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 It
was not yet quite dawn, in a village in Zimbabwe. The villagers
had been dancing and singing and drumming since dusk, welcoming
and honoring those of us who had come to Zimbabwe to celebrate the
thirtieth birthday and homecoming of Marianne Knuth, a native daughter
and a co-founder of Pioneers of Change. I had lain under the stars
for several hours, and had gotten up to look for the conversations
I knew would be arising in the hours before dawn.
Standing outside a home built of straw, one man spoke of the needs
of his village. Later, in a long conversation with a man who had
been laid off from his position as a buyer for a manufacturing concern,
we talked about international aid. With a sigh he explained to me,
"Yes, we've received aid before. The foreigners come in and ask
us what we need. We tell them. And they tell us we really need something
else. They give us what they think we need. You know, it never really
works because we don't understand and sometimes don't like what
they are doing. They mean well, but it doesn't help us."
Much later that morning, the tribal chief was telling us that it
would be 400 years before this village had the prosperity of villages
in Europe. He said they could not help the village by themselves,
and so we must give them help. And I wondered, what was really needed?
As we drove away, someone pointed out that more than a third of
the people we'd partied with all night would die of AIDS.
How do the people from one culture truly support those from another?
What do you do if you are poor, and a third of your village is dying?
What do you do if you are rich (at least in global terms) and want
to help create more sane and sustainable life on this small planet?
These questions surface more readily in Africa because of the extreme
poverty, but they are questions for all of us, as we work to create
more sane lives for ourselves and for others.
I want to learn how it might be possible to have the kind of large-scale,
wide-spread, fundamental social change that I think is essential
if humanity is to create more healthy and just relationships to
each other and the planet as a whole. In pursuit of this learning
over the last year, I've spent time in eastern Europe and sub-Saharan
Africa, as well as England and various parts of North America. I've
also spent a lot of time in numerous virtual conferences. I'm seeing
a whole new theory and practice of social change arising.
I think of my conversations with Owning Members of the Chaordic
Commons about how to grow a global network of people and groups
creatively evolving new concepts of organization. I ponder other
conversations about what it means to have a surprisingly large number
of people embracing the values of what Paul Ray has called "cultural
creatives," and still other conversations with the leaders of enterprises
like Institute of Noetic Sciences, and FutureSearch-conversations
about what is trying to be born in the world right now.
It is an amazing time, my friends; something powerful is loose in
the world. It is the power of hope and possibility and of doing
things in a different way. I think that the kind of organizational
capacity we are working to unleash through the work of the Chaordic
Commons is an important channel through which this new energy will
flow.
A
New Picture of Social Change
I believe
many people are operating from a new vision of how deep change can
occur in the world. Ordinary people everywhere, not a privileged
elite, are leading the way. Many of us seem to believe that if we
can find clarity about what we can do, and then do it, the world
will become a better place for everyone. We've moved away from grand
strategies and master plans that seek to define and control particular
outcomes. Many of us have started to speak of finding our own right
alignment with spirit. We seek to clarify our own highest intentions,
and then to act from them. In doing so, we trust that a larger,
life-sustaining pattern will develop over time and that the common
good will be served.
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| A Four Directions practicum held in December in England.
People from 10 different countries are holding the world. |
Communications
technology and the Internet are key enablers of this new pattern.
Western theoretical constructs-living systems, pattern language,
open source software, integral psychology-offer partial explanations
of what is going on. Rituals, myths, and traditions of indigenous
cultures that exist close to the earth may offer ways of experiencing
this approach.
Whatever "it" is, it feels different-more intuitive, more spiritual,
more deeply connected while staying highly decentralized. It reflects
a concern for equity and sustainability, inclusivity and innovation,
the individual and the community.
It feels-well, chaordic.
Connecting With Each Other
This
new means of achieving social change relies on the power of connection.
Actions taken separately in different communities and organizations
around the world become part of a global movement when we link people
working on related issues with each other. A major challenge in
doing this work is discovering how to connect ourselves as one extensive
learning community.
For
example, Microsoft functions as a 40,000-member learning community.
They've gone through several generations of their process for developing
that community. In the current version, a "buzz" starts among people
from different Microsoft campuses around the world.
People
start informally communicating with each other. At a critical, organic
point the process moves from a buzz to a community, and some part
of Microsoft gets budgetary approval for creating a position of
community leader.
Unit leaders or coordinators in different Microsoft offices locate
a community representative and a data warehousing representative
from their area who has interest and expertise in the subjects of
any knowledge/learning community area that is of interest to the
locale. These representatives are typically identified through a
bottom-up process.
These representatives, working with the community leader, identify
a rolling squad of "subject matter experts" who are responsible
for "scrubbing," prioritizing, and harvesting "gems" of knowledge
from the community's work.
Sounds chaordic, doesn't it?
