they had three days to develop a consensus vision for Canada), and despite being continuously watched by a camera crew from CTV television (who recorded the event for a special public-affairs program), these ordinary citizens succeeded in their mission. Their vision was published in four pages of fine print -- part of the 39 pages Maclean's devoted to describing their efforts (July 1, 1991 issue) This conference differs from the Michigan event in three significant ways: ordinary citizens were selected rather than "opinion leaders"; the specific topic to be discussed at the conference was pre-defined; the facilitators directly guided the problem-solving process of the group. This conference was more rigidly constrained, the scope of discussion was limited-and it did not generate the same deep spirit of We the People enthusiasm that arose in the Michigan conference. Nonetheless the participants did listen deeply to each other's concerns on the issues under discussion, they did get beyond their differences regarding those issues, and they did reach a consensus which took into account their various concerns. Furthermore, their written recommendations reveal a perspective that embraces harmonizing concerns as a way of resolving social issues. Here are two brief excerpts: Rather than trying to make binding decisions now on the precise shape of Canada's future, we work together to clarify the vision of a Canada in which all Canadians would feel fully accepted, at home and fairly treated, and with an appropriate balance between national concerns and local autonomy A vision of Canadians working together is not simply a matter of constitutional language. We suggest that Canadians devote substantial effort to the human dimension-to understanding one another empathetically, to caring and sharing their concerns and ideas. And that they also work together to make the Canadian economy as prosperous and promising for the future as they can. On a base of human understanding and economic co-operation, constitutional questions will be far easier to resolve. We suggest that all three activities be pursued concurrently. Again we see that deep listening and appropriate facilitation can contribute to achieving harmonization in a group. In this case we also see that ordinary people from all walks of life are capable of developing thoughtful visions regarding matters of state. We see too that any constraints put on a group discussion can lessen the depth of sharing and mutual understanding that emerges. Nonetheless, even under such constraints, harmonization can enable people to overcome their relevant differences and together develop mutually agreeable solutions to difficult problems. Let us next consider a harmonization session in a community setting, where the concerns raised involve the participants directly in their daily lives. The community involved is the Rogue Valley area of Oregon, and the facilitation technique involved is called Dynamic Facilitation-one of the most effective forms of facilitation for achieving harmonization in a diverse group of people. Held in January 2004, the event was billed as The Rogue Valley Wisdom Council. Wisdom Council is a concept developed by Jim Rough, the inventor of Dynamic Facilitation. The Wisdom Council is Jim's proposal for how the We the People experience might be translated into the political domain. The basic idea behind a Wisdom Council is to bring together a group of randomly selected citizens, as a kind of representative microcosm of a larger constituency-a community, a region, or even a whole nation. Ideally, a Wisdom Council would be officially chartered in some way, so that the outcome of its harmonization process would have a claim to democratic legitimacy. The ideas and proposals generated in a Council session are to be shared with the larger population, leading perhaps to a wider dialog, and hopefully influencing public policy. If the general concerns of the larger constituency find expression within the microcosm, and if in the microcosm those concerns have been harmonized, then it is likely that the consensus reached in the Wisdom Council will enjoy wide appeal in the constituency generally. In order to achieve a reasonably random selection of participants, hundreds of names were picked randomly from the phone books for the Rogue Valley area. These people were contacted by phone, and eventually a small group agreed to participate in the event. Jim Rough personally facilitated the two-day session, and the group did indeed achieve a strong sense of We the People. The event was recorded on video, and one can readily see the transformation in the participants. At the beginning they seemed rather shy and didn't feel they had much to say. But by the end, they were overflowing with enthusiasm about the possibility of some more direct kind of participation in the democratic process. As a follow-up, a public meeting was held in the week following the session, and this was also recorded on video. The meeting started off with a report by the participants on their experience, and their highly articulate expressions were in stark contrast to their original shyness. The meeting then broke up into several roundtable discussions, each including one of the Council participants. There was no attempt to facilitate these discussions, and remarkably the enthusiasm of the Council participants turned out to be highly contagious. The people at the meeting were able to somehow pick up the We the People spirit without actually going through the harmonization experience themselves. Everyone came away from the public meeting with a great deal of enthusiasm for greater public involvement in policy making-and for the kind of dialog that harmonizing processes enable. Out of this enthusiasm, local citizens formed citizen's panels to discuss various issues, leading to a kind of citizens-panel movement in the area. One of the panels submitted its own alternative proposal for a development project, indicating that the panels are seeking creative solutions to problems rather than just making demands. Their proposal was rejected without due consideration, and that led the movement to get involved in the electoral process. They have subsequently succeeded in