A Breakthrough In Solving ‘Impossible’ Regional Challenges

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a prospectus
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Summary

Silicon Valley led the way in revolutionizing technology. As a result, our powers in the realm of ‘things physical’ have reached a point that would be considered miracles not too many decades ago. The Digital Age has been a giant step forward for humanity — a dazzling evolutionary breakthrough.

Life on our planet is sorely in need of another breakthrough, this time in the realm of social architecture. Our human systems – commerce, finance, education, healthcare, government, media, etc. – are suffering the consequences of archaic and fundamentally flawed social design. The three major design flaws are:

• Narrow and/or myopic definitions of success
• Systems based on control over people
• Systems devoid of capacity to consciously self-evolve

These design flaws are so pervasive, commonplace and longstanding that they are as water to fish — invisible. Yet essentially all of the local and global crises afflicting life on our planet – poverty, hunger, unemployment, terrorism, environmental degradation, endless wars, etc. – are a result of these flaws.

The next big thing will not be a thing. Rather, it will be a renaissance in the social architecture of our human systems. This holds the promise to change everything.

Blue Star Silicon Valley (BSSV) is a regional initiative designed to address critical socio-economic, governance and environmental challenges in the Silicon Valley region with a unique developmental approach that supports diverse leaders and human systems in the region in transforming the causes — in shifting the systemic and cultural patterns at the root of our many crises and ills — in forging a path to a thriving future for all life in the region and beyond.

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There are thousands of committed ‘for-social-good’ initiatives and ventures around the world. Most of them are issue-centric. While drawing on the rich experience of many of these initiatives, BSSV is unique in a number of important ways:

• Place-centric — recognizing that every place (region and/or city) has its unique essence and potential — its special gifts and needs — its highest purpose
• Designed to address the systemic root causes of the region’s socio-economic and environmental challenges by focusing on transforming the social architecture of its human systems. It is based on the understanding that —
  • Our human systems shape our societal patterns of thinking, living, working, governing and decision-making
  • Dysfunctional human systems create and reinforce dysfunctional societal patterns
  • Dysfunctional societal patterns in turn produce our myriad local and global crises
  • Transforming the unconsciously flawed design of our human systems is one of the most leveraged approaches to addressing our many messes and ills – to creating lasting change
• Designed to achieve multiple and multiplying benefits by focusing on the root causes and the relationships between the region’s challenges, its societal patterns and the human systems that generate them
• Designed to attract, develop and support diverse leadership from all sectors and systems in the region, all deeply committed to making a large and lasting difference to the wellbeing of all life in the region. It is 10X commitment-based for all participants and entities — every step of the way
• Purpose-driven, results-oriented, future-focused developmental strategy, designed to grow the consciousness, caring, commitment and capacity in the region’s leaders and the human systems they steward
• Earth-based — grounded in the reality that we are all not only totally dependent on the Earth for our health and well-being, but uniquely equipped to develop a co-creative partnership with the rest of nature in the service of the evolution and well-being of all of life
• Inherently appreciative — a commitment to growing synergy-seeking relationships with existing initiatives that can contribute to the larger vision
• Wholeness-centric — learning and developing from wholeness toward wholeness, every step of the way. BSSV transcends the separatist philosophies, ideologies, designs and practices endemic to most all of today’s social systems
• Committed to Silicon Valley’s version of a Blue Star Future — much more than a commitment to become sustainable
• Designed to be self-sustaining, self-regulating, self-propagating and self-evolving — starting small, growing organically and exponentially
• Intended to promote and support similar initiatives in cities and regions throughout our planet

The main purpose of this prospectus is to attract those leaders, entrepreneurs and stewards for the future willing to invest their various forms of capital (material, intellectual, social, cultural, spiritual, experiential and financial) in ways that help flesh out, enliven and support this audacious venture.

Now Is The Time. Now is THE Moment.

We’re at an unprecedented choice point on our evolutionary journey. We did not have this choice 20 years ago. We have this choice today.

We can choose ‘Business As Usual’, our default choice, and risk facing the mother of all crises — a drastic and potentially irreversible catastrophe for life on our planet. ‘Business as Usual’ is our painfully familiar story of separation — from self, each other and nature; of our consumption-and-growth obsession and mechanistic thinking; of narrow and myopic definitions of success; of control over people and nature. The diminishing resilience of our global life support systems and the increasing instability of many of our human systems suggest we’re already on a slippery slope. ‘Business As Usual’ is what got us here. The slope is getting more slippery and steeper every day. Incrementally improving ‘business as usual’ will merely delay the global disaster implicit in our current trajectory.

