Matrix & Transformation: Chapter 4

From: richard-at-cyberjournal.org

Date: 16 Nov 2004

Subject: Matrix & Transformation: Chapter 4

To: newslog-at-cyberjournal.org

Copyright 2004 Richard K. Moore

_________________________________________________  

CHAPTER 4:    HARMONIZATION IN THE MICROCOSM

* A very promising gathering in Michigan

In June, 2004, twenty four diverse "opinion leaders" were

invited to a conference in Michigan which had the following

stated purpose:

      The purpose of this gathering is to [initiate] a new kind of

      public conversation that moves us beyond polarization so we

      [can] effectively address the issues we care most about. . . .

The participants were from all across the political spectrum,

including a former FBI agent, the National Field Director of

the Christian Coalition, a founding member of the National

Congress of Black Women , a board member of the National Rifle

Association, the president of a left-leaning legal-issues

organization, former Weather Underground supporters, and

former speakers at white racist gatherings.

Is this gathering a joke? From such a radically diverse

conference one might expect fist fights and shouting matches

to emerge, rather than any kind of agreement or consensus. Tom

Atlee, one of the participants, expressed his misgivings prior

to the gathering this way:

      Using Google, I researched the people who were coming to the

      conversation. I read articles by the conservatives and

      listened to their radio talk shows -- and I got triggered by

      what they said. I reacted with anger, frustration and

      rejection of who they were. I thought silent counter arguments

      and felt the rise of adrenaline. Friends warned me to be

      careful -- or couldn't even imagine going to talk with such

      people.

But somehow, at the conference in Michigan, the outcome

transcended these negative expectations. It turned out to be a

very productive meeting. Another of the participants, Mark

Satin, wrote an article about the experience, and he sums up

the results this way:

      Before leaving, we all signed our names to a document titled

      "We the People." Many of us signed with flourishes, as if we

      were signing something akin to the Declaration of

      Independence. Here are the key passages:

            "We respect our differences and recognize America needs every

      one of our viewpoints, ideas, and passions -- even those we

      don't agree with -- to keep our democracy vital and alive;

            "We recognize that meeting here and across our land for

      dialogues across differences builds trust, understanding,

      respect, and empowerment -- the conditions necessary for

      freedom and democracy to live in us and around us;

            "And, therefore, each still grounded in our own considered

      views (conscience and convictions), we commit ourselves and

      our communities of interest to foster dialogue across the many

      divides in America, in large and small groups, to build trust,

      insight, and inspired action toward the more perfect union we

      all desire".

How were these people able to cut through their differences

and arrive at a statement they could all sign their names to?

Why did these people take the trouble to get together with

their political 'enemies' in the first place? Why do they now

feel it is important for them to keep working together? Was

this a one-off event or is it something that could be repeated

elsewhere? Could this be a microcosm of how factionalism might

be overcome in our society generally -- could it be part of

the response to our Harmonization Imperative? Could this be a

way to give real meaning to the phrase, 'We the People'?

* Meeting dynamics: collaborative & adversarial

Consider for a moment the many kinds of meetings that occur in

our society. In business, meetings are held regularly to make

plans and coordinate people's activities. If parents feel that

their children need a crossing guard on the way to school,

then they organize a neighborhood meeting. When a country

decides to go to war, that decision is made in some meeting

among high-level officials. In government one wonders if they

do anything but go to meetings, whether they be official

government sessions, or meetings with staff, colleagues,

lobbyists, backers, or constituents. If people want to start a

political movement, they begin by organizing meetings. The

American Revolution was born in New England pubs, where the

rebellious minded held meetings and plotted against the King,

inspired by the local brew.

Although many of us have negative feelings about meetings, and

about their effectiveness, the fact is that meetings are the

place where people generally make joint plans and reach group

decisions. Some of these meetings are collaborative, and some

are adversarial. We are all familiar with both kinds.

