The Integration of Ideas and Energy

I've been a cooperative process consultant since 1987. Early in my career it became apparent to me that in the community context you need to be able to work with both thoughts and emotions. Neither alone is sufficient to create and sustain healthy group dynamics.

Ever since that insight I've been wrestling with how best to integrate these two essential ingredients into a plenary cake mix that will reliably produce something both palatable and nutritious. Let me describe the progression:

1. Stonewalling

While there remain a lot of intentional communities who are not resolved about the need to work explicitly with energy, I'm happy to report that their number is dwindling. Mainly because the rational-only approach simply doesn't work. It polarizes half the group and leads to brittle decisions. I think the only thing that sustains this antediluvian idea is paralysis about how to work effectively with energy. It calls for a level of personal awareness and a communication skill set that are typically not screened for in membership, and the way forward can be bumpy. 

In fairness to groups in this muddle, the skills needed to work effectively with thoughts are completely different from the skills needed to work effectively with energy, and it can be a challenge finding or developing people who are ambidextrous.

2. Separate But Equal

More subtle is what I style the Plessy v Ferguson approach where the group offers both business meetings (for the product oriented) and heart circles (for the relationship oriented)—thereby officially acknowledging the need for energy work. While there is a tendency to style these two separate offerings as equally valuable (whence my reference to the 1896 Supreme Court ruling), in fact, they rarely are treated that way, and the integration of the two is left largely to the imagination. (The people needing exposure to the energetic information often don't attend those sessions, and the product of the heart circles does not inform the business meetings. Stalemate.)

Just as the 1954 Brown v The Board of Education Supreme Court ruling exposed the fallacy of Plessy v Ferguson, I'm here to tell you the money is in figuring out how to integrate these two precious elements into all plenaries, where the one complements the other.

3. An Issue's Journey 

That inspired me to develop the concept of An Issue's Journey, a sequence that could serve as a blueprint for productively working through a generic issue from start to finish. This was my initial attempt, back in the late '90s:

Step 1: Presentation of the Issue (What are we talking about? What are trying to accomplish on this topic?)

Step 2: Questions (Did everyone understand the Presentation? Let's make sure everyone is on the same bus.)

Step 3: Discussion (What does a good response to this issue need to taken into account?)

Step 4: Proposal Generating (What responses best balance the factors identified in the previous step?)

Step 5: Decision (Are we satisfied that what we've come up with is good enough?)

Step 6: Implementation (Who will do what, by when, and with what budget?)

While this articulation did a decent job of explaining why you should never start with proposals, it didn't get at the energy/ideation dichotomy very well. Gradually it occurred to me that there needed to be an explicit invitation to welcome strong energy if that was in the room (it isn't always, but when it is there needed to be a place to open it up and hold it). My thought (circa 2014) was to include it in Step 3, suggesting that if anyone wanted an opportunity to make a full-throated pitch for why a factor mattered to them, they would be given 1-2 minutes on the soap box to do so.

This didn't quite answer the need, so I kept tinkering… which lead a new-improved model that I trotted out a couple years later.

4. An Issue's Journey 2.0

Step 1: Presentation of the Issue (What are we talking about? What are trying to accomplish on this topic?)

Step 2: Questions (Did everyone understand the Presentation? Let's make sure everyone is on the same bus.)

Step 2a: Clearing the Air (Are there unresolved tensions in relation to this issue? If so, let's deal with them here.)

Step 3: Identifying Factors (What does a good response to this issue need to taken into account? What common values do we need to keep in mind? This is an expansive phase, casting the net.) 

Step 4: Proposal Generating (What responses best balance the factors identified in the previous step? This is a contractive phase—advocacy is over; now we're looking for bridging.)

Step 5: Decision (Are we satisfied that what we've come up with is good enough?)

Step 6: Implementation (Who will do what, by when, and with what budget?)

I added 2a (instead of renumbering 1-7) because this step isn't always needed—though if it is, then it needs to happen early. The three key steps in this sequence are 2a, 3, and 4. Each requires a different container and quality of participation, and they need to be undertaken in this order.

This was closer to what I wanted, but I found the level of engagement in Clearing the Air to be uneven. Some spoke from the heart while others treated it as a platform for analysis or simply as a way to insert an early pitch for their preferred solution and it was clunky to manage, which brought me to my latest incarnation, that I test drove this past summer…

5. An Issue's Journey 3.0

Step 1: Presentation of the Issue (What are we talking about? What are trying to accomplish on this topic?)

Step 2: Questions (Did everyone understand the Presentation? Let's make sure everyone is on the same bus.)

Step 3: Laying Out the Field (Is there anything you want the group to know about how this issue touches you? We are looking for statements from the heart. Everyone gets one chance at the mic. We are not looking for dialog, judgments, or proposed solutions at this stage. If unresolved tensions surface, we'll deal with them as we go.) 

Step 4: Identifying Factors (What does a good response to this issue need to taken into account? What common values are in play?) 

