There Are No Simple Solutions to Complexity

October 8, 2017Kathy Jourdain Leave a comment

We want it to be simple. We groan under the weight of the increasing complexity we are experiencing – at work, in life, in our communities and in political environments. We bemoan the fact there are no silver bullets even while we continue to search for them.

Not only do silver bullets or simple solutions to complex issues not exist, but when we try to apply any we have come up with, they do not work. We end up in a situation where fixes fail or backfire loops emerge. Fixes that fail is when the solution we apply backfires and the problem or issue still exists either in its original form or worse. Unintended consequences spin off increasing the complexity of the circumstances we have been attempting to address.

Examples of unintended consequences abound but one example from our Worldview Intelligence work is with a health care client we work with in the US. The client piloted a new approach to patient care in six of its more than two hundred clinics across three states. Including one of these clinics in the pilot put its relationship with two other nearby clinics in jeopardy – a relationship they had invested years in building to create a common patient experience – because the one clinic was now operating differently.

So, if simple solutions do not exist, how do we find our way forward? One way is to illuminate the complexity, the relationships and the underlying patterns. Working with a Nova Scotia client recently that has a strong reputation Nationally and Internationally for the work they do, where they work in numerous coalitions and collaborative relationships to accomplish their mandate, they were invited to map their system and relationships.

Mapping shows the messiness and the complexity of the system. It illuminates what people try to hold in their heads, resulting in less stress and greater capacity to address issues and plan.

The map showed the dynamic complexity of their work. A surprising outcome to them was that in making the complexity visible, it reduced the sense of overwhelm and stress many of the staff felt, untangling the complexity and offering clear ways forward in their work planning, including identifying meetings, who needs to be involved in which conversations to which degree.

Worldview Intelligence explorations do not necessarily reduce the complexity, but by illuminating it, shows ways to address it and then change the outcomes.

Perfectly Broken and Ready to Heal – Robin Youngson

October 15, 2016October 15, 2016Kathy Jourdain 2 Comments

“Every time I demonized those I wanted to influence, I met resistance.” This is the first point Robin Youngson shares in his TEDxTauranga talk: Perfectly Broken and Ready to Heal. “More people started to listen when I dropped judgment.”

Youngson is a physician and senior medical leader, whose journey to transform the patient experience of health care was sparked by a horrific accident his daughter was in that caused her to be in the hospital, immobilized, looking only at the ceiling, for three months. So little stimulation. So little compassion. So little humanizing of a patient.

Meredith and Robin Youngson

It began a quest for him. A radical commitment. To humanize caring in the hospital system. He and his wife, Meredith created a company called Hearts in Health Care and they struggled to create change. His worldview of his work, of patient care or human care, has shifted and expanded in his journey. His work and quest is resonant with the foundational philosophies of our work with Worldview Intelligence.

He and Meredith learned that logic and evidence does not help. The facts will not likely change someone’s mind because people are vested in their own worldviews. Non persuasion was more effective. “I discovered my greatest power was vulnerability,” he says. “It was through vulnerability that we began to open hearts and minds.”

They also discovered that casting themselves as experts on compassion did not work. They were confronted by a group of nurses who said, “I imagine you are here to teach us about what we have only been doing for about 3o years.” That reminded them, “Every doctor and nurse already has a depth of compassion. Our job was to draw it out; to draw out the wisdom and compassion that already existed in the room.”

They moved from a business model to a generosity model, bringing greater alignment between their views and how they are showing up in the world, and have been humbled by the generosity of the world. As an example, his book Time to Care is being translated into many different languages by volunteers.

Hearts in Health Care Lessons Along the Way – Powerful and resonant with much of the Worldview Intelligence work, philosophies and foundational premises

Finally he says, “We discovered that approaching the issues like a pathology only focused people on the problems where they blamed each other. So now we ask better questions, to help people share the very best stories of healing and connection.”

“All the strategies that didn’t work involve separation. All the ones that did work involve connection. The new world we were trying to build was already in the room.”

Youngson offers, “When we fight against what’s wrong we draw up the battle lines.Our protests, fights and campaigns are counterproductive because they serve only to separate us even more.”

Drawing the analogy between patient care and connection to health care, he says, “If I make a compassionate human connection to my patients it boosts their immune system, reduces their stress and pain. It is as powerful as medical treatment. As a doctor I am sometimes confronted by patients who are broken and have no hope. Compassion calls me to sit with them in their darkest hour. When I dare to hold the sacred space I see them crack open and begin to heal.”

“If we can take this gift of brokenness into our hearts we hear the call of compassion and suffer outselves to become more vulnerable, humble and generous. Everything we need is right here, within us.”

He ends with, “Will you receive this gift? It is perfectly broken.” Well, will you?

