draft version 3.10 Chapter 5 THE POWER OF DIALOG [ continuing from Part 1 ] 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 November 2003, the event was billed as The Rogue Valley Wisdom Council. Wisdom Council is a concept developed by Jim Rough, the inventor of Dynamic Facilitation. In this session, as in the Michigan conference, the participants emerged with a sense of democratic solidarity, a sense of We the People. 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 voter rolls 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 chose to look into the problem of funding for education. That problem itself served as a kind of catalyst; it gave the group a chance to work together in a space of harmonization, and develop their sense of identity as a group. As in the Michigan conference, this "finding of identity" seemed to lead naturally to a sense of democratic empowerment, expressed again by the phrase "We the People." The event was recorded on video, and one can readily see the transformation in the participants. At the beginning they seem rather shy and don't look like they had much to say. But by the end, they are overflowing with enthusiasm about the possibility -- even the necessity -- of some more direct kind of participation in the democratic process. A public meeting was held immediately 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, heartfelt expressions were in stark contrast to their original shyness. The meeting then broke up into several roundtable discussions. 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 policymaking -- and for the kind of dialog that harmonizing processes enable. Let's now look at two examples of harmonization sessions from Jim Rough's website. These examples illustrate the kind of creative problem solving which can occur as part of a group process: #2: PERCEPTION-BUILDING: This mode of creative thinking often follows Trust-building. The focus is no longer on the energy or feelings of participants but on the data or details of the situation. In this "head" mode of creativity, we are like puzzle-solvers, seeking to understand what is going on so we can see what is needed. The master auto mechanic, for example, uses this mode of thinking when creatively working on a difficult problem. Each bit of new information or each new measurement sparks thoughts and new awareness's. Example: A group of employees in a sawmill met to work on the problem of "cleanup at the log barkers." Bark debris from logs caused numerous problems and they had made it known to management that there was a pressing need for more cleanup people but management had refused. They felt there was nothing more they could do. Creative Choice: Meeting in a creative format with a dynamic facilitator the group examined the list of cleanup issues and specified one as most critical. It was "cleanup around the bucking saw." When that area wasn't cleaned properly, sawdust and bark worked into the equipment in such a way that a particular mechanism to lift logs didn't slide back down. This meant that big logs had to be jockeyed back and forth until they could be positioned to ride past the stuck lift. Besides wasting time, jockeying the log damaged the equipment. After identifying this problem as most severe, members of the group climbed below the lift area to examine how sawdust and bark hung up the equipment. Although they had been there many times before, this time they looked at the equipment with the knowledge that this was a difficult problem and with curiosity as to how it happens. They were able to determine that the bark accumulated on a ledge and quickly determined that the ledge served no structural purpose. With a welding torch and about 20 minutes they eliminated the ledge and the most pressing problem they faced, one that had seemed impossible. Observation: This problem had plagued the men for years and yet the solution was quite simple once they looked into it with a creative attitude. Key was the attitude of curiosity. In this case this attitudes was triggered in the men by listing data and observations about the situation. Once questions arose that they realized they couldn't answer, they took some time away from their normal work to find out more. -- http://www.tobe.net/papers/CC-BT'sinThinking.html The focus here is on the creative-choice aspect of problem solving, but keep in mind that before this group was able to apply itself to effective problem solving, it had to reach the stage where it felt empowered to address the problem. The people had to move past "Management won't give us the resources we need," and go on to "What can we do ourselves with what's available to us?" They needed to develop the confidence, the courage -- and even the motivation -- -- to take action on their own initiative. In Society's Breakthrough, where Jim tells a fuller version of this story, we find that it took work over a considerable period of time to reach this level. As we also saw in the one-time Michigan conference, work in a space of harmonization is an unfolding process, gaining depth over time. #4 INNOVATION-BUILDING: Innovation-building is what most people think of when they hear the term "creative thinking." It's a process like brainstorming, forced analogies, or guided imagery, where people make new connections. This is "head creativity" because, to engage in it, one must dissociate from his or her feelings. It only works on issues that are like puzzles, divorced from feelings. Example: The manager of a reforestation project proposed a problem he'd been struggling with. After planting seedlings each year the plastic tubes in which the tiny trees had been contained were brought back from the woods. Hundreds of thousands of these tubes needed to be sorted into racks to feed a machine that deposited soil, fertilizer and seed for next year. Getting the tubes into the racks was done manually. Design engineers had estimated