ABCD as a Systemic Means and Support to Ostrom’s Commons

The previous series of three posts attempted to bridge Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) with Systems Thinking, the two sections of the New Community Paradigms (NCP) wiki seen as being among the furthermost separated. Bridging NCP wiki-sections is a basic feature of the wiki, especially with the NCP wiki-map but the differences in conceptual approaches between the two are especially distant. Both were discovered in this search for new community paradigms. There is a bias towards Systems Thinking, not due to longer exposure, 2015, 2016 in earnest for ABCD and 2013 for Systems Thinking but to a natural affinity. Still learning both. The bridging of the two was done across a presumption of complexity incorporating both. Complexity, to be clear from the start, is seen as actually a good thing and necessary though all too often incoherent if not problematic.

The recent blog post, Ostrom, the Commons, and the Green New Deal continued to explore the development of concepts involving dynamic complex systems previously raised in this blog. In addition to bridging concepts, there is a desire to establish a deeper and firmer foundation through biological constructs such as Carrying Capacity and an interest shown in Ostrom's work by anthropologists.

This post questions how far ABCD relational practices and Ostrom’s polycentric governance can be extended limited by the increasing complexity inherent in larger groups or wider circles of Dunbar's Number. The reach of ABCD, and more indirectly Ostrom's polycentric governance, is arguably restricted by Dunbar's Number.

There are four layers, or "Circles of Acquaintanceship," or implicit social contracts making up Dunbar’s number scaling relatively consistently to each other. The first circle is three to five of our very closest friends. The next layer or circle is twelve (the size of a jury) to fifteen persons whose death would devastate us. Next circle is made up of fifty persons, or “the typical overnight camp size among traditional hunter-gatherers like the Australian Aboriginals or the San Bushmen of southern Africa.”

Beyond the fourth level of one hundred and fifty persons, there are still further circles with an ideal democracy set at five thousand, three hundred. Larger circles though involve even greater degrees of complexity and far less emotional attachment, especially between non-familial relationships.

Though usually in agreement or sympathy, there are a few points with which I don't see the same as Cormac Russell, Managing Director of Nurture Development and faculty member of the ABCD Institute, leaning towards Dunbar’s empiricism but then I am a keeps-himself-to-himself in-his-own-head type introvert so biased in my perspective.

Cormac does not include family members (or professionals), only true associates, in his associational connections and Dunbar does with kin prioritized. He sees Dunbar’s fourth level at 150 persons as a minimum meaning most of us have a deficit of 99 persons, not including familial relationships, to make up for from our average base of 51 persons in our associational lives. He knows that Dunbar saw the fourth level of 150 as a maximum limit which I suspect few people truly reach. It is not just walking distance separating people but emotional distance as well. As the number of people in a circle increases the emotional connection between them decreases with each successive circle and there are physiologically set cognitive limits.

However, it is Cormac’s vision of community associational relationships that must be strived towards to create the needed systemic changes in the direct democracy governance of our communities which requires not only connections but diversity as well to deal with complex even wicked problems. ABCD then becomes a necessary and even a primary component of New Community Paradigms but not necessarily a sufficient one.

The question to be considered then is how Ostrom’s polycentric governance of community and the commons could help ABCD extend the network of implicit contracts and, as importantly, how ABCD could support Ostrom’s polycentric governance to develop the required trust essential to achieve the advantage of those implicit social contracts.

As has been asserted before, Asset Based Community Development seeks to help communities find solutions to community challenges upon the basis of a system of community-based associational relationships to develop community wealth or resources as opposed to economic wealth or money by a few.

Most larger geographically placed, politically defined by institutional government type communities such as cities or towns are usually composed of many diverse socially and often demographically defined place-based communities or neighborhoods of differing levels of influence.

There are other distinct types of community in addition to these that can extend beyond geographic boundaries but still not be necessarily separate. Communities, in the context of this post and ABCD, will refer to neighborhoods and smaller social-based communities. Larger entities such as cities are dealt with through their institutions.

The previous series went over questions that ABCD believes each community or anyone sincerely wishing to build better communities needs to ask. An issue for many communities then is whether they or anybody are even asking these essential questions? ABCD seeks to change this by committing to re-seeding associational life at a hyper-local level (i.e. street level). ABCD is about the strengthening of social capital or what could also be considered the Carrying Capacity within a community to save people from a life of institutionalization by creating community alternatives to the institutional (systems) world.

