How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom and Power
How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom and Power

Author: Alexander N. Christakis

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2006-02-01

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1607526921

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We have all experienced the benefits of dialogue when we openly and thoughtfully confront issues. We have also experienced the frustration of interminable discussion that does not lead to progress. Co-Laboratories of Democracy enable large, diverse groups to dialogue and generate positive results. Many group processes engender enthusiasm and good feeling as people share their concerns and hopes with each other. Co-Laboratories go beyond this initial euphoria to: Discover root causes; Adopt consensual action plans; Develop teams dedicated to implementing those plans; and Generate lasting bonds of respect, trust, and cooperation.Co-Laboratories achieve these results by respecting the autonomy of all participants, and utilizing an array of consensus tools including discipline, technology and graphics that allow the stakeholders to control the discussion. These are explained in depth in a book authored by Alexander N. Christakis with Kenneth C. Bausch: Co-Laboratories of Democracy: How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom to Create the Future (Information Age, 2006).Co-Laboratories are a refinement of Interactive Management, a decision and design methodology developed over the past 30 years to deal with very complex situations involving diverse stakeholders. It has been successfully employed all over the world in situations of uncertainty and conflict. On Cyprus, for example, it has been used to bridge the divide between the Turkish and Greek factions on the island. It is currently being employed on that island to help Palestinian authorities organize their government.Co-Laboratories in one day can draw together a diverse group of people on an issue, elicit authentic feelings and respectful listening, generate agreed upon language, and identify leverage points for effective action. Participants will be able to generate a consensual action plan. Co-Laboratories generate real respect, understanding, and cooperation among participants and do it rapidly.

The Power of Collective Wisdom
The Power of Collective Wisdom

Author: Alan Briskin

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2009-10-05

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1605095753

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“An exceptional work challenging leaders to question their assumptions about how to achieve organizational excellence . . . a new narrative for leading.” —Carol Pearson, author of The Hero Within If we are to disentangle the extraordinary challenges that we face today in organizations, communities, and nations we must transcend our divisions and develop solutions together. But what enables us to collectively make wise choices and sound judgments instead of splintering apart? When human beings gather together, a depth of awareness and insight, a transcendent knowing, becomes available. Based on nine years of research The Power of Collective Wisdom shows how we can tap into the extraordinary cocreative potential that exists in every group. Collective wisdom is elusive and unpredictable—it can’t be willed into being, but the authors describe six commitments people can adopt that will increase the likelihood of its appearing. Stories and historical examples throughout serve to illuminate and illustrate how collective wisdom has emerged in a range of settings and through the lives and traditions of varied cultures. Equally important, the authors describe how to recognize the pitfalls of polarization or false agreement, either of which can lead to collective folly—a phenomenon with which recent history has made us all too familiar. And they offer a set of practices to help readers maintain the key lessons of the book. The Power of Collective Wisdom is a foundational book for an emerging field of study and practice relevant to everyone seeking more effective and satisfying ways of working with others. “This book takes knowledge about groups and elevates it to a field and a movement.” —Peter Block, author of Community and Stewardship

From Polarisation to Multispecies Relationships
From Polarisation to Multispecies Relationships

Author: Janet J. McIntyre-Mills

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-08-05

Total Pages: 800

ISBN-13: 9813368845

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This book explores the concept of multi-species relationships and suggests critical systemic pathways to protect shared habitats. This book discusses how the eradication of species as a result of rapid urbanisation places humanity at risk. This book demonstrates how narrow anthropocentrism has focused on the rights of human beings at the expense of other species and the environment. This book explores a priori norms and a posteriori measures and indicators to include and protect multiple species. This book aims to strengthen institutional capacity and powers to address and extend the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda by drawing on local wisdom but also the need to implement laws to prevent ecocide. This book highlights that our fragile interdependence requires a recognition of our hybridity and interconnectedness within the web of life and suggests ways to reframe policy within and beyond the nation state to support living systems of which we are a strand.

