We often apply methodologies such as socio-metric line-ups and intra-group conversations to surface diverse views, whilst at the same time allowing for differentiating and integrating views to emerge. When it comes to decision-making time, we assist the group in establishing its common ground from which to move forward. There are occasions though, on which agreement on some issues that are crucial to progress cannot be reached. So, what to do with those issues within a group process about which there is no natural consensus and that cannot simply not be agreed upon? Or those issues around which there is a lot of (potential for) conflict?

I recently participated in the Deep Democracy Foundation Course under the impressive guidance and mentorship of Myrna Lewis, one of the founding developers of Deep Democracy and author of “Inside the No: Five Steps to Decisions that Last”. It has taken more than fifteen years of intensive work to hone Deep Democracy into the straightforward, five-step methodology used in all sectors of society and in over 20 countries worldwide. This transformative facilitation methodology is designed for anybody who works with groups and relationships. Rooted in insights from process-oriented psychology, it offers tools to improve the ways in which people work together in complex and sometimes turbulent situations.

Deep Democracy goes beyond more conventional group decision making processes such as compromising or majority rule. Instead it recognizes and effectively integrates minority voices, thus creating wiser, more sustainable agreements, with full participant buy-in. Applying the Deep Democracy model allows us to do justice to and accommodate the minority voices, i.e. those in a group or system, who are usually defeated in a majority process (either by numbers or weight of other votes). Finding the so-called “wisdom of the No” and including it in the “Yes” allows us to get the best of both worlds and avoid the so-called “terrorist line” that so often obstructs change processes, to gain strength.

In addition to Collaborative Decision Making, Deep Democracy is also enables us to work with interpersonal and group dynamics in that it enables effective interpretation of what is actually at play in groups and relationships. It allows for seeing through what is being said, recognizing unspoken emotional issues that block progress, and suggesting ways to work with them. Lastly, Deep Democracy recognizes and works with the creative tension that is present in every conflict. It offers a safe way to engage with strong views and emotions, leading to innovative solutions and strengthened relationships, and thereby becoming a powerful conflict resolution tool.

I got much more than what I bargained for initially by taking part in the Foundation Course, in that I also learned a great deal about my own “role anatomy” and how it impacts on others. I feel inspired and challenged by the power of Deep Democracy as a facilitation methodology that allows for the wisdom of the minority voices to not only be surfaced, but also integrated in the majority decisions. The Deep Democracy tools are surprisingly simple, but their sheer power may blast you away if you come unprepared to acknowledge your own polarity…

Visit www.deep-democracy.net to find out more about Deep Democracy.

We often experience that people in an event – sponsors, organisers, participants – express their expectation that the outcome of the event is innovative, yet they are not really open to be innovative in terms of how the event itself is designed, structured and facilitated. That’s a bit of a startling and daunting situation:how can you expect outcomes to be innovative if you stifle innovation along the way to that goal? How (and why) can you expect things to be different and change if you yourself are not willing to be innovative in the ways to get to innovation?

The leas, innovation demands inevitably in terms of a meeting format is, that the meeting itself embodies innovative ways of thinking, engaging and working. Based loosely on Einstein’s quote “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them”, one could say that it is not possible to produce innovative ideas and solutions by using conventional forms of workshops.

One needs to consider how innovation takes place. First it must be distinct of “incremental improvement”. Experts – due to the characteristics of their knowledge and expertise (which relies on past experience that they analysed and researched extensively) – are often among the most conservative people and as such seldom the source of innovation; what is often largely underestimated is the fact that any expert – like everybody else – has a particular and as such very limited perspective on complex issues, ie. only perceives a limited segment of reality (ie. the “expert’s view”). What is needed is to bring together an abundant group of different people with different perspectives that collide and – in this space of confrontation of thinking – cross-pollinate.
On the ambiguous role of experts with view to innovation, you may want to watch this video of Dave Snowden: http://youtu.be/B2AijRoXnvE

Furthermore, what is needed is the creation of a significant level of discomfort and confusion (in some form) as the basis of innovation (the “room of confusion” in the terminology of Claes Janssen, or a “shallow dive into chaos” as Dave Snowden calls it). It is indispensable to leave the ground of certainty, people must be shaken up! This causes the pressure to abandon fix positions, to shift perspective and look at things in different ways. In fact Snowden says it takes three elements – starvation, pressure and a shift of perspective – as necessary (yet not sufficient) preconditions for innovation: http://youtu.be/IlmesbbPqtU

Lastly, fragmentation of issues into “topics” is often detrimental to the discovery of new, improved solutions, because they lead always to a loss of the big picture, of the understanding how different elements and aspects of a situation or system interdepend and interact. An issue must be dealt with in its entirety and interconnectedness. The Sufi proverb goes: “You think that because you understand one, you understand two, because one and one makes two. But you must also understand and”. This is often grossly violated in many events (by “cutting the issue up” into different themes, topics and sub-issues, that are dealt with in individual sub-sessions or parts of the workshop).