that hundreds of thousands of dollars would be required to mechanize this. He asked a group of people "can you think of a way to do this more cheaply." Creative Choice: The group started by considering how the tubes might sort themselves. They discussed how elements from nature sort themselves. They thought about how bees fill hexagon racks in their hives with eggs, how birds migrate to specific locations, and how salmon return to their spawning ground after years at sea. Thinking about salmon in more detail they imagined themselves as salmon returning through river currents by smell and instinct. Forcing this image together with the tube problem, the group thought of ways to use water to sort the tubes. If the tubes floated straight up and down when put into water, they could be guided by currents to squeeze together at the end of a tub. A rack situated under the tubes, when lifted, could then catch one tube per hole. This idea would cost only a few dollars and could be set up for testing in a few hours. It was an exciting line of thought with a savings potential that was incredible to the engineers. Observation: Innovation-thinking promotes non-linear thinking approaches in order to provoke new lines of thought. For this kind of thinking there is value in irrelevant material like the habits of salmon and in non-expert participants. But normal meetings squelch this kind of thinking, where only relevant ideas are tolerated, and only people who are familiar with the issue are invited to attend. It is possible to effectively pursue these kinds of creative problem-solving sessions without achieving a sense of community, and without trying to attain a space of harmonization. A facilitator can work with a project team to overcome difficult obstacles, achieve effective results, and it can all be done at the level of a technical team meeting, a pure "head activity." And in a business setting, where the problems are of a technical nature, that is perhaps how things should be. But fortunately, this same level of creative activity is also available to the kind of groups we considered in our earlier examples. In such cases the group must first overcome its divisiveness, and learn to accept the validity of other participants as fellow humans -- so that it can function coherently as a group. As in Jim's sawmill story, a group doesn't reach its full potential in a few initial sessions. In Ashland, a few sessions were able to enter the space of harmonization, and to awaken a sense of We the People. That's just the beginning. If that process is to be developed further, if "We the People of Ashland" are to become a player in Ashland's public affairs, there need to be ongoing sessions of some appropriate kind. The role of the facilitator remains the same, providing a focal point to reflect group attention, and asking the obvious questions that need to be asked. The only difference is that the focus of the group moves on from understanding and trust, to more practical matters. "We the People" is more than an awakened consciousness; enabled by harmonization, it can be a competent consciousness, able to deal with problems sensibly -- exhibiting what Tom Atlee refers to as co-intelligence. And always keep in mind, we are talking about groups of ordinary people, often with conflicting views. A facilitator can help them hear one another, but in the end it is ordinary people on their own who achieve mutual understanding and competence. This a very hopeful sign, as regards the feasibility of genuine participatory democracy. Democracy is an infinitely including spirit. We have an instinct for democracy because we have an instinct for wholeness... Democracy is the self-creating process of life... projecting itself into the visible world... so that its essential oneness will declare itself. -- Mary Parker Follett, The New State (1918) *The role of a facilitator There are many kinds of facilitators, appropriate to many kinds of gatherings and meetings. A schoolteacher can be seen as a facilitator, directing the attention of the class to ideas and information in a sequence that can enable their understanding and learning. A marriage counselor is a facilitator, helping direct the attention of the couple to their root problems, or perhaps toward healing exercises, depending on their needs. In general, the role of a facilitator is to focus the attention of the group in a way that is effective for the job at hand. When we accept a facilitator, we are implicitly agreeing to pay attention when she has something to say; we were agreeing to accept her comments as valid and relevant, just as we would the comments of a teacher in a class. When she then asks someone a question, she is implicitly passing the baton of relevance and validity to that person, and we naturally shift our attention to that person's response, and are likely to "really hear." If there is any doubt that the person was "heard," the facilitator will typically repeat what was said in her own words, and ask if she "got it right." When we accept someone as a facilitator, we are granting to them the power to control, to a large extent, the focus of our attention and that of the group. With that power, and with any kind of skill with people, it would be very easy for a facilitator to manipulate the dialog of the group in the direction of whatever agenda that facilitator might have in mind. I'm sure we've all had the experience of getting angry with a news panel moderator on TV, when he gives lots of attention to idiots on the panel, and ignores or interrupts those sensible panelists we would like to hear from. We can see that such a moderator is abusing the power he has over public attention. Similarly, when a city government holds "public hearings," many of us have had the experience of seeing the discussion railroaded toward whatever decision the city staff had already reached behind closed doors. In the case of a