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the role of the social architect.         The work it takes to act on what matters is up to each of us as individuals. But as we do the work on ourselves, we also have to bring it into the world. My individual possibility also needs to be part of a collective possibility. One way to think of this collective aspect is through the concept of social architecture. If we can bring Christopher Alexander’s philosophy of architecture into the design and creation of an organization, a social system, we can conceptualize the role of a social architect. This is someone who is equipped to act on the aesthetics, values, or intuition of a situation in the manner of the artist, and also to act on the material or concrete aspects of a situation in the manner of the economist-engineer. Adding “social” to the title of “architect” builds on the sensibilities of the architect, as discussed in the previous chapter. Instead of being so concerned with bricks, mortar, glass, and steel, the social architect is also concerned with how people are brought together to get their work done and build organizations they want to inhabit.

The Collective Possibility

The task of the social architect is to design and bring into being organizations that serve both the marketplace and the soul of the people who work within them. Where the architect designs physical space, the social architect designs social space.

The term social architecture has been around a long time and usually denotes a specialty devoted to designing social policy in the public sector. The role has at times been controversial, depending on your politics. For many years following the Great Depression, social architects explored an activist role for government policy to achieve social goals. Recently, the pendulum has swung and they study ways that individual and local initiatives can be fostered. I would like to put the politics of the term aside, and borrow the usefulness of its intention. Social architecture represents the intersection of care (social) and structure (architecture) and in this way it becomes part of everyone’s job, especially our leaders. We might even say that the role of the social architect is to create service-oriented organizations, businesses, governments, and schools that meet their institutional objectives in a way that gives those involved the space to act on what matters to them.

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The social architect is one answer to what replaces command and control. It is a role for bosses and employees, it is not a technical specialty. Focusing on the boss for a moment, the boss has a responsibility to fulfill the promises of the organization to its stakeholders—shareholders, board members, community, customers, and citizens. It is the rightful duty of the boss to speak for those who commission and are served by the institution. The boss also has the obligation to provide navigational insight as to how the institution keeps its promises, and this is where the social architect is required. It is the task of the social architect to bring about needed change while using methods that are based on the deeply held personal values of the members.

Matching this role to the conditions for acting on what matters, the social architect has three design criteria:

1. Is idealism encouraged?
2. Is intimacy made possible?
3. Is there the space and demand for depth?

The process is like the engineer, the economist, and the artist getting together and jointly designing a social system, where the personal, intimate, and subjective qualities of the institution are valued along with the practical, technical, and economic objectives. Most managers intend to do just this, but they (we) find it difficult to support idealism and allow intimacy and depth into the equation. The fact that we are living in an engineer-economist dominated world creates a bias toward more control than freedom, more practicality than idealism, barter rather than intimacy, and greater speed more than depth. The choice to think of ourselves as social architects is an activist stance—radical in thinking, conservative and caring in action.

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Making Space for What Matters

In addition to a leadership function, social architecture is also a role for each member as a citizen of their institution or community. In other words, all of us. To be a citizen is to show up—to accept the invitation to participate, or to create it if it is not offered, to act as a co-designer. At any moment we can choose to speak of our idealism, express our feelings, and reflect on and deepen our questions. Acting on what matters is an act of leadership, it is not dependent on the leadership of others. Thus, all of the capacities of the social architect described below are open to each of us. They represent a way to act on our values, to realize whatever strategy or model we wish to pursue. They create the space and the opportunity for ourselves and others to co-create and implement a strategy. The design work of the social architect is to bring people together to create their own future. Remember that the values that matter to us are all qualities of being alive. Recalling the earlier list:

Love	Collaboration
Freedom	Justice
Compassion	Reconciliation
Faith in a Supreme Being	Creativity
Integrity	Care for the Next Generation
Equality

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The social architect’s task is to provide a context for the organization’s purpose or strategy, and then engage others in a way that embodies those values in people’s hearts. We may think that the task of a leader is to define those values, but that would be necessary only if there were a conflict in values, if the values worked against each other. When taken to a deep enough level and held to an idealism that believes the world is capable of living out its intention, our values can only support each other.

When we act on what matters, on our own values, we support others in doing the same. As stated earlier, when we think we have to argue about values, we are mistakenly converting those values into models or strategies. The social architect’s task is to create the space for people to act on what matters to them. It requires faith in common values and interest in the common good. It is the pure economist who believes people will act out of self-interest, the pure engineer who believes that there is only one path to the future, and the pure artist who thinks that joint effort and structure is life defeating. What is required is simply the will to act as if we know enough right now to put the dream into action. And the belief that this is possible.

