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About the Seminar
Topics from the Seminar Jim Rough, Instructor Other Jim Rough & Assoc., Inc. |
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Seeing Groups and the World in a New Way
An Interview of Jim Rough(This article appeared in the Association for Quality and Participation newsletter -- News for Change in May 2003.)
Please describe what you’re trying to accomplish through your writing and work—in no more than two sentences.
I’ve discovered some new ways to help people address really big problems collaboratively and creatively and have breakthroughs. I want to make sure people know about these new methods and that they can be successful.
You advocate the use of what is termed “dynamic facilitation” to help a small group achieve breakthrough solutions. What is that?
Dynamic Facilitation (DF) is a way one person can help everyone in a group to release her or his creative capability. Group members don’t need to be trained or agree to abide by certain rules, they are just encouraged to address issues they care about and talk naturally. The dynamic facilitator structures the environment, using different charts to value each comment so that breakthroughs are a natural result.
The best way for a group to reach a consensus is for them to have a win/win breakthrough. Most facilitated meetings aim for something different— a logical, orderly progress that meets preset goals. One result of this rational orientation is that really big, impossible-seeming issues don’t get addressed. They are avoided until a crisis foists them on people. With DF we seek out and solve these “wicked issues” before they become crises.
Key is that the dynamic facilitator assures people are talking about something they really care about, whether it seems solvable or not. Another key, especially early on, is to help people speak from their passion about the topic, the heart not the head. The dynamic facilitator relies on energy, even seemingly negative energy, for the group agenda. Each spontaneous comment is treated as a valuable contribution to the group and each speaker is protected from judgment.
Probably the most important “skill” for the dynamic facilitator is to trust this process, that when people work together on an issue they care about and they stay creative, breakthroughs will happen.
You advocate the use of a Wisdom Council to help large systems of people reach consensus. How does that work?
A Wisdom Council is a way to facilitate the same thing in a large system of people, where they empower themselves to create a wise and thoughtful presence— “we the people”. It’s how everyone in a city, public agency, corporation, or professional association can work together on issues, think creatively about them, and reach consensus. It’s a new social invention that allows true democracy.
There are twelve features to establishing a Wisdom Council as described in my book Society’s Breakthrough! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People (www.SocietysBreakthrough.com), but its essence involves the periodic random selection of twelve or so people from the organization. This small group of people holds a symbolic “time out” for the whole organization. The group is dynamically facilitated to determine unanimous statements, which are presented to all. Then everyone has an opportunity to meet in small groups to consider the statements, or to just talk about them informally between this Wisdom Council and the next.
With a Wisdom Council process in place it is possible in the space of just a few hours, for a large system of people to reach consensus on a difficult issue. If a Wisdom Council were implemented as a U.S. Constitutional amendment, it would create an inclusive, thoughtful voice of “We the People”.
To what extent have Wisdom Councils been adopted? With what success?
A number of Wisdom Council experiments have been successfully done in a variety of settings — a high school, among homeless people, in a farm credit bank, at a professional association meeting, in a city, etc. But the complete package with all twelve features is yet to be. A true Wisdom Council should be chartered by a consensus of “the people” on an ongoing basis, not by management or by just a vote of the people.
There was an experiment recently in Pleasantville, New York, for example, at the behest of the town trustees. Nine randomly selected people met over a weekend, reached consensus and presented their results back to the trustees.
Their message was powerful. They said Pleasantville should become more of a real community instead of a bedroom community. They had a detailed plan for how this should happen:
(1) We need to set up a community-oriented infrastructure, especially to separate commuter parking from downtown parking. One idea was to move the train station a few blocks away.
( 2) We need to establish a real center of town instead of the mish-mash that exists. They had ideas for using decorations and traffic flow to do this.
(3) Youth should be a priority. The group suggested adapting an abandoned building for a new community activity center.
You use a triangle, box, and circle as metaphors for how people can structure themselves. Please explain these.
There are three basic ways to structure a large organization or a society. Each type of structure encourages different behaviors and different kinds of thinking. 1) The Triangle is hierarchical where everyone orients to one decision-maker, like a loyal subject to his king. For people in this structure, loyalty is a prime value, while thinking for yourself is not. 2) In the Box the ultimate authority is a set of rules, like American society with its constitution. The Box structure creates a “game mentality”, where you are encouraged to compete and win as much as you can within the rules. It encourages entrepreneurial thinking and creativity, but only within pre-set boundaries—not “outside the box.” 3) The Circle structure is where the ultimate authority is an ongoing, creative conversation about what is best for everyone. It’s a consensus-based system, where measurable results are not as important as how people feel about things. This structure values individuality, creativity and authenticity.
Many people get into trouble because they think the values of the Circle system, like authentic communication, empowered people, participative leadership, an orientation to quality can be achieved through Box methods. They try to enact laws or change the rules of the game, for instance, which doesn’t transform the game-nature of the system.
What does it take to transform a system from a “box” to a “circle” structure?
This can be done easily and safely, without changing any of the Box institutions. It’s just a matter of adding regularly scheduled “times out”, where the system reflects on itself. This is different than what can be done by individuals who meditate, or small groups that engage in dialogue. It’s where the whole system meets regularly as a complete entity. The Wisdom Council is designed for this.
At first, each Wisdom Council event is just an interlude, a break from “real life”. But after a while, people realize that the game is actually the interlude and these moments of self-reflection are “real life”. It creates a subtle shift in the “bottom line” of society from measurable values, like profits, to deeper values like Trust, Service, Quality, Community, and Effectiveness.
You propose a Wisdom Council as the mechanism for shifting the United States and the World into a democratic form of government. How would this work? Why would it constitute a breakthrough?
If the Wisdom Council were to be implemented as a U.S. Constitutional amendment, it would establish a wise and responsible voice of “We the People” of the United States. Such an amendment is risk free because it leaves the mechanics of our system and its institutions untouched. It just adds a random selection of people every six months or so, who present unanimous statements to the rest of us. But as everyone learns to trust this process, citizens would become more involved, more understanding and more capable. Trust and shared values would develop as people addressed difficult issues and built a consensus on what to do about them.
Apart from being low risk, the benefit potential of this process is immense. Many of today’s most intractable issues are caused by our Box system. It’s difficult to imagine being embroiled in a “war on terrorism”, for example, if our system had us seeking what is best for everyone rather than pursuing maximum profits. Neither would we continue to spend more money to advertise products to our children than to educate them. This is not to say that competition for profits is bad, just that it cannot be our ultimate value.
If We the People could come back into being, could stop regularly to think about how we are doing as a society, could reach consensus on what we really want and how to get it, then the global system would be transformed and many of today’s problems would disappear.
Our current structure directs us, especially through the institution of corporations, to maximize our own personal benefit and trust that the public interest will take care of itself. Many of us can see that this general approach is not sustainable. Instead, there must come a time when all of us, as individuals and as We the People, become aware and concerned for the public interest. Key is to have a risk-free way to do this. That’s what the Citizens Amendment provides. It doesn’t change the Constitution. It just adds one part that the Founders didn’t know was needed—how to form ourselves into a wise and thoughtful “We the People”.
Jim Rough is a consultant, seminar leader, speaker, and author of the new book SOCIETY’S BREAKTHROUGH! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People. (www.SocietysBreakthrough.com) He invented “Dynamic Facilitation” (www.ToBE.net) and the Wisdom Council, and co-founded the non-profit Center for Wise Democracy. (www.WiseDemocracy.org.)
www.ToBe.net---Jim Rough & Associates, Inc. - 1040 Taylor Street - Port Townsend, WA 98368 - phone: (360) 385-7118 - seminars@ToBe.net