harmonization session, it is important that the facilitator be trusted by the participants, and that she bring no agenda to the proceedings. Her role is to help the group learn how to function coherently, in the various ways that have been described throughout this chapter. The group itself is responsible for any agenda that might be adopted, and it is the participants, not the facilitator, that engage in problem solving and come up with creative solutions. Among the skills needed by a facilitator -- apart from knowledge of her particular style of facilitation -- is sensitivity to the energy of a group, and particularly of energy blockages. She doesn't really direct the attention of the group, rather she notices where the attention naturally wants to go -- or where it needs to go to satisfy the group's deep needs -- and helps it along by inviting it to shift in those productive directions. Another important skill is a basic understanding of approaches to problem solving -- brainstorming techniques, idea mapping, and the like. This helps the facilitator notice standard blockages that occur in the problem-solving process, and makes it easier for her to ask appropriate questions, or to summarize contributions in appropriate diagrams, so as to help release those blockages. A considerable amount of dedicated time is required for a group to reach its full potential, as a harmonizing, problem-solving "community." Two days can be very useful, but three or four days would be closer to optimal. The extra days are very valuable, for as with most processes, once it gets warmed up and in high gear, that's when the most valuable outcomes are generated. At the same time, it is possible to get value out of a smaller-scale process. It is even possible to approach the space of harmonization without a facilitator. The simplest such process I know about is the "talking circle" process. Some object, a stick or teddy bear or whatever, is designated as the "talking stick," or "token." The agreement is that whenever someone has the token, they are the speaker -- everyone else is silent and pays attention to them. The speaker then has the space to say whatever's on their mind, at their own pace, without needing to rush so as to avoid being interrupted, as so often happens in normal conversation. When the person has said their piece, and perhaps taken a breath or two, the token is passed around the circle to the next person. People find it easier to listen and really "hear" when they know that eventually the token will get around to them, and they'll have their own special uninterrupted space in which to express themselves and be heard. In this process, the token itself is functioning as facilitator, by quietly generating order and helping people focus their attention on what has heart and meaning, and what is emerging among them. In new groups using this method, this power of the token is generated largely by how it is framed at the beginning by the convener. Indigenous peoples using this kind of process have typically considered the token to be sacred. Others frame the token as empowering us to speak the truth from our hearts. Focus itself is what enables a group to function coherently. The path the focus follows might seem a bit random -- just as the path of our own internal thoughts is a bit random, as we ponder a problem in our heads. Whatever the path might be, the important thing is that the whole group be on that same path -- reading from the same page at the same time. That is what focus is about, and that's why it is central to the role of facilitator, or talking stick, as the case may be. * The dynamics of harmonization There are many different styles of facilitation that can enable a group to enter a state of harmonization. The primary role of the facilitator in all of these styles is to help focus attention, and to use that focus to help bring out the latent energy of the group. As we have seen in the preceding examples, one of the first tasks of a facilitator, in moving toward a space of harmonization, is to focus the attention of the group on the people themselves, rather than on issues. When people can hear one another, and accept each other's concerns as being everyone's concerns, then the door is opened, the space of harmonization is entered. All the energy that was tied up in roles and "positions" is then released, like a weight lifted from the group's shoulder. In the Michigan gathering, we saw a style of facilitation that gave each person a turn to express themselves in a way that revealed their humanity, and in this way a space of harmonization was reached in a very orderly fashion. In Dynamic Facilitation (DF), rather than giving people turns, the facilitator "follows the energy" -- whichever person seems most in need of expressing themselves becomes the focus of attention. Eventually everyone is "revealed" to the group, but the process is less orderly. At least it appears to be less orderly, even chaotic. In fact, "following the energy" is a kind of ordering principle in its own right, and DF seems to be particularly effective at releasing the "deep energy" of a group, and enabling the group to find remarkable breakthrough-solutions to very difficult problems. Entering the space of harmonization is only the beginning. It's as if everyone had been milling around the room, and now they have finally sat down at the table to begin the meeting in earnest. For only when people have accepted one another as respected fellow humans is it possible for a certain kind of dialog to begin. When the concerns of each are accepted as the concerns of all, then the creative energy of the entire group can focus on the same shared question: "How can we find solutions which take all of our concerns into account?" When the whole group's energy is synchronized in this way, then a new level of creative energy becomes available, just as the synchronized waves of a laser have