The Circle System
Structuring for Collective Wisdom
By Jim Rough
Most people think of only two possibilities for organizing society: "autocracy" or "democracy." We call them the "Triangle System" or the "Box System". Since neither of these two Systems will work into the future it's also common for people to imagine a third system, the Circle System, which seems far more desirable. Only, they don't think it's possible to achieve.
As the Monster Problems of our society get worse— e.g. the climate crisis, the partisan divide, species extinction, the L-curve distribution of wealth, the threat of autocracy—it's becoming popular to question the viability of our current System In fact one of the political parties in the U.S. seems to be shifting away from adhering to the Constitution, inclusive voting, the rule-of-law, and seeking a return to autocracy, where loyalty to the "Dear Leader" supersedes these Box values.
The problem is that the situation of our society has changed. Given that our global society has reached and exceeded the carrying capacity of planet Earth, neither the Triangle System nor the Box System are viable. In fact it is accurate to say that the Box and/or Triangle Systems are causing the Monster Problems. Particularly the Box System is oriented to individual freedom, where each person or corporate entity is free to "pursue happiness" within the laws, with little regard to the Public Interest. Our new situation demands that this must change. To go forward we must transition to the Circle System, where everyone is involved and voluntarily supports the Public Interest. And because of the social innovations presented here, this should be straightforward to accomplish.
Given that the carrying capacity of our Planet has been exceeded, one might say that the Box System is causing the Monster Problems of our society. Our Box System, for instance, assumes that we can all act independently in pursuit of happiness (i.e. profits). And collective decisions amount to a set of individual judgments or votes. And adding them up to see what is the collective decision. No! This can't work.
Actually what's required in this new situation is a whole-system meeting process, where we all face the Monsters and think creatively and collaboratively to solve them. We must ... and of course this seems impossible given our current Box System of thinking ... all become involved in one global conversation ... face these problems and reach unity about what to do!. Majority rule isn't enough. We need everyone on board if we are to overrule our current systems of economics and governance.
Currently, our system is missing the whole idea of collective thinking. There is just a power struggle among self-interested parties, which often gets stuck in partisan paralysis. The Box System structures us into a thinking process that is little better than an argument. Back and forth with agreeing and disagreeing over inadequate options that are ultimately coercive. There's no "let's see if we can figure this out creatively together and come up something we all want".
Three Systems of Organizing
There are three fundamentally different ways to structure our human society: 1) the Triangle, based on hierarchy and positional authority where one leader is ultimately in charge. Where loyalty is paramount. Where free speech and voting disappear. 2) the Box, where a prescribed Social Contract like the U.S. Constitution is ultimately in charge. This sets up a competitive dynamic.; and 3) the Circle, where the ultimate authority is a "We the People" conversation of everyone seeking what’s best for all. ... At heart, most people desire the Circle System, where all the people evolve common understandings of what's going on, a shared vision what we want and where people are free to employ their best talents and skills toward achieving these desired results. But the Circle is generally assumed to be impossible at the level of society.
Each of the three Systems has a different structure, promotes a different attitude in people, requires different leadership competencies, generates different results and sparks a fundamentally different kind of conversation.
As the Monster Problems of our society get worse— e.g. the climate crisis, the partisan divide, species extinction, the L-curve distribution of wealth, the threat of autocracy—it's becoming popular to question the viability of our current System In fact one of the political parties in the U.S. seems to be shifting away from adhering to the Constitution, inclusive voting, the rule-of-law, and seeking a return to autocracy, where loyalty to the "Dear Leader" supersedes these Box values.
The problem is that the situation of our society has changed. Given that our global society has reached and exceeded the carrying capacity of planet Earth, neither the Triangle System nor the Box System are viable. In fact it is accurate to say that the Box and/or Triangle Systems are causing the Monster Problems. Particularly the Box System is oriented to individual freedom, where each person or corporate entity is free to "pursue happiness" within the laws, with little regard to the Public Interest. Our new situation demands that this must change. To go forward we must transition to the Circle System, where everyone is involved and voluntarily supports the Public Interest. And because of the social innovations presented here, this should be straightforward to accomplish.