The
Power of Good Conversation
Globally, we live in a time when many people want to help with
the remaking of our world. They feel a call to exercise new leadership
in their own lives, in their organizations, and in their communities.
Many different efforts, such as the Chaordic Commons, From the Four
Directions, Pioneers of Change, and the Institute of Noetic Sciences,
keep attracting extraordinary people who want to help. They also
play a particular role in the "global mind change" that is occurring.
When we create a safe place for people to gather to talk about their
work in the world, they develop greater courage, clarity, capacity,
and commitment to lead. Inviting people into conversations can make
a difference, when they are the deep conversations that circles
or wisdom councils offer, or the rich intermixing in a World Café,
or the exploration of a FutureSearch or Open Space. And when they
are connected globally, these conversations not only support leaders,
they also begin to enable broader and deeper social, political,
economic, and spiritual change
Finding New Skills
Once
people come together in conversations that help them clarify their
own work as leaders, they often want to learn particular community-
and organization-building skills.
They want access to the best practices and processes for helping
organizations form and communities work. A rich mix of tools has
been developed over the last twenty years: Wisdom Councils, Appreciative
Inquiry, Future Search, Open Space Technology, World Café, Asset-Based
Community Development, Action Research, Cooperative Inquiry, Chaordic
Design, and many variations on these themes. These tools all work
to surface inner wisdom in the service of learning and action. They
look for what is possible, not for what is wrong. They build from
what exists towards a shifting vision of what might be. They are
fluid and filled with learning.
Emerging leaders also want more conventional information about how
to build organizations that can thrive. What are the critical steps
in being a successful social entrepreneur? What does it take to
make a new venture succeed? Where does one begin? What's the best
accounting software? What size organization requires an employee
handbook? What are possible sources of start-up funding? How does
one find the right friends and colleagues and partners and employees
and board members? It is not necessary to find and answer these
questions in isolation anymore. Much has been learned in these areas,
and it needs to be organized to help us all find our way.
The
Work Has Many Faces
People
who are attracted to these large-scale change initiatives are developing
the knowledge we all need to create communities, societies, and
cultures that are socially just, ecologically integral, spiritually
grounded, sustainable, and equitable.
Manish Jain does incredible work in India, helping people develop
new ways to use their own resources to learn. Coumba Toure in Mali
is learning how to end gender oppression in tribal societies. Tim
Merry in Holland helps people use their bodies and movement to deepen
their connection to and understanding of each other. Cire Kane in
Senegal advances the understanding, practice, and development of
creative and entrepreneurial leadership and social change for the
benefit of Senegalese and African society. Francesca Firstwater
in Spokane develops an initiative to give greater strength and visibility
to Grandmother's Voices. These are real people with faces, names,
and passion who are working on behalf of all of us, and they are
only part of a long list. Through their work they are generating
knowledge about what works-and what doesn't.
We need to surface this knowledge, make it more widely accessible,
help those developing this knowledge build on each other's work,
and share the stories and ideas and possibilities and knowing that
is emerging.
One of our challenges is to learn to align our personal and institutional
energies and egos behind our work and not in front of it. I think
of our work as an aspen grove, which has a common root system. Each
of our endeavors arises from the same root, but each has its own
particularities. And in learning what we need to learn, leading
where we are called, we are both nourished by and nourish the whole.
If you'd like to talk about some of these ideas, let me know and
we'll start up a discussion on Catalyst.
Bob
Stilger is the president of New Stories. He can be contacted at
bob@newstories.org.
The Berkana Institute
was formed a number of years ago by Meg Wheatley, author of Leadership
and the New Sciences. Berkana was the lead institution for From
the Four Directions.
Chaordic Commons
was formed to give birth and support to enterprises and networks
that use chaordic concepts and principles as the basis for their
organization.
From
the Four Directions is a global initiative bringing leaders
together in local conversation circles to help them develop clarity
and courage about the leading they want to do, in their own lives,
in their organizations, and their communities.
FutureSearch is a well-developed
and well-documented process that allows groups and communities to
envision the future they prefer and to articulate specific steps
to move in the directions they desire
Institute of Noetic
Sciences (IONS), founded more than twenty-five years ago
by astronaut Edgar Mitchell, has been an important gathering point
for people from all around the world concerned with the emergence
of a new integral culture.
New Stories was started
in 2000 to work locally and globally to facilitate the emergence
of "the new story," meaning the story that comes after industrial
growth society when we learn how to live in harmony with each other,
as a human species, and in harmony with this small planet.
Peer Spirit
has spent years studying and teaching the practice of circle and
council. The Peer Spirit circle process is used as the cornerstone
of From the Four Directions.
Pioneers
of Change is a global network of young people committed
to supporting each other in living lives that hold social justice
and ecological integrity among the highest values.
World Café,
developed by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, is another effective
process for bringing groups of people together in conversations
that matter.
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