Why Asking Someone to Change How They Work May Not Be as Simple as You Think

September 30, 2016September 30, 2016Kathy Jourdain 3 Comments

It happens all the time in work environments. The organization wants or needs to change – the way it works, delivers service, makes its products, is organized. Often this point is missed: change is not just about the mechanics of what is to be changed, it is about the people. People make up and deliver our systems and processes. Most people say they don’t mind change, but they don’t like being changed. Even when it “makes sense”. Because “makes sense” depends on your perspective.

Anais Nin - We don't see things as they are

When we are looking for efficiencies at work, we are often asking someone – or several someones – to change the way they work. To take on new responsibilities or to give up part of your role. It seems to make sense in the grand scheme of things. It is integral to the change working. If we are leading the change or innovation, when we meet resistance we often don’t understand why. What we are asking often seems like a simple request.

conversation-one-on-one The challenge we meet is that many of us identify with our role. It forms part of our identity. We think we are simply asking people to change the way they work when we might actually be challenging the way they see themselves. We might be challenging their very sense of identity. And when we feel our identity is being challenged or threatened, psychological research tells us that we respond as if our very life is being threatened. Instead of being open to change, we dig in our heels and overtly or covertly resist being changed. We become more attached to our role or our identity.

Worldview Intelligence offers personal explorations that help us understand our own worldview, where it comes from, what influences it, what values and beliefs are fundamental to who we are. It illuminates typical responses, ingrained human patterns, of how we respond to challenges, how we filter information in and out, how our sense of identity shapes our responses, how we become entrenched in our point of view when we feel compelled to defend it. When we can bring curiosity to the exploration we become aware of what is important and why and then we can become conscious of the choices we are making. The very exploration opens up the possibility for each of us to expand our own worldview and be more open to possibility.

For those of us who are responsible for leading change or asking our people to change, understanding that simple requests might have deeper implications allows us to think about how we approach another person or whole department, their role, their work and what is needed to bring about the changes that we need or want rather than becoming frustrated or combative which only serves to make us less effective in our leadership.

Worldview Intelligence Offers an Elegant Structure to Support Powerful Dialogue

September 25, 2016Kathy Jourdain 1 Comment

“Those who say they are ‘dialogued out’ are actually tired of no real discourse.” Daniel Yankelovich

How do we have the conversations needed now in a way that honours differences while transforming them into progress on issues that are of fundamental importance in today’s world?

“I’m Right and You’re An Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse” is the riveting title of a book written by James Hoggan with many contributors. As I have been reading it, the contribution our work with Worldview Intelligence is making is becoming increasingly evident. Worldview Intelligence changes the nature of conversations and public discourse, even – or especially – when the stakes are high and views on issues have become polarized, and we are ready to do more of this work.

In Chapter 1: Like Ships in the Night, contributor Daniel Yankelovich talks about the differences between debate, dialogue and advocacy. He says advocacy is a dominant mode of communication in public discourse right now. It is about trying to sell something or persuade someone that your point of view, position or solution is the correct one, maybe even the only one. This can become an imposition of worldviews where the only one that really “counts” is the advocate’s.

An imposition of a worldview is an act of violence. At a minimum it dismisses or overrides another’s experiences and ideas and shuts down the space and opportunity for many contributions. In the worst case it forces another to live under the rules or worldview of the imposer.

The differences between debate and dialogue are illustrated in the following table. I particularly appreciate the statement that those who say they are ‘dialogued out’ are actually tired of no real discourse. Everyone is talking or even yelling and screaming at each other, but nobody is listening. In particular, it is often people who are part of a dominant worldview who are unable or unwilling to imagine there could exist a very different perspective or that someone else’s experience could be fundamentally different than their own. AND that the differing worldview has value and contributions to offer.

Debate	Dialogue
Assumes we have the right answer	Assumes we all have a piece of the puzzle and can craft a solution together
Is combative	Collaborative
Defends assumptions	Reveals assumptions
Criticizes the views of others	Re-examines all positions, including our own
About seeing weakness in other’s positions or views	About searching for strength and value in others’ concerns
Advocates own views, dismisses views and experiences of others	Willingness to listen, pay attention and suspend judgment
Wants others to come to their way of seeing things	Looks for common ground, meets in that place

**Adapted from “Like Ships in the Night”, Chapter 1 with Daniel Yankelovich in I’m Right and You’re An Idiot

On the world stage, we are experiencing a time when differences are being stoked and amplified. It is becoming harder to find the points of connection to learn and imagine something fresh, new and constructive. Especially for deeply entrenched issues like climate change, racism, sexism, sexual orientation discrimination and deeply divided politics. Good dialogue is not only hard to find, it is becoming increasingly an imperative.

International Exchange Students from over 15 countries at IGR University in Rennes in deep Worldview Explorations making fascinating discoveries

Debate is combative. It assumes we have the right answer and in arguing for it we become required to defend our position and our assumptions – even assumptions we may not have been aware we were holding. It is about seeing the weaknesses in other people’s perspectives and criticizing their views, which often becomes criticizing the person.

