My friend Tom Atlee has been a remarkable documented of the lessons from the #Occupy movement. Since I was at Wall Street two months ago I have continued to be astonished at the creativity, leadership and communication styles emerging from the movement.
Today though, Tom has a long post on perhaps the most astonishing event yet. Following the well publicized pepper spraying of students at UC Davis, a remarkable non-violent action took place to de-escalate the situation. Take the time to read the whole post and watch the full video. It is moving, inspiring and possible ground breaking in the way police and protestors can be invited to work together to keep peace. It is the essence of real time chaotic action.
Douglas Rushkoff has a useful article on the Occupy movement. I am actually loath indulge in much analysis over what is happening in New York and now elsewhere, because the events defy analysis, especially from a traditional lens. But in this article, Rushkoff points to some of the things that are happening and why they matter for organizing large social conversations on the pressing issues of our day.
To be fair, the reason why some mainstream news journalists and many of the audiences they serve see the Occupy Wall Street protests as incoherent is because the press and the public are themselves. It is difficult to comprehend a 21st century movement from the perspective of the 20th century politics, media, and economics in which we are still steeped.
Let’s be clear. Many traditionalists and establishment people are pointing to the form of these protests and dismissing them. It’s as if the protestors have a responsibility to come up with a list of demands in order to be taken seriously. Or it’s as if they are not to be believed until they create a reductionist analysis of the problems.
After Copenhagen I had a clear idea that mainstream ways of organizing the conversation on the biggest issues of our time were outdated. The conference model is a waste of time, money and talent. Diplomacy is too constrained by 19th century notions of statehood to be useful. What needs to happen is a sea change, a worldwide open space in which voices and questions can float freely, and actions can arise that address things in completely novel and emergent ways. If the form of this movement is mind boggling, don’t ask the protesters to change for you. You will never understand it unless you change your way of thinking about how we create solution.
via Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don’t get it – CNN.com.
It’s been a week since I was in New York City visiting the camp in Zuccotti Park (renamed Liberty Park) where the Occupy Wall Street movement was in full swing.
I was struck mostly by their process, but also by the earnest and deliberate attention that these people, young and old are giving to the chance they have to open discourse on the big issues of wealth disparity and social equity in America.
When I was there earlier in the week they were engaging in a participatory process to create their demands. It was as much about defining why they were there as anything else. But the fact is that many people are gathered there and supporting the occupation for various reasons. Mostly it is to draw attention to the vast disparities of wealth in the United States and the effect that is having especially on the poor and otherwise marginalized. There was a lot of conversation going on there last week within the group as well as between the group and the Wall Street workers. Surprising amount of joint discerning about what is really going on in America.
What is interesting about the movement there is that they eschew leaders of any kind. This is a traditional anarchist approach, and it’s being put into practice quite deliberately. There are many facilitators who are helping the group to decide themselves on what to say and do and so far the group has been very clear about non-violence and is even actively discouraging vandalism. I was in one meeting of the outreach team who were reporting on the controversial debate taking place about whether to mark subway maps with the local of the protest. in general, the group there wants to be very careful not to give the police any reason whatsoever to become violent with them. So they are staying away from anything that might be construed as violence or damage and are instead focusing on powerful speech, using their first amendment rights to talk about and explore what they stand for and what the issues are. There is no presence of the Black Bloc or other masked militants who have brought the wrath of the police state reigning down on protests here in Canada in recent years.
And there is is no clear single agenda, because the totality of the problems facing the USA cannot be summarized with a pithy statement of demands. They are not hijackers and they are not holding anything ransom. They are trying to figure out how to discuss and actively represent the malaise and serious economic, social and political issues going on in the USA systemically and accurately. So much of this analysis and practice lies outside of the mainstream of American thought and debate that it is hard to say it all without seeming crazy. But the USA is coming apart in fundamental ways – even the Wall Street folks don’t dispute the fundamental economic analysis – and standing for possibilities is hard, hard work right now.