electing some favorable representatives to local government. Joseph McCormick, one of the organizers of the initial Wisdom Council, describes the pivotal moment when one of these panels was born, as he talks about a scene in a film he made of a neighborhood meeting: It shows the crucial moment in the neighborhood meeting when the power shifts from the city official in the front of the room telling the people about the "construction that will begin next month" in their neighborhood (and they will pay for), to the people (about 75 angry citizens) when the suggestion is made to form a "citizens panel" and the whole room in the span of a minute or so "gets it" that they, if they unify/harmonize, have power to influence the outcome (and the city official is no longer "in charge" for the rest of the meeting.) With these developments in the Rogue Valley, we are seeing something more than harmonization within the context of a meeting or conference. We are seeing an empowered spirit of We the People emerging more generally among the citizens of a community, and we see them finding ways to come together and collaborate effectively in achieving their common objectives. The participants in the initial Wisdom Council, which used Dynamic Facilitation, were able to experience the full deep-listening that characterizes harmonization sessions. The subsequent citizen's panels are managing to get along without formal facilitation. Nonetheless they are apparently able to achieve some degree of harmonization in their meetings. Unlike many grassroots activist initiatives, these panels are not oriented around a single issue, nor do they only involve people who already agree on a basic agenda. Rather, they represent the emergence of a desire on the part of diverse citizens to participate generally and directly in the democratic process. The fact that these panels are able to develop common agendas-despite their diversity and lack of pre-defined focus-shows that the participants have found ways to listen to one another, identify common concerns, and work effectively together for their common benefit. * The dynamics of harmonization Although harmonizing dynamics are not part of our mainstream culture, they are a well-known in the management-consultant and meeting-facilitation communities. In that community harmonization (under various names) is a rapidly expanding domain of knowledge and practice*. In the pursuit of greater efficiency and competitiveness, corporations want their internal teams to work more effectively together-and this has spawned a whole industry of consultants and facilitators. As a consequence the state-of-the-art of facilitation has progressed along many lines, and some of those lines have produced very promising results as regards harmonization. Indeed, there are several proven facilitation methodologies that focus on overcoming group differences at a deep level, thereby unlocking creative synergy that was previously blocked by divisiveness or misunderstanding. Not all of these methodologies were developed in the industrial context, but corporate support has overall provided a boost to this field of practice-and success in the domain of corporate teamwork provides hard evidence for the effectiveness and value of these techniques. These facilitation techniques have proven to be successful in socially oriented contexts as well, as we've seen in the previous section. An extensive listing of initiatives and methodologies relevant to harmonization dynamics can be found on Tom's website, http://www.co-intelligence.org, and Jim Rough's website, http://www.tobe.net/. These techniques are proven and reliable. They enable groups to transcend their differences, discover their underlying common ground, and come up with creative, breakthrough solutions to difficult problems and seemingly intractable conflicts. Furthermore, people who participate in one of these sessions frequently report that they find the experience to be personally transforming. As a harmonization session proceeds, using these kinds techniques in a sensitive way, two very important shifts typically occur that empower the group and bring out the inherent synergy that can be found deep within any group of people. The first shift has to do with divisiveness. When a group first gets together with an intention to engage in dialog, people typically identify others as being "on their side" or "on the other side," as regards various issues. One might imagine an atheist liberal and a religious fundamentalist eyeing one another across the table when a topic like abortion is introduced. What shifts, when people listen to understand, is that people begin to see that everyone else-like themselves-have sincere, deep-felt concerns. Participants begin to respect one another as fellow complex humans, and tend to stop thinking of others in terms of being "on my side" or not, or being of a type. This shift, away from feelings of divisiveness, awakens a cooperative spirit in the group. Rather than feeling in confrontation with the other side-which happens all-to-often in conversations and gatherings-participants begin to see themselves as being in a collaborative endeavor with people I respect. This reflects a shift at an emotional level, in the participant's feelings about his relationship to the group. As this overall shift in the group's energy is occurring, each participant's feelings tend to shift away from negative spaces like shy, threatened, unable, or misunderstood, over to the neighborhood of belonging and being OK. When people feel they belong as-they-are in a group, then they are empowered to contribute with their full energy from their unique insights and experiences. The second shift that typically occurs in group energy has to do with synergy. This shift too is enabled by the practice of listening to understand. However this shift happens more in the thinking domain than the emotional. At the beginning of a session, participant's tend to judge suggestions by others as being "for my side" or "against my side." In an atmosphere of deep listening, and particularly when people learn to respect the other people in the group, it becomes possible for people to accept other's suggestions as expressions of legitimate