Living Together Network

WHAT’S HAPPENING on Planet Earth Towards

1) optimising collaboration through effective methods of participation and group synergy, 2) exploring solutions and 3) liberating the mind.

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Please note the headings below introducing sections on OPTIMIZING COLLABORATION, EXPLORING SOLUTIONS and LIBERATING the MIND.

OPTIMIZING COLLABORATION

ICA and the Technology of Participation

The Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA), is a private, not-for-profit, organization concerned with the human factor in world development. ICA facilitates positive change in communities, organizations and individual lives by helping people find their own solutions to problems and the means to implement them. The ICA uses highly participatory techniques to foster creative thinking, consensus-based decision-making and team building. Its methods produce ownership, create clear goals, open lines of communication, broaden perspectives and motivate people to adapt to their changing environment while honoring the cultural traditions and diversity present in any group. ICA programs invoke one common principle–to release the creativity of the people involved by allowing them to help shape their own destiny. www.icatw.com/about.htm

The Technology of Participation (ToP) is a collection of team or group based facilitation methods developed by the Institute of Cultural Affairs. The foundation to this technology is comprised of five process tools which include a method for Action Planning – a series of steps that translates a project idea, strategy or task into a focused actionable timeline and a process for Strategic Planning – a 4 or 5 session process that focuses a group’s attention on the underlying contradictions in their desired vision (outcomes) versus current reality as the means to determining strategic directions and developing implementation plans. www.ica-australia.org/

Co-Intelligence

“Healthy communities, institutions and societies — perhaps even our collective survival — depend on our ability to organize our collective affairs more wisely, in tune with each other and nature. This ability to wisely organize our lives together — all of us being wiser together than any of us could be alone — we call co-intelligence.” www.co-intelligence.org/

Upon our world stage, the power of the collective is coming to the fore. Coming under the lens of the social sciences, this nascent awakening - referred to as ‘co-intelligence’ - is seen to represent nothing short of an evolutionary shift – and one with vast implications for the future health of our civilization. As people come together in meaningful exchange on matters of importance, they/we are harnessing the power of the ‘the whole that is more than the sum of the parts’ and channeling this power toward the resolution of our world’s most complex problems. More about the conscious, open presence of participants than about specific meeting procedures, co-intelligence depends upon the willingness of participants to enter – beyond personal agendas, beliefs, etc – ‘into a deeper current of engagement’ or ‘a higher level of congruence’ and to consciously participate in a ‘pool of common meaning’. The experience of co-intelligence is one of direct engagement with ‘the group mind’ in a positively charged atmosphere, filled with a palpable and dynamic sense of unity. Co-intelligence is a practical application of ‘collective consciousness’ expressed as ‘team synergy’ and ‘higher order group functioning’. Essentially, co-intelligence is a conscious act of true co-creation. www.wie.org/j25/collective.asp

Consensus Decision Making

True consensus decision-making taps into the creativity, insights, experience, and perspectives of all the parties involved. Consensus process treats the differences between people not as problems, but as stimulants to deeper inquiry and greater wisdom. Consensus means more than merely broad agreement : true consensus is about generating wise solutions that take into account all the relevant needs and perspectives. Realising the full picture, agreement often follows naturally. Further, as all participants have helped to shape the final agreement, implementation is often smoother. (From Co-Creating the Future’s Introductory Package, 2005)

Consensus decision-making is a decision-making process that is inclusive - involving as many stakeholders as possible; participatory - actively soliciting the input and participation of all decision-makers; cooperative: encouraging participants to reach the best possible decision for the group and all of its members; egalitarian: affording all participants equal input into the process, whether to table, amend and veto or “block” proposals and, finally, solution-oriented - emphasizing common agreement over differences and using compromise and other techniques for resolving differences so as to reach effective decisions (ie, ones that are collectively owned and backed). See wikipedia for an outline of the consensus decision-making process - and more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making

EXPLORING SOLUTIONS

The Biomimicry Institute’s Mission is to naturalize biomimicry in the culture by promoting the transfer of ideas, designs, and strategies from biology to sustainable human systems design. The conscious emulation of life’s genius is a survival strategy for the human race, a path to a sustainable future. We are learning, for instance, how to grow food like a prairie, build ceramics like an abalone, create color like a peacock, self-medicate like a chimp, compute like a cell, and run a business like a hickory forest. http://biomimicryinstitute.org/about-us/

“Good Business”, an article by Andrew Weil, M.D. “What’s the best way to improve the world? [That is:] What’s the best way to move from a wasteful, polluting, unhealthy, short-sighted and authoritarian society to an efficient, clean, health-promoting, sustainable and empowering one? …it seems clear to me (writes A.W. Weil) that ethical, for-profit businesses just might be the last, best hope for the planet. …we are in the midst of a second Industrial Revolution. …[that] is aligning itself - as successful businesses have always done - with what people want now. And increasingly, what people want is a world that is healthy and safe for them and their children. We are moving from a consumptive economy to a restorative economy. A restorative business is one that makes a good product that a sustainable world needs, pushing out unsustainable products in the process. …Some restorative businesses also donate a portion of their profits to non-profit organizations, doubling their effectiveness.” www.11thhouraction.com/node/556

With some one million visitors per month despite being banned by Google Search Engines, visitors to Dan Winter’s site - www.goldenmean.info - may investigate endless applications of the science of the FRACTAL FIELD offering Radically Powerful Solutions to Virtually ALL Major Global Issues… eg, www.goldenmean.info/peaceuniversity, www.goldenmean.info/germination, www.goldenmean.info/fractalfridge, www.goldenmean.info/architecture

LIBERATING the MIND

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
By exploring the relationships between how we think (neuro), how we communicate (linguistic) and our patterns of behaviour and emotion (programmes), NLP helps people to transform the way they traditionally think and act so as to adopt new, far more successful models of human excellence. NLP is a technology for creating change. “If you want to have more choices about your behaviour and emotions, to enhance your communication and relationships and develop new abilities in your thinking, then NLP can provide you with the technology for accomplishing that.” www.inspiritive.com.au/nlp.htm