ABCD and Community, a Systemic Analysis pt 3 reminded us that the carrying capacity of a local community depends upon good stewardship of that community’s welfare ideally requiring the correct sequencing of nurturing at three levels. The first level is recognizing that there are things that communities do best on their own without institutional assistance. The second level is recognizing that there are things that communities can basically do themselves but with some help from outside agencies. The third level is recognizing that there are things that communities need to have done for them by outside agencies. Something institutions readily and often exclusively do.

At the third level, the system being generated likely becomes entrenched, leading to a form of top-down service delivery by command, being persistent and resilient even while failing to address the needs of its supposed beneficiaries while eroding social capital and creating high levels of dependence on external resources which are now disappearing.

Neighborhoods have experienced years of interacting with the different public and private institutional agencies which have provided services of one kind or another, under the auspices of governmentally defined agencies, but not at equal levels. Outside agencies, institutional or otherwise, ideally should seek to be in the right relationship with smaller social, demographic, cultural communities. However, it has been many of these very same agencies who have failed, are still failing, and are now looking for means to systematize their failure as a new normal.

Cormac sees this institutionalization causing further atomization or breaking up of relationships or people’s sense of community into individual elements in what I believe can be interpreted as being a system of disorganized complexity. This is not considered an oxymoron, even disorganized gas molecules can be made to react (behave) in certain ways through proper manipulation. ABCD though could also involve the atomization of a community but to the level of independent agents connecting potentially in a self-organizing fashion through a system of organized complexity as defined by Jane Jacobs, structured by Ostrom and systematized by Meadows.

Without proper investment in community building through the correct Agency interactions or better community conversations, institutional stewardship remains stuck at the third level while second level interactions can be commodified drifting towards the third level in the name of efficiencies and there is little incentive to make any extended investment. The first level carrying capacity then is relegated to fighting to retain whatever influence on to which the community may be holding on let alone endeavoring to increase its social capital.

What leverage then is afforded to local communities or even those working sincerely and earnestly in support of local communities to ensure that this is done properly? Even if attempted, providing the proportionate support that does not displace or diminish local community power is a difficult balancing act with the best of intentions. It isn't by the communities themselves, at least not initially, and it is doubtful that it is the institutional agencies so is there presumably a third sector or movement outside of these communities that are being appealed to beyond the already converted to the ABCD approach?

This post will also reveal the connection of ABCD back to the concept of the Commons and Ostrom’s work, a path already established in the blog post-ABCD, Social Networks and the Commons connecting Associational Life:

“A viable way to be collective and inclusive from the bottom up, according to Cormac and those with a similar mindset, is to work through the concept of the communal Commons to enable some type of Coalition of the Doing in determining the relationship between Capitalism and the Commons".

David Bollier, Director of the Reinventing the Commons Program at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, starts off the article speaking of enclosures as the historical anthesis to the Commons.

“Enclosures eclipse the history and memory of the commons, rendering them invisible. The impersonal, individualistic, transaction-based ethic of the market economy becomes the new normal.”
An enclosure, as defined by Bollier, then can be seen as a form of imposed exclusion, a means of differentiating between clique or exclusive communities and colony or excluded communities.

A Commons, within an ABCD framework, can then be seen as both place-based with the resources of that place and people-based as an associational network overseeing those resource-based commons. The Social Network is both a people-based defined social system overseeing the Commons as a place-based resource so that the smallest associational successes of ABCD can not only reverberate through the entire community (system) but also give it history or legacy. It becomes a matter then, as Cormac has said, of not reforming (institutional) systems but reclaiming the Commons.

The What, Why and How of Design Thinking and Collective Impact part 3 of 3

The previous blog post continued the discussion on design thinking and Collective Impact making the argument that design thinking should be integrated with systems thinking (as well as artistic thinking) to have the greatest impact on addressing the complex, wicked challenges facing communities.

The idea of combining design thinking and systems thinking has been around for some time with Innovation as a learning process: Embedded Design Thinking by Sara L. Beckman and Michael Barry from 2007 or Systems & Design Thinking: A Conceptual Framework for Their Integration by John Pourdehnad, Erica R. Wexler, and Dennis V. Wilson from 2011.