We can make a distinctly different choice. We can choose a future where we free ourselves from our man-made constraints, where we wake up to who we are and who we can be — our full potential as humans. It is a future where ‘conscious-living-systems thinking’ replaces mechanistic thinking. It is a future where we redefine ‘success’ in terms of our ‘net contribution to the wellbeing of all life’ and grow full co-creative partnership with the rest of nature. It is a future where everyone has fulfilling work and opportunities to go “Full Maslow.” It is a future where all human systems have the capacity to consciously self-evolve in ways that maximize their contribution to the wellbeing of all life they touch, for all time.

We call it a “Blue Star Future”. We are convinced that it is possible — but only if we choose it. ‘Blue Star Future’ is not just a remote vision of what might be possible if we got our act together. It is a wake up call – HERE and NOW. It is a harsh reminder that continuing with Business As Usual is an embarrassingly small, unsatisfying and wasteful choice. It is an exciting reminder that we can choose to embark on a purposeful action-learning journey together where we actualize our true greatness and our full potential as powerful co-creators and wise stewards of all life on our planet.

So NOW is the time to choose.

’Yesterday’ it wasn’t possible.

‘Tomorrow’ may be too late.

NOW is the time.

Our Challenge

Many say that the crises and messes we face today are systemic. This is true. Our human systems — organizations, institutions, commerce, media, economic, political, education, etc. — shape our societal patterns of thinking, living, working, developing, consuming, governing and decision-making. Dysfunctional human systems create and reinforce dysfunctional social patterns. These dysfunctional patterns, in turn, produce unintended consequences that make up our myriad local and global crises.

We want them fixed. So we ‘declare war’ on poverty, on drugs, on terrorism. We invest in quick patches. We problem solve. We ignore the root systemic causes and play the blame game. We try to solve our messes with the same thinking that created them in the first place — and frequently end up creating new messes.

Tom Atlee provides an elegant summary of our challenge:

The only way to change this habitual unconscious co-creation of messes, destruction, suffering, apathy, insanity and catastrophe, is to change the human systems that create them — or, more accurately, change the human systems that cause us to co-create these problems over and over and over again.

It is extremely likely that, despite how things seem, we have more resources, time, and space to make these vital changes now than we will have in the future.  System changing action today will make more difference, and come with less cost, than similar efforts in the future.

It is time to shift our attention, our activism, our philanthropy, our citizenship, and our transformational agentry from fixing up symptoms — however painful and upsetting they may be — to transforming the causes.  That shift can bring about the world we all long for. 

Generative Thinking

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created them. A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” – Einstein

Let’s be clear. We are not referring to incremental change. Shifting from Business As Usual to a Blue Star Future trajectory for any human system is akin to a metamorphosis from a caterpillar into a butterfly. It is deep. It is fundamental. It is also magical. Practically, it means that the system’s stories, structures and patterns undergo a deep, conscious transformation.

How do we begin such transformation? What is most essential?

As Einstein points out, our collective thinking is a good place to start. By “thinking” we broadly mean our beliefs, attitudes, values, visions, inner and outer conversations and even our language. We are well acquainted with our Business-As-Usual thinking and its adverse ripple effects. What would be a more life-giving alternative — a true game-changer with the potential to create an irreversible shift in the social architecture of our systems and the outcomes we see? We are in urgent need of a new thinking that —

• Challenges us to awaken to our highest purpose
• Helps us see and grow into our greatest potential
• Recognizes and calls forth wholeness in all of our activities and relationships
• Challenges and supports us to design our social forms as conscious living systems committed to serving the wellbeing of all life they touch
• Draws from the heart, soul and spirit – not just a mental process
• Challenges and guides us to design for all life, for all time

We call this new thinking ‘Generative Thinking.’

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The Broad Strategy

Our human systems are myriad. They’re incredibly entangled. They are stuck in ‘business as usual.’ And they have no capacity to reinvent themselves.

Given this conundrum, most reasonable people would say that setting out to transform our human systems is ‘Mission Impossible.’ We would agree. We cannot imagine an outside-in, push-style strategy that would morph our collective ‘systemic caterpillar’ into a ‘systemic butterfly.’