So if we want to have any chance to be innovative in our events, it may ask from us to be really innovative in the way we design those very events in the first place…

The Emergence Phase lies at the heart of a change process and is key to enabling something new (or existing but reaffirmed, and hence from a different quality) to surface, based on peer-to-peer learning and insights gained. Allowing for sufficient time and an appropriate space that is safe, not too prescriptive, yet contained enough, we enable a group to come up with innovative ways forward, rather than rushing into finding (the same or slightly different) solutions based on the same old perceptions or paradigm (i.e. doing what hasn’t worked so far differently). We thus refer to Emergence to describe the pivotal moment in a transformative event.

I was very fortunate to attend the Presencing Foundation Programme in Cape Town recently under the very capable and most inspiring guidance of the wonderfully mutually complementing female trio: Marian Goodman, Beth Jandernoa and Kassee Mhoney. The theoretical foundation of this programme is Otto Scharmer’s “Theory U”.  We spent three and a half days in a learning community of about 45 participants. It was an amazing journey that allowed me to gain clarity and reassurance on my own Self, my Purpose and Work; and find great inspiration to further improve our Emergence Practice.

Most importantly, I experienced the power of Emergence or rather, in the Theory U terminology, “Presencing” – “going to the place of silence and allowing the inner knowing to emerge”. In the U jargon the sequence of change events is referred to as follows: Co-intiating (uncover common intent), Co-sensing (observe, observe, observe), Presencing (connect to the source of inspiration and will), Co-creating (prototype the new) and Co-evolving (embody the new in ecosystems).
“Presencing,” a blend of the words “presence” and “sensing,” refers to the ability to sense and bring into the present one’s highest future potential—as an individual and as a group. Theory U offers both a new theoretical perspective and a practical social technology. As a theoretical perspective, Theory U suggests that the way in which we attend to a situation determines how a situation unfolds: I attend this way, therefore it emerges that way. As a practical social technology, Theory U offers a set of principles and practices for collectively creating the future that wants to emerge (following the movements of co-initiating, co-sensing, co-inspiring, co-creating, and co-evolving).

The Presencing Process is a journey that connects us more deeply both to what wants to emerge in the world and to our emerging, higher self. I-P-K is now represented in the Global Presencing Institute Community as well as the local Cape Town Theory U Practitioner Group. I look forward to applying my learning and insight around Theory U and Presencing and sharing as I go along with all of you!

For more information you might also want to visit www.presencing.com. The Presencing Institute (PI) is a global awareness based action research community for profound societal innovation and change. The PI community focuses on advancing presencing and related awareness based social technologies and making them available to change makers, innovators, and communities around the world.

Interestingly one of them send me notes from a preparatory discussion around an event we were about to prepare – and in there I found the following:

“Mr. XYZ brought up the need to ask and address the question of what are organizations, countries and other players in the response going to do differently that will get us out of the reality of today.  He noted that around the world there are the “right” programmes and technology but it is still not working.  Following that, the [group] should ask if the current response and targets are realistic, considering the [...] donor situation.  Finally he noted that many of the problems aren’t technical but rather based on a lack of an enabling environment and a need to find the social and cultural solutions.  Beyond the consultation, are we getting commitments? Who is taking the responsibility to get more money in country budgets? How do we move from analysis to doing something about the current levels?

Mr. UVW acknowledged that there is no shortage of actions verbs being used to describe the next steps but it remains unclear what it all really means.”

(Emphasis and removal of names by myself)

These gentlement were expressing and sharpening the issue we hear so often… So what do we then do? Well, we have to acknowledge the complex nature of those circumstances, issues and the systems they are part of – and then deal with them accordingly.