Part of the problem is agreeing on what they are separate so as to enable agreement on what they are combined. Practitioners are fairly comfortable with some ambiguity in their own field but misconceptions about the other could make cooperation difficult. The supposed Lessons Learned — Why the Failure of Systems Thinking Should Inform the Future of Design Thinking, from June of 2009, by Fred Collopy would seem to give neither side much hope since design thinking still seems in the same boat as systems thinking.  What Collopy doesn’t seem to have considered is that each could learn from each other, particularly if they were used to target the same challenges addressed under Collective Impact. 

The first step is to determine What is Design Thinking, Really?, from back in July of 2010 in which Venessa Miemis cites the term design thinking as referring to a set of principles, from mindset to process, that can be applied to solve complex problems, coined by IDEO’s David Kelley. 

She goes on to review Change by Design, by IDEO’s CEO Tim Brown, getting to the meat and potatoes of addressing Collective Impact concerns with chapters titled ‘The New Social Contract,’ ‘Design Activism,’ and ‘Designing Tomorrow – Today’, framing the opening pages of the book:

What we need are new choices – new products that balance the needs of individuals and of society as a whole; new ideas that tackle the global challenges of health, poverty, and education; new strategies that results in differences that matter and a sense of purpose that engages everyone affected by them.

The perspective had of systems thinking is important in this partnership. Some seem to wrongly assume that systems thinking only addresses well understood problems, with one best answer to that problem and the path to finding that answer being linear. Others believe that systems thinking involves making changes to a system that will lead to the elimination of a problem identified within one of the system components. Russell L. Ackoff though admonished us to Never improve a part of the system unless it also improves the whole. The fact that these errors or disagreements over definition are not only limited to those on the design thinking side of the issue complicates things.

Systems Thinking and Design Thinking from Triarchy Press correctly defines a systems thinking approach (in contrast to taking a reductionistic approach to complex systems like a business, separating it out into component parts and trying to manage each part as well as possible) as looking at relationships (rather than unrelated objects), connectedness, process (rather than structure), the whole (rather than just its parts), the patterns (rather than the contents) of a system, and context. While its definition of design thinking as using the definitions and assumptions of systems thinking and focuses on applying them to innovative processes for problem-solving and decision-making is arguably too restrictive.

Design thinking is about empathy and systems thinkers are the better for it makes the argument that “The combination of design and systems thinking can deliver a truly holistic understanding of a current system, generate ideas that will transform the system while yet continue to maintain a whole systems view to ensure the new system is sustainable.” This is not merely a touchy-feely appeal and this blog is not backing away from the need for the proper type of business discipline in the public sector. Empathy according to MixMashups' Gary Hamel drives innovation. 

In more recent articles, arguments have been made for design thinking to take lessons from systems thinking. In a Fast Company article of May of this year, Why Designers Must Put Invention First, Paddy Harrington quotes Charles Eames who said, "Eventually everything connects—people, ideas, objects, etc....the quality of the connections is the key to quality per se." The Eames office had a diagram of three overlapping circles representing the interests of the design office, the interests of the client and the interests of society as a whole, that explained their approach to their practice. Their work, the Eames said, was at the intersection of the three. The Eames talent, however, provided them the luxury of choice. 

Realistically, one won’t have the luxury of choosing clients if pursuing social change through design thinking and Collective Impact. How then Paddy Harrington asks can one, “...(establish a purpose that drives our practice more deeply and lets us work with more self-determination?” His answer is that Eames' approach is still the best guide for staying on course: first, connect everything in order to understand relationships, influences, and possibilities. In Richard Saul Wurman’s view, ”...[Eames] was selling his ignorance and his desire to learn about a subject. The journey of not knowing to knowing was his work."

Harrington further addresses embracing complexity and uncertainty citing Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, who wrote:

"Categorizing always produces reduction in true complexity…Any reduction of the world around us can have explosive consequences since it rules out some sources of uncertainty; it drives us to a misunderstanding of the fabric of the world."

In response, Paddy Harington advises that “Rather than simplify a complex situation, we must start with a certain kind of fearlessness in the face of the unknown and establish tools to help us find answers in the absence of tangible information. And once we embrace that unknown, it’s the methodical application of those tools toward solutions that point us in a better direction.” This is a perspective that NCP can agree with, seeing Complexity as Cradle for Creativity and Innovation in moving from incoherent complexity to coherent complexity.

In the Fast Company article, Why "Design For Development" Is Failing On Its Promise, also from May of this year, Panthea Lee writes about noticing her colleagues wrestling a growing nervousness about how much design can create positive change and with the ways that, "design for development" is falling short of its promises.