What if there was a different approach — a more organic, distributed ‘pull-strategy’ that is effective, scalable, self-managing, self-improving, highly viral and self-evolving? In other words —

What if we developed and demonstrated a pragmatic approach designed to support any human system in developing its capacity to consciously self-evolve from Business As Usual to Generative Thinking, from caterpillar-like to its unique Blue Star Future?

What if this approach was designed to be adaptable, scalable, self-improving and self-evolving to fit an increasing variety and complexity of different human systems?

What if the strategy was designed to be truly viral — at first engaging those innovators and early adopters who are eager and ready to lead the paradigm shift in their systems — and continued to spread and grow organically (and exponentially) from that point forward?

At GlobalGEA we believe that we’ve made good progress in tackling these what ifs and developing the essential puzzle pieces of the metamorphosis strategy and approach referenced above.

We are ready for action. We envision bootstrapping a regional metamorphosis venture — an ‘infinite game’ — that engages and supports an ever-growing number of the region’s human systems (organizations, institutions, etc.) in the action-learning journey of growing their capacity to consciously self-evolve — to embrace and master Generative Thinking — to maximize their contribution to the wellbeing of all life they serve.

And, we believe that Silicon Valley is the perfect place to pioneer this audacious venture we have tentatively dubbed ‘Blue Star Silicon Valley.’

Silicon Valley Did It Before. It Can Do It Again.

Humanity’s evolution through the great ages of humanity — Agrarian, Industrial and Digital — has always been led by entrepreneurs, players with the vision and courage to venture forth and pioneer new capacities to improve the wellbeing of people. Our evolution into the next great age — the Age of Conscious Evolution — will also be led by a similar bold, courageous kind of entrepreneurial spirit.

The last three great ages of humanity have been thing-centric, e.g., plows, engines and electronic computers. The next great age, if we so choose, will feature social forms consciously designed to serve all life, for all time. The ‘next big thing’ will not be a thing. Rather, it will be an approach to design that is life-centric. We call it Generative Design.

The Digital Age was spawned in and continues to be nurtured by Silicon Valley. This unique region serves as a ‘Mother Node’ for an ever-growing web of ‘silicon valleys’ throughout our planet.

We envision Silicon Valley expanding its capacity for innovation from an emphasis on technology to a full embrace of all domains of design essential to wholeness. The Age of Conscious Evolution will quickly gain traction as we collectively learn to master Generative Design, especially as applied to our social forms — organizations, cities and regions.

The Journey

We envision the following initial milestones in the bootstrapping and unfolding of the ‘Blue Star Silicon Valley’ venture:

Phase I: Shaping The Story

We see Blue Star Silicon Valley as a rapidly evolving, ever-expanding multi-year action-learning journey engaging an exponentially increasing number of the region’s human systems. Given the magnitude, sophistication and complexity of this transformational effort, gaining traction in the early stages will require stewardship and support of well established, highly respected Silicon Valley leaders, organizations and institutions. Attracting and beginning to grow generative alliances with these individuals and organizations is the highest priority in this beginning phase.

To accomplish this, it is critical to create a powerful ‘strange attractor’ – a rich and compelling Story, the story of how Silicon Valley pioneered the Next Great Age of Humanity. It is a living, growing and evolving story — an infinite game of its own right — that more and more ‘players’ want to live into and be part of. It is a story that evokes genius, awakens highest purpose and inspires commitment.

To create and evolve this story, GlobalGEA will partner with a world-class transmedia team. Together we would engage Silicon Valley’s most visionary leaders, entrepreneurs and world-class providers of change expertise in weaving and co-evolving this story.

The process of producing this emerging and ever-evolving story will do much to develop a Core BSSV Startup Team. The Story and the Core Team will provide the context and legitimacy for moving into Phase II.

Phase II: The Inaugural Intensive

The Core Team would then recruit and enroll the founding cohort of (18-24) pioneering ‘evolutionaries’ – leaders and practitioners who are open to the possibility of serving as ‘Silicon Valley Stewards for the Future.’ They are all players with the commitment and the potential capacity to lead a generative action-learning expedition (GALE) toward a Blue Star Future for Silicon Valley and beyond. This cohort would be recruited with care, seeking those GRIPs who collectively can influence the flow of all forms of capital needed to seed and nurture this grand expedition toward a future that works for all life.