We come to dialogue from a very different internal posture than how we come to debate. We assume we all have a piece of the puzzle. It becomes important to bring curiosity, set aside judgment and really listen to what another person is trying to express, even beyond the words, to listen from a place of open heart and open spirit. It allows that all experiences and perspectives have validity – our own and others. It searches for the strength and value in all the perspectives, looking for the common ground or points of connection that create the opportunity to advance issues of collective concern. Inviting all the voices creates the possibility for generative space and new solutions.

Yankelovich says dialogue is not an arcane, esoteric or intellectual exercise but is practical and accessible and it is needed when values and frameworks are not shared. The challenge is that there are very few frameworks out there that can offer this exploration of differing perspectives that do not assume a position that one idea or one approach is better or more valid than another.

Worldview Intelligence changes all of that and we have seen it happen time and time again. The framework for exploration is value neutral. It makes no assumptions about the other person or group but takes them as they are. It provides a language and structure to understand where someone else is coming from. It is not built on a fancy, complicated system but rather is an elegantly simple way of entering the exploration. It is not a system that helps people do what they already do but better. It changes the way we enter the conversation, which changes the conversation.

It invites each individual or group to reflect on their own worldview, how it was shaped, how they have come to see and experience the world or a particular issue the way they do. Then it offers the opportunity to share what people are discovering or articulating, sometimes for the first time, in a way that honours each reflection and expands the collective worldview experience in the discussion.

The Worldview Intelligence framework is a structured approach to exploring individual and collective assumptions, beliefs and value systems and it is effective in many different kinds of explorations. The explorations generate new insights, innovative thinking, different conversations and new connections. A deeper understanding of worldview and how worldviews are developed leads to understanding them. Individuals and groups then have a language and a way of growing skill to work with different and multiple worldviews. this is essential to creating a fundamentally different environment for some of our most needed and challenging conversations. It is a 21^st Century leadership skill and it could disarm the toxic state of public discourse.

Origins of the Worldview Intelligence Framework

June 9, 2016Kathy Jourdain Leave a comment

The Worldview Intelligence Framework is rooted in solid academic and philosophical research and rigour thanks to the work and insight of Belgian philosopher and logician Leo Apostel (1925-1995). In his day, Apostel felt the world was becoming increasingly fragmented, particularly in the sciences, and he wanted to create a way to encourage communication across disciplines. He invited many collaborators to meet regularly to develop a framework that would move from fragmentation to integration.

Jerry Nagel came across the work of Apostel while doing research for his PhD which is grounded in worldviews, the Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter and social constructionist theory.

In this video, Jerry shares the background of the framework, the six dimensions and the success we have been having in practical application – a step Apostel did not get to before his death – and some of what we have been seeing in the various explorations.

Engage NS, Worldview Intelligence and Nova Scotia

April 20, 2016Kathy Jourdain Leave a comment

It is quite a sight when you can literally see the wheels in people’s heads spinning as they take in new information and insight. This is exactly what happened Monday morning (April 18, 2016) at the Central Library in Halifax, Nova Scotia as 35 people gathered for a Worldview Intelligence Social Systems exploration in an introductory workshop supported by Engage Nova Scotia. The turnout was fabulous despite a last minute snow date change (from Friday to Monday) indicating the degree of curiosity about this new approach to leadership development, conflict resolution and innovation.

The good people at Engage were intrigued by the idea of Worldview Intelligence since they are working with partners and communities to cultivate engagement and catalyze action so that more Nova Scotians are working together, through differences, to build their future. Worldview Intelligence offers a structured approach that can – and does – shift conversations by illuminating and shifting the usual dynamics at play. These dynamics are often invisible and, when made visible, seem like common sense. The six dimensions in the Worldview framework offer a way to think differently about what is at play.

In just a couple of hours, we introduced the framework, identified five subsystems to explore, engaged that conversation in small groups, heard a little harvest in the room that reflected the conversations and insights gained – that are still percolating as participants imagine more ways to bring the worldview exploration to life in this province.

The conversation was framed up with a few points from the Now or Never Report that reflect current reality in Nova Scotia. Those points were:

As Nova Scotians we hold ourselves back with attitudes of “division, distrust and discouragement.”
We do not, as a province, share broad agreement on the need for economic growth
We have divergent and often conflicting ideas about how best to achieve it
There is division between rural and urban perspectives and a lack of public confidence in private sector leadership of the economy.
While virtually everyone sees the need for population growth and greater wealth generation, most of the practical strategies to achieve these outcomes are controversial.