concerns, rather than as arguments for or against "my side". When this shift happens, people begin thinking in terms of taking all concerns into account; they stop dismissing "contrary" thinking. Ideas which were earlier rejected can now be re-perceived as positive suggestions- from this broader perspective of taking all concerns into account. This shift enables the discovery of powerful hidden synergies in the thinking of the group. Let's consider a simple example. Suppose the topic under discussion is "improving public education", and suppose that early in the session someone suggests, "What we need to do is reduce class sizes.". To this another replies, "No, that's a bad idea, what we need to do is focus on improving the quality of our teachers." At this point the facilitator would probably write both suggestions down a flip chart, but she would state both as positive suggestions: Smaller class sizes would help. Better-trained teachers would help. At this early stage in the session, the discussion would move on, both speakers would feel heard, but their different concerns would continue to be perceived as being in conflict. Later however, when the shift toward taking every concern into account occurs, someone might reflect back over the flip charts and come up with a synergistic breakthrough: If we put more student teachers into the classroom-with proper supervision-we might cut class sizes , train better teachers, and reduce training costs-all at the same time. Experiences with different kinds of groups, in different circumstances, indicate that groups generally, of ordinary people of all flavors, are capable of coming up with very creative solutions-breakthrough solutions in many cases-to problems that might at first seem intractable. The problems in question might be of a material nature-How is it possible to accomplish such and such?-or they might be of a social nature-How can we satisfy both of our concerns? Tom Atlee refers to this remarkable phenomenon of all-pervasive group creativity as co-intelligence, and Jim Rough talks of a choice-creating space. I tend to use the term, collective wisdom. We're referring to aspects of the same phenomenon, and we're all enthusiastic about its potential benefits to society. Enabled by the practice of listening to understand, energized by the comfort of belonging, and awakened to the possibilities of mutual synergy, a group is able to function as more than the sum of its parts. I'm sure we've all experienced cases of two-person synergy, where we've come to understand why 'two heads are better than one'. A frustrating problem can be easier to deal with if you have someone to bounce ideas around with, and if they look at the problem themselves as well. Unfortunately, by the ways we normally interact in groups, the synergy level does not typically increase when we have three heads or many heads trying to solve our problem. By then we may be thinking in terms of 'too many cooks spoil the broth'. But when a group of people is enabled to collaborate creatively, finding synergy in their concerns and ideas, and listening respectfully to one another-we see the two heads are better than one dynamic happening on a multiplicative scale. As a given aspect of a problem is being considered, there is often some one person with a related experience, or a base of knowledge, than enables her to make a uniquely valuable contribution to the dialog at that particular moment. That may be followed by a contribution or question by someone else, based on a quite different domain of understanding, and that might be just what's needed to move the dialog yet another step forward. We have all had so many life experiences, and so many learning experiences-when those can be pooled in an effective way, within the context of a shared exploration, any group of real people will find that it has a wealth of many lifetimes of experience and insights available to apply to its collective thinking process. In this wealth can be found collective wisdom. As I mentioned at the beginning of this section, participants in these kind of sessions frequently report experiencing some kind of personal transformation as a result of going through the process. This is a theme that we will return to now and again in various chapters. At this point in our inquiry, let me suggest that the kind of experiences described above would be very likely to produce certain kinds of transformations in typical participants. Suppose, for example, someone comes into a session who is strongly prejudiced against certain kinds of people, or against people who hold certain beliefs. Suppose as well that some of those areas of prejudice come up in the session, either because some of "those people" are present, or because related topics come up for discussion. If the session does indeed go through the shifts, into cooperation, respect, and synergy, then our prejudiced participant is very likely to break through the constraint of those prejudices, and that would certainly represent a personal transformation of a non-trivial magnitude, Consider as well someone who comes in full of determined apathy about social problems: there is nothing I can do, everything is too complicated, nobody can ever agree on anything. This may apply to many of us. In a harmonization session, such an apathetic attitude can be dissolved at a rather deep level by the experience of effective creative problem solving in an atmosphere of open participation. This is where the feeling of We the People comes in, and the understanding that We the People can be competent. In terms of ones understanding of oneself as a citizen, a transformation from apathy to We the People consciousness would be very significant. We could consider other examples, but I think it would be more useful to characterize this phenomenon in a more general way. The fundamental transaction that is occurring, in terms of personal transformation, is that that the participant finds himself eventually in the presence of wisdom-and it is a wisdom which he is part of, and a wisdom which listens to him and takes his concerns into account. The wisdom happens to be of the collective variety, rather than appearing in the form of a wise old sage, but wisdom nonetheless, of