She cites possible market-based reasons for this. In functioning markets, the user or customer is made powerful because of control of the money to spend. The users of a development program have no money so are often marginalized and powerless with no voice to compel governments to listen to them. Commercial projects have a clear idea of their user or customer and clear measures of success. Public sector design projects have no set "bottom line.” How does one then define the metrics for "improved governance"?  She recognizes at the same time that democracy requires people driving for themselves and that it is not simply a matter of having an easy answer or to "know the right solution. ” This means moving beyond defined terms of "evidence-based design decisions" and the desire to "drive positive change" so as to create a shift in what the work is serving.’’ She goes on to argue that, “(T)he world’s most intractable problems are deeply rooted in massive systems, while design is a discipline focused on the edges”. 

“Traditional design focuses on creating and improving society’s outputs and interactions, such as a sleeker mobile phone or a more efficient way to buy

coffee. When these skills are translated over to the public sphere, design 

still tends to focus on outputs instead of the real systemic problems.”

The Stanford Social Innovation Review makes the argument that design thinking applied to Collective Impact is capable of Turning Empathy into Action and lists the positive contributing attributes of each. 

It is this blog’s position that to be capable of, for example Solving Democracy’s Design Problem and moving from actual systems in the world such as Public Participation Designed for Entrenched Incumbents (Stafford Beer’s POSIWID) to more idealized, yet viable visions of Designing Public Participation Processes Map will require systems thinking as scaffolding for such a large, collaborative and scalable undertaking.

Creating Democracy is Complex

This post is likely going to be complex for most as it is for me, but hopefully I can at least move from incoherent complexity to more coherent complexity. This blog has discussed deliberative democracy, systems thinking and even complexity before. This time though it is the means of combined analysis and synthesis through a Kumu mapping, which could be considered approximating 3-D like mapping with multiple positive and negative influences creating feedback loops at differing levels and degrees, that is the source of the complexity.    

The Kumu mapping project is designed to supplement the scholarly article Deliberation, Democracy and the Systemic Turn co-authored by David Owen and Graham Smith, uploaded to academia.edu, which is a critique of another article on democratic deliberation known also as the 'Manifesto'.

Deliberative democracy as a theoretical enterprise has gone through a series of phases or ‘turns’. The most recent manifestation of this dynamic is the idea of the ‘deliberative system’, of which a variety of formulations have been proposed. An important initial attempt to offer a reflective synthesis of work on deliberative systems is the recent essay, ‘A systemic approach to deliberative democracy’.  -  Academia.edu article Abstract

The Kumu map project works on two levels. First, as illustrations of concepts found on specific pages of the Owen and Smith article. Second, through larger scale maps organizing aggregated concepts found throughout the article based on the premise that if one is truly dealing with a system then it should be possible to map it.

This Next Level maps out the 'territory' of 'deliberative systems' considered by the article. This process of overall mapping began at the conclusion of the article, as the last destination or where X marks the spot on the map, and built backwards producing three separate maps, Deliberative Systems (DS), Institutional Democratic Theory, and Integrated Deliberative Systems (IDS), each taking a different perspective of the conceptual territory under consideration. Each map can be considered separately but provides more in depth insights when considered together.

Each map is made up of various elements, some of which are common across maps, that are related to each other by four color coded types of connections: choices, alternatives, possibilities or aspects, components, factors or influence, defines, impacts or limits, diminishes, constrains. 

The elements and connections of the Deliberative Systems map lie on a 2-D plane, delineated by the ideals of 'Citizens at the Heart' on one axis and 'Political Ideals" on the other. Similarly designed, the map Institutional Democratic Theory has a common axis with 'Citizens at the Heart" but lies on a different plane with 'Produces Desired Goods and Necessary Functions' as the secondary axis.

Each map considers the relation of concepts which either enhance or limit attaining the relevant optimal axes. Those elements common to both maps relate differently to the overall plane then depending upon which map they are considered. 

 'Citizens at the Heart' both independently and as a component of 'Political Ideal' can readily be seen as attaining the highest level of a 'deliberative democratic ideal'. In contrast, Institutional Democratic Theory, which still has Citizens at the Heart as one of its optimal goals, does not necessarily Produce Desired Goods and Necessary Functions even under the most ideal deliberative circumstances and more often results in conflict between the two goals.

