"The new life needs to be inspired with the realization that it has all kinds of new advantages that have been gained through great dedications of unknown, unsung heroes of intellectual exploration and great intuitively faithful integrities of people groping in the dark. Unless the new life is highly appreciative of those who have gone before, it won't be able to take effective advantage of its heritage. It will not be as regenerated and inspired as it might be if it appreciated the comprehensive love invested in that heritage." R. Buckminister Fuller, 1963
In an age where information seems to be doubling every few days - where one innovation stands on the shoulders of another that is just a few days old - it is difficult to see the future, to find what matters. Every system seems to be falling apart; Our political, financial and corporate leadership are failing the ordinary citizen, too busy taking care of each other's business.
Then an article like this shows up in the news and there is hope again. Two paragraphs in the article define a radical shift in how humans define themselves. It is interesting that we need science to know and give legitimacy to our feelings, our sense of self.
]]>If human nature is as the Enlightenment philosophers claimed, then we are likely doomed. It is impossible to imagine how we might create a sustainable global economy and restore the biosphere to health if each and every one of us is, at the core of our biology, an autonomous agent and a self-centered and materialistic being.
Recent discoveries in brain science and child development, however, are forcing us to rethink these long-held shibboleths about human nature. Biologists and cognitive neuroscientists are discovering mirror-neurons--the so-called empathy neurons--that allow human beings and other species to feel and experience another's situation as if it were one's own. We are, it appears, the most social of animals and seek intimate participation and companionship with our fellows.
I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Former US Supreme Court Justice
It used to be that most people hated the SCAN process. They just felt we should get down to business and get results. Today, far more participants enjoy this process of reaching out; reaching beyond the known for new possibilities. They see the value in looking at a problem from many different vantage points. Many realize the art of Play as well. Still for some people SCAN is difficult and probably will always be, even though they come to recognize its usefulness and integrity to good results. Each of us have different thinking patterns and a truly great group process accounts for all kinds of thinkers, knowing that aspects of going from SCAN to FOCUS to ACT will be frustrating at some time or another to a majority of participants.
But I truly love it when someone who really did not like the process comes up after we are done and says, "We got really good results. But surely we could have cut out the first day and a half and done the work in half a day." Well, you see, they don't understand what Oliver Wendal Holmes was trying to convey. True simplicity comes after you have climbed that hill of complexity. We are not after simple answers that have been gotten by cutting out most of the things that cannot be seen up front. Simple answers and answers with simplicity are two very different things.
David Bohm's ideas about play are so important. When will schools, conferences, and all too many workshops stop pounding play out of process? It is vital to our ability to survive and thrive.
If science always insists that a new order must be immediately fruitful, or that it has some new predictive power, then creativity will be blocked. New thoughts generally arise with a play of the mind, and the failure to appreciate this is actually one of the major blocks to creativity. Thought is generally considered to be a sober and weighty business. But here it is being suggested that creative play is an essential element in forming new hypotheses and ideas. Indeed, thought which tries to avoid play is in fact playing false with itself. Play, it appears, is the very essence of thought.
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Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not as in fiction, to imagine things that are not really there, but just to comprehend those things that are there.
Richard Feynman The Character of Physical Law
The last five projects I have been asked to participate in are all long-term visions! A breath of fresh air. It seems to me that people are reconnecting with their natural hunger for projects that matter, not only to them, but to the larger world. I can feel the excitement in the voices of project leaders. Most are willing to reach out 25 to 50 years in the future and imagine the difference their projects are making. A new form of strategic plan is taking place. No one is trying to do linear goal-setting plans; rather they are leaping out into the future, envisioning the networks to help in their undertaking, and asking themselves "What is it we need to do today to make our journey into an unknown future succeed?" The MG Taylor axiom: "You can't get There from Here" is being used and lived. During the years where only the next quarter earnings mattered, no one paid the slightest attention to the future. It was so disheartening, boring, and of course, detrimental to life itself.
I do feel that a new paradigm is unfolding. Perhaps the fast and slow are getting back in sync.
]]>We are at a moment of commencement. A powerful ending and dramatic beginning. Standing in the old, hierarchical paradigm is scary. It is looking straight into the abyss.None of the alternatives look good. Leaping this abyss to a paradigm of panarchy requires an optimism grounded in a trust that with these new tools and realities we can give new meaning to our place in the world.
“Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums… Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement.”
-Paul Hawken, 2009 Commencement to University of Oregon
To give this view of reality more than a short bleep in history, it needs care, nourishment, and stewardship of trust building. It demands ongoing design, engaging people of all walks of life in making this great leap and cohering into a powerful resilience on the other side.
So concludes a paper we recently wrote for a client to present to their client, and that is now available on our website. We were asked to address specific questions around paradigm shifts and how one might help to shape them. While this does put a specific context around the paper that the reader should keep in mind, there are a number of ideas embedded in it which we believe can help any individual or community think their way into a new paradigm. We have named this paradigm Panarchy.
These are:
This is a work in progress. We have begun developing it more broadly than the initial set of questions we were asked to consider. There are countless lenses and perspectives to the notion of how paradigm shifts can, have, will, might, or will not happen. The more we learn, the more there is to learn. We hope you will provide us feedback and guidance as we continue to iterate and design our way forward.
Gail and Todd
Download a pdf of From Hierarchy to Panarchy: the unfolding of a global paradigm shift
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Historically, wayfinding refers to the techniques used by travelers over land and sea to find relatively unmarked and often mislabeled routes.