A typical example of a collaborative meeting would be the

neighborhood gathering mentioned above, where the parents

would like to see a crossing guard assigned to a dangerous

local intersection. The people have a common goal, and they

work together cooperatively to achieve it. People offer

suggestions for actions which can be taken, the suggestions

are discussed, and people volunteer to help with the actions

that are agreed to. If the meeting is successful, everyone

comes away better off -- the concept of winners and losers is

irrelevant to a collaborative meeting.

A typical example of an adversarial meeting would be a city

council session where a controversial development project is

being discussed. The developers and business community are

showing slides of beautiful landscaped buildings and talking

of new jobs, while neighborhood protestors are complaining

about increased traffic and the loss of a children's

playground. The typical outcome of such a meeting is that one

side wins and the other loses. Either the development project

goes ahead, and the neighborhood suffers, or else the project

is rejected and the investors may suffer considerable losses.

It is very unusual for anything creative to happen at an

adversarial meeting. People, or factions, come in with agendas

to promote -- agendas that were created somewhere else. If the

meeting is unable to resolve an issue, it is typically

deferred -- and people are expected to go off somewhere else

and create revised proposals. The 'somewhere else' -- where

the creative activity of planning occurs -- is generally a

meeting of the collaborative variety. In our city council

example, the developers and promoters have been meeting

collaboratively for months preparing their project plans and

their city-council presentation. Similarly, the neighborhood

protestors have held collaborative meetings to assess their

feelings and to decide how best to express their concerns to

the city council. The adversarial meeting -- the official

'decision making' meeting -- is not a discussion session, but

is rather a battle of strength between the two opposing sides:

Which side can muster the most support among the city council

members? Which side can spout the most convincing rhetoric,

painting its own proposals in the colors of the common good?

Parliamentary sessions in liberal 'democracies' are based on

the adversarial meeting model. A chairman governs the

proceedings, proposals can be introduced, time is allowed for

debate, and a majority vote decides each question. The

'debate' is typically rhetorical, for public consumption, and

seldom affects the outcome of the vote. This is not a system

designed to solve problems nor to encourage useful discussion

-- it is a system designed to efficiently measure the relative

power of opposing factions, and to promptly assign the rewards

to the strongest. Just as the floor of the stock market is

designed to efficiently manage the investment transactions of

the wealthy elite, so is the floor of the parliament designed

to efficiently referee power transactions among elite

factions.

A collaborative meeting operates according to collaborative

dynamics, and an adversarial meeting operates according to

adversarial dynamics. Collaborative dynamics are about people

seeking common ground, identifying common problems, and

working creatively together to find mutually beneficial

solutions. Within collaborative dynamics people have an

incentive to listen to one another's perspectives, and in the

problem-solving process the group typically converges toward a

consensus perspective on the problems at hand.

Adversarial dynamics are about people debating from their

fixed perspectives in an attempt to prevail over the other

side. There is little incentive to listen to the other side,

apart from looking for weaknesses that can be exploited. Each

side may attempt to shift the perspective of the other side,

but neither side has any intention of shifting its own

perspective. Whereas people learn useful things about their

shared problems within collaborative dynamics, the only thing

learned within adversarial dynamics is how to better combat

the other side. Collaborative dynamics tend to resolve group

factionalism when it arises, while adversarial dynamics tend

to reinforce and encourage group factionalism.

* A gap in our cultural repertoire

These two meeting models are very common in our society, and

indeed they are more or less the extent of our cultural

repertoire. We know how to get together with our allies and

make plans to promote our shared interests, and we know how to

fight for our side in an adversarial gathering, according to

whatever rules are in play. What we don't know much about, and

don't have many cultural models for, is how to resolve

differences within a group of people. We don't know how to

engage in productive dialog within a group of people who

express conflicting interests.

In an adversarial meeting the differences are accepted as a

given, as a fixed quantity, and the business of the meeting is

to enable the different factions to battle it out until a

winner can be chosen. There is no attempt to resolve the

differences: people go away with their perspectives unchanged,

and the same factions retire to prepare for their next

engagement.