We launch this venture with a 5-Day “GALE Leadership Intensive.” (Follow the link to get a feel for the broad Intended Outcomes and distinctive Design Features for that ‘intensive.’) The 5-Day Intensive serves as a microcosm of the multi-year GALE experience.  It equips the participants with a deep understanding of the nature of this journey and provides in-depth experience with the other members of the cohort.

The main outcome of the intensive will be a shared commitment to begin the serious capacity-building work implicit in the BSSV journey — to attract, develop and deploy the necessary Expertise, to develop and demonstrate prototype support Infrastructures and commit seed Resourcing — all in a way that helps gain traction in the hearts and minds of leadership throughout Silicon Valley and beyond.

[GlobalGEA would be providing ‘architectural’ and guidance support for the intensive and the early stages of the evolution of this journey.]

Phase III: The BSSV Journey Begins

The BSSV Journey will be an extraordinary co-creative developmental undertaking:

• We will be setting out to grow Silicon Valley’s capacity to support the metamorphosis of those human systems that are ready to play a leadership role in pioneering this new territory

• We will be doing so in a way that enables these participating systems to continually grow their capacity to consciously self-evolve and weave this capacity into the fabric of their operations — all in a way that enables these systems to multiply their contribution to the wellbeing of all life they impact

Meeting this multi-layered capacity-building challenge will require carefully designed regional support architecture. It will involve developing and growing three key elements:

• Expertise – the know-how, relevant change methodologies, distinctions, new language and most importantly, a vibrant, rapidly evolving ecosystem of highly experienced providers-practitioners who are able and committed to serving as social architects and guides to the growing number of human systems joining this action-learning journey. These practitioners must become masterful at what we refer to as ‘generative B & C-work’ or ‘chrysalis work’

• Infrastructure – both social and physical. Just as scaffolding is essential to the construction of complex physical structures, so complex capacity building needs special support and protection, especially during its formative stages. Examples of such infrastructure might include coordinating bodies, electronic platforms for knowledge sharing and collaboration, R&D centers (possibly co-located in existing academic institutions), an annual conference, retreat space, etc.

• Resources - just as designing and building a physical structure requires an investment of time, attention and money, so it is with building new systemic capacities or managing systemic change

As an example, we can imagine several kinds of infrastructure that would seem essential, given the size and nature of this undertaking:

• Silicon Valley Stewards for the Future
  • Provide overall strategic guidance and stewardship for the BSSV venture
  • Identify and select most leveraged generative initiatives
  • Attract and allocate resources in a way that grows a truly ‘generative’ capacity-building ecosystem for Silicon Valley
  • Maximize the ‘True ROI’ on the investment of those resources
  • Develop their personal and team capacities to guide this region toward a Blue Star Future
• BSSV Core Team
  • Act as a management team for the BSSV venture; provide overall operations management and coordination between different initiatives
  • Attract and develop the expertise needed at each phase and by different BSSV teams
• Regional R&D Teams
  • Issue-Centered Teams, e.g., gang violence, unemployment, healthcare, water, food, etc.
  • Practice-Centered Teams, e.g., Conversant Communications, Non-Violent Communications, Cultural Transformation Tools, Wisdom Acceleration Gatherings, generic chrysalis work, etc.
  • Regional Development Support Infrastructure, e.g., regional dashboard development, communication and collaboration web platforms, etc.

Each of these teams will develop their capacity to become self-regulating, self-improving, self-sustaining and self-evolving.  They will each be fully engaged in an individual as well as collective transformational journey.

CONCLUSION

Silicon Valley led the way in reinventing technology. As a result, our powers in the realm of ‘things physical’ have reached a point that would be considered miracles not too many decades ago. The Digital Age has been a giant step forward for humanity — a dazzling evolutionary breakthrough.

Life on our planet is sorely in need of another breakthrough, this time in the realm of social architecture. We must learn what it takes to reinvent our social forms (governance, economics, commerce, education, agriculture, security, healthcare, etc.) Our human systems are mostly born in the Industrial Age — and it really shows.

Every one of these systems can develop their capacity to multiply their positive contribution to the wellbeing of all life they impact — to help move toward a Blue Star Future.