its own unique variety. There is something about the harmonization process, based on the frequent reports of participants, that seems to enable deep personal learning to occur out of this interaction between the individual participant and the awakened wisdom of the group. Some who are wise cannot teach, but the wisdom made available in this particular way seems to be somehow accessible or digestible to many participants. And deep learning leads quite naturally to deep personal transformations. The dynamics of harmonization are quite different than adversarial and collaborative dynamics. Harmonization begins by expanding the space to include everyone's diverse concerns and interests. Adversarial and collaborative dynamics both begin by limiting the space to narrowly defined issues and interests. Participating in the space of harmonization involves being open and present as a complex human being. Participating in an adversarial or collaborative space involves only playing the role of advocate or opponent of some issue or proposal. The experience of harmonization often leads to personal growth and transformation, while adversarial and collaborative experiences tend to reinforce pre-existing positions and attitudes. Harmonization breaks down barriers between people and enables them listen to one another and to find common ground at a deep level. Adversarial and collaborative dynamics reinforce factionalism and regard deeper issues as being irrelevant or divisive. Collaborative meetings provide a space in which factions can rally together and plan their strategies. Adversarial meetings provide a space in which factions can play out those strategies. Harmonization-based meetings provide a space which may enable us to do away with factional divisiveness altogether. In the microcosm of a facilitated gathering, we know it is possible for the empowered spirit of We the People to be kindled. We know that in that space of harmonization it is possible for this empowered microcosm to work together effectively and creatively as a group. At the level of a face-to-face group, we can see a way to overcome factionalism and bring We the People into being. In the Maclean's experiment and in a Wisdom Council we can see how a diverse group can act as a microcosm of a larger constituency-and by its own harmonization process point the way to solutions that can be harmonizing for the constituency generally. In the Rogue Valley citizen's panel movement we can begin to see a development that goes beyond what can happen in a face-to-face group-there we see the embryonic emergence of We the People in a larger macrocosm-that of a community. The dynamics of harmonization in a community are parallel to the dynamics in the microcosm of a meeting. Just as people learn how to listen to one another in a group setting, so the people in the Rogue Valley are beginning to listen to one another in their community. Similarly, people there are beginning to feel they belong as participants in community affairs, and that their concerns matter, as do the concerns of their fellow citizens. And just as people in a group session find they can work together with synergistic creativity, so the people of the Rogue Valley are finding they can work together in that way through the vehicle of their panels. In an isolated session, the spirit of We the People that emerges is energizing but it can be transitory. When the session is over participants go back to their everyday lives, the session experience might seem a bit like a dream-of how things might work in a better world. But when a community begins to adopt the principles of harmonization more generally, as seems to be happening in the Rogue Valley, the spirit of We the People can take root and become persistent. In fact, what we are seeing in such a community is a gradual cultural transformation-away from relationships based on factional competition and toward relationships based on respect and cooperation, away from dependency on leaders and toward grassroots empowerment. In the context of a group, I described certain significant shifts that occur in the group energy, shifts toward cooperation and synergy. In the context of a community, these energy shifts are expressed as cultural shifts. In such developments I suggest that we are seeing the glimmerings of a path that can lead to global social transformation. -- ============================================================ If you find this material useful, you might want to check out our website (http://cyberjournal.org) or try out our low-traffic, moderated email list by sending a message to: •••@••.••• You are encouraged to forward any material from the lists or the website, provided it is for non-commercial use and you include the source and this disclaimer. Richard Moore (rkm) Wexford, Ireland _____________________________ Now available for review: ESCAPING THE MATRIX - Global Transformation: Why We Need It, and How We Can Get It TOC with URLs of chapters: http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?id=352&lists=newslog Entire draft as one web page: http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?id=343&lists=newslog Previous version, with more American history: http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/rkmGlblTrans.html _____________________________ "...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the Reichstag fire." - Srdja Trifkovic There is not a problem with the system. The system is the problem. Faith in ourselves - not gods, ideologies, leaders, or programs. _____________________________ "Zen of Global Transformation" home page: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ QuayLargo discussion forum: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ShowChat/?ScreenName=ShowThreads cj list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj newslog list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog _____________________________ Informative links: http://www.indymedia.org/ http://www.globalresearch.ca/ http://www.MiddleEast.org http://www.rachel.org http://www.truthout.org http://www.williambowles.info/monthly_index/ http://www.zmag.org http://www.co-intelligence.org ============================================================