a level of energy not available to normal light waves. Let me express this notion from another perspective. We have a group that is operating in the space of harmonization. They are together seeking a solution to a problem; let's say the problem is, "How can we make our neighborhood school more effective at teaching our kids?" In solving any problem, there are always certain steps you go through, such as breaking the problem down into smaller parts, looking at the problem from different angles, brainstorming possible solutions, etc. etc. As the process of problem solving unfolds, however you choose to structure it, what moves it forward at each step are ideas and inspirations -- the creativity of the problem solver. When you have a whole group of people all focusing on the same aspect of a problem, then you have many lifetimes of experience and insights all bearing on the process -- the "pool" from which ideas and inspirations can emerge is a rich one. And that's not all. We've all heard the expression, "Two heads are better than one," and most of us have probably had experiences where a problem became much easier to handle when we had a colleague to bounce ideas around with, each idea sparking a related insight from the other. In our everyday styles of dialog, we cannot usually extend these dynamics to a larger group of people. If several people are hovering over the same problem, the appropriate expression usually becomes, "Too many cooks spoil the broth." But in a space of harmonization, with a facilitator who serves as a focus of group attention, the "Two heads are better than one" principle can be effectively extended to many heads, and the boost in creativity that occurs is non-linear. The key element in the dynamics here is "bouncing ideas around." There is one fellow I worked with over a period of many years, each of us migrating to the same companies, always wanting to be on the leading edge of technology. We often found ourselves solving problems together, and bouncing ideas around was always the process that gave us our creative solutions. The process was very chaotic, often jumping around in problem space as seemingly random insights popped out. Frequently the best ideas would emerge when one of us misunderstood the other! In trying to make sense of the misunderstood statement, an unexpected idea would emerge. Two heads were more than twice as good as one head; the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. Ideas stimulate more ideas, and inspirations stimulate more inspirations. It's like sparks flying around the room. When there are 10 people involved, for example, and an idea is expressed, there are 9 different minds that might "spark" off of that idea, rather than just one as when I was working with my colleague. To put it in systems terms: there is a multiplicative creative synergy that arises when a number of minds are focused in a coherent way on a shared problem. The examples from Jim's website gave us a brief glimpse into how this synergy operates in real-life situations. * Collective wisdom This "creative synergy" operates on many levels. In the introductory exercises at the Michigan conference, where people were listening to each other share some of their decisive experiences, sparks were also flying around the room -- as people recognized themselves in the stories of the speaker. It was "bouncing recognition around" rather than "bouncing ideas around," but it was the same kind of synergy at work, with people learning from one another. This same kind of synergy also operates at the level of wisdom. When a group of people are listening respectfully to one another's views, in a conversation about some shared problem, something more than creativity and intelligence can be enabled: it is possible for wisdom itself to manifest. One aspect of this arises out of the nature of the dialog process itself. When people are listening respectfully to one another in a conversation, we can say that the group is being "self reflective." The group is behaving like a person who has taken time out to reflect on their experiences. It is in such moments of self-reflection that each of us is likely to experience those insights and inspirations that add up to whatever wisdom we are able to gather in life -- and in such moments we are best able to manifest that accumulated wisdom. Similarly, for a group of people, an atmosphere of self-reflection is highly conducive to achieving wise insights, and to learning from whatever wisdom has been accumulated by the people in the group. In the space of harmonization, the thought process of the group is similar to the thought process of a contemplative mind. Another aspect arises out of the "multiplicative synergy" I mentioned above, only here we are referring to the synergy of shared wisdoms, rather then the synergy of shared problem-solving talents. As we saw in the Michigan conference, as the process continued over time, people dug deeper down into their core beliefs and feelings, like the layers of an onion peeling sway. It is down in the cores of our minds that we exhibit wisdom, and are open to expanding its scope. And, I hope you will agree, the language of their "We the People" declaration did indeed contain gems of wisdom. When I described my experience in the meeting between the researchers and engineers, I said that my role in the meeting felt simple and natural, and indeed it did. I'm not always a great listener, but in that meeting listening seemed the wisest thing for me to do, lest I show my ignorance of the technology. And because I was a bit the gooseberry, the only one not involved in the dispute, I naturally became a focus of attention: "Who is this stranger in our midst?" With that focus, and with an intention to really listen, it was indeed natural, almost inevitable, that I was able to contribute to the group's ability to "hear" what people had to say. I needed only to