It is inspiring to watch them in General Assembly, where twice a day they work through an agenda of decisions using “the people’s mic” as their amplification system. The police have banned megaphones of any kind and so they speak to the crowd by repeating what the speaker has just said. This has the double effect of ensuring everyone can hear as well as bringing a quiet shared tone to everything. It is slow and orderly discourse. When the general Assembly isn’t meeting, the place runs in a big general Open Space – type gathering. Anyone who wants to call a session calls out “mic check!” and everyone within hearing distance repeats the phrase. When enough people are paying attention, an announcement is made, a time and place chosen and the group goes back to work. It is beautiful to watch.
All people are going to have to challenge themselves to reach across divides if there is any hope of finding solutions to the current and looming crises. At Wall Street many protesters and many bankers were willing to do just that and many many conversations are happening there between suits and sleeping bags. Very little anger at all. They set the bar high for civil discourse despite looking scruffy.
From an interview with my dear friend Peggy Holman on enhancing creative leadership:
Q: What is one practice that people could start applying today to bring more creativity into their work or their business Ӭorganization?
Holman: If I were to pick on practice that is simple to apply and powerful in its affect, I’d say: welcome disturbance by asking questions of possibility. Creativity often shows up in a cloak of disruption. It makes sense when you stop and think about it. If there were no disruption, there’d be no reason for change. And change opens the door to creativity.
Great questions help us to find possibilities in any situation, no matter how challenging. Here are some of their characteristics:
- They open us to possibilities.
- They are bold yet focused.
- They are attractive: diverse people can find themselves in them.
- They appeal to our head and our heart.
- They serve the individual and the collective.
Some examples:
- What question, if answered, would make a difference in this situation?
- What can we do together that none of us could do alone?
- What could this team also be?
- What is most important in this moment?
- Given what has happened, what is possible now?
Some tips for asking possibility-oriented questions:
1. Ask questions that increase clarity: Positive images move us toward positive actions. Questions that help us to envision what we want help us to realize it.
2. Practice turning deficit into possibility: In most ordinary conversations, people focus on what they can’t do, what the problems are, what isn’t possible. Such conversations provide an endless source for practicing the art of the question. When someone says, “The problem is x,” ask, “What would it look like if it were working?” If someone says, “I can’t do that,” ask, “What would you like to do?”
3. Recruit others to practice with you: You can have more fun and help each other grow into the habit of asking possibility-oriented questions. But watch out: it can be contagious. You might attract a crowd.
Those last three practices are terrific.
Analyse this...!
Yesterday I had a chance to grab lunch with Dave Pollard in our local coffee shop on Bowen Island. One of the things we talked about was the supremacy of analysis in the world and why that is a problem when it comes to operating in complex domains.
I have been intentionally working a lot lately with Dave Snowdon et. al.’s Cynefin framework to support decision making in various domains. It is immensely helpful in making sense of the messy reality of context and exercises like anecdote circles and butterfly stamping are very powerful, portable and low tech processes.
Cynefin is also useful in that it warns us against a number of fatal category errors people make when trying to design solutions to problems. The most serious of these is remaining complacent in a simple context which has the effect of tipping the system to chaos. Nearly as infuriating and problematic to me is the applicability of analysis to complex domains.
Analysis has a dominant place in organizational and community life. It provides a sense of security that we can figure things out and operate in the space of the known. If we just analyse a situation enough we can identify all if the aspects if the problem and choose a solution. Of course in the complicated domain, where causes and effects can be known even though they are separated in time and space, analysis works beautifully. But in complex domains, characterized by emerged phenomenon, analysis tends to externalize and ignore that which it cannot account for with the result that solutions often remain dangerously blind to surprise and “black swan” events.
The Cyenfin framework advocates working with stories and social constructed meaning to sense and act in complex spaces. Where as analysis relies on objective data and meaning making models to create rules and tools, action in complex spaces uses stories and patterns to create principles and practices which help us to create small actions – probes in the system – that work in a nuanced way with emergence.
In this respect culture matters. The stories that are told and the practices thy are used to make sense of those stories is the method for acting in complex space. This distinction us helpful for me working with indigenous communities where program management may rely on analytical tools (and culture is stamped out in the process) but practices need to be grounded in culturally based responses. Using stories and social meaning making restores culture to its traditional role of helping groups of humans move together in complex domains while using analysis more appropriately.