The Capacities Required

The capacities of the social architect exist all around us. They are in the hands of consultants, facilitators, and specialists in social change and learning. When these capacities are available to each of us, bosses especially, they become a means not only for us to act on what matters, but to support this in others as well. Here are some capacities essential to the role:

1. Convening

Social architecture is, fundamentally, a convening function, giving particular attention to all aspects of how people gather. The future is created as a collective act. Anyone can convene others, although the advantage of the boss as social architect is that the boss has a unique convening power. When the boss calls a meeting, we show up. When a peer, a staff person, or specialist calls a meeting, they usually have to sell us on the idea of showing up. Doable, but more difficult.

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A social architect designs and arranges the room, cares about the intent, structures the interaction and dialogue, sees that doubts are made public, and focuses on capacities instead of needs. These are the tools of social change that support intimacy, dreaming, freedom, and depth.

The fundamental tenet of social architecture is that the way people gather is critical to the way the system fuctions. A culture of idealism and intimacy is not created by the decisions we make, but by the quality of the contact we make. This is why the convening power of the boss is the linchpin for creating an environment that knows what matters and acts on it.

What follows is framed in terms of a meeting, but the principles hold true for a larger strategy. Convening is a way of operating, not just a way of meeting. Here are some key elements of convening:

• Focus on who is in the room. What is the nature of our invitation and who needs to be in the room? This question may be the most important one because it is by being in the room that we experience the opportunity to act on what matters. Of course, regardless of whom we invite, many will not show up. The greater challenge is to devise a way so everyone is in the room when the future is being decided. Something shifts when we decide to become inclusive while answering this question, even though the answer will always be imperfect.
• Care for the physical space of the room in which you meet. This includes the aesthetic qualities of the room. Is there a window through which to remember nature? Do the walls display art that remind us that the room is for human occupancy? Take care when arranging the tools and furniture in the room. Make it conducive for small group discussions, for these are the basis for all social change and development— peers talking together and making commitments to each other. Don’t confuse convening with speaking. Pick a room designed for lively conversation, not one designed for effective presentations.
• 176Include high-interaction activities. These will overcome isolation and passivity. We cannot act on what matters alone. People need to know who else is in the room. They need to make contact before they get into content. We are often overly concerned with the agenda and presentation and tend to neglect the power of participation.
• Design airspace so that all voices can be heard. Enough airtime is particularly important for the most doubtful and concerned. When doubts are expressed publicly, then commitment is possible. Remember that all doubts do not have to be answered, only heard.
• Aim at capacities and strengths. Make the discussion of people’s gifts the focus of attention. John McKnight notes that one of the beauties of volunteer organizations is that they know how to take advantage of people’s gifts, whereas what he calls “systems” are more concerned with people’s limitations.

2. Naming the Question

The social architect has an obligation to define the context, or the playing field, and then define the right question, at least to start with. Picking the question is a way of naming the debate. A structural architect must work within a community’s requirements, and abide by the local building codes. For a social architect, the requirements include the needs of the bankers, the customers, and the other stakeholders. While stating these requirements is the job of the leader, the architect leaves open to the occupants, or citizens, the means or the form by which compliance is achieved.

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The critical task is to find the right question, one that is open-ended enough to engage everyone personally and organizationally. Instead of asking how we are going to get $5 million in cost out of a unit, ask why we are in this spot in the first place. Ask for ways that we can increase people’s freedom so that better economic decisions can be made. Ask what you, the boss, or you, the citizen, are doing that increases costs. Ask how fast we should be growing. What are our limits to growth? Ask how we are depleting the resources of the community instead of sustaining them. Even ask, What is the right question? Take the six Yes questions in Chapter 2 and begin to expand on them.

The person who names the debate carries the outcome. Many of our days are spent answering too narrow a question. The social architect keeps broadening the question, for this is what engages people and creates room for idealism and depth. Staying with questions of purpose, feeling, and relationship requires postponing the How? questions, knowing that questions of methodology are in no danger of disappearing. They do not need our nurturing since they have the culture on their side.

3. Initiating New Conversations for Learning

To hold on to the intent of supporting idealism, intimacy, and depth, we need a learning strategy that is high-contact and human being–based. Technology can support relationships, but it cannot create them. To sustain the habitability of a social system we must initiate new conversations and manage the airspace so that all voices stay engaged with each other. This may seem inefficient, but acting on values that matter takes time. We change the world when we create the time and space for heartfelt, unique conversations that discuss values and affirm doubts, feelings, and intuition.

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4. Sticking with Strategies of Engagement and Consent

Implied in all of this is the idea that engagement is the design tool of choice; it is how social and cultural change happens. For complex challenges, especially when we create a system that goes against the default culture, dialogue itself is part of the solution. We need to believe that conversation is an action step. It is not only a means to the end, it is also an end in itself. If we are to keep the intention and the will to live on the margin of the culture, we need to talk the implications through. If we keep the image in our minds of the artist’s path joining with the engineer’s path, then the future will be chosen, not mandated. Commitment and accountability cannot be sold. They have to be evoked, and evocation comes through conversation. The social architect then becomes an engagement manager: They help to decide who should be in the room at various stages and what questions they should confront, and all while keeping to the ground rule that the questions of intent and purpose precede the questions of methodology.

