"There are so many exciting ways of bringing people together to learn from each other and commit to collective action"
At A/UK we talk a lot about the need for more collaboration within and across the many siloed initiatives for change. In this blog Daniel Ford, Senior Strategist at Forum for the Future and a facilitator of the Boundless Roots Community, describes his journey to understand better what gets in the way of us all simply working together towards the shared goal of meeting the current crises of social and ecological injustice.
Daniel Ford: I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
The 21st Century is a huge experiment in whether people can collaborate like they never have before. We’re all part of that experiment, whether we’re aware of it or not. We need more people to become active participants.
When I started working at Forum for the Future three years ago, I felt confident about what needed to change in the world: distributed renewable energy; regenerative agriculture producing more local, seasonal food and a circular economy rooted in Cradle2Cradle design.
This is based on a book called Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things – by architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart which, in their words,
puts forward a design framework characterized by three principles derived from nature.
Everything is a resource for something else. In nature, the “waste” of one system becomes food for another. Everything can be designed to be disassembled and safely returned to the soil as biological nutrients, or re-utilized as high quality materials for new products as technical nutrients without contamination.
Use clean and renewable energy. Living things thrive on the energy of current solar income. Similarly, human constructs can utilize clean and renewable energy in many forms—such as solar, wind, geothermal, gravitational energy and other energy systems being developed today—thereby capitalizing on these abundant resources while supporting human and environmental health.
Celebrate diversity. Around the world, geology, hydrology, photosynthesis and nutrient cycling, adapted to locale, yield an astonishing diversity of natural and cultural life. Designs that respond to the challenges and opportunities offered by each place fit elegantly and effectively into their own niches.
In addition, we’ve looked at decentralised organising and cooperative ownership structures; nested governance systems to regulate the markets and manage the commons; blockchain and platform cooperatives to distribute wealth and ownership. (See A/UK blogs on Platform Cooperatives here).
Even so, with all this input about how to change the systems out there, I can’t shake this feeling that I’m still not looking at the thing that is blocking any real change.
Deviant Art
I started to notice my own blindspot of the messy psycho-social process of change; all the unconscious stuff under the surface of our relationships that affect whether and how we change. I’ve become fascinated by those invisible things that drive so much of the behaviour in our systems and stop us from working together effectively, when effective collaboration is exactly what we need most.
It’s all hands on deck to create the change we need to see: it will take all our collective creativity, agency and power. However - from my experience at least - we often still don’t listen to each other or trust each other - and we’re still pretty rubbish at working together across our differences.
But there are alternatives out there. So many other ways to learn from each other, communicate, collaborate, decide, relate: decentralised organising; non-violent communication; action learning...the list of innovative practice in this space is huge - there are so many exciting ways of bringing people together to learn from each other and commit to collective action.
One of the methods I’ve been learning about is Lewis Deep Democracy, a tool to bring the things that are often in the unconscious of a group (the unspoken views, values, fears etc.) and use them to make more informed collective decisions. It uses conflict as a source of creativity, actively seeking out different voices and perspectives when making decisions.
With this method we:
Tap into the emotional undercurrents and wisdom of a group
Recognise and overcome resistance to decision making
Hear all the voices in a group
Draw out diverse opinions
Confidently step into tension and navigate through it
Gain ‘buy-in’ to decisions and change
I feel a need to test and experiment with more of these methods and tools. I need to practice, to see what works when and what doesn’t, and to do this in a safe space where it’s OK to fail and learn as we go.
I was curious about combining this need for experimentation with a peer-to-peer learning model. I’ve participated in two Learning Marathons in the past 5 years - one on behavioural psychology and one on human connection - and I’ve experienced first-hand the power of peer-led learning. There’s something about the co-supportive relationships, the sideways accountability, the trust that develops - when it works well, it’s magic.
So I’m inviting 10 co-learners into an experiment to test collaborative methods and tools out together in our group, and we’ll end up with a showcase to share the fruits of our collaboration. We’ve started forming a group of people involved in design, reconciliation and sustainability, but who knows what’s going to emerge as we explore the interests, values and energies of the group. All I know is that we’ll probably learn something about how to collaborate in the process.
There are a few spaces left to join the experiment, and one fully funded bursary place. If you want to join me and build your own skills in collaboration and collective action, applications are open until March 24th. Apply or get in touch via the website: https://www.enrolyourself.com/hosts/Daniel-Ford