Step 5: Proposal Generating (What responses best balance the factors identified in the previous step?)

Step 6: Decision (Are we satisfied that what we've come up with is good enough?)

Step 7: Implementation (Who will do what, by when, and with what budget?)

My early experiments with this reconfiguration have been encouraging. The sharing manifested in Laying Out the Field has included strong feelings and also tenderness that has previously not been widely disclosed, and has helped to establish a nuanced understanding of what matters to people before we get into problem solving. To be fair, people still try to sneak in ideas about solutions, which I have to gently yet firmly set aside, but there's a learning curve with any new process and I try to breathe through it.

While it may not be heaven, I reckon I'm getting closer all the time. 

Tender Chicken

I got involved with intentional community in 1974, when I joined with three others to start Sandhill Farm. Because I've found a lifestyle that has worked for me—providing just the right balance of stimulation, support, and authenticity—I've stayed.

Moving beyond personal support, I see my life in community also as a platform for social change work. It's about incorporating one's values into everyday life, and about control of one's time—having sufficient flexibility and support to be able to concentrate my attention on what's happening (to me and around me), so that I can learn, and then share what I'm learning.

One of the most important lessons for me has been the need to integrate one's thinking with one's feelings—about paying attention to both the head and the belly, honoring for the insights and compensating for the blindness of each. At its best, community is a nutrient rich environment, perfect for fostering the development of this special kind of indigo hybrid, replete with its promise of understanding and compassion—two fruits for which there is rarely a surplus.

As a process consultant, I teach that a good facilitator must be able to work both with Content and with Energy. While this entails completely different skill sets, both are important and need attention. Taking this further, I believe that World Peace will depend on our species learning better how to integrate these two primal energies: thought and emotion. They represent different ways of receiving information, different ways of knowing information, and different ways of sharing information. I am convinced that working successfully with conflict means learning how to work in both realms—often simultaneously and with maximal discernment and minimal judgment. While I won't pretend this is easy, it can be done.

• • •

In reflecting both on how important this challenge of integration is, and how hard it is to accomplish, I want to relate the story of a recent check-in (or chicken, as we call them at Sandhill, per my previous blog) that I had with two other long-term communitarians—both of whom have more than a dozen years of community living under their belt and believe strongly in the ideal of community as a positive force in the world.

I tell this story with sadness, and no small amount of humility, as it highlights just how far we have yet to go. I'll call these communards Dale and Terry.

Dale's Story
When Dale and I first got together, I asked how things were going at home. I'd heard that they had recently lost a member to a drug overddose that was considered a suicide. Dale reported that it wasn't as bad as it might have been because the woman who had ended her life had been rather reclusive and a lot of people didn't know her well.

I told Dale that I had heard that:
o The suicide had occurred shortly after a difficult community meeting during which the woman's behavior had been labeled addictive and the community was discussing what, if anything, to do about it.
o There was neither agreement about the diagnosis nor about the best course of action.
o The woman was aware of the meeting and was upset by it.

When Dale agreed that that was how it went down, I wondered if there weren't serious feelings that arose from that sequence. Dale admitted that some members did have strong reactions. When I aked if the community was talking about it, Dale snapped back: "Not everyone thinks that we have to have a meeting about everything. We do things differently at my community."

Well, it didn't take a Ouija Board to figure out that I was being disinvited to ask more, and I let it go. Inside however, I was wondering how you could possibly not talk about it as a group. It's been my experience that pain like this does not go away on its own—especially when interlarded with guilt and anger. Rather, it festers and degrades trust and good will. When not dealt with openly, this kind of thing can become anaerobic and malignant. Toughing it out, in my experience, essentially translates into not facing the tough stuff out in the open. I'm worried about communities that don't have a way to grieve together.

Leaving the story of the suicide, Dale went on to share news of another member who had recently faced a near-death medical emergency, only this person survived. This second trauma had shaken Dale up more than the suicide because of a closer personal connection. When Dale finished, I turned to Terry, who had joined us while Dale's check-in was in progress.

Terry's Story
Earlier that day, I had overheard Terry describing to a friend the challenges of parenting two young children. In particular, Terry was alert to the need for children to be able to develop their capacity to identify and voice their feelings, especially when the kids are young and they don't yet have sufficient vocabulary and are just learning the art of self-reflection. As a parent emeritus, I found Terry's overview sensitive and insightful. I was impressed.

Imagine my surpirse when Terry stated—after listening politely while Dale described a gut-wrenching emotional roller coaster: "I'd rather just get down to business so we can get this over with. I have a lot to do." As a cooperator, I found Terry's choice insensitive and callous. Again I was impressed, though this time unfavorably.

How, I wondered, could someone see so well what children needed, yet fail to see that they needed it as well?

While I'll freely admit that neither of these two communitarians had ever been accused of being poster children for heart circles, this pair of tender, yet awkward chickens touched me as a profound example of how far we must still travel to find the integration I beieve to be so essential to waging peace. There's still a lot of pain out there.