5. Designing Strategies That Support Local Choice

If our intent is to create social systems that people want to inhabit, then the social architect’s job is to demand that the inhabitants join in designing the system. At a minimum, members can define their requirements for the dwelling place. This is needed not only in the primary construction, but each time there is an addition or subtraction as well. It may be wise for the boss to come up with a few details on how to meet those requirements, but the architect would never proceed with construction without a sign-off from the inhabitants. Some call this “participative design.” It may take longer, but the alternative is to be efficient in choosing a plan that will not be supported.

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Elements of Our Own Design

The substance of the design will be a combination of the models and strategies mentioned early in the book. Here are some of the design elements that are necessary to construct a social system:

1. What is the mission of the system? and Who decides this?
2. Who are we really here to serve?
3. How do we construct the job of the leader? and Who decides this?
4. What measures have meaning to us? and Can we choose these collectively and limit their number to five?
5. What learning and training is needed? and Who decides this? Can different levels learn together in order to help overcome the social distance between levels?
6. What constitutes reasonable, transparent, just rewards? and Who decides this?
7. How do we improve quality and introduce change? and Who makes these choices?
8. How do we stay connected with our marketplace and those we are here to serve? and How does everyone get involved in doing this?
9. What is our belief system about people’s motivation? and How does this fit with the values we came here to live out?

Notice that Who decides? is a part of each element. It is in answering the questions Who decides? and Who is in the room? that we take a stand on our values.

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So now we have a rough outline of the social architect’s role. It does not replace the need for engineers or economists, rather it is intended to enhance their strengths. The key is for us to promote activism, not to be afraid of it. These tasks of the social architect are really intended to keep technology, barter, and speed in perspective. This requires faith in our own capacities and the willingness to stop focusing on our weaknesses. Our weaknesses are here to stay, our strengths have hardly been touched. When we focus on our strengths, we confront ourselves with our freedom and other people with theirs. This is so much more powerful than the usual deficiency-oriented view which only reminds us of our boundaries.

An Example

There are many bosses who successfully act in this role. Some are well known: Max De Pree while he was at Herman Miller, and Rich Tierlink at Harley Davidson. An example of an executive who fulfills this role and uses his power with grace is Dennis Bakke, President and CEO of AES. It is not my place to tell his story or even romanticize him for the sake of making a point. I don’t even know him that well, although we have shared a platform. But from what I can see, he seems to have built his business on many of the ideas being discussed here. Here are just a few indications of what he has done to fulfill his role as social architect:

1. Support local control and local capacity. Dennis has placed many choices as close to the work as possible. A classic example: The management of large reserve, or sinking funds, is in the hands of employee teams at each location. He wants employees to understand the economics of the business and become financially literate. He figures that the best way to do this is to put some money in their hands.
2. 181Be undeterred by failure. W181hen there is a failure—for example, in Dennis’s case, a serious accident—and he is under pressure from both the media and his own board to pull the reins back into the center, he holds to the belief in local choice and does not change this commitment.
3. Care for the whole. Dennis knows he is responsible for more than a successful business; he is also accountable for the well being of the communities in which AES operates. And Dennis means it. All statements of purpose reinforce the role his business plays in the lives of those communities. He operates in countries and regions that are particularly difficult for American firms, and his business is uniquely welcomed.
4. Be willing to be vulnerable. Dennis admits failures and shortfalls publicly. In his annual letter to stockholders he talks about disappointments in simple, direct language. No rationalizations, no forced optimism about how this struggle was expected or key to their growth. When something did not work, he simply takes the blame and leaves it there.
5. Value the human system first. Dennis knows that the people who do the work are the business, not the leaders. His annual report contains no photographs of the executives, no group shots taken in the boardroom to inspire confidence. All the pictures and stories are about regular, working people. Dozens of faces looking straight into the camera, happy to be seen. Quite amazing.
6. Name the debate. Dennis carries idealism with him and keeps it out in front of the institution. I have heard Dennis speak, and his idealism and faith in people is unmistakable. He seems driven to make a difference in people’s lives around the world, and this is what he shows up to talk about. He also keeps the discussion of values on the table where it belongs.

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When you listen to Dennis talk, you hear his modesty about his role in, and his commitment to, a set of ideals that far transcend the business. And the business has done well. The point is not this person, for by the time you read this book, all in AES may have changed, and Dennis may be leading by assigning fault and taking names. The point is that, for at least a period of time, one leader found a way to bring economics, engineering, and artistry together. If it happens only once in the world, then we know it is possible, and that it is possible for us in our own situation. And there are hundreds more like Dennis.

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