14
Deep Dialogue
Harvesting Collective Wisdom

Alan Briskin

Most of us have had experiences in which our own knowledge was partial but was augmented by insights from others that made all the difference. James Surowiecki is one of many observers who make a compelling case that groups can outperform experts in coming up with answers, even when the issues in question are factual and data driven. In The Wisdom of Crowds, Surowiecki (2004) offers numerous examples of this phenomenon, from groups of uneducated rural people beating the professionals in guessing the weight of an ox, to the capacity for self-organizing cooperation, to coordinated behavior, as on the freeway. Once we understand the richness that comes from connecting to our unconscious and conscious wisdom and becoming more whole and clear as individuals, the question naturally arises: “How can we foster this level of authenticity and wisdom in a collective?” In the next essay in this section, Alan Briskin compellingly describes a dialogue process for harvesting group wisdom that answers this question. This process, and the disciplines it promotes, can inform your practice, promoting generative and productive group communication.

“I absolutely take no pride in what I’m going to share with you,” stated the superintendent of schools to his school board. “There are things in here that go against my beliefs” (Tucker, 2010). He then outlined decimating cuts to summer school programs and teacher training, and the loss of hundreds of jobs in both staff and teaching positions.

Faced with the worldwide belief in the ever-growing scarcity of resources, echoes of this heartfelt confession are heard throughout public education, health care, business, government, and a myriad of public services. Is there an alternative future? For anyone seeking transformational change, this is the question that should hold our feet to the fire.

After years of research and published evidence of a growing number of scholars and practitioners, we believe the field of collective wisdom may hold the answer. Collective wisdom is an alternative belief system about our world and its future. At its simplest, collective wisdom is knowledge and insight gained through group and community interaction. At a deeper level, it is about our living connection to each other and the interdependence we share in our neighborhoods, organizations, and world community.

Challenging Our Basic Assumptions about Leaders and Groups

In our research on group transformation (harvesting collective wisdom), we learned that there are principles and practices that invert and reframe some of our most commonly held assumptions about leaders and groups. We called these principles and practices stances, signifying the intent or source behind the outer manifestation of behavior. A stance is an attitude and bearing that involves mindfulness—an alertness to what is going on inside us and a simultaneous awareness of what is happening around us. Rather than being caught in the downward spiral of fragmentation that accompanies social crisis and group incoherence, these stances can open a portal to a different kind of knowing, one that grasps our interconnectedness as a group, a nation, a species. Transformation of this kind introduces us to deeper mysteries, but there is nothing mysterious about the process itself. The stances include the following:

• Deep listening

• Suspension of certainty

• Seeing whole systems and seeking diverse perspectives

• Respect for others and group discernment

• Welcoming all that is arising

• Trust in the transcendent

Stance 1: Deep Listening

Often leaders and group members share an assumption that what matters most is what we say and the certainty in how we say it. This has legitimacy to a degree, but the assumption breaks down when new ideas and new possibilities are needed. The first stance arises not from what we say, but from how we listen. We call this stance deep listening.

Deep listening comes from a desire to understand another’s world-view and a willingness to feel what it might be like to be in someone else’s shoes. Deep listening invites us to be curious about what is really going on inside the person, the group, or the larger collective. It is an act of truly being present with others.

We asked Paula Underwood, clan mother of the Turtle Clan, Iroquois nation, how one learns to listen deeply to another. She described a time in her childhood when, after learning to memorize the words spoken by her father’s friend, her father asked her if she could hear his heart. The question stunned her. She went around for days with her ear to people’s chests listening to their heartbeat. Soon after, her father said that if she wanted to truly understand what was being said in the newspaper, she must learn to read between the lines. Putting the two suggestions together, she arrived at a new understanding. She realized we each have the capacity to hear more than what is being said by the words alone. We can listen for the emotional context of the words. We can hear the frequencies of human meaning that echo deeply within the person and within the group. When you listen at that level, Underwood told us, you can hear what the Universe is saying (Briskin, Erickson, Ott, & Callanan, 2009). To listen deeply requires a discipline of being able to suspend our personal certainty long enough to allow new meaning to emerge.

Stance 2: Suspension of Certainty

To suspend certainty does not mean we must pretend to lack knowledge. Rather, it is a reflective inquiry consistent with deep listening, a willingness to be changed in the course of interaction with others. Like the Zen parable of the master who continues pouring tea over the lip of the cup to teach the student what it means to be truly empty, we cannot learn new ways if we are filled up with the certainty of our own ideas, assumptions, and mental models. Only as we learn to listen and suspend our certainty does it become possible for a new idea to enter the collective mind.