When people come into a collaborative meeting, they come in

with the knowledge that they are bound by common interests to

the other participants. Indeed, the people come together in

order to collaborate in advancing those common interests. In

order to 'get on with it' and 'make progress', participants

tend to avoid bringing up internal differences in such

meetings. At such a meeting a 'good leader' will be skillful

at defusing differences, articulating compromises, and keeping

the meeting 'on track'. Minority factions within the group are

encouraged to stifle their 'divisive' concerns, and join the

majority in a 'consensus' that will advance the identified

common interests of the group. And in the competition between

different factions, success tends to go to those which are

best able to submerge their internal differences, focus on

their primary interests, and adopt decisive action plans.

Under neither dynamics is there an attempt to engage in

constructive dialog regarding the differences in the group.

Under adversarial dynamics there is dialog over differences --

but it is the dialog of power, expressed in the language of

influence and votes. Under collaborative dynamics, discussion

of differences is avoided, so that the group can focus on

their identified common interests and get on with their

primary business. In the one case difference are expressed

competitively and are reinforced, and in the other case

differences are suppressed. In neither case are differences

resolved.

This gap in our cultural repertoire creates a problem for

popular initiatives, particularly in a society which is

already split by factionalism. Indeed, the gap can lead to

difficulties whenever people attempt to work together. Here's

an example I observed on a recent visit to the San Francisco

Bay Area. The population there is relatively progressive, and

there is widespread support for an increased focus on public

transport. But instead of people getting together and coming

up with a common proposal, people soon divided themselves into

two camps. One camp wanted to expand the conventional rail

network, while another wanted to expand the rapid-transit

system. Most of the available activist energy was then devoted

to a struggle between these two camps.

As I read over the positions of the two camps, as an outside

observer, it seemed obvious to me that the best of the ideas

could be usefully combined into a cost-effective hybrid

proposal. The real solution, it seemed, would be to make

strategic interconnecting links, and coordinate upgrades,

among available transport systems -- rather than promoting one

kind of transport to the exclusion of another. Of course my

own arm-chair proposal probably didn't take everything into

account, but the main point remains: the two camps were

fighting over their differences rather than trying to resolve

them -- and missed any opportunity to find synergy in some

creative middle ground. The collaborative meeting model could

not serve the two camps, because neither side was willing to

stifle its ideas -- so the activists adopted the only other

available cultural model: adversarial engagement. As a

consequence of this split in popular activism, the transport

planning decisions will most likely be made by speculative

developers and their politician cronies, and whatever they

decide they will be able to claim their decision has 'public

support'.

Most of us consider public meetings to be a waste of time,

particularly when they attempt to deal with issues that are

complex or controversial. This is because we have prior

experience with the dynamics that are likely to occur. First

there will be an attempt to reach a rapid consensus, most

likely proposed by those calling the meeting. Then someone in

the back stands up and disagrees, voicing some objection. That

sparks other suggestions and objections. The meeting threatens

to 'get out of control' -- to revert to adversarial dynamics.

The organizers attempt to bring the dynamics back into

collaboration. If they succeed, then some of the participants

go away feeling their interests have been betrayed; if they

fail, then everyone goes away with the feeling that yet

another meeting has been a waste of time.

Because of these circumstances, anyone with a motivation to

pursue political activism soon learns to flock with birds of

the same feather. Environmentalists flock under a green

banner, animal rights activists follow their drummer, other

groups rally around their opposition to corporate power, or

their stance in favor of or against abortion rights, etc. In

order to get anything done, collaborative dynamics are

required, and gathering together in interest groups seems to

be the natural thing to do. Those gathering together already

agree on what's important, and they are thus able -- depending

on their organizational ability -- to get get on with a

program, rather than 'wasting time' debating the priority of

different issues. In this way the energy of popular

initiatives gets sucked into the game of adversarial

factionalism -- a game whose rules are set down by elites for

their own advantage. Just as in Las Vegas or Wall Street, this

is a game where the house always wins in the end.

If we want to overcome factionalism at the macro level, at the

level of society, we must first learn how to overcome

differences at the micro level, down in the grassroots where

people meet face to face. We need to extend our cultural

repertoire to include gatherings of a third kind, where people

neither compete to win or lose, nor submerge their differences

in order to reach a shallow consensus. We need a third

dynamics, a dynamics of harmonization, a dynamics that

encourages us us to express our concerns fully, and which

enables us to work creatively with that information to find

ways forward that benefit everyone involved. If our cultural

repertoire can be extended in this way, at the micro level,

then we may find that there are new ways of working together

on a larger scale as well -- ways that avoid the quicksand of

adversarial politics.

