## Resilient Koan 11 - Depth and Democracy ### _Koan_: How can we think and act collectively and creatively and beyond our individuality and identity? ### _Discussion_: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. We need to go very far, very fast" (attributed to Al Gore). If you act independently you can quickly and easily explore new ground like a bee searching for new flowers or ant seeking new morsels of food. Both insects seek on behalf of their community, and similarly if humans don't act consensually in our explorations and leave artefacts that are interpretable by others, any insights gained may have no impact on the whole. Practices and techniques such as [Evolutionary Enlightenment](http://www.andrewcohen.org/blog/index.php?/blog/post/evolutionary-enlightenment-101/), [Theory U](http://www.presencing.com/hub/) Bohmian Dialogue or even Deep Democracy point to and demonstrate means to collectively discovering new territory and act instantaneously through contributing to/seeing from a consciousness beyond the individual. It is this space that our real creative selves emerge. While I have experienced some level of collective emergence in heterogeneous groups, most of my experience and understanding points to the pre-conditions for that emergence and discovery being relative homogeniety in the developmental stage and perspective of participants. Seeing as most of my experiences when it was heterogeneous were in intense (emergencies), drug-affected or less purposeful contexts (Glastonbury, Big Day Out?), I am curious as to what a practice of deep consensus and collective emergence looks like when the participants are very different. For example, given the huge range of perspectives, motivations, perspectives and contexts, in a regional community, how do you really do the 'collective creative' or 'higher wisdom' thing without simply being satisfied with a sort of lowest common denominator, safe, common ground? ### _Inquiry_: Perhaps identification of participants with that which makes them 'different' and 'unique' can be relaxed when something else becomes more compelling than your own individual position. It is easy to think that this relaxation could occur if the environment in the workshop or geographic community is safe enough, but I don't think that is it. The 'container' for this creativity to emerge must be something more than just safe. For example: * In Deep Democracy there is a process of inquiring into the 'no' that both legitimises dissent from the majority decisions. If you take it further, the process continues to inquire into what is behind that 'no' for as long as there is resistance to consensus. In this case the container is both safe, but then extends into being incredibly challenging to any sense of individual uniqueness and 'shadows'. * When I have used Theory U with groups, the real letting go only occurs as the inquiry moves to uncover each participant's voice of judgement, cynicism, and fear. It is only once those phases have occurred that the real 'presencing' and connection to our collective source of creativity occurs. * In Evolutionary Enlightenment the pre-conditions to participation are far more exclusive than DD or Theory U. The 'Enlightened Communication' and other means of connecting with the wisdom of the collective require people to a) be interested in 'post-post modern' perspectives, b) attend sessions hosted by an organisation with an explicit spiritual purpose, and perhaps c) meditate a lot prior to the actual process beginnning. In all cases, participants have responded to an invitation to participate in a certain process, in a certain way that does not hide its intention to go beyond the individual. I think this is a very stark contrast to more deliberative workshops or democratic processes where the invitation is not to something so deep. There certainly is a very strong theme in some facilitation methodologies to ensure that each person's view is heard and to honour their unique contribution. Whereas in other processes it is made explicit that attachment to that view is actually most of the problem! And it's not about creating 'ground rules in the workshop or community where we want people to self-censor unless it is 'contributing to the whole', it is something much deeper and earlier than that..right from the start of the invitation to not just 'hold' more perspectives but to 'let go of' yours. Perhaps the contrast is between: "please join us in a challenging but liberating process to let go of your individual identity and perspective and tap into our deepest collective intelligence and wisdom" and "please join us in a process where we want to honour your individual identity and perspective, give you the opportunity to listen to other's perspectives and find some common ground". [](//2.bp.blogspot.com/_1WGIFg5O9VY/S82mYGMaJsI/AAAAAAAAAA4/TN3fouJ-AKI/s1600/IMG_2164.JPG) While I think the crude comparison of those invitations and the crude drawing are not truly reflective of the position of any of the people or processes I have learned from, I think it does help me make a distinction. The distinction is between processes that enable agreement between individuals, and processes that enable emergence through the collective. And there is a third position, that is relevant here (in the context of regional resilience): _"My view of leadership starts with an assumption that democracy is always the best way to decide and collaboration always the best basis for action, but that total democracy and collaboration are almost always problematic. Leadership is, under this assumption, the next best recourse. The legitimacy of an act of leadership rests in the readiness of the actor to fall back into a collective process, and not to allow his or her leadership to concretise into a role." (Richard Little, pers. comm. 2009)_. This third position does not exclude collective wisdom and action, but in my interpretation it does emphasise that Leadership through individuals a likely way that things will actually happen. ### _Insight:_ As a practitioner, what exactly is my intent. Really. Really. Why is it that I am doing this? Am I setting up a process, container or engagement that I know will very likely reinforce my identity and highlight my perspective as the most enlightened? Am I extending an invitation that is more like a 'trap' than a genuine inquiry where I as much as anyone else is willing to “let go of what I am, to become what I might be"? What is the 'role' and 'identity' that I am attached to? ### _Practice:_ Don't invite people into processes where the highest hope is that we will reach consensus without letting go of anything. Respond to invitations / Invite people into processes where the highest hope is that we will meet and act beyond the limits of our imagination. Don't invite people into processes where my intention is to reinforce my identity and role, and where the invitation to let go is not extended with integrity and mutuality. Respond to invitations / invite people into processes where I am willing to let go of my identity and role, and where I invite them to act with integrity and mutuality. Don't inquire into the alignment of others actions with their intentions or effectiveness of other's actions when I am not similarly open to inquiring into the effectiveness of my own. Respond to invitations / Invite people into a shared inquiry into alignment or our actions with our intentions and effectiveness of our actions. --- This is one in a series of 25 'Resilient Koans' documenting "an apithologue into the koans of practice discovered while creating resilient sustainable communities", in 2010.