The existence of potential and likely conflicts between the ideal of "Citizens at the Heart" and the realities of "Produces Desired Goods and Necessary Functions' on the plane of Institutional Democratic Theory has to then be considered against the separate plane of the map Deliberative Systems which has its owns negative and non-deliberative influences indicating that attaining what could be considered a 'deliberative democratic ideal' in the real world a tremendous challenge.

The third map Integrated Deliberative Systems takes some of the elements from these two previous maps and places them in an expanded context moving across from the 'unruly politics of social life' to a 'decision-making body' with potential feedback loops at every level.  The map has four levels of integration 1) No to little deliberation between citizens takes place, 2) Deliberation not empowered in respect of decision-making, 3) Civic deliberation and 4) Decision making power.

The core justification of deliberative democracy, according to the article is, as a political ideal, legitimizing our collective political arrangements (institutions, laws, policies) based  on deliberative practices amongst free and equal citizens.

The Manifesto, being reviewed, treats mutual respect as part of the ‘ethical’ criteria for judging a deliberative system.

“We stress mutual respect, however, because even more than other ethical considerations, it is intrinsically a part of deliberation. To deliberate with another is to understand the other as a self-authoring source of reasons and claims. To fail to grant to another the moral status of authorship is, in effect, to remove oneself from the possibility of deliberative influence.”  (page 25).

The map reflects the concept mutual respect’s differences in relationships between the DS and IDT maps, either directly or in display. This concept expanded three degrees under Mutual Respect Challenged demonstrates the complex array of interrelationships.

The article goes on to suggest that any account of mutual respect compatibility with radical populist rhetoric such as the Tea Party is likely to be negligible. Raising the possibility then that without a ‘deliberative minimum’ and with ‘mutual respect’ considered only at the systemic level, one system might display greater overall mutual respect than another while still exhibiting a greater lack of respect toward a specific group. Such a systemic approach tries to maximize the overall level of mutual respect within the system through active disrespect of certain groups within the polity, usually the most vulnerable.

Similarly, the article looks to “The plurality of perspectives, claims, narratives, and reasons that characterise a political society", going on to say, "cannot however plausibly be construed as independent of the social and political institutions and practices of that society.” (page 14), which is true but from a deeper systems thinking perspective, not taken by the article, corresponds to the deepest levels of the systems thinking iceberg as well as the most effective interventions of Donella Meadows' Leverage Points. Kumu relates this concept across all three maps.

Parkinson, one of the authors of the Manifesto, reflected that it ‘would be ironic indeed’ if we could imagine a deliberative system in which public participation were generally passive.  (page 26)

It is important then to distinguish, according to the article's authors, between democratic deliberation and the broader discursive system, which could under certain circumstances can be seen as the ‘scaffolding’ or ‘support’ for deliberation. How a democratic deliberative system could support a discursive system, however, is not examined. Also, the connections could just as easily go the other way with a broader discursive system becoming merely another set of tables from which to exclude others.

Manifesto author, Mansbridge’s concept of 'everyday talk' loosens the criteria for deliberation to encompass a broad range of talk.  A more restricted type of everyday talk might, as cited by the article's authors, still be considered deliberation, as in forms of political talk involving what is termed a ‘deliberative stance’, also reflected across all three maps and defined as, "a relation to others as equals engaged in the mutual exchange of reasons oriented as if to reaching a shared practical judgment." (page 28)

While particular settings for a deliberative stance whether, formal or informal, decision-making or not, are not restricted, the demands on individuals will change contingent  upon the standards structuring the context of discursive interaction and the extent to which such standards are entrenched within the community's institutions. Citizens have to have the capacity and disposition to take up a deliberative stance, whether for actual formal decisions or issues more subject to public consideration. 

The question is whether this recent systemic turn overlooks, by necessity,  commitments as  expressed through Mansbridge’s 'everyday talk' to ensure ‘a democratic theory that puts the citizen at the center’. This moves once again into the Integrated Deliberative Systems map raising  the relation between deliberation and the broader political system with a model of an ‘integrated deliberative system’ as sketched by author Carolyn Hendriks.

Hendriks privileges the connections between formal ‘discursive spheres’ such as ‘parliaments, committee meetings, party rooms, stakeholder round tables, expect committees, community fora, public seminars, church events and so on’. (page 31) The article's authors endeavor to broaden the approach to encompass the deliberative stance in everyday settings, which can be critical to both how perspectives are generated and how capacities are developed.

The overall Kumu map project is still under development, particularly the direction of many of the connections, and relationships remain subject to interpretation and revision but a few run throughs of different possible pathways should still provide not only a better understanding of the article but perhaps insights that go beyond the article.