* The dynamics of harmonization

Although harmonizing dynamics is not part of our mainstream

culture, it is a well-developed part of certain sub-cultures.

In particular, if we look at the management-consultant and

meeting-facilitation communities, we find that harmonization

(under various names) is a rapidly expanding domain of

knowledge and practice. In the pursuit of greater efficiency

and competitiveness, corporations want their internal teams to

work more effectively together -- and this has spawned a whole

industry of consultants and facilitators. As a consequence the

state-of-the-art of facilitation has progressed along many

lines, and some of those lines have produced very promising

results as regards harmonization. Indeed, there are several

proven facilitation methodologies that focus on overcoming

group differences at a deep level, thereby unlocking creative

synergy that was previously blocked by divisiveness or

misunderstanding. Not all of these methodologies were

developed in the industrial context, but corporate support has

overall provided a boost to this field of practice -- and

success in the domain of corporate teamwork provides hard

evidence for the effectiveness and value of these techniques.

These facilitation techniques have proven to be successful in

socially-oriented contexts as well, as evidenced by the

outcome of the Michigan gathering. An extensive listing of

initiatives and methodologies relevant to harmonization

dynamics (closely related to what Tom Atlee calls

"co-intelligence") can be found on Tom's website:

http://www.co-intelligence.org. These techniques are proven

and reliable. They enable groups to transcend their

differences, discover their underlying common ground, and come

up with creative, breakthrough solutions to difficult problems

and seemingly intractable conflicts. Furthermore, people who

participate in one of these session generally report that they

find the experience to be personally transforming.

This kind of facilitation is not about a leader guiding the

group through an agenda or a problem-solving system. The main

job of the facilitator, in achieving harmonization, is to

enable the participants to learn how to listen to one another.

That turns out to be the key to harmonization -- really

listening. Listening without thinking about a counter-argument

at the same time. Listening without judging and dismissing.

And beyond that, listening with the respect that every person

deserves and that we ourselves would hope to receive when we

speak.

Our culture doesn't give us much experience with this kind of

patient and respectful listening. Typically in social

conversations we are thinking about what we're going to say

next instead of really listening. In adversarial meetings we

listen in order to retort, and in collaborative meetings we

are only interested in hearing things that move the agenda

forward. It never seems like a good use of our time to pause

and really listen to what everyone has to say, even those we

might consider to be divisive or uninformed. But such

listening is possible, we can all do it if we have a bit of

support, and when it occurs amazing things happen.

The Michigan gathering was a particularly dramatic example,

involving people who are deeply committed to radically

opposing factions. At the end they created and signed a "We

the People" declaration, and we will return to examine the

substance of that declaration. Perhaps more significant than

the specific document is the fact that this group could reach

any agreement at all, and perhaps still more significant is

the fact that the group expressed a sense of solidarity. The

title itself, "We the People", indicates an amazing and

surprising outcome from this particular group.

My own introduction to harmonization dynamics came in a

roundabout way. I had organized a gathering in Berkeley of

about a dozen progressive activists and thinkers. My intention

was to to explore with the group certain ideas that I had been

developing. I had learned about consensus decision making and

was convinced that the key to an effective movement could be

found in consensus. If we could agree on a vision for a new

kind of society, and if we could agree that radical change was

necessary, then we could reach a consensus that might become

the basis of a radical popular movement. Since we all shared

progressive views, I figured we should be able to avoid

divisiveness, and consensus would be achievable. I prepared a

discussion agenda and my intention was to lead a discussion

based on the agenda, the last item of which was to document

whatever consensus we had reached.

