I have attached below a pdf of a mind map I just did summarizing Peter Senge’s introduction to the aforementioned book “the POWER of COLLECTIVE WISDOM”.
Here also is the last paragraph from that introduction:
For me, the promise of this work is that we learn more and more how to meet one another in our wisdom. Then our challenges will appear not as threats to our way of life but as opportunities to grow into life itself.
Rod Punnett and I are asking interested people to join us in reading this life-changing book and then to engage in inquiry and the suggested practices to transform the world as we know and experience it.
I will soon be sharing other resources that further support this process, but for now I just want to add this: As I have said previously in this blog, I am returning to more musical exploration and sharing. A song I have liked for a long time is “Across the Universe”. After working out how I would play it I found myself singing the chorus repeatedly:
Jai Guru Deva, Om,
Nothing gonna change my world,
Nothing gonna change my world,
Nothing gonna change my world
Nothing gonna change my world
At this point, I realised that in singing the song as Lennon originally wrote it, I was putting out a phrase that was limiting rather than one which was in keeping with all that I am passionately wishing to express in the world.
So, I originally changed the repeating line to “I am gonna change my world”. After reflecting further, however, even that was putting the emphasis on some future action, and I want to acknowledge both what I am presently doing, and what I have already committed to doing. The final phrase I will use when singing the song now is this:
Jai Guru Deva, Om,
I have already changed my world,
I have already changed my world,
I have already changed my world,
I’ll go on changing my world
So, how about you? Are you wanting to join in this initiative?
As a group process facilitator for over 25 yrs, I am enjoying “The Power of Collective Wisdom”. The book clarifies the characteristics I experience in high-performing (deep-exploring) groups. At first these moments would occur as a surprise…almost randomly. As I learned the distinctions that would increase the likelihood of collective wisdom, I found almost any group can raise its shared intelligence when care is taken to establish a climate open to respectful dialogue.
Facilitating Wisdom Councils and Creative Insight Councils, comprised of randomly selected citizens, I observed that independent groups generate similar expressions of what they need personally and from their leaders. ( http://www.wisedemocracyvictoria.org
The six facilitative stances in “The Power of C.W.” provide practical strategies for bringing a group to collective wisdom.
Another project I am invovled with, http://www.grouppatternlanguage.org, seeks to codify a broad range of group dynamics, similar in character to the six stances.