Historically, there is a vivid example of the value of suspending certainty in the creation of the U.S. Constitution. When the representatives from the various states first debated, they could not agree on whether they were modifying the existing Articles of Confederation or creating a new constitution for the nation. They could not agree on the extent of power for the central government or how representation should be distributed. They could not agree on much at all. Shuttered in a hall in Philadelphia, the heat rose figuratively and literally in the room.

After a month or so, Benjamin Franklin, now in the last years of his life, rose to speak to the group. He acknowledged their despair at ever finding a way forward and suggested they were looking for democracy in all the wrong places—backward in history and sideways to existing governments in Europe. He encouraged them instead to pray together each morning and to look forward to an emerging future. He asked them to consider the aid of a “Father of Lights” who he referred to as a Friend, the word used by the Quakers for a higher divine source found within each person. The group rebuffed his suggestion to begin the day with prayer but continued, against all odds, to carry on with their work. Out of bitterness, partisanship, and fierce debate arose some measure of listening and agreement—and miraculously a document that became the founding structure for a nation based on democratic principles.

Then on the very last day of the convention, when it was necessary to ensure that as many representatives as possible signed the draft document, Franklin addressed the convention again, although this time he was too ill to speak for himself and his address was read by a fellow representative from Pennsylvania. He argued that democracy is born from our human capacity to suspend the certainty of our positions. And even though he believed the current document before him was flawed in significant ways, he noted he had learned in his life that his judgment could change over time.

Drawing upon his extraordinary wit, he argued that the Church in Rome was different than the Church of England only insofar as one believed it was infallible and the other that it was never in the wrong. And both were like the French woman who believed she was always in the right. Democracy depended, he insisted, on our capacity to suspend the inclination to be always in the right in order for something new to be born. That something new became the U.S. Constitution. This is the legacy of our democratic institutions and the lesson we must continually learn and relearn. Suspending our personal certainty is the source of our transformation. When we maintain this discipline, we create the spaciousness required to allow new ideas to be born and brought forward from the group itself.

Stance 3: Seeing Whole Systems and Seeking Diverse Perspectives

Leaders, understandably, often attempt to align group members with the organization’s mission, seek ways to gain agreement, and then hold them accountable. The emphasis is on individuals, even if the venue is collective, such as group meetings or a company newsletter. The process is often sequential and linear, with the objectives typically developed before communication with the group occurs.

The stance of collective wisdom to see the whole system shifts the traditional orientation. The leader is cognizant first of the collective as a whole and works with individuals, subgroups, and teams to discover what lies in the best interest of the whole. Each perspective functions to reveal more of the whole and each individual is required to understand something more about the choices, challenges, and opportunities the whole system faces. Committing to this stance requires us to synthesize diverse information, whether through multiple personal conversations, data collection, or group methodologies that emphasize listening and discovery. What holds the multiplicity together is the strength of an underlying intent and the resiliency of relationships built over time.

As a clan mother, Paula Underwood sought to hear what was in people’s hearts, even when no one was speaking. Consensus to Underwood was not 9,000 people agreeing together at a single moment in time, but a network of relationships that reinforced that each voice mattered, that people’s concerns were heard, and that practical responses to human needs were addressed.

The starting place for our collective wisdom begins with hearing all the voices, especially voices that have been disenfranchised, and to reinforce positive emotions and goals for the group as a whole. Seeing whole systems means asking questions that may be initially uncomfortable and raising issues that may have a history of being systematically ignored or demeaned. No doubt this commitment to hearing all the voices requires courage and a discipline of respect and restraint. It is out of this regard that the group itself begins to mature into an organ of discernment.

Stance 4: Respect for Others and Group Discernment

Respect is often viewed as something one has to earn or a result of a mutually satisfying relationship. From a collective perspective, taking a stance of respect for others goes further. It places respect in the foreground of group interaction.

Sawubona is the isiZulu word for “I see you” and is one of the greetings of respect in South Africa. The other replies in response, “Yebo, sawubona,” meaning “Yes, I see you.” The significance of the interaction goes beyond formality, to the capacity we have to see each other, to recognize that there is a bond between us.

