Collective Decision-Making
Divided decision-making underlies the disrupted personal relationships, fragmented communities, atomized specializations, and compartmentalised organizations which have become standard in Western society. A potential antidote, a united holistic focus, is rejected as impractical. Yet to resolve any serious issue in any community for the long-term, the collective voices of individuals, community, experts and organisations working towards a shared goal, are required for a harmonious response to the disrupted social and natural environments of our time.
At both global and local scales, major changes in the world
Case studies of the different knowledge cultures involved in Western decision-making provided details of the ways decisions are made about the future. Individuals reflect on their own lived experience. Communities provide first-hand knowledge of the effects of change. Specialized knowledge is objective and reliable, within single frameworks. Organizational knowledge offers the political and administrative systems that can ensure the desired change. Holistic knowledge illuminates the essence or core purpose. Yet all of these are needed for mutual decisions towards a healthy, just and sustainable future (Brown 2006).
Each knowledge culture was found to reject the contributions of the others. Individual knowledge is dismissed as anecdote, community knowledge as gossip, specialist knowledge as jargon, organisational knowledge as plotting, and holistic knowledge as airy-fairy. Yet all five knowledge cultures have to learn to accept each other's contribution if there is to be a constructive synthesis. A sustainable synthesis calls for commitment to respecting their individual contributions while strengthening their connections. This represents a fundamental change in the way we think.
Tools found to assist in this transformational change include David Bohm's Rules of Dialogue, namely, maintain open communication, suspend judgment, separate inquiry and advocacy, clarify assumptions, listen to yourself, and remain open to the unexpected Bohm 1996). Concerted change requires all the knowledge cultures to join in the stages of open learning, as described by David Kolb: developing principles, defining parameters, designing for potential and doing and reviewing the new practice (Keen, Brown, and Dyball 2005).
These suggested strategies for collective thinking were tested in three sites: an isolated desert town wanting a green town park, a tightly-packed beach-side suburb needing to control oceans of tourist waste, and an Indigenous community wishing to become self-supporting. Three years later, all had achieved their goals and established pathways for collective thinking.
Collective decision-making towards a humane sustainable future requires the following:
1. Commitment to synthesis: Individuals, community, specialists, and organisations reach a shared understanding on .
2. Collective learning: The knowledge cultures learn from one another, following the stages of Kolb's open learning cycle, .
3. Future-direction.: All parties work towards a shared ideal state.
4. Dialogue: All participants use Bohms rules of dialogue in all communication.
Divided decision making is a major factor behind the disrupted personal relationships, fragmented communities, atomized specializations, and compartmentalized organizations that have become standard in Western society. In addition there is a tendency to belittle the power of the creative use of the imagination. Yet to resolve any serious issue in any community for the long term, the collective voices of individuals, the community, experts, organizations and creative thinkers are required. However, each of these contributions is issued from a distinct knowledge culture with its own preferred form of evidence, language and outcomes. While all are required for effective decisions, each knowledge culture is likely to reject the contributions of the others. To work constructively together, the set of knowledge cultures need to accept the legitimacy of each other's contribution. Tools have been developed to assist in what is a transformational change. For example, an extensive series of workshops have demonstrated that when the knowledge cultures meet in an environment of collective learning, the outcome is a synergistic solution — one that is greater than anyone could achieve alone — followed by collaborative action.
Civic Intelligence (1), Political Settings (7), Indicators (29), Economic Conversion (41), Strengthening International Law (42), Open Action and Research Network (45), Meaningful Maps (47), Conversational Support Across Boundaries (50), Grassroots Public Policy Development (78), Multi-Party Negotiation for Conflict Resolution (79), Voices of the Unheard (83), Civic Capabilties (85), Document Centered Discussion (92), Self-Designed Development (106)
Introductory photo by Paul Williams. Currently on loan.