We cautioned that this does not reflect the totality of current reality but is a good snapshot to begin from. We worked with the idea of Nova Scotia as an interrelated social system. A social system is comprised of entities or groups in definite relationship to each other. Those relationships can be formal and informal and may have no clearly identified point of leadership or contact, unlike an organization. There are enduring patterns of behaviours and relationship within the social system that are both explicit and implicit. And it is a messy mix of multiple realities all co-existing at the same time. Each person and each community of interest brings their own interpretative lens to the reality of the situation.

The subsystem explorations invited were: Government (not including healthcare), Healthcare, Business, Rural and Social Systems. We offered a few questions to guide the discussion and then we were curious about what people were learning about the subsystem they were exploring and what they wanted other subsystems to know.

The discussions were animated and interesting, sometimes focused on the worldviews of the subsystem being explored, sometimes more about expressing individual worldviews about that subsystem. As a side note, it was speculated that if this discussion had been preceded by the individual worldview exploration there would have been an increased discernment about how or through what lens the conversations were engaged.

A few cool and interesting insights:

There are many different interpretations of what it means to be “rural”, although in entering a conversation like this, people often think they are all talking about the same thing. Understanding there are different interpretations opens up and can change the direction of the conversation.
There is no value in pointing blame for something happening in one subsystem on another system, although this is often an automatic reaction. There are ways for the total system to be successful. How do we find them together?
When we talk about healthcare, we are really talking about two systems: one that is focused more on wellness, well-being and the health of community and one that is focused on the medical system itself. So, when we talk about health care, which system are we talking about?
Maybe if we dared to think about government differently, we would find the places of openness and innovation.
The worldview exploration was all about innovation and it was happening in an innovative building.

There are more insights. We did video record the session and will be offering a few videos within the next month. We did intrigue a few people about the Worldview Program being offered in Halifax at the end of May, first of June. And people are definitely musing on the possibilities that the Worldview Intelligence exploration could help people or communities shift from adversarial debates to solution-based conversations, build points of connection among groups and individuals to then explore difference in new ways and help illuminate the hidden patterns and unwritten norms that are impacting our ability to move forward as a Province.

Want to know more? Join us at the end of May.

Be Afraid. But Not For the Reasons You Might Think

March 26, 2016March 26, 2016Kathy Jourdain 6 Comments

Be afraid. Be very afraid. But not for the reasons you might think. We are living in precipitous times. We are in danger of losing our humanity through fear. Fear of what and who we do not know.

I am writing this in the Charles de Gaulle airport as I wait for my flight home to Canada. My partner, Jerry Nagel, and I have been visiting Paris and Rennes in France. Teaching international students at IGR is what brought us here – this year and in the past – for Jerry many years, for me more recently.

Last year we came to France about two months after the Charlie Hebdo attack. We did not see a discernible difference in the city. A year later, four months after the co-ordinated attacks on public places in Paris, we are seeing differences. There are fewer people in the cafés, fewer people walking the streets and more taxis than we could count at every taxi stand we passed. Last year we often had to wait if we were looking for a cab. And, while we were here, the attack in Brussels at the airport and the Metro.

We know some tourists are staying home. We had friends who wanted to come on this trip with us but decided to stay home after the November attacks, understandably, because of a prior experience of being stuck in Mexico after the attack on the Twin Towers in New York back in 2001 when air travel to/from the US was stopped for an unknown and indefinite time. We cannot imagine how much more terrifying it would have been for them to have been here with us in this time. And we know they are not the only ones who are staying home.

Les Deux Magots – a favourite eating and people watching place – not far from the hotel we normally stay at.

We know Parisians are staying home too. A city known for its outdoor culture, its fabulous cafés and its walkability, we have seen fewer Parisians strolling in the streets. The cafés we love to go to are either easy to get in – like Les Deux Magots where we have often had to hover to find a seat in the past – or closed, like Café Conti, a long standing local business.

Eiffel Tower and surrounding Paris neighbourhoods. A very walkable city.

People are staying home – whether in Paris or from abroad – because they are afraid. Afraid of terrorism. Afraid of immigrants and refugees. Afraid of Muslims. Afraid of vague threats that have no substance and lots of rhetoric behind them. Afraid of what they do not know.

This is in direct contrast to the students we were working with in Rennes who came from a dozen or more different countries, among them China, Korea, Vietnam, Ecuador, Congo, Germany, the US, France, Croatia, Slovenia, Columbia and more. The International MBA students have been together since September. The International Exchange students only since January. Jerry and I teach Participatory Leadership practices and Worldview Intelligence. We invite them to meet each other in ways they have not yet done so.

The Worldview exploration offers them a way to see and articulate their own worldview and then to be in conversation with others, to be curious about their worldview. For the students, one of the biggest insights was that across countries and cultures, there were many points of connection. And within countries and cultures there can be vast differences; so much so that you cannot ascribe one worldview to an entire country or culture.

International MBA and Exchange students at IGR University in Rennes, France – exploring worldviews and what gives them strength in a World Cafe.