ask the most obvious questions, the questions any naïve, curious person would ask, who was concerned about helping the people resolve their differences. It turns out that the kinds of processes we have been talking about are part of our primordial heritage as a species. In many indigenous societies, at varying stages of "progress," and with various social structures, we often find traditional processes in which people listen respectfully, someone plays a facilitator role, and there is a conscious intention to tap into the wisdom of the group. In the indigenous Hawaiian culture, for example, there is a process called h'o pono pono. Here an elder simply listens to each person in turn, allowing others to "overhear." This continues until "the right answer" (to the issue in question) becomes obvious to everyone. In the Sioux Nation, a confederation of Plains Indian tribes, wisdom was considered a primary virtue, and the culture encouraged people to develop their wisdom through self-reliance, and by facing tests of various kinds in the different stages of life. A chief was chosen largely for his wisdom; his was not a position of power nor was it inherited. The stories and legends of the tribe were intended to pass on the wisdom of the tribe. When the Sioux gathered in council, whether in their local tribe or in a powwow of tribal delegations, they listened respectfully, and they sought to awaken their best wisdom in dealing with their affairs. Harmonization is as old as humanity. It is a way of being that is in our blood and in our bones -- and it is tied in with wisdom, and with self-governance. This primordial tradition was continued in our first civilizations, based on partnership cultures. Since 4400 BC the barbarians -- the dominators, the takers -- have been trying to condition our wisdom and empowerment out of us, to subjugate us to their hierarchical regimes. Divide-and-rule tactics are as old as recorded history, pitting classes and peoples against one another, beginning with gender domination -- thereby subverting our potential for harmonization. Under capitalism, divide-and-rule has been turned into a science, with each of us compelled to compete in the scramble for the crumbs left over after the corporations and elites have dined. But all these centuries of conditioning and suppression have not destroyed our souls, our inner natures. Our free spirits have never been conquered. We can see this in the face of every child, and we have seen it recently in the Ukraine when a people arose en masse to assert their right to choose their leader in a fair election. We saw it in the long struggle of working people to build unions, and to win the right to collective bargaining. In Chapter 3 we examined several examples, where our inborn spirit of freedom and self-determination expressed itself in social movements, and we were able to find our identity and empowerment as We the People. And, last but not least, we have seen that almost any group of people, with a bit of help from a facilitator, are capable of rediscovering that which centuries of civilization have tried to erase. We do not need a grand struggle in order to awaken our collective free spirit. The damage civilization has done to us, as regards subjugating our minds, has a known therapy, a therapy that can be accessed by ordinary people gathered together, as they deal with the problems that concern them, listening respectfully to one another. The red pill that Neo took revealed a hell of a lot in a very short time: once his eyes were opened to reality, the whole Matrix disappeared all at once. Harmonization, by which I refer to this primordial practice, is a similar red pill that can enable us to escape from the Matrix of divisiveness and disempowerment. In the relatively short sessions we have examined, we have seen the spirit of We the People emerge, along with an enthusiasm for the potential of harmonization to contribute to the transformation of our cultures. Our potential for wisdom, our ability to harmonize our concerns, and our will to govern ourselves, have not been bred out of us. We are not cattle or sheep, even though our roles in civilization have often served similar functions, and with as little choice in the matter. As Robert Heinlein put it, and I paraphrase, we are descended from willful apes, not regimented ants, and we should be proud of that. Hierarchical civilization has failed in its evil designs: we have never been fully domesticated to slave status. "We the People" is a sleeping giant, lying in a slumber induced by the myths and conditioning that have been refined by millennia of elite rulers and religious patriarchs. For all their efforts, and their long success, their conditioning turns out to be only skin deep. The trance, despite its longevity, is a light one. Under the right conditions, the giant has been known to awaken, and his power has been mighty. Seemingly unassailable empires have crumbled in the blink of an eye. Hierarchical civilization is now in the final stages of its evolution. It is hemorrhaging on its own dynamics of growth and exploitation. The Pentagon is embarked on an apocalyptic final campaign, seeking to enslave the whole world under a centralized global fascist regime, in control of all strategic resources -- while American citizens are to be subject to arbitrary arrest and unlimited incarceration. If ever it was time for the giant to awaken all over the world at once, that time is now. -- ============================================================ 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 "Escaping The Matrix - Global Transformation: WHY WE NEED IT, AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT ", somewhat current draft: 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. _____________________________ 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 ============================================================