Things to Promote

• Expound complexity: the complexity of an issue/situation must be consciously addressed and worked through. This can only be done by engaging different part of a complex system into a dialogue and avoid “monopolisation” of “right « wrong” or “best « bad (practice)” by a few (experts). An open conversation must aim at creating an understanding for the bigger picture for everybody involved in a peer-to-peer process, not by a few experts sharing the “right” perspective with everybody else.
• Leverage diversity: as a consequence from the previous point, homogeneity in background, experience, thinking and opinions levels the appreciation and assessment of an issue/situation. It is important that different people bring this diversity into the room/conversation and allow a real-time interaction. Stimulating pro-actively dissent, disturbance and deviation is essential to realistic and meaningful engagement with complex issues/situations. This diversity must be actively promoted, managed and leveraged.
• Promote shared understanding, sense-making and emergence of common grounds: in complex situations, sense-making is a critical task. While the facts often may be on the table, they are often not enough; the crucial task is to make sense of them, to come to a shared overviews and interpretation, to identify and recognise patterns (often more than stringent, mechanical cause-effect relationships, which in the face of complexity often fail to persist). By engaging in a process of mutual learning and sharing among peers (who each contribute a particular “world view” and as such are “experts” in their own rights), common grounds are identified. Common grounds are those stepping-stones, which everybody authentically can adhere to without compromising. These common grounds are the basis of further understanding and hence engagement and commitment.
• Foster learning and growth: getting to terms with complexity always entails an initial intensive phase of learning and growth (in terms of ideas, perspective, understanding). During this phase, it is of paramount importance that everybody suspends their judgement and fully engages in a process of disconfirming previous knowledge, learning about new (often surprising) ideas and facts. Jumping to conclusion or seeking to confirm pre-existing knowledge and assumptions are detrimental to a genuine and adequate understanding of a complex issues and circumstances. A properly designed event/ workshop will take people through an initial phase that is exclusively dedicated to learning, where all decisions are suspended towards a later stage of the event.
• Iterative working approach: complex issues and systems cannot be understood in a straightforward, clear-cut manner. Inherently – and in distinction to “technical/mechanical” issues – they need an iterative (step-wise) approach, encircling and narrowing down the issues and possible responses. To avoid the ascendancy and supremacy of authorities and their preferred ideas/views, it is important to provide structures that withdraw the possibility of a few selected individuals to dominate and determine a situation. Working constantly and consistently in parallel, yet shifting sub-groups provides the golden opportunity.
• Follow an inherent flow of process: it is critical to design a process that on the one hand provides containers for the topics (content) to be dealt with extensively, and on the other hand leads the group of participants towards an objective and the production of results. This inner architecture of an event must caters for the defined outcomes and incorporate the flow towards that point. It is critical to move away from a “line-up” of individual thematic sessions; this produces often fragmentation in thinking, leaves things erratic rather than interlinking different aspects and it leads often to disorientation, the individual being lost in the succession of events, mental leaping and eventually lack of coherence of workshop outputs. A coherent architecture can guide participants through a full-fledged thought and learning process and eventually converges towards shared outputs and results.

Things to avoid

• Fragmentation of events, topic hopping, disruption of flow: “topic-based agendas” (listing individual sessions dedicated to individual topics or issues) should be avoided → cf. above
• Cognitive overflow (avalanches of information, overstretching of attention span): the workshop format of presentations is by design only suitable for simple messages. The human cognition is not capable to absorb larger amounts of information in this format. On top of this, the human attention span is limited to roughly 20-30 minutes – anything delivered beyond gets lost in the black hole of human exhaustion. Presentations are uniquely suited to bring across 2-3 key messages or ideas, which are very simple in nature, yet critically important and must be highly sticky. Yet, it takes a top presenter (professional in the art of presenting) to deliver such a presentation. The usual pitfalls (ie. projecting “speaker’s notes” by PowerPoint instead of visual supports and symbols → split of attention between media) can be very damaging – and many presentations fail to fulfil their purpose. Therefore they are a very risky format that requires a lot of care and knowledge to handle.
• Frontal formats: format like presentations, plenary Q&A’s and panels suggest – through the physical arrangement – a sense of “we” and “they”; they suggest and install hierarchy and superiority that are not conducive to the understanding of complex situations and issues. What’s more, they are detrimental to ownership, engagement, and commitment. What is needed instead is an atmosphere and a set-up of “us”, of co-thinking and co-creating.
• Sustaining authority & hierarchy: the dominant (and loud) voices – of authorities of some kind – often tend to level and paralyse the creative thought processes (based on diversity), that are indispensable to come to terms with complex issues and situations. For instance are classical plenary sessions (and classical Q&A’s) prone to be dominated by a few authoritarian individuals and tend to suppress dissent and deviant minority views. They often create an ambiance of aggression and controversy. For these reasons they can be “toxic” to gaining profound understanding, creative thinking and innovation, and therefore results.
• Jumping to conclusions: we always have the habit and inclination to prematurely rush to judgement, conclusion, decision; this stands in the way of thoroughly explore and understand alternative perspectives and ideas, which consistently leads to mediocre results that are more reiterating old ideas in new words.
• Hamper emergence, cross-fertilisation, innovation: many workshop formats don’t have the openness and freedom to allow for novelty to take place and emerge. They stifle innovation by not providing (enough) open spaces for the unplanned and unforeseeable to take place – and therefore prevent innovation by design.