We brought all the students together in a planned World Café the morning after the Brussels bombing. We asked them, when they look around at all that is happening in the world, what gives them strength? Then we asked them, if they could change one thing in the world, what would it be? And then, given the conversations they’ve been in, given what they have been experiencing and what they know about the world, how do they want to live their lives?

The harvest was inspiring. These students between 20 and 30 years old, want to live a life where they meet their neighbours – near and far, where they learn the stories of other people, where they take care with the assumptions they make about individuals, groups or cultures they do not know, where they continue to travel to expand their worldviews, and make connections in many ways, to better the world and better their own lives.

With the real and perceived threats we are faced with in the world right now, the most dangerous thing we can do is hunker down in fear, isolate ourselves or our thinking in our home bases and imagine all kinds of frightening stories about people we do not know, people who are different than us.

We may be in danger of forgetting our humanity. We forget that people fleeing war torn countries are human beings afraid for their lives and their families, with nowhere to go and no homes for their children to live in right now. They don’t want to be on the move. They have no choice. And they have been dying by the thousands in their attempts to flee that which is untenable. Are there terrorists among them? Maybe. But not likely. Will we condemn whole groups of people to living in no-man’s lands of refugee camps because there may be a terrorist among them? We already know segregating people does not work. The story of the US Japanese internment camps in the second world war is just one example.

And Muslims? We forget about the Crusades and so many other wars and acts of terror carried out in the name of Christian religion. Were/are all Christians the same? No. Why would we brand millions of people based on the actions of a few? Because of unfounded fear.

Think about this for a moment. When we say Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, American, French, German, Indian, African, Australian, Brazilian, Asian, Columbian, Mexican, Canadian (insert some other country/nationality here), what immediately comes to mind? Whatever it is, it is a small slice of the worldview of that country, that religion, that culture. We work with labels because this is what we know but the information labels give us is extremely limited.

The shortest distance between two people is a story. Worldview Intelligence provides a structured approach to surfacing and sharing stories, to expanding our understanding that we are multi-dimensional beings, cultures, countries and religions. We need these explorations now more than ever.

Do not hunker down right now. Do not isolate yourself. Do not be swept away by unsubstantiated rhetoric designed to make you even more fearful. Be wary of your assumptions, especially the ones that take you to fear. Do not brand one country, culture, religion or group with a single news story, a single glimpse into a world you might not know. Be prepared to ask, investigate, explore – even if you are doing it from the relative safety of your own home. For sure, keep your friends and family close and, if you are up to it, travel to as many places as you can to understand it is our diversity that keeps us strong and shows us our humanity. It is only in remembering our humanity and the humanity of others, that we will become safer in the world.

Community of Membertou: a Story of Success and Worldview Expansion

November 13, 2015November 13, 2015Kathy Jourdain 2 Comments

If you find your way to the Mi’kmaw community of Membertou, in Cape Breton, NS you will find a sign that says “Membertou ~ Welcoming the World”, a sentiment fully expressed there now. It wasn’t always that way though. The story of Membertou’s evolution from a community struggling with forced relocation, racism and a Band budget deficit, among other things, to one of tremendous growth and success in a time of recession, is one of worldview shift and expansion that was made possible because the community stayed true to some of the most fundamental principles of their culture while envisioning a different future.

Dan Christmas

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit and visit with Dan Christmas, Senior Advisor, Community of Membertou, to hear this story in his own words. I heard him speak at an Engage Nova Scotia event and recognized elements of Worldview Intelligence in his words. At that event, he said there was a time when Membertou was not welcoming enough and the Band leadership realized this had to change if the community was to stop struggling and seize the opportunities they had been cultivating. The community had to become more open to work with other people, languages and cultures. Intentionally deciding to treat all people with respect, after initially feeling like Membertou was being “invaded” by customers from outside the community, contributed to the Membertou success story.

Backdrop to the Story

The story of Membertou is situated against a backdrop of significant historical markers that include racial undercurrents in the larger community, the forced relocation of the Membertou in the 1920’s, the wrongful imprisonment of a young Donald Marshall, Jr. for a murder he did not commit in 1971, the subsequent Commission and Inquiry begun in 1988 six years after Marshall’s release from prison, a Tri-Partite Forum that resulted from the Inquiry, and a Band dealing with a $1 million deficit on a $4 million dollar budget in the mid 1990s (all of which was federal subsidy at the time). (link to info)

Chief Terrance Paul and a Vision of the Future, Different From the Past

Chief Terrance Paul – Membertou

It took vision and determination to turn the situation around. This was epitomized by Chief Terrance Paul who was then, and has been for the past 31 consecutive years, the elected Chief of Membertou. Recognizing that the future could not be a continuation of the past, he began to think differently.

