I have been wondering lately how we can unleash the life force that is stuck in inter-personal conflict, in such a way that this life force becomes available for the collective? what kind of exercises can we invent that we need here?
I love this. As ever, I'm left with a small mountain of links and further questions.
For those folks in the UK looking to explore what liberatory and transformational looks and feels like in practice, you might be interested to know that the Transformational Governance project is inviting individuals, groups and organisations with questions or challenges relating to governance to join a paid peer-group to support their learning.
Thanks for another terrific reflection. Some thoughts that come up for me:
1. You say: "Liberatory governance systems must be decentralized: there is no central command and control structure."
I'm not so sure this allows for optimal governance. My observation is liberatory governance systems are likely both distributed and connected for coordination to enable decisions to happen at optimal levels. In practice, I saw a brilliant governance structure at work in Information Technologies at Weyerhaeuser. Individual organizations managed their own IT decisions. Where shared standards and standard equipment could enable discounts for large purchases, they set up stewarding groups that were formed from people from the different entities to make decisions for all. It was a major effort to coordinate but it functioned brilliantly, providing lots of autonomy where it counted and pooled knowledge and needs from across the company for decisions that enabled standards to emerge on behalf of the whole where they were needed.
2. On Leadership, agency, power, and self-governance. To the dilemma of no one stepping in to make decisions. The core lesson from Open Space Technology - a process that supports self-organization - provides the most effective guidance I've seen for moving to action in a productive way. That lesson: invite people to take responsibility for what they love. On the surface, that sounds selfish. Ironically, by operating from love, people discover their kindreds for taking action. So it encourages connections, collaboration, and contribution. I've had the experience many times of seeing magic emerge when people come together around a question that matters to them and act on what they care about.
3. On Navigating conflict. Yes! Solve this and you can work through anything. My learnings around that come from experiences of what happens when people self-organize based on taking responsibility for what they love. First, the clarity of a good organizing question offers focus. If conflict arises, there's motivation to work through it because there is something larger that we all want. That keeps us talking. I have learned that conflict is an indicator of caring and a doorway to change. I've found three conditions that help me make friends with it:
ask a question that focuses on what matters and attracts the diversity of the system.
invite those who care and who reflect the diversity of the system
create a hospitable space to connect.
What I consistently see is that exploring questions that matter help us to understand each other. If we're there because the questions call to us, people are more likely to listen to each other. And that can lead to breakthroughs and better answers than any of us could come up with on our own.
Yes to being informed by the prevalence of trauma everywhere. Thanks again for your thoughtful reflections.
Yes, and yes, and yes!
I have been wondering lately how we can unleash the life force that is stuck in inter-personal conflict, in such a way that this life force becomes available for the collective? what kind of exercises can we invent that we need here?
I love this. As ever, I'm left with a small mountain of links and further questions.
For those folks in the UK looking to explore what liberatory and transformational looks and feels like in practice, you might be interested to know that the Transformational Governance project is inviting individuals, groups and organisations with questions or challenges relating to governance to join a paid peer-group to support their learning.
For more information and to express interest and share your needs and preferences, please have a look here: https://stingy-hexagon-c88.notion.site/Expression-of-Interest-for-a-Transformational-Governance-learning-cohort-d7df4e2fa7734e7992fb202854911662
Thanks for another terrific reflection. Some thoughts that come up for me:
1. You say: "Liberatory governance systems must be decentralized: there is no central command and control structure."
I'm not so sure this allows for optimal governance. My observation is liberatory governance systems are likely both distributed and connected for coordination to enable decisions to happen at optimal levels. In practice, I saw a brilliant governance structure at work in Information Technologies at Weyerhaeuser. Individual organizations managed their own IT decisions. Where shared standards and standard equipment could enable discounts for large purchases, they set up stewarding groups that were formed from people from the different entities to make decisions for all. It was a major effort to coordinate but it functioned brilliantly, providing lots of autonomy where it counted and pooled knowledge and needs from across the company for decisions that enabled standards to emerge on behalf of the whole where they were needed.
2. On Leadership, agency, power, and self-governance. To the dilemma of no one stepping in to make decisions. The core lesson from Open Space Technology - a process that supports self-organization - provides the most effective guidance I've seen for moving to action in a productive way. That lesson: invite people to take responsibility for what they love. On the surface, that sounds selfish. Ironically, by operating from love, people discover their kindreds for taking action. So it encourages connections, collaboration, and contribution. I've had the experience many times of seeing magic emerge when people come together around a question that matters to them and act on what they care about.
3. On Navigating conflict. Yes! Solve this and you can work through anything. My learnings around that come from experiences of what happens when people self-organize based on taking responsibility for what they love. First, the clarity of a good organizing question offers focus. If conflict arises, there's motivation to work through it because there is something larger that we all want. That keeps us talking. I have learned that conflict is an indicator of caring and a doorway to change. I've found three conditions that help me make friends with it:
ask a question that focuses on what matters and attracts the diversity of the system.
invite those who care and who reflect the diversity of the system
create a hospitable space to connect.
What I consistently see is that exploring questions that matter help us to understand each other. If we're there because the questions call to us, people are more likely to listen to each other. And that can lead to breakthroughs and better answers than any of us could come up with on our own.
Yes to being informed by the prevalence of trauma everywhere. Thanks again for your thoughtful reflections.
If I am a subscriber is there a way to watch recored webinar conversations?
Sent! We publish all public recorded events (for Building Belonging the community, distinct from this newsletter) to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRrui9FZqM43NPfB5TFp0Ag