For a while the meeting seemed to be going 'on track'. We got

through a good portion of the agenda and wrote down many

points of agreement on several flip charts. And then someone

spoke up and complained about the agenda. He had other things

in mind he wanted to talk about. I considered this to be a

divisive interruption of our process, and a threat to the

'progress' we were making in our 'limited time'. I tried to

get the discussion back 'on track', but he persisted in his

objections. At that point, feeling frustrated and

'threatened', I totally lost awareness and told the fellow he

should go off and organize his own meeting(!) I'm sure you can

imagine how my rude outburst affected the tone of the

gathering. Any momentum we had achieved suddenly evaporated.

There was a seemingly endless moment of embarrassing silence.

I wished I were somewhere else, as I was expecting some

measure of deserved ridicule from the group.

But something else happened instead, something that

transformed the gathering and created a space that I hadn't

visited before -- the space of real dialog. A woman spoke up

and asked if I'd mind if she tried a bit of facilitation.

Relieved to see the focus of attention shift away from myself,

I readily agreed to her offer, not knowing what 'facilitation'

was or how it could help. What she did was very simple. She

asked the other fellow what he was expecting from the meeting

and then she asked me the same thing. His answer was basically

a repetition of what he had said before, but somehow I could

now hear it as a sensible concern rather than as a disruption.

When it came my turn to answer I felt like I was making a

public 'confession'. I was opening myself up to a kind of

vulnerability I wasn't accustomed to -- the vulnerability of

being really 'present' and 'exposed'. As other participants

shared their thoughts about the session, that's when I

realized that our exchange was now taking place in a different

space than before. It was a space occupied by people, rather

than by ideas, 'discussion', flip charts, and 'progress'.

I had always thought of dialog as being primarily a logical

interaction among ideas, as in the pages of a scientific

journal. In this new space I realized that dialog has a more

profound dimension. Dialog is the means by which people

express who they are. It is the means by which they become

'present' in the group. By 'listening to people', rather than

'hearing ideas', we allow a shared space of openness and trust

to emerge. As people express their concerns, in an atmosphere

of respectful listening, the space expands and everyone's

presence expands. The group becomes a 'We' rather than just a

cluster of individuals. Not a manufactured, compromise We,

where diversity is submerged, but an empowered, alive We,

where diversity is embraced -- all of it adding to the

collective experience and insight of the group. In this space,

diversity brings synergy rather than conflict.

Being in this space was a powerful experience. It wasn't a

new-age "We are one with the cosmos" experience, and it wasn't

a brainwashing "Merge with the group" experience. It was more

like the experience of being part of an effective team: "We

are all present and now we can do some good work." It became

clear to me that until this kind of presence comes into being,

dialog can only exist in the black & white space of abstract

ideas. With presence, and with listening, I felt that We could

tackle any problem and We would do so with technicolor synergy

-- with a spirit of intelligent, creative, collective inquiry.

Unfortunately, in the Berkeley gathering, we didn't have

enough time left to do much with the experience -- other than

for us first-timers to get a taste for what might be possible.

Let's return to the Michigan gathering, which was better

organized and able to go further. Mark describes the first

evening's activities this way:

      On Friday night, we broke into three groups (of eight

      participants and one facilitator each) to discuss such

      questions as, What did you understand about being an American

      when you were 12 years old? How have you experienced political

      differences and how did that affect you personally?

            It was impossible to participate in that exercise without

      coming to see (and feel and know) that every participant,

      whatever their politics, was a complex and caring human being.

This description is extremely brief, but we can see the same

basic elements I experienced in Berkeley. People were invited

to become present by expressing who they are, and what kind of

experience they've been through. And as a consequence of this

open sharing, in a space of facilitated listening, the focus

was on the people, and their mutual respect, rather than on

any specific issues. As the weekend progressed, the group

moved on to examine questions like, "What is missing in

conventional political discourse?". Conflict was expressed as

well as agreement, but the group was able to do something

creative with the conflict as well:

      Someone tried to classify participants' approaches as "left"

      or "right." Someone on the right took umbrage with that,

      feeling that the qualities cited as "right" were insulting

      stereotypes; and that pressed many people's buttons; and round

      and round and round we went, and the afternoon shadows grew

      longer.

            But the end result of that conversation is we all realized --

      I mean, we all really "got" -- how misleading and even

      infantilizing the old political spectrum had become.