Bottom Line — Silicon Valley is in an ideal position to explore and pioneer this new territory. It won’t be easy. Historical success can be a powerful anesthetic. To paraphrase Ken Wilber, we will need to transcend the gravitational pull of Business as Usual while including all its existing contributions to humanity till now.

Though it won’t be easy, this audacious Blue Star Silicon Valley journey will prove to be enormously rewarding for those who choose to lead the way!

April 5, 2013

 We see —

• The ‘metamorphosis’ of our social systems (organizations, institutions, cities, regions) as the next great leap in our evolution as a species
• Now as THE moment for us to make that leap. ’Yesterday’ it wasn’t possible. ‘Tomorrow’ may be too late
• Silicon Valley (once again) as the ideal spawning ground for this great breakthrough
• The conscious evolution of the broad field of organization and leadership development as essential to this great leap
• A ‘Blue Star Silicon Valley’ as possible if we choose to commit to this action-learning journey
• Pragmatic ways we might begin this audacious journey together

We invite you to an April 5 Blue Star Silicon Valley Salon where we will share our emerging vision and strategy of how such a journey might gain traction in the Valley. We suspect that you are one of the ‘game-ready infinite players (GRIPs)’ who will want to explore co-creating this audacious venture with us.

Who are we?

• Bill Veltrop and Max Shkud (co-founders of GlobalGEA, the Global Guild of Evolutionary Architects), together with the incomparable Kimberly Wiefling, making this leap together
• We are a commitment to serve as social architects and guides to those who are ready to embark on this great action-learning expedition

At this BSSV Salon we will —

• Experience who we are — and begin to explore how we might want to show up in the infinite game we’re calling Blue Star Silicon Valley
• Explore tentative personal 10X commitments as they could unfold within and contribute to such an infinite game
• Imagine ourselves evolving as a ‘Generative Social Organism’ committed to enlivening the Blue Star Silicon Valley vision and journey
• Provide each with a sense of whether this is a game that you want to play

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When:       April 5, 10am-4:30pm (lunch is provided)
Where:     2332 Harding Avenue, Redwood City, CA

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Prework:

• Blue Star Silicon Valley will become the journey of a lifetime for those who choose to play a pioneering role in its emergence
• BSSV is a very different kind of startup. It won’t be a fit for everyone — especially at this embryonic stage
• We request you read the Blue Star Silicon Valley prospectus. But before that, read (or reread) The Imaginal Cell Story
• If you find yourself intrigued by the essence of BSSV, and could imagine the possibility of playing a role in evolving that story, Bill and/or Max would love to have a pre-salon synergy-seeking conversation
• The sooner we get to know each other, the sooner the ‘clumping and clustering’ can begin

RSVP: max@GlobalGEA.net, bill@GlobalGEA.net or kwiefling@me.com

The next really “Big Thing” needed by all life on our planet is a renaissance in the social architecture of our society. Our social systems – commerce, finance, education, healthcare, government, media, etc. – are suffering the consequences of archaic and fundamentally flawed design. The three major design flaws are:

• Narrow and/or myopic definitions of success
• Systems designed for ‘control over’ people and nature
• Systems devoid of capacity to consciously self-evolve

These design flaws are so pervasive, commonplace and longstanding that they are as water to a fish — invisible. Yet essentially all of the local and global crises afflicting life on our planet – poverty, hunger, unemployment, terrorism, environmental, endless wars, species extinction, etc. – are a result of these flaws.

Our renaissance in social architecture — the reinvention of our social systems — will reverse these design flaws — and change everything.

Humanity’s Choicepoint: Finite or Infinite Games?

The history of humanity has been dominated by man-made ‘finite games’  — played with great seriousness — some deadly serious. The purpose these ‘finite games’ is winning, where winning usually involves maximizing the accumulation of money, possessions, property, souls, control, trophies, sales, WMD, publications, military victories, degrees, notoriety, knowledge, customers — whatever.

We’ve invented ‘finite games’ in every domain of life — governance, commerce, education, health care, warfare, transportation, entertainment, sports, agriculture, space exploration, etc. Most all of our developed societies have been organized around such games.

As our species become more masterful in the art of ‘finite games’, the games are proving to be devastatingly finite — win/lose games with the ultimate risk of a lose/lose conclusion for all involved.