A Map for a Pathway to New Community Paradigms

The last four blog posts dealt with the month and a half that I spent interacting online with the Dialogue, Deliberation, and Systemic Transformation community or DD&ST, revealing my own journey with them.  

The four blog posts that had steered me towards the DD&ST, before those four had dealt in part with the concepts of dialogue and deliberation,  indirectly involving the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD), examining how systems thinking could scaffold efforts at direct democracy. 

Despite the time spent on and the number of posts written, things still did not seem sufficiently settled or satisfactory. It was obvious that only the surface of possible interactions and explorations opened up by the DD&ST had been touched upon but that which had been covered still needed to be put into a better perspective. Particularly in light of the original question of systems thinking and direct democracy that drove the inquiry in this direction.  

So in order to get my bearings, I created another Kumu map. After finishing and traveling through it a few times, the realization arose that it was in a general fashion depicting a Pathway to New Community Paradigms. It is by no means anywhere near a final map, it does though bring together concepts that have become important components of New Community Paradigms. It is necessary though to first take a number of steps back.

It has always been recognized that the interactions, defined by the Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking map as a basis for this line of inquiry, would be done by groups of diverse, independent agents, not single entities, and in accordance with Michael Jackson’s System of Systems Methodologies would be pluralist, possibly conflictual and very likely often complex.  Jackson used this to differentiate hard and dynamic system thinking methodologies from soft systems thinking methodologies. This duality was to be brought together in a generative manner with the R1 Deliberative  Democratic Dialogue and R2 Working with  Systems Thinking loops of the Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking map. 

A follow-up self-critique blog post, which is still applicable, on that original related blog post brought out calls from LinkedIn discussion groups covering both ends of the continuum or sides for greater incorporation of resources or approaches related to their particular perspective. For the participatory, soft systems side, it was for the inclusion of Appreciative Inquiry methodologies, and for the harder, dynamic, goal-oriented side it was the inclusion of the insights from the Knowing-Doing Gap article by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton.

The opportunity then came to interact with real people asking real questions regarding dialogue and deliberation and how it could be used as a “…positive transformational impact in the face of emerging global crises” through participation with the Dialogue, Deliberation, and Systemic Transformation community. The guiding beacon for the DD& ST was: 

"What do we, as members of the dialogue and deliberation community of practice, have to be and do to enable our most positive transformational impact in the face of emerging global crises which fundamentally challenge our business-as-usual habits and systems?"

The primary focus for my explorations was on the DD& ST question of ‘What is Possible?’ in a world, “besot with breakdowns, positive uprisings and major windows of opportunity potentially arising in 2015 and asking how the Dialogue, Deliberation and Systemic Transformation Community could use dialogue and deliberation tools to amplify and bring coherence to an impulse for change from which would emerge the co-creating elements of ‘the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible?’.”

The searching for insights in these matters, especially with the DD& ST and subsequent interactions with others making up the dialogue and deliberation community strengthened an appreciation that, in accordance with the systems thinking iceberg model, we are not only speaking in terms of different methodologies or perspectives but more importantly in terms of different mindsets.

The realization arose quickly that one was dealing with significantly different mindsets than were more usually familiar, resulting in a Stranger in a Strange Land vibe but the DD& ST community was truly welcoming and I pressed forward learning as much as I could. There was, far, far too much available in the journey’s short duration for gathering all but a few ideas on the first visit, though subsequent explorations are still possible. 

A good part of any limitations was no doubt mine. The general approach taken so far to systems thinking based on personal inclination and applied through certification has, by way of causal loop diagramming, leaned towards a harder or more dynamic approach as compared to softer or more participative approaches. It was recognized though that the later would be essential to systems of direct democracy. The question was how to integrate the two approaches together? 

The Pathway to New Community Paradigms map (Advisory, the actual Kumu map is designed to be more self-contained than is this external narrative.) reflects the unification of both of these perspectives but this was not merely a given. Instead, both approaches, hard, dynamic, goal-oriented system and participatory, inclusive soft system, labeled Creating the Future and Transforming the Future respectively, were explored separately through unfolding storylines from a bird's eye vantage point, revealing what were seen as potential inherent weaknesses in each. 