Given that the carrying capacity of our Planet has been exceeded, one might say that the Box System is causing the Monster Problems of our society. Our Box System, for instance, assumes that we can all act independently in pursuit of happiness (i.e. profits). And collective decisions amount to a set of individual judgments or votes. And adding them up to see what is the collective decision. No! This can't work.
Actually what's required in this new situation is a whole-system meeting process, where we all face the Monsters and think creatively and collaboratively to solve them. We must ... and of course this seems impossible given our current Box System of thinking ... all become involved in one global conversation ... face these problems and reach unity about what to do!. Majority rule isn't enough. We need everyone on board if we are to overrule our current systems of economics and governance.
Currently, our system is missing the whole idea of collective thinking. There is just a power struggle among self-interested parties, which often gets stuck in partisan paralysis. The Box System structures us into a thinking process that is little better than an argument. Back and forth with agreeing and disagreeing over inadequate options that are ultimately coercive. There's no "let's see if we can figure this out creatively together and come up something we all want".
Three Systems of Organizing
There are three fundamentally different ways to structure our human society: 1) the Triangle, based on hierarchy and positional authority where one leader is ultimately in charge. Where loyalty is paramount. Where free speech and voting disappear. 2) the Box, where a prescribed Social Contract like the U.S. Constitution is ultimately in charge. This sets up a competitive dynamic.; and 3) the Circle, where the ultimate authority is a "We the People" conversation of everyone seeking what’s best for all. ... At heart, most people desire the Circle System, where all the people evolve common understandings of what's going on, a shared vision what we want and where people are free to employ their best talents and skills toward achieving these desired results. But the Circle is generally assumed to be impossible at the level of society.
Each of the three Systems has a different structure, promotes a different attitude in people, requires different leadership competencies, generates different results and sparks a fundamentally different kind of conversation.
The Triangle works well for hierarchical organizations. The collective intelligence of the organization is largely limited by the intelligence and knowledge of the leader. People in the organization contribute to the shared cause, but hold back on giving their full potential. They know their place is to support people of higher status.
The Box System is when the social contract is in charge, not some ultimate leader. This works well if the rules are clear and fair, and enforced. Money is often used to keep score. Then it’s like a game, which encourages the pursuit of self-interest among persons, branches of government and organizations. The Box System is also missing the vital whole-system conversation, where we seek what’s best for all. Basically, it assumes that an "invisible hand" will deliver the best results for all. But this only can happen if all the special interests are independent, not interdependent like we have today. |
Seemingly the Circle is best for unions, cooperatives, membership organizations, and democracies, where whole system benefit is consciously sought. But in practice, these organizations are often rigid Boxes or even Triangles because the Circle has proven difficult to achieve. Surprisingly small corporations can often achieve a Circle dynamic but as they grow it becomes more difficult.
The U.S. is structured to be a Box System, where we are ultimately governed by a Constitution. But as citizens and corporations become increasingly inter-dependent the reliance on competition generates collective stupidity instead of collective intelligence. If we can shift to the Circle System many of our most difficult societal issues will just go away..
Three conversations
Each of the three Systems generates a different kind of conversation. The Triangle teaches deference to the leader. People learn to suppress their own ideas and enthusiasm in favor of what the leader thinks and feels. The conversation revolves around who is speaking and their status rather than the merit of their ideas. To make a difference in this organization one must gain status.
The Box system, like a game, limits people’s attention to the score and to strategies for winning. We don’t look outside the Box. We aren’t expected to feel or to stop and determine what we really care about. Like within a game we get absorbed in the competitive play and focus on winning. Ideally, the Box conversation is like what happens in a time out—analyzing the situation, defining the problem, deliberating on which ideas are best, and making quick decisions based on good data. But in practice, because our feelings are suppressed, a more usual conversation is an argument or a competitive agree/disagree discussion.
The Circle system requires a particular form of conversation called “choice-creating,” where people drop their roles and become authentic, face the important issues collaboratively and creatively, and reach shared perspectives. Choice-creating often happens naturally when people face a crisis. Then real change can happen because people let go of their denial, roles, status and rules and look at the situation realistically and creatively. In the spirit of choice-creating, people can achieve miracles, often redefining the problem and themselves in the process. After the crisis is over, however, the spirit of mutual respect, creativity and community is difficult to maintain. So the organization slides back to the Box.