When he set his sights on Bernd Christmas, the first Mi’kmaw called to the Bar who was then practicing corporate law on Bay Street in Toronto, to come home to Membertou and become the CEO, nobody thought he would come. Why would he leave Bay Street to run an organization with a $4 million budget that had a $1 million deficit and was struggling to meet payroll or social assistance payments? Bernd had grown up on the “outside” because his father had been in the military. Persuaded by Chief Paul’s vision for the future, Bernd came to Membertou, bringing with him a worldview of “anything is possible”.

The First Five Years – Regrouping

In the first five years, the agenda was to increase cash flow, which was done through deep and persistent cuts. This made Bernd unpopular with the community who protested his leadership and wanted him removed, but Chief Paul stood by him and the long-term vision for the future.

Bernd was not operating in isolation, nor could he and be successful. He convinced the Chief and the Band more people were needed to enact a change in the fortunes of the Band. They looked to Mi’kmaw leaders who were living elsewhere and recruited them to come home, creating a critical mass of leadership that supported one another to begin a process of changing attitudes and minds, essentially inviting new perspectives and an expanded worldview. Among this group was Dan Christmas.

Because of the leadership team assembled, the experience they had acquired in their career paths and the current events of the time, Membertou was well versed in its rights as well as its heritage, important elements in being able to make change in their community and to take on policy and political challenges within the community and with the three levels of government. They were able to take a systemic and long-term view rather than reacting over and over again to the level of events happening in any given moment. The questions they engaged had them asking what was causing or contributing to the events, what were the persistent patterns and behaviours, what were the mental models. Although they didn’t have the language of worldview, they were essentially in a worldview exploration.

Gaming – The Beginning of the Turnaround – But Not Without Bumps in the Road

The first challenge that set the stage for so much more of the innovative thinking that has contributed to Membertou’s success was gaming. Initially, Membertou wanted to build a Casino. The Province of Nova Scotia already had a nearby Casino in Sydney and did not want the competition. They offered Membertou and the nearby Esaksoni Band legal Video Lottery Terminals or VLTs to replace “grey” or unlicensed VLTs. While Esaksoni took up the offer immediately, the members of the Membertou community protested against it.

Gaming is an Aboriginal right. The Band leadership decided to ask the community directly about gaming and, in a vote, the idea was 95% rejected. Not to be dissuaded or discourage, this is when the Band asked a Worldview exploration question. They wondered what was in the history of their collective experience that would have led to the rejection of an offer that could generate revenue for the Band. They did not blame or judge the community for its view, rather they brought curiosity to try to understand what happened and why.

This line of inquiry illuminated that, in the past, only a few people had benefited from the “grey” machines. The community had no interest in lining the pockets of a few at the expense of many – and this was not the intention of the Band leadership either. As they reflected on Aboriginal and Treaty Rights as Collective Rights, the leadership knew that everyone should be able to see how the community would benefit from the profits of gaming. They began to think of the whole situation from a different perspective.

This led Membertou to form its own Gaming Commission to pay dividends to the whole community. When they went back for a second vote with this new, visibly articulated approach they achieved a complete turnaround – 98% support. They were putting into practice and living by a principle that was very important to the community – by community for community benefitting community.

Gaming in Membertou started by opening only 25 of the VLT’s allotted to them. They were very intentional about how to open them. They were not put in a bar and there was no liquor. Membertou set up two trailers – smoking and non-smoking – and made plenty of coffee available. They hired and trained people from Membertou to run the gaming. Before long, business was booming, and they had to open the remainder of the VLTs, 90 in total, and gross revenue shot up to $75 million annually from gaming alone.

Staying True to Core Values

Working on behalf of community for the benefit of community is a powerful practice that has influenced Membertou’s approach to several of its business ventures. In 1990, when the Federal Government was offering fishing boats, gear and training in Atlantic Canada, it had nothing to do with collective Treaty Rights and was all about individual communities. Based on principle, Membertou rejected the interim agreements. They wanted to think and act collectively and collaboratively. To develop their fishing industry, they needed to build stronger relationships and work closely with nearby communities, communities with possibly different worldviews or at least aspects of worldview.

Additionally, Membertou actively forged new economic frontiers by incorporating indigenous knowledge-based principles of conservation, sustainability of resources and reverence for the land and the waters and stayed true to these core values in all their dealings and negotiations. It likely made them more powerful as negotiators because they had clarity on their decisions and pathways to the future.

Added to this was, and still is, an innovative spirit and approach and a will to collaborate in many different ways. Membertou, thinking differently and strategically, increased its profile with major private sector companies by launching the Membertou Corporate Office in downtown Halifax. The unprecedented profile this provided assisted in leading to the formation of a number of partnerships with private industry sectors in Engineering, Aerospace & Defence, Catering, Renewal Energy, IT, Quality Management Consulting Services, Insurance, Commercial Fisheries, and Real Estate to name a few.