Balancing Individualism and Collectivism
Balancing Individualism and Collectivism

Author: Janet McIntyre-Mills

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-10-03

Total Pages: 491

ISBN-13: 3319580140

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This book addresses the social and environmental justice challenge to live sustainably and well. It considers the consequences of our social, economic and environmental policy and governance decisions for this generation and the next. The book tests out ways to improve representation, accountability and re-generation. It addresses the need to take into account the ethical implications of policy and governance decisions in the short, medium and long term based on testing out the implications for self, other and the environment. This book recognizes the negative impact that humans have had on the Earth’s ecosystem and recommends a less anthropocentric way of looking at policies and governance. The chapters discuss the geologic impact that people have had on the globe, both positive and negative, and brings awareness to the anthropocentric interventions that have influenced life on Earth during the Holocene era. Based on these observations, the authors discuss original ideas and critical reviews on ways to govern those who interpret the world in terms of human values and experience, and to conduct an egalitarian lifestyle. These ideas address the growing rise in the size of the ecological footprints of some at the expense of the majority, the growth in unsustainable food choices and of displaced people, and the need for a new sense of relationship with nature and other animals, among other issues. The chapters included in Balancing Individualism and Collectivism: Social and Environmental Justice encourage readers to challenge the sustainability agenda of the anthropocentric life. Proposed solutions to these unsustainable actions include structuralized interventions and volunteerism through encouragement and education, with a focus on protecting current and future generations of life through new governmental etiquette and human cognizance.

The Talking Point
The Talking Point

Author: Thomas R. Flanagan

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2021-12-01

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1648026729

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The Talking Point is all about how people learn within groups. People can be much smarter than crowds if you measure “smart” as decision-making speed. Crowds can be much wiser than individuals if you measure wisdom by depth of understanding. It is possible to understand a great deal of information yet (or maybe because of this) you can also be slow to make decisions. If rushed, crowds will make poor decisions in spite of their wisdom. So... to get good group decisions on a time scale that will keep pace with policy development needs and social necessities, groups have to be supported so that their decision-making process can be accelerated. Much has been said and written about this problem over the years. It is dangerous to have the power of groups without the wisdom of groups, and it is tragic to have the wisdom of groups without the power of groups. The Talking Point presents a meeting point for the wisdom and power of groups through the use of Structured Dialogic Design. With hopeful intentions, as a culture we have poisoned the well just when we need it most. We have touted design charettes and stakeholder processes as engagement vehicles and then ignored, marginalized or corrupted the very input that we swore to hold as sacred. This has created a myth that large scale collaboration is not possible, and the myth has led to considerable disillusionment among would-be participants and could-be sponsors. Structured Dialogic Design seeks to bust the myth about our limited capabilities to sustain boundary spanning collaboration. To bust this myth, Structured Dialogic Design needs to usher in a new wave of collaborative planning. Scholars have identified the Structured Dialogic Design methodology as the cutting edge of “third phase” science - where the reality of a situation embraces interactions between objective findings and subjective intentions. The Talking Point provides a window for observing how Structured Dialogic Design has been put into practice and paints a panorama of the issues that confront complex social system design. This book is itself a bridge between scholarship and practice, written to be accessible yet anchored to major themes in cognitive psychology, information systems, social systems, and models of group learning. The book is an invitation for transformational leaders and those who support transformational leaders to pick up a new tool in the essential quest to put our nation and our world back on track toward sustainable futures. The Talking Point is a fresh source of water in a world that is thirsty for new ways of solving complex problems.

Rockefeller
Rockefeller

Author: Jacob Nordangård

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2024-04-02

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 151078022X

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Why would the first family of oil so ardently support environmental climate research and activism? Join author and researcher Jacob Nordangård as he uncovers the whole sordid truth. The Rockefeller family is one of the richest in the world. Yet, why would the family that made the world dependent on oil fund environmental and climate research since the 1950s, help shape climate policy measures since the 1980s, and supported climate activism since the 1990s? Rockefeller: Controlling the Game is the thrilling and paradoxical story of one of the world's most influential global players. Through its top position in American business, close contacts with the White House, and with their immense financial power as one of the world's leading private research funders, the Rockefellers have been able to anchor the climate issue both scientifically and politically. Yet what is the reasoning behind doing so? Author and researcher Jacob Nordangård follows the family from the founding of Standard Oil and the Rockefeller Foundation, up through the aftermath of the Paris Agreement, with the declaration of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in January 2016, to the present day. Nordangård's in-depth research includes the large quantities of new material recently made available on the Internet, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation's own annual reports. Nordangård's main focus is the Rockefeller family's involvement in climate research and politics, but the actions and motives of some of their allies are also explored, as well as the family's influence on the development of modern medicine, family planning, agriculture, art, architecture, behavioral science, information technology, and politics. The Rockefeller family's utopian dream of a perfect world will have serious consequences for the survival of the human species and life as we know it. The Rockefeller Foundation's stated mission to "promote the well-being of humanity throughout the world" has a dark flipside, as, Nordangård will prove, the Rockefeller family's long-standing battle against climate change contains elements of sophisticated propaganda techniques, futurism, and New Age philosophy, aiming at a complete transformation of the whole earth system, including economy, ecology, culture, and even humanity itself.