People want to think that the Circle system can be achieved with good leadership, highly conscious people, the right rules, or better communication. These are all part of the answer. But the essential ingredient for transforming our society from Box System to the Circle System, which we must do, is to elicit and sustain the choice-creating conversation. Then people are authentic, talk about the real issues and work together creatively to solve them. There are two social innovations that make this possible, safe, and accessible: 1) Dynamic Facilitation and 2) the Wisdom Council.
Dynamic Facilitation
Dynamic Facilitation (DF) is a new approach to facilitating, which is guided by people’s feelings and emotions more than by an agenda. Using DF choice-creating is the natural result. And this allows people to achieve breakthrough progress on impossible-seeming or conflicted issues and determine win/win solutions. Instead of limiting people to what is possible, to preset guidelines, or to an agenda, the dynamic facilitator welcomes each person to just speak naturally. It’s up to the DF’er to assure choice-creating.
She uses four charts to do this—Solutions, Data, Concerns, and Problem-Statements. So for example, if a participant starts to disagree with a point someone is making, the DF’er invites that person to direct his comment to her, rather than to the person with whom he is disagreeing. Then she records the comment as a concern to be added to the list of Concerns, and invites the person to offer his answer. “So what might be an even better solution?” This answer is then added to the list of Solutions.
Notice in this approach, no one feels judged. There is no agreeing or disagreeing. Instead, each point is valued as piece of the puzzle and people grow in curiosity and creativity to solve it. Shifts and breakthroughs naturally result.
I once had the opportunity to dynamically facilitate a weekly meeting among angry and frustrated employees in a sawmill. Over time they achieved the spirit of choice-creating. Productivity and quality took off! The energy of their frustration turned into the energy of community and creativity. Just by participating in a weekly hour-long meeting these mill workers became more cooperative, curious, informed, and observant. They understood more, trusted more, risked more, and achieved more, inventing new solutions to seemingly impossible problems. They transformed the culture of the mill and the management system as well.
The Wisdom Council Process
Facilitating this bottom-up transformation led me to hypothesize a strategy by which we as a society could transform ourselves from the Box System to the Circle System. In 2002 I wrote a book about it called, Society’s Breakthrough! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People. It describes how Dynamic Facilitation could be used to facilitate a nation to come together as a powerful “We the People.” Now, years later there have been a number of experiments with Wisdom Councils and the Wisdom Council Process in organizations, conferences, cities and states, demonstrating that this strategy works. Implementing it offers a new path to solving many impossible-seeming public issues of today like the partisan gridlock, the national debt, the environmental crisis, poverty, wars, etc.
In the Wisdom Council Process every month or so, twelve to sixteen people are randomly selected as a microcosm of all the people. Each small group meets for a couple of days with a dynamic facilitator. They choose an important issue or are given an issue and reach exciting win/win conclusions through shifts and breakthroughs. Each Wisdom Council then presents these conclusions and the story of how they were developed to everyone. Then all people are invited to talk together face-to-face in small groups, or over the telephone or via the Internet. Those that hear the story generally concur with the Wisdom Council. They essentially say, “I think so too!”
Largely because of the spirit of choice-creating people in the audience feel involved and support both the process and results. If one person differs with the Wisdom Council conclusions, others are interested to know why. They listen carefully and seek ways to incorporate this divergent view. In this Circle process diverse perspectives are valued because they can lead to breakthroughs and surprising group unity.
At one elementary school in Steyr, Austria a Wisdom Council among parents, administrators and teachers was convened. This new conversation generated more volunteers, a greater understanding of school issues, demonstrated support for the faculty and led to a community project where all helped paint the school.
Three ordinary citizens in Ashland, Oregon experimented with a Wisdom Council in their county. They arranged for a randomly selected group of registered voters to come together for a day and a half to be dynamically facilitated. The Wisdom Council presented its conclusions to a gathering of the community. The council said that “We the People” need to awaken from our slumber, take charge of our society, make politicians more accountable, and start implementing common-sense policies, like adequately funding education. It was just a one-time experiment but the presentation generated important developments. A number of citizens said that the experience was life changing to them and they began a followup citizens’ movement that rewrote the town charter.