The two were then laid out together from a space shuttle vantage point to find some means of bridging the two. The common juncture of Complexity was seen as being the point at which bridging the two approaches were either successful or failed. This then provided the components needed to build a bridge across the complexity by the double loop interaction of ‘Opening Up to What is Possible’ and ‘Attaining What is Achievable' revealed to be at the heart of the New Community Paradigms map.

The challenge of complexity has been an important consideration for New Community Paradigms since near its inception and specific positions have been taken regarding the right way and a wrong way of addressing it. It has been contrasted with the concept of ‘complicatedness’ involving processes exhibited by many institutions, particularly by those of the local public sector, causing unresolved dissatisfaction resulting in disengagement in many communities. Complicatedness is seen as while being recognized as often being applicable, top-down command and control management processes but on steroids, providing a needed fix to entrenched political centers of local power.

Even if not pushed to the extreme limits of complicatedness, there is an important difference between complicated challenges and complex challenges. One perspective on the basic differences between Complex and Complicated systems based generally on Csikeszenmihalyi's "The Evolving Self" is illustrated by an InsightMaker model with additional discussion in Knowledge Management: Emerging Perspectives.

Wicked problems can become so complex, incoherently complex, that they can be broken down and erroneously perceived as complicated (and therefore seemingly addressable solely by complicated as opposed to complex means) by not only the general public but also by those tasked with addressing them with top-down complicated and reductionistic based management systems which may tend to reach high levels of bureaucratic complicatedness.

There had also already been an evolving perspective on goal-oriented approaches to resolving wicked challenges before having any interactions with the DD& ST, in particular questioning the relation and limits to those endeavors to achieve so-called 'concrete' results within the complex realities that give rise to those wicked challenges. These models or system shortcomings were still being seen from a dynamic systems perspective though.  The time spent with the DD& ST exposed me to a variety of other expanded possibilities and, while I did not convert, the mapping leading up to the convinced me even more that both perspectives, even both mindsets were needed. 

From a newcomer and relatively still outsider vantage point, the dialogue and deliberation community has in general been having, if not a crisis of faith with dialogue and deliberation, has at least been raising serious questions about it and its proper role today.  Personally, I don't have many answers and certainly not the answer. I am still working on constructing the right questions. The insights offered here may seem obvious to some but I would argue that the differences are deeper and more systemic than might be appreciated and some may choose to stay entirely on their own vantage point but I believe we lose far too much and the endeavors of both the DD& ST and New Community Paradigms becomes all the more difficult when each side fails to or only gives meager recognition and respect to the other.

Exploring with the Dialogue, Deliberation and Systemic Transformation Community to Discover New Possibilities Part 3 of 3

In addition to the World Cafe platforms participated within, as described in the last two blog posts, part 1 and part 2, I also participated in three of the fifteen Open Space conversations that were initiated by others, OS Topic 5: Super-ordinate Goals, How do we understand the system that is changing?, and A Supersaturated Theory of Change. Due to the complex nature of the questions being pursued, metaphors played an important role in getting ideas across. Complexity was itself a key issue and often necessitated metaphors to assist in making the concepts coherent.

The first interaction' on January 13, 2015, was OS Topic 5: Super-ordinate Goals.  The description for the goal was, "What  super-ordinate goal could replicate across the collective set of value systems, and act as a "guiding star" for systemic transformation?” It was presented by Ben L. as, "What everyone wants, but no one entity can do themselves." Ben was one of those who introduced me to Spiral Dynamics.

Heather T., back this time as we had both independently selected for this particular topic, spoke of "Healthy Human/Healthy Planet" as a possibility.  Heather sought out nature metaphors or analogies, as in acorns ‘become' oak trees. I suggested birds moving in a ‘flock' introducing the idea of complexity, which others saw as extending to living human/living earth allowing for seeing ‘both/and’ while moving away from ‘either/or’.

I again introduced an alternative concept, as a means rather than a goal, that I have been shaping for some time.

“Clayton Christiansen's idea of Disruptive Innovation might be applicable to social change. "From scarcity to abundance" (again, as asserted here and here) as another frame that might bring people into the fold. People are so scared of financial and environmental disasters, that they don't want to act.”

Another challenging perspective which with I could agree was developed by Stephanie Jo K based on Hans Rosling’s TED Talk, The Best Stats You've Ever Seen. 