Rebel Ideas
Rebel Ideas

Author: Matthew Syed

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1250769906

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Ideas are everywhere, but those with the greatest problem-solving, business-transforming, and life-changing potential are often hard to identify. Even when we recognize good ideas, applying them to everyday obstacles—whether in the workplace, our homes, or our civic institutions—can seem insurmountable. According to Matthew Syed, it doesn't have to be this way. In Rebel Ideas, Syed argues that our brainpower as individuals isn't enough. To tackle problems from climate change to economic decline, we'll need to employ the power of "cognitive diversity." Drawing on psychology, genetics, and beyond, Syed uses real-world scenarios including the failings of the CIA before 9/11 and a communication disaster at the peak of Mount Everest to introduce us to the true power of thinking differently. Rebel Ideas will strengthen any kind of team, while including advice on how, as individuals, we can embrace the potential of an "outsider mind-set" as our greatest asset. Matthew Syed is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Black Box Thinking, Bounce, and The Greatest. He writes an award-winning newspaper column in The Times and is the host of the hugely successful BBC podcast Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong Guy.

Design Strategy
Design Strategy

Author: Nancy C. Roberts

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2023-11-14

Total Pages: 523

ISBN-13: 0262546817

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A new approach to addressing the contemporary world’s most difficult challenges, such as climate change and poverty. Conflicts over “the problem” and “the solution” plague the modern world and land problem solvers in what has been called “wicked problem territory”—a social space with high levels of conflict over problems and solutions. In Design Strategy, Nancy C. Roberts proposes design as a strategy of problem solving to close the gap between an existing state and a desired state. Utilizing this approach, designers and change agents are better able to minimize self-defeating conflicts over problems and solutions, break the logjam of opposition, and avoid the traps that lock problem solvers into a never-ending cycle of conflict. Design as a field continues to grow and evolve, but Design Strategy focuses on three levels of design where “wicked problems” tend to lurk—strategic design (of private and public organizations), systemic design (of networked and overlapping economic, technical, political, and social subsystems), and regenerative design (of life-giving realignment between humanity and nature). Within this framework, Roberts presents refreshingly interdisciplinary case studies that integrate theory and practice across diverse fields to guide professionals in any domain—from business and nonprofit organizations to educational and healthcare systems—and finally offers hope that humanity can tackle the existential challenges we face in the twenty-first century.

New Racism
New Racism

Author: Norma Romm

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-07-08

Total Pages: 506

ISBN-13: 9048187281

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This book develops a debate around responsible social inquiry into new racism. A variety of ways of researching new forms of racism (for example, aversive, modern, cultural, purportedly color-blind, and new racism) are addressed. Experiments that have been undertaken to inquire into group identity and people’s implicit bias in relation to those perceived as "other" are critically explored and their potential consequences reconsidered. The book also critically explores survey research, which, it is argued, can serve to reinforce the notion of the existence of ethnoracial groups with defined boundaries that inhere in social life. The book considers interviewing (including focus group interviewing) and case study research (including participant observation/ethnography) in terms of possibilities for moving beyond new forms of racism. Action research (defined by the understanding of an inextricable link between knowing and acting) is examined in-depth in terms of the hopes to "make a difference" at the moment of inquiry. Types of retroductive logic that are used to examine underlying structures that arguably unduly constrain people’s life chances and render human relationships inhumane are also explored. The book draws together the different arguments; and it proposes ways in which the design of research into new racism can better approached as well as ways in which dialogue around processes of inquiry and the products thereof can be better fostered. Suggestions for nurturing humane social relationships that provide for transcultural meaning-making are threaded through the text.

Principles of Knowledge Management
Principles of Knowledge Management

Author: Eliezer Geisler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-03-26

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 1317415167

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This text provides a comprehensive introduction to the new field of knowledge management. It approaches the subject from a management rather than a highly technical point of view, and provides students with a state-of-the-art survey of KM and its implementation in diverse organizations. The text covers the nature of knowledge (tacit and explicit), the origins and units of organizational knowledge, and the evolution of knowledge management in contemporary society. It explores the implementation and utilization of knowledge management systems, and how to measure their impact, outputs, and benefits. The book includes a variety of original case studies that illustrate specific situations in which the absence or existence of knowledge management systems has been crucial to the organization's actions. Charts and figures throughout help clarify more complex phenomena and classifications, and each chapter includes review questions and a comprehensive index.