The Department of Agriculture of Washington State initiated a Wisdom Council Process within one division. One of the first Councils lamented that their division no longer had the spirit of community it once had. From that one meeting employees generally found ways to reconnect with one another and their mission. Later the process was expanded to include the whole department, where employees finally “bridged the Cascade Mountain Barrier,” which had always kept the agency in two separate cultures.
Conclusion
The Triangle, Box and Circle are three fundamental ways to structure a system. The Triangle is where someone is in charge; the Box is where a social contract is in charge; and the Circle is where one choice-creating conversation of all is ultimately in charge. Throughout history the Circle process has been used in tribal cultures. But in modern times, which this has seemed most desirable and beneficial, it has also seemed most unattainable. Now our organizations and society are becoming increasingly inter-dependent in a way that neither the Box nor the Triangle can manage. The Wisdom Council Process offers a way to make the Circle System work in those cases.
Key to making this shift resides in our ability to facilitate one ongoing whole-system choice-creating conversation, where we all get involved, face the problems and creatively seek a strategy that works for everyone. Dynamic Facilitation can assure this quality of thinking in small groups. The Wisdom Council Process uses Dynamic Facilitation to evoke the needed conversation in large systems. By using this process at different levels — globally, nationally and regionally— it’s possible to safely organize ourselves in the Circle dynamic. And in this way it’s possible to achieve rapid, breakthrough progress on our most pressing issues.
These ideas were first developed in the book Society's Breakthrough! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People by Jim Rough.
The U.S. is structured to be a Box System, where we are ultimately governed by a Constitution. But as citizens and corporations become increasingly inter-dependent the reliance on competition generates collective stupidity instead of collective intelligence. If we can shift to the Circle System many of our most difficult societal issues will just go away..
Three conversations
Each of the three Systems generates a different kind of conversation. The Triangle teaches deference to the leader. People learn to suppress their own ideas and enthusiasm in favor of what the leader thinks and feels. The conversation revolves around who is speaking and their status rather than the merit of their ideas. To make a difference in this organization one must gain status.
The Box system, like a game, limits people’s attention to the score and to strategies for winning. We don’t look outside the Box. We aren’t expected to feel or to stop and determine what we really care about. Like within a game we get absorbed in the competitive play and focus on winning. Ideally, the Box conversation is like what happens in a time out—analyzing the situation, defining the problem, deliberating on which ideas are best, and making quick decisions based on good data. But in practice, because our feelings are suppressed, a more usual conversation is an argument or a competitive agree/disagree discussion.
The Circle system requires a particular form of conversation called “choice-creating,” where people drop their roles and become authentic, face the important issues collaboratively and creatively, and reach shared perspectives. Choice-creating often happens naturally when people face a crisis. Then real change can happen because people let go of their denial, roles, status and rules and look at the situation realistically and creatively. In the spirit of choice-creating, people can achieve miracles, often redefining the problem and themselves in the process. After the crisis is over, however, the spirit of mutual respect, creativity and community is difficult to maintain. So the organization slides back to the Box.
People want to think that the Circle system can be achieved with good leadership, highly conscious people, the right rules, or better communication. These are all part of the answer. But the essential ingredient for transforming our society from Box System to the Circle System, which we must do, is to elicit and sustain the choice-creating conversation. Then people are authentic, talk about the real issues and work together creatively to solve them. There are two social innovations that make this possible, safe, and accessible: 1) Dynamic Facilitation and 2) the Wisdom Council.
Dynamic Facilitation
Dynamic Facilitation (DF) is a new approach to facilitating, which is guided by people’s feelings and emotions more than by an agenda. Using DF choice-creating is the natural result. And this allows people to achieve breakthrough progress on impossible-seeming or conflicted issues and determine win/win solutions. Instead of limiting people to what is possible, to preset guidelines, or to an agenda, the dynamic facilitator welcomes each person to just speak naturally. It’s up to the DF’er to assure choice-creating.
She uses four charts to do this—Solutions, Data, Concerns, and Problem-Statements. So for example, if a participant starts to disagree with a point someone is making, the DF’er invites that person to direct his comment to her, rather than to the person with whom he is disagreeing. Then she records the comment as a concern to be added to the list of Concerns, and invites the person to offer his answer. “So what might be an even better solution?” This answer is then added to the list of Solutions.