            In another exercise, the participants were asked to tell about

      each of the key decisions they'd made in their political

      lives:

            Everyone stared, some of us open-mouthed, as various

      "left"-wingers and "right-" wingers, former Weather

      Underground supporters and former speakers at white racist

      gatherings, shared the incidents that shaped their lives.

            And revealed without even trying that every caring person is a

      brother or sister under the skin.

            And that our values are at some deep level fundamentally the

      same.

With these kinds of breakthroughs, we can understand how the

group was able and willing to sign their "We the People"

declaration. They also decided to co-sponsor a larger,

follow-up conference -- and they agreed to pursue a few other

collective projects as well. We'll return in the next chapter

to explore the political potential of this thread of

initiatives. For now, I'd like to focus on the dynamics of the

gathering.

Earlier, I drew a distinction between collaborative and

adversarial dynamics, and suggested that our culture is

lacking -- and needing -- a dynamics of harmonization. In that

discussion I was talking about ideas and issues, and the

problem of how to resolve differences. In this current

section, we've seen that it is possible to enter a space where

the dynamics of harmonization operate -- but the door to that

space seems to be about people rather than about ideas and

issues. And in going through that door, its seems that we may

experience some kind of personal transformation. Mark reported

a transformation in terms of his activism:

      ...for the first time in many years, I feel enthusiastic

      enough about an incipient political movement to want to put my

      shoulder to the wheel.

      In the Berkeley gathering, my transformation was about the

realization that the people part of dialog is more fundamental

than the issue part of dialog. Tom Atlee says, regarding the

Michigan gathering:

            In the end I experienced a deep, gut-level transformation. I

      had a profound personal shift away from Left/Right framings

      that was comparable to my earlier shifts away from sexism and

      homophobia.

      It seems that there is no single flavor of transformation that

occurs in this space of harmonization. Rather, we each tend to

undergo whatever transformation is needed to remove those

internal blocks that prevent us from being present with a

particular group at a particular time.

The dynamics of harmonization are quite different than

adversarial and collaborative dynamics. Harmonization begins

by expanding the space to include everyone's diverse concerns

and interests. Adversarial and collaborative dynamics both

begin by limiting the space to narrowly defined issues and

interests. Participating in the space of harmonization

involves being open and present as a complex human being.

Participating in an adversarial or collaborative space

involves only being an advocate or opponent of some issue or

proposal. The experience of harmonization often leads to

personal growth and transformation, while adversarial and

collaborative experiences tend to reinforce pre-existing

positions and attitudes. Harmonization breaks down barriers

between people and enables them listen to one another and to

find common ground at a deep level. Adversarial and

collaborative dynamics  reinforce factionalism and regard

deeper issues as being irrelevant or divisive.

Collaborative meetings provide a space in which factions can

rally together and plan their strategies. Adversarial meetings

provide a space in which factions can compete for dominance.

Harmonization-based meetings provide a space which may enable

us to do away with factional divisiveness altogether.

In the microcosm of a facilitated gathering, we know it is

possible for the empowered spirit of We the People to be

kindled. We know that in that space of harmonization it is

possible for this empowered microcosm to work together

effectively and creatively as a group. At the level of the

microcosm, assuming the availability of appropriate

facilitation, we can see a way to overcome factionalism and

bring We the People into being.

This leads us to several useful questions: How can the

practice and understanding of harmonization dynamics be

brought into the mainstream culture? How can the availability

of facilitators be expanded, or alternatively, how can the

need for facilitators be reduced -- so that the dynamics of

harmonization can be practiced more widely? How can progress

in the microcosm be translated into progress in the macrocosm?

That is to say, how can We the People come into coherent being

at the level of a community, a region, a nation, or the whole

globe? How can We the People become a 'player' in society and

in global affairs? And if We achieve that, how can We dialog

with, or engage with, the established regime so as to respond

effectively to Our Transformational Imperative? How can We the

People create a new society, and can we (you and me today)

anticipate what that society might be like?

These are the questions we will be investigating in the rest

of this book.

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