Cognitive Dissonance

With all this growth and new business strategies, there was just one small problem. Membertou residents were experiencing cognitive dissonance. The “enemy” from outside, from the larger community, was now “invading” Membertou and doing so despite other systemic obstacles. For instance, because the larger community had a specific, long standing view of Membertou as being a dangerous place, taxi cab drivers wouldn’t drop gaming patrons off at their ultimate destination. They would only bring them to the edge of Band territory and drop them off there. But this did not dissuade customers from coming. Obviously the customers did not hold the same worldview of Membertou as the cab drivers.

Membertou Convention Centre

As the growth strategy of Membertou began to take off with greater and greater success, attracting more and more people from “outside”, the cognitive dissonance in the community grew to the point where it could have threatened the success of Membertou. When you are being invaded, literally or figuratively, when your worldview is being challenged, the natural reaction is to shore up the boundaries to shut out real and perceived threats. Not only did Membertou achieve success with gaming, they went on to create a fishery, build a gas bar, a conference center, a hotel, bingo centre, Heritage Park and two strip malls. They hired as many people from the community as they could in all their business endeavours and then they hired non-Natives from outside the community too. Their customers were primarily from outside the community.

Discomfort in the community peaked around 2010. The Band was accused of leaving the community behind to serve non-Native audiences. The community feared loss of their identity and their security. They were told by police that their facilities were being marked for robberies and no satisfactory solution was yet in place to address this concern. They eventually came up with an innovate strategy that you can read about in a post about Enemies to Collaborators.

This necessitated more community conversation, more worldview exploration, which ultimately led to an expansion of worldview. The community needed to shift from seeing the customers as the “enemy” to viewing them as the resource they are, as well as an indicator of the success of Membertou’s strategies. That shift was to “Membertou welcoming the world”. By going back to community, providing the opportunity to be in conversation about the concerns, and being persistent about bringing a more expansive worldview, Dan describes an attitudinal shift that is truly remarkable. “You never hear any remarks anymore about non-Native people in the community. There has been a cultural integration. The community has been transformed from exclusive to inclusive.”

Currently, Membertou is a community of 1400 people, surrounded by a larger community of 115,000 in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It is the fourth largest employer in Cape Breton with 465 full, part-time and seasonal employees, 60% of whom are Mi’kmaw, 40% non Mi’kmaw. Intolerance is not tolerated. Any employee who displays intolerance, Native or Non-Native, will lose their job.

The leadership in Membertou was/is continually reflective about failure, inquiring into the situation not blaming or judging anyone. The turnaround they achieved took place against the economic backdrop of two major industries shutting down and the cod fishery collapsing. Most people would say it couldn’t be done and yet it was.

The result that Membertou was able to create through vision, foresight, determination and resilience is something that can be replicated through an intentional journey using the framework, patterns and practices of Worldview Intelligence and it is fabulous to have a success story to draw on that shows us that anything is possible.

The Rapid Evolution and Growth of Worldview Intelligence

October 24, 2015October 24, 2015Kathy Jourdain 4 Comments

We have been saying, to anyone who will listen, that the work of Worldview Intelligence is rapidly evolving. If you look at what’s been emerging and developing since our first Worldview Intelligence program in Halifax in August of 2013, there is a lot of evidence to support that claim and we will share a few of those stories and examples here.

But first, as we are asked by clients and other interested individuals, what is different or unique about Worldview Intelligence and as we continue to be curious about the quality of conversations people enter into and the revelations which emerge, the most unique contribution Worldview Intelligence brings is the framework of the Six Dimensions of Worldview Intelligence which we came to through Jerry‘s research for his PhD dissertation. This framework, based on the Apostel Framework, enables people to take a step back from whatever the situation is they are involved in, ask different questions and literally get a different view – which then enables them to respond and to strategize differently – whether we are talking personally, professionally or organizationally. And it changes the quality and depth of the conversation – every time.

So, what have we been up to?

We produced a short introductory video on Worldview (thanks and gratitude to Claire Fraser for her excellent work).

Worldview Intelligence Introductory Video

There have been exciting developments in practical application in our client work. Over the last few months, Jerry and I have been able to bring Worldview Intelligence to a variety of different client engagements where we have tailored the exploration to very specific client outcomes. Some examples follow.

In the spring, I used Worldview Intelligence with a local client, a sport recreation facility in Nova Scotia, to give them a framework for communicating with each other in new ways.

In July 2015, Jerry and I used it to help the grants department at US based Foundation to collectively explore its organizational worldview, specifically in understanding the interrelationship with the worldview(s) of its various grantee populations.

Working with a professional association in Nova Scotia in September 2015, we created a tailored leadership program for association members in the province where they used Worldview Intelligence to understand their leadership role and opportunity within their profession, the environments they work in and in the larger healthcare sector they are part of. The insights they gained will enable them to approach their working relationships in new ways whether directly in their work environments or with other healthcare providers.