Notice in this approach, no one feels judged. There is no agreeing or disagreeing. Instead, each point is valued as piece of the puzzle and people grow in curiosity and creativity to solve it. Shifts and breakthroughs naturally result.
I once had the opportunity to dynamically facilitate a weekly meeting among angry and frustrated employees in a sawmill. Over time they achieved the spirit of choice-creating. Productivity and quality took off! The energy of their frustration turned into the energy of community and creativity. Just by participating in a weekly hour-long meeting these mill workers became more cooperative, curious, informed, and observant. They understood more, trusted more, risked more, and achieved more, inventing new solutions to seemingly impossible problems. They transformed the culture of the mill and the management system as well.
The Wisdom Council Process
Facilitating this bottom-up transformation led me to hypothesize a strategy by which we as a society could transform ourselves from the Box System to the Circle System. In 2002 I wrote a book about it called, Society’s Breakthrough! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People. It describes how Dynamic Facilitation could be used to facilitate a nation to come together as a powerful “We the People.” Now, years later there have been a number of experiments with Wisdom Councils and the Wisdom Council Process in organizations, conferences, cities and states, demonstrating that this strategy works. Implementing it offers a new path to solving many impossible-seeming public issues of today like the partisan gridlock, the national debt, the environmental crisis, poverty, wars, etc.
In the Wisdom Council Process every month or so, twelve to sixteen people are randomly selected as a microcosm of all the people. Each small group meets for a couple of days with a dynamic facilitator. They choose an important issue or are given an issue and reach exciting win/win conclusions through shifts and breakthroughs. Each Wisdom Council then presents these conclusions and the story of how they were developed to everyone. Then all people are invited to talk together face-to-face in small groups, or over the telephone or via the Internet. Those that hear the story generally concur with the Wisdom Council. They essentially say, “I think so too!”
Largely because of the spirit of choice-creating people in the audience feel involved and support both the process and results. If one person differs with the Wisdom Council conclusions, others are interested to know why. They listen carefully and seek ways to incorporate this divergent view. In this Circle process diverse perspectives are valued because they can lead to breakthroughs and surprising group unity.
At one elementary school in Steyr, Austria a Wisdom Council among parents, administrators and teachers was convened. This new conversation generated more volunteers, a greater understanding of school issues, demonstrated support for the faculty and led to a community project where all helped paint the school.
Three ordinary citizens in Ashland, Oregon experimented with a Wisdom Council in their county. They arranged for a randomly selected group of registered voters to come together for a day and a half to be dynamically facilitated. The Wisdom Council presented its conclusions to a gathering of the community. The council said that “We the People” need to awaken from our slumber, take charge of our society, make politicians more accountable, and start implementing common-sense policies, like adequately funding education. It was just a one-time experiment but the presentation generated important developments. A number of citizens said that the experience was life changing to them and they began a followup citizens’ movement that rewrote the town charter.
The Department of Agriculture of Washington State initiated a Wisdom Council Process within one division. One of the first Councils lamented that their division no longer had the spirit of community it once had. From that one meeting employees generally found ways to reconnect with one another and their mission. Later the process was expanded to include the whole department, where employees finally “bridged the Cascade Mountain Barrier,” which had always kept the agency in two separate cultures.
Conclusion
The Triangle, Box and Circle are three fundamental ways to structure a system. The Triangle is where someone is in charge; the Box is where a social contract is in charge; and the Circle is where one choice-creating conversation of all is ultimately in charge. Throughout history the Circle process has been used in tribal cultures. But in modern times, which this has seemed most desirable and beneficial, it has also seemed most unattainable. Now our organizations and society are becoming increasingly inter-dependent in a way that neither the Box nor the Triangle can manage. The Wisdom Council Process offers a way to make the Circle System work in those cases.
Key to making this shift resides in our ability to facilitate one ongoing whole-system choice-creating conversation, where we all get involved, face the problems and creatively seek a strategy that works for everyone. Dynamic Facilitation can assure this quality of thinking in small groups. The Wisdom Council Process uses Dynamic Facilitation to evoke the needed conversation in large systems. By using this process at different levels — globally, nationally and regionally— it’s possible to safely organize ourselves in the Circle dynamic. And in this way it’s possible to achieve rapid, breakthrough progress on our most pressing issues.
These ideas were first developed in the book Society's Breakthrough! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People by Jim Rough.
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