As she said, he says, “The improvement of the world must be highly contextualized, and it's not relevant to have it on regional level. We must be much more detailed. We find that students get very excited when they can use this."  She then goes on,

“The point being twofold, (a) our misconceptions are probably thick, and (b) what will motivate people not only metaphorically but literally depends on their lived social reality. If one starts from above (the example Hans Rosling gives is wealth), no significant or automatic improvement in the baseline (in this case, health). You must invest in the ground, in the local, and-most importantly from within the local context in order to participate in processes leading to tangible change.”

For the January  25th, the Open Space conversation, I participated in “How do we understand the system that is changing?”, led by Chris S.  

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Once again helped with scribing and editing while at the same time participating but this time there was a greater intermix between the iterations of what I wrote on behalf of what others had said, and what others wrote on what I had said, creating something new that I would not have come up with solely on my own. 

The conversation appealed to Complexity Theory as a means of expressing a complex view of what is changing, what fails. Metaphors were still an essential component of communicating complex ideas. 

One was a metaphor of being together in the boat, trusting people to be mutually dependent. Having others seeing what we cannot. A River metaphor, used in the session's introductory remarks by Mark Dubois, co-founder of Friends of the River and the International Rivers Network, was used for expressing the inclusion of, ‘various agents, obstacles, currents taking us in a direction, navigating by strength or dancing with the river. See different parts of the river depending upon where you are.’

Taking a more empirical, data driven perspective, I pointed out that both the Economist Intelligence Unit and Harvard Business Review had also warned of the impact of complexity upon our societies.

This did not, however, result in any divergence. It was still apparent that our values are, “…being shaken and bruised our values are speaking to us.  Old, old of unstructured times transformed into, old, more recent of structured - Newton - reductionism - industrial - complicated to a new way trying to impose order on the emerging more complex world.  Today, what we Need is a new new way that embraces complexity and seeks coherence within complexity.”

As has been previously asserted, complexity, as it relates to us, can come in two different forms, incoherent (where we feel powerless) and coherent (where we can see a dance path).

As Chris S pointed out, it is the synthesis of the different ways of understanding systems that can lead us to the elements of storytelling which can help to define complexity in a manner similar to what makes a great story. Stories can help make our complex world coherent.

In what ways is this problem complex?

1 Many interacting “agents”

2 Individuals and processes influence each other in feedback loops

3 Reactions may be affected by current and past circumstances

4 Influenced by the external environment

5 Events have multiple causes and multiple effects

6 Large events can have small effects and small events can have large effects

7 Events emerge in surprising ways, spontaneously in the absence of a “controller”

8 Events display a complicated mix of ordered and disordered behaviour

9 It is an emotional Issue

Returning to the metaphor of a river, it was recognized that there was a need for, "balance between structure and flow - creating just enough structure so that flow can happen." "Leadership/Direction and personal empowerment/self-discovery - Having just enough leadership so that others are not disempowered."

I pointed out though that flow can potentially change structure. Citing a recent and relevant point made by Gene Bellinger in a different forum, "The riverbanks govern the flow of the river until the next flood when the river redefines where it wants to flow."

"World also feels and appears more incoherent when pressures build up. On the river, instincts say lean away from the wave but truth is to lean into it to get through."

Being an apparently diverse group, another perspective raised was that of an Operational Risk Management insight: problems reveal connections usually hidden. The lesson, we miss connections that are needed. One can never dig into too deep into the systems.

The last set of interactions I had with the DDST Community was A Supersaturated Theory of Change lead by Ben Roberts, followed by a Live conversation with Ben, Brian and Jock as a follow-up to 1/25 Open Space Session.  The conversations were again based on a metaphor, this time one based on chemistry. This particular conversation demonstrated that the good thing about metaphors is that they are open and susceptible to interpretation, the bad thing about metaphors is that they are open and susceptible to interpretation.  I fluctuated in my affinity with this specific metaphor but regardless, Ben was able to generate a good deal of relevant resources suggested by it. 

Opportunities for supersaturating solutions now

• Lessig's May Day campaign?
• Bringing top Down and Bottom-up leadership together
• Business Alliance for the Future
• Appreciative Inquiry opportunity
• Participatory Budgeting
• A trans-local opportunity
• Climate Justice Alliance & Divest/Reinvest (out of fossil fuels and into the "new      economy")

The journey created traveling along these pathways doesn’t end here. This was only one pathway that happened to be transversed by me. There were dozens of different ones taken by others and even more possible. This search for possibility travelogue only touched upon the surface.  My own journey though, for now, will end with Harvesting Pad 11: Brian G. Dowling (which no longer links to the correct map)