12 principles ... The Wisdom Council Process
- Ordinary citizens can set this in motion. (e.g "Just Us") ... The conveners can randomly select citizens, arrange for the Dynamic Facilitator, convene a large-scale "community" meeting for the Wisdom Council presentation and support an ongoing whole-system conversation until the next Wisdom Council. And then to support increasing numbers of people to pay attention and talk about the results. Arising from the Wisdom Councils is often the shared confusion that this process needs to keep happening. Ultimately a "We the People" forms to charter the process ... and maybe adopt it into the Constitution.
- Identify the "community" or "system of people" ... This community might be national, global or local, any system of people seeking to be truly democratic. Once the conveners identify the system, then a specific pool of people can be determined from which to draw a random selection of people. (e.g. the registered voters of the city),
- Gather 8 to 16 randomly selected Wisdom Council members ... Once the pool is identified, a random number generator is used. Ideally, the first "twelve" selected would choose to come. The conveners may offer babysitting, a stipend, transportation, etc. to make it easier for those chosen. Unlike other processes we do not use a stratified random selection, like where there are an equal number of men and women, or people from different political parties, etc. This process does not involve representatives and is not a negotiation. By using a pure random sampling process over time all different sub-populations are included in their respective proportions. And each person speaks only for him or herself.
- Provide a HOT ISSUE to the Wisdom Council (or the Wisdom Council can choose its own). This issue might be selected by a contest, something that people care deeply about. It's BEST if the issue is emotionally charged, Ill-defined, complex, and seemingly impossible-to-solve, like climate change, the influx of refugees, or money in politics. Ordinary thinking doesn't work with this kind of "dragon" issue. By using Dynamic Facilitation the Wisdom Council will face into the heart of the matter and create new clarity about the issue, a clarity that resonates throughout the community.
- Use Dynamic Facilitation to assure the spirit of choice-creating. Key for the Wisdom Council Process to work is the quality of thinking within each Wisdom Council. "We the People" arises when the spirit of talking is choice-creating rather than decision-making or problem-solving. Choice-creating can be reliably established using Dynamic Facilitation. Each person can just one themselves and need not follow any guidelines. But through DF'ing, all find themselves facing the issue creatively and collaboratively in a way that yields shifts and breakthroughs.
- Assure time in the Wisdom Council after the period of choice-creating for the group to articulate areas of unity and prepare a presentation ... Using Dynamic Facilitation the group will make its progress through shifts and breakthroughs rather than through deliberation. This enables the group to gather their progress into a shared story.
- Invite all people in the "community" to hear the Wisdom Council present its story and conclusions ... This presentation goes to the people more primarily than to "decision-makers." This is NOT about making "a proposal" or "recommendations." Rather, it is a presentation of what has collectively been determined. Like in the therapist's office, this a reflection of what we, a symbol of us all, think is is the real issue, what are the important points about it, what we all want, and what we think is the best way to get there. The point is to spark the spirit of choice-creating throughout the large audience.
- Involve all the people. Organize online conversations and f-t-f events. Fortunately, anyone commenting to a friend about the Wisdom Council conclusions is already in the conversation. We just want them to realize they are part of one ongoing whole-system conversation that is evolving towards large-scale unity.
- Generate resonance throughout the whole system by orienting the new conversation to be in the spirit of choice-creating. This principle involves being careful about the language used ... like to not use words like "agree", "disagree", "deliberation","recommendation" or "proposal." We are not seeking the approval of "decision-makers." This is about all of us talking and thinking together, addressing Monster issues and reaching unified conclusions. (NOTE: There is no higher authority than all of us in unity.)
- Help the "all the people" become "We the People," which is the ultimate authority. DF'ed random groups, like Wisdom Councils, generally determine complementary results. It's as though they all comprise one larger group working together. One question to help the audience realize this, that a legitimate "We the People" is forming, might be to ask them ... "From hearing the Wisdom Council and from your follow up conversations, to what extent do you think the viewpoint of the Wisdom Council reflects the Public Interest?"
- Provide support for people to take coherent actions. After the Wisdom Council disbands, it's possible to bring together stakeholders, governmental agencies and civic organizations into meetings, what we call "Responder's Meetings," where these special interests articulate unified responses. Of course, even the members of these special interest groups are part of "We the People." It's just that they are often also in a prescribed role. has in a new situation because everyone knows what is the voice of the people.
- Structure the Wisdom Council process into the system.. Ideally this process would be chartered into being by "We the People" as a U.S. Constitutional Amendment. But of course, that sounds impossible. However, we think it will happen naturally if we set up the new conversation ... where every few months a Wisdom Council is held. Key is for this to work is to have a media partner and for each Wisdom Council to address the hottest, ill-defined, impossible-seeming issue. As ever more people participate and as whole-system conclusions become increasingly important, and since almost every Wisdom Council says "this Wisdom Council Process needs to keep happening," it becomes increasingly clear that an Amendment is appropriate.
Other names and applications
1) Bürgerräte ...this is the name of the Wisdom Council Process used in Austria and Germany, where governments are the sponsor and the process is used to enlist citizen involvement. The term means "citizen councils" or "civic councils" when translated back into English. Unfortunately, this term is also in use by other processes.
2) Insight Councils ... (formerly "Creative Insight Councils") This is the term we reserve for Wisdom Council experiments where certain principles get dropped. (e.g. in organizations when the manager wants to involve employees but also wants to maintain control by using a stratified sampling instead of pure random sampling.).
2) Insight Councils ... (formerly "Creative Insight Councils") This is the term we reserve for Wisdom Council experiments where certain principles get dropped. (e.g. in organizations when the manager wants to involve employees but also wants to maintain control by using a stratified sampling instead of pure random sampling.).