Respect has a way of deepening group interaction by creating safety and inclusion. We feel seen, heard, respected, and acknowledged. The gravitational force felt from being in respectful settings is palpable. Even before we are conscious of feeling safe, the part of the brain that senses threat sends out an “all clear” message, immediately diminishing the fight-or-flight response that is our biological reaction to danger. Blood can flow more freely to the brain rather than to the legs (in case we have to attack or run) and cortisol, which is the hormone generated under stress, is reduced. Our brains function with an increased capacity for tolerating ambiguity as well as complexity, and imagination and reason become further integrated; our hearts literally beat in a more coherent fashion.

Yet how can we demonstrate respect when we can barely tolerate someone on a personal level, or strongly disagree with a contrary position being taken? Respect takes on a whole new dimension when it includes respecting differences and coping with dissonance and diversity. Respect suddenly becomes more like a rigorous discipline, continually practiced and renewed, than simply a feel-good concept or lofty aspiration. Respect for others is where many people find their most severe limitations in groups. Yet respect is a necessary ingredient for group discernment, both qualities intimately linked together in cultivating collective wisdom.

Discernment is a particular form of group comprehension, the capacity to grasp what may seem initially obscure, to distinguish accurately among many shades of feelings, and to make meaning from disparate elements. Respect has a way of binding together the cognitive and affective resources of a group. Discernment offers a pathway to action.

Group discernment is a capacity within groups for the emergence of new thinking and new images of what is possible. With discernment, we are capable of being with differences, uncertainties, and doubts without reaching immediately for closure, agreement, or excess simplification. The poet John Keats saw this quality, which he termed negative capability, as the foundational skill of the artist. The pioneering scholar and practitioner of collective group process, Wilfred Bion (1965), understood negative capability as linked with discernment and central to personal and group transformation. Discernment requires faith that with patience clarity can be achieved. And with clarity, a new level of coherence emerges capable of managing far greater complexity. Bion associated this capacity with reverie, a transitional state between dreams and new beginnings. From this kind of group reverie comes new mental models of reality and new ways of acting in the world.

Stance 5: Welcoming All That Arises

Transformational leadership requires the ability to embrace the unexpected and sometimes disturbing aspects of group life. Welcoming all that is arising demands an interior calm accompanied by a skill for knowing when to intervene.

Two very different kinds of transformative moments illustrate this stance. The first took place in the midst of South African apartheid rule; a clandestine meeting was arranged during a time when the ruling government maintained a ban on contact with the African National Congress (ANC). Led by Franklin Thomas, then president of the Ford Foundation, a group of influential Afrikaners agreed to meet with a delegation of ANC leaders. The intent was to build bridges between two groups needing to find a way forward together. Beginnings can be treacherous, however, and this was no exception. At the first encounter, one of the ANC leaders leaped to his feet on sighting the chairman of the influential and secretive Afrikaners and shouted, “I’ll shoot you, Broederbonder” (Sampson, 2000, p. 357).

What happened next was a remarkable example of the internal discipline required to welcome the emergent aspects of group life. One of the other ANC leaders, Mac Maharaj, did not refute his colleague but asked instead that there be consideration of the roots of his colleague’s anger. What transpired was an emotionally meaningful exchange. The conference ended with the two men who met in confrontation embracing each other. Subsequently, a long private dinner was arranged between the Afrikaner chairman and another member of the ANC delegation, resulting in even further normalization of relationships.

The second example took place in Pecos, New Mexico. Lauren Artress, founder and creative director of a nonprofit group, Veriditas, convened a program called Theater of Enlightenment. The heart of the program was a labyrinth walk, which involved a local monastery and the larger community of Pecos. In the midst of the proceedings, unknown to anyone in the group, a man walked directly into the labyrinth and fell to his knees weeping and sobbing.

Artress intuitively understood that intervening too soon was inconsistent with the intent to promote the healing, meditative powers of the labyrinth. She grasped the connection between a leader’s role of maintaining personal restraint and group transformation. “I think that’s part of the issue about the magic and the mystery of the group—it is that you have to be really secure in yourself, to let whatever’s going to live out, live out. And I call it holding the space, but you’re holding your inner space too” (Briskin et al., 2009, p. 58).

At first the group from the monastic order just let the man be, but after a time they came toward him and began a ritual healing called “laying on of hands.” For over forty-five minutes they held him in this way, until some measure of his pain subsided and he was able to cope again.

Artress later learned that the man had had a dream that he should come to this church without any prior knowledge of her program’s existence. Those in the monastic order came to understand the metaphoric power of the “stranger” who came into their midst, reminding them of their own vulnerability and the deep searing pain of their larger community. Out of apparent chaos came a new order.