Roles & Responsibilities of the Facilitator – and the Participants

In events and workshops of the nature described above, it is highly critical to clearly distinguish and separate the different roles in the event. Contrary to more conventional modes of facilitation, the facilitator is only responsible for the structure and process of the event, ie. she/he guides participants towards the sequence and flow of modules towards the defined goal. She/he ensures that the “containers” remain intact and integral, opens and closes them properly and ensures that rules are observed. That way she/he ensures that the results are achieved.

Participants as far as they are concerned take care of content and outcome: they contribute their expertise, reflections, ideas, suggestions, knowledge, they observe the content level, unearth insights and patterns and take charge of moulding outcomes.

The facilitator must strictly abstain from summarising, paraphrasing, assessing and the like (which is quite common in conventional forms of facilitation), as this constitutes an inside-out interference on the content level. Since the facilitator is mostly perceived as an (informal) authority, this will inevitably bias and distort the content level to the disadvantage of an optimal outcome, will hamper or even stifle the emergence of higher levels of understanding and insight; lastly there is a high risk that at least a few participants will perceive this kind of intervention as manipulative towards a predetermined (and superimposed) outcome. In this light it becomes understandable why in fact the less the facilitator knows about the theme of the event, the more can he fully focus on the actual social process – which is her/his defined role and responsibility – and the less is she/he tempted to interfere on the content level. Likewise the documentation raw material is largely produced by participants themselves and must be an output of the processes, which in its turn must be consolidated into an actual report by a (small group of) content matter specialists and managers.

Following the above it also becomes clear that the most important task of the facilitator is actually not the delivery (→ facilitation) of the event itself, but the design of the architecture, flow, structure, process and methods used during the event before it actually starts. Once it begins, facilitation is largely delivering and executing what has been designed – and the success of the event is largely determined by the preparatory work.

If we understand a company (or any other institution/organisation or even a project for that matter!) not as a machine, but an organic “being” (system) such as a city, what can we learn from that? Read yourself:

Communication Nation: The connected company.

We then try to demonstrate (and convince people) that there is another way of designing these events. What we keep hearing is that (and I quote from an e-mail of a senior manager of a large organisation) “more substance should be reflected in the programme, instead of the process”. What we see is this constant misconception that it is either content or process, that process stands against content, that the two are a zero-sum. This is fundamentally untrue:  process is the underlying structure that creates the container for content and leads to results (or not – if badly chosen).

The relevant comparison is rather the following one:

When we come to process and the format of the event, we find ourselves with the choice between two paradigms:

So we could rather say that we have to choose between content and results – and the process is the underlying means to determine which alley we go down…

Read it on the SDC Blog, it’s worth it!

Already 11 years ago, Meg Wheatley wrote a very similar article on the obsession of measurement, and it’s more topical than ever:
http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/whymeasure.html

There is a second article of her speaking to the same issue, a nice illustration from the educational system in the US:
http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/largescalechange.html

The Decline Effect and the Scientific Method: newyorker.com.

Some of it may not really be surprising if you look at it from a complexity perspective – I really like the study on the behaviour of the mice: you can try to control all variables of an experimental set-up and keep them totally constant over several replications. Your experiment should then reproduce the same outcomes – but it doesn’t! Dramatically! You can’t predict the behaviour or reaction of a living system, no matter how well you plan!

If we try to consider the consequences of what we find in this article and consider that these findings are mainly from “hard science” (like medicine), than how difficult is it to come to a valid finding in a “soft” field like evaluating a development project? Is there anything at all that we can measure and prove? Or is Monitoring and Evaluation largely shadow-boxing, eyewashing, pretending we are able to control something we can’t? How far from “reality” are we with all our studies, evaluations, …? And what value remains then?

The podcast has been posted on the Learning&Training blog of the ITC-ILO.