Since we are traveling into an unknown future, a good wayfinding process can help us decide when, how, and where to go. It can help us find unmarked and often mislabeled routes deep into future opportunities, perhaps helping us avoid treacherous paths and dangerous assumptions. Wayfinders help mark the way for others to follow.
]]>CLUE: ORIGIN late Middle English : variant of clew . The original sense was [a ball of thread] ; hence one used to guide a person out of a labyrinth (literally or figuratively).
I watch my two-year old grandson, Owen, pick up clues. That is how he learns, everyday, every moment. His life is discovery and feedback. He explores, by trial and error, tries again and succeeds or fails. He watches for clues from others ... facial expressions, body language ... and then he repeats until he grasps and understands and incorporates it into his behavior or rejects it as something not useful at the moment. He also sends me clues. He engages me in make-believe stories. Since his language is still Oweneese, which I sometimes cannot understand, he gives clues by taking my hand and showing me. Owen is quite bright and capable but I don't think he understands the word "answer" yet. Hopefully as he grows and creates his own life, he will come to know that there are answers for a few things like 2+2 is 4, but for most of his life he will continue looking and connecting clues as he journeys forth into the vast unknown.
Learning is both fast and slow. Facts are fast and can be tested in the present moment; slow is a long journey, absorbing and digesting facts within a much longer time span. Slow is carried forward by context and the ability to connect clues along the way. Slow delights in discovering more, in reshaping one's facts throughout the course of life. Facts remembered can save lives in the moment.(redcross learning, calling 911, seeking safety in a tornado). Fast and slow learning is essential to the well-prepared mind. Unfortunately, too much of today's education for all ages seems to be on fast fact learning. Given this focus, how many facts are immediately forgotten after only a short period? Fast to learn; fast to forget. Since the slow is not immediately measureable, it does not seem to have as much credibility. Taken together, however, the fast and slow weave together bonding facts with context and learning by doing... learning through life.
]]>An effective process through which to put "expertise" is a syntopical reading. Most often (in my experience), this is done in groups, with each person having different books or source material, and taking an hour or 90 minutes to scan and note. However, it can also be an enlightening way of thinking and engaging with ideas as an individual.
Create a dialogue with and among the authors. Don't limit them to analysis and critique - let them imagine and galumph with each other's thoughts. Use syntopical reading as a means of getting familiar with someone's ideas and the all important context and situations they rest upon... and then carrying them forward. Engage both imaginative, play-of-mind thinking as well as analytical and critical thinking.
Don't set your sights on answers. Rather, seek out clues, and explore the relationships that connect them.
I'm using syntopical reading and conversing in this way in a current exploration of paradigm shifts and other kinds of phase transitions. Gail and I recently crafted a paper touching on paradigm shifts in general but more particularly, exploring current history for compelling signs that a significant shift is unfolding, and may be on the verging on a global upcreation to borrow a term from Kevin Kelly.
]]>"The Swarm master coaches, 'Loosen all attachments to the sure and certain.'"
Kevin Kelly, Out of Control, Hive Mind, page 25
It used to be we could rely on answers. If we did not know the answer, we could ask our parents, or a teacher, consultant, expert, the government, etc. All of our lives we have passed or failed tests because we knew or didn't know the right answer. We competed, climbed to the top of our class or corporate ladder and got tenure because we published answers that gave instruction to others.
The deeper I get into complexity science the more I come to know that looking for answers is often a hinderence to my learning. Complexity is about processes and patterns and these are recursive, iterative and adaptive! I do feel like Alice must have felt at times. How do I know what I know? Where am I on the certainty level?
]]>"'It was much pleasanter at Home,' thought poor Alice. 'when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit hole..."
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
"The impossible has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks."
Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
One of my favorite MG Taylor axioms is "You can't get THERE from HERE but you can get here from there." Backcasting has become popular over the years but when we first used it with our clients in 1980. It seemed very strange - and powerful - to them. Work walls to work big on? Collaboration across all boundaries, both vertical and horizontal? Unleashing Group Genius? These were things our clients had never thought about, let alone experienced. There was no proof in our beginning, no benchmarking. We simply had to put our concept to work.
RUN-WALK-RUN is a process we used on ourselves when we founded MG Taylor Corporation and put into place methods and tools that were not available in the market place. R-W-R is the process of leaping out into the future and envisioning a world that could be - well beyond what you know to be possible from the vantage point of here or today. Between THERE and HERE there are many possibilities. What is known that could help us realize our vision? One example of this was our need for large write on walls as we were sure that working big was a critical tool in enabling deep collaboration. No walls could be found. Possible vendors stared at us like we were crazy. So we made the walls ourselves by finding a manufacturer of refrigerators and getting access to the surface materials on refrigerators. One weekend with a rented truck, colleagues, and Matt's artistic imagination and engineering skills, we created our first Working Big environment of at least 20 four wide by 6 high panels.
We invited friends into the space and asked what to do with the space. Draw, create, share ideas, work together were the responses. Our walls were covered with ideas and plans. Because we had created a tiny part of our vision and been willing to share it, others were able to engage with us. In a single afternoon of working together, one office supply store owner wanted to put his furniture in the space as a showcase. Others had ideas for how to make the environment work better. We were off and running, learning as we went.
WALK signifies what isn't to be found and needs to be made up from scratch -- something that can fill in while waiting for someone to invent it.]]>