Stance 6: Trust in the Transcendent

Critical to all the other stances, trust in the transcendent demonstrates a respect for that which animates human agency, arouses our appreciation for nature and beauty, and reminds us of the spiritual dimension in all our activities. When we look out upon the world with awe and wonder, we are better able to see constructive possibilities rather than simply constricting limits. When inspiration might easily be relegated to the side in the midst of pitched political battles and declining resources, the transcendent element is necessary to articulate the larger purposes and moral nature of our efforts.

Too often this aspirational quality has been focused on the charismatic persona of the leader rather than the vitality of the group itself. Peter Senge, director of the Center for Organizational Learning, points out that the world is filled with stories of extraordinary individuals who exercised wisdom. Yet what is compelling about these stories is what emerged collectively. “Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were not wise leaders just because of what they said but also because of the coordinated and consequential actions they helped inspire among millions” (Briskin et al., 2009, p. 58).

The stances of collective wisdom constitute a faith that we can recreate ourselves through dialogue, one that encourages critical thought while simultaneously being nourished by love, humility, and hope. It is a faith sorely tested. However, as Senge suggested, the faith in the group itself being the vehicle of transformation is a vastly underrated element in our current dialogue about leadership. We too rarely admit that our efforts for transformation are dependent on the consciousness of the group itself, not the skills, talents, and aspirations of the leader.

A powerful historical tale illustrates the nature of this dependent relationship. In 1935, Howard Thurman, the renowned African American theologian, was able to arrange a personal meeting with Mahatma Gandhi in India. It was more than a decade before India would gain independence from Britain and multiple decades before segregation in the United States would be systematically challenged. Gandhi was enthralled with what Thurman could tell him about the United States and racial relations but was insistent that he could not come to the United States until India had won its struggle with Britain. Thurman then asked Gandhi why they had failed to win their freedom from the British. As best as he could recall Gandhi’s answer, Thurman (1979) wrote:

The effectiveness of a creative ethical ideal such as nonviolence, ahimsa, or no killing depends upon the degree to which the masses of the people are able to embrace such a notion and have it become a working part of their total experience. It cannot be the unique property or experience of the leaders; it has to be rooted in the mass assent and creative push. The result is that when we first began our movement, it failed, and it will continue to fail until it is embraced by the masses of the people. I felt that they could not sustain this ethical ideal long enough for it to be effective because they did not have enough vitality. (pp. 132–133)

Gandhi’s words particularly struck Thurman in their association of ethics and morality with physical vitality. The transcendent element of our purpose together on earth becomes the stored energy that, when released, galvanizes collective action. Current research on motivation confirms that along with a sense of autonomy and mastery, the sense of contribution to a greater purpose constitutes a critical variable of intrinsic motivation. We are individually vitalized and collectively galvanized when we can see and contribute to a transcendent purpose.

In 1944, with Gandhi’s words still echoing in his ear, Thurman began the first integrated, intercultural, and interfaith congregation in the United States. A few years later, he became the first African American to become the dean of chapel at a majority-white institution, Boston University. It was there that he met and became the lifelong mentor to the son of a former colleague at Morehouse College. This young man’s name was Martin Luther King Jr.

On the Nature of Transformation

The two words making up the word transformation are trans and forma. Trans, from Latin, means literally “to cross” or “go beyond” and forma indicates a form, shape, or mold, possibly derived from the Greek word morphe, indicating an outward appearance. For our purposes, transformational leadership indicates a person or persons crossing over into a new way of grasping collective action, including their own role in catalyzing sound judgment and harvesting the wisdom of groups.

Without the collective wisdom stances of deep listening, suspension of certainty, seeking diverse perspectives, group discernment, welcoming all that is arising, and trust in the transcendent, we are less likely to render new images of a positive future, less willing to experiment, and less likely to learn from our actions. Only in action, with appropriate reflection, can we find out if the change is superficial or deep. If not, we risk arguing about what is best in theory or simply react badly to the forced choices accelerating toward us. Alternatively, collective wisdom suggests a knowing that is already within us that can be cultivated with others and allowed to take on new forms. Each of us can choose to be a catalyst for this kind of change.

Howard Zinn (2007), who wrote of a “people’s history,” summarized beautifully this way of attending to the world, open to all of us, a perspective that allows us to see ourselves collectively, but simultaneously with individual agency:

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. (p. 270)