Then Jerry did a day long session with entrepreneurs in South Dakota offering Worldview Intelligence as a way for them to think about themselves, their work and the contexts they find themselves in.

In early October 2015, we worked with a leadership team from a US based healthcare organization. The organization has 30,000 employees in their region and they have been growing quickly, partly through mergers. In their worldview exploration we looked first personally for each person to understand their own worldview and to connect in new ways within the team. Then we used Organizational Worldview Intelligence to think about their work internally and their interaction with other teams. Finally we used the Social Systems Worldview Intelligence exploration to look at their relationships in the various communities they are located in, discovering points of commonality and points of difference or uniqueness to each community that both influences their work and informs impact and enabling a new conversation between the different community sites.

Worldview Intelligence has three categories of exploration: personal, to understand how, as an individual, we each see the world and what has influenced this. A variant of the Personal Worldview Intelligence exploration is a professional exploration – who am I in my professional role? Organizational, for collective understanding of an organization’s worldview and how that impacts how the organization operates and how employees interact internally and externally. This often illuminates gaps or other dynamics that impact organizational performance. Social Systems Worldview Intelligence exploration which is proving useful in understanding the community context that an organization works within, how to engage stakeholders in more meaningful ways and as a way to do an environmental scan and to enter into strategic planning or change management processes.

We have worked with Worldview Intelligence in a variety of cultural settings including in Nova Scotia, in the US and in Europe (with the European Commission in Brussels and with University Exchange/International students and at a university in France). We are headed to Australia in November 2015 to work with a client and to offer a three day open enrolment program there. No matter where we go, the audiences we work with engage in the exploration with receptivity and thoughtfulness, developing a plan of application suited to the environments they find themselves in.

We are developing assessment tools to track the impact of participating in a Worldview Intelligence Program in both the short and longer term. We have developed a solid keynote on Worldview Intelligence and we continue to improve the images and frameworks we are working with. We are writing a book building off of Jerry’s dissertation, adding in hands-on practical application examples we have been privileged to be part of over the last 15 months and hopefully writing in a style that will make it an easily digestible business book. We’ll let you know when it’s available.

An example of a graphic we’ve updated since we started this work.

And, as I said at the outset of this post, we are more than willing to talk to anyone who will listen. Contact us if you want to know more or you want to be an early innovator and adopter with us on this journey.

Inattentional Blindness and Worldview

May 23, 2015Kathy Jourdain 2 Comments

One afternoon recently, in Amsterdam with my partner Jerry Nagel for his dissertation defence on Worldview and his doctorate graduation from Tilburg University, we visited an outdoor café to enjoy the day and the atmosphere. Across the street was a square with buskers and a lot of pedestrian traffic. Noticeable was this group of women, out on some afternoon excursion, clearly together identified by their red wigs. Intrigued, I snapped a couple of pictures of them.

When I downloaded the pictures to my computer I was stunned to see that even more prevalent than the red wigs, was the red Burger King sign behind the crowd – something I wasn’t aware of as I took the photos. To my dismay, the pictures looked like an unintended advertisement (thank goodness for photo editing).

There is a phenomenon known as inattentional blindness. Inattentional blindness happens regularly. It happens when something has our attention to such a degree we do not even see something else that may be equally prominent, and sometimes more, in the same space – like this now famous experiment with the basketball players. Take a peek, if you haven’t seen it yet.

Inattentional blindness is also an influence on and a result of your worldview. The way you see the world impacts what you do see, as was described in this post on Worldview Practice and Action – Taking Whole. Some things get through your lenses, other things are filtered out – but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Have you ever found yourself in an argument with someone because they claim they saw or experienced something different than you did? Have you found yourself in a position of having to recant your position because “evidence” (pictures, documents, other) shows you remembered inaccurately? Or maybe you were the one who remembered more accurately and got to gloat? On that one occasion anyway.

These pictures of the women in red wigs and the Burger King sign are a good reminder that when you expand your lens, even slightly, you may see more than you did on first glance. Or, if you refocus your attention you may see more of the picture. Or, if you really take a look around with fresh eyes you may see things you routinely pass by without ever giving thought or attention to.

For the most part, inattentional blindness is not a bad thing. It is habitual. It helps you navigate the world around you. It is when someone or something challenges you or your worldview that it is helpful to remember there may be more to the picture. Rather than taking up a defensive or persuasive position, it becomes a good time to invite Worldview Intelligence practices like curiosity, to listen to another person, to hear how they see the world and be willing to expand how you see the world to include more of a picture, to be more expansive and generous, rather than reductive – Worldview Intelligence practices that work equally well at work and at home. It doesn’t mean you have to change your own beliefs, values or worldview but when you can accept or acknowledge there may be other ways of seeing or experiencing the same situation, you create the space and opportunity to meet another human being in the fullness of your common humanity. When you meet in this space, it is possible to transform differences into progress.