Meanwhile, the rest of our planet’s millions of species seem to be caught up in a very different kind of game — one that has been in play on this planet for a few billion years. The purpose of their game seems to be to produce more and more beauty, diversity, resilience, consciousness and capacity — an ‘infinite game.’

GlobalGEA sees humanity at an extraordinary choice point:

Option A — We can choose to continue to play according to the rules of today’s finite games — the Red/Orange/Yellow Scenarios

Option B — We can consciously choose to shift to a higher-level game — the Green/Blue Scenarios — an infinite game.

GlobalGEA is committed to advance and support Option B. We are convinced that we, as a species, can collectively learn to navigate the developmental transition from our ‘systemic adolescence’ to mature, responsible, ‘adult social systems’. GlobalGEA has evolved a broad transformational strategy and action-learning framework to support such a rite of passage. ‘Destination Blue Star’ is the name we’ve chosen for this strategy.

Humanity’s Potential: A ‘Blue Star Future’

Today, we humans have everything we need, first to imagine, and then to set out on a journey to co-evolve a future that works for all life — for all time.

A future that works for all life — for all time? Can you imagine it?

We at GlobalGEA have created a ‘lens’ as an aid to seeing that possibility. We call it the Blue Star Future. We use it as a template to support us in collectively imagining such a seemingly impossible destination.

We have chosen 5 ‘star points’ as prompts to stimulate our imagination — and to help us escape the ‘gravitational pull’ of those beliefs that keep us from searching for and discovering our highest purpose — from fully developing our unique gifts — from finding and mastering the work that is ours to do.

A Blue Star Future

Fulfilling work for everyone

All social systems ‘self-evolving’

Opportunities for all to go ‘Full Maslow’

Full co-creative partnership with the rest of nature

Success redefined as ‘contribution to the wellbeing of all life’

 These ‘impossible goals’ are indeed impossible within the designs of today’s social systems. Collectively we have created incredibly complex and intertwined systems of governance, commerce, education, agriculture, media, military force, health care, transportation and communication. Almost every one of the complex social forms that make up each of these sectors shares the three potentially fatal design flaws.

Every region, city and/or organization on our planet can reverse these three design flaws and begin its journey to its version of a Blue Star future.

Destination Blue Star is GlobalGEA’s strategic framework for guiding our complex social systems (regions, cities, corporations, institutions, etc.) along that journey – from where they are to who they can become. Learn more about Destination Blue Star.

Our main approach and ‘vehicle of choice’ for navigating this transition is GALE – generative action-learning expedition. Learn more about GALE.

How might GlobalGEA be engaged at an organization, city and/or regional level?

• If your commitment is to explore the possibility for an ‘organizational metamorphosis’ initiative, then Project 10X could be an ideal low risk, high potential engagement with us

• If your commitment is to explore the possibility for a city or regional metamorphosis initiative, we encourage you to learn more about Destination Blue Star and GALE. You may then want to consider the 5-Day GALE Leadership Intensive as the 1^st step in your region or city’s journey

If you are energized by either possibility, please contact Max Shkud or Bill Veltrop. We would be delighted to engage in an exploratory conversation with you.

A Blue Star Story

In March of 2011 Marilyn and Bill Veltrop visited New Zealand for the first time. Bruce Holland and Owen Harvey, esteemed Kiwi colleagues, encouraged and supported Celia Wade-Brown, mayor of Wellington, in calling a breakfast gathering of Wellington regional leaders. At this breakfast we shared our emerging vision for the possibility of regional metamorphosis. The same dynamic duo of charismatic Kiwis arranged a follow-up gathering of regional change-makers for the following day. At that 2^nd gathering Bruce, Owen and a group of their colleagues decided that they wanted to plant and nurture the Blue Star Future seed in the Wellington region.

That was then. This is now. We invite you to dive deeply into the web site they have developed in the service of evolving toward their Blue Star Future. Bruce Holland authored a good bit of the writing on the site. He’s brilliantly clear and pragmatic in articulating his commitment and insights about what’s possible in Wellington, the rest of New Zealand and beyond.

We have the potential to co-create a future that works for all life — for all time. Realizing this potential requires deep personal and systemic metamorphosis in every sector and at every level of our society. ‘Destination Blue Star’ is GlobalGEA’s strategic framework for guiding our complex social systems (regions, cities, corporations, institutions, etc.) on the journey from where we are to who we can become – humanity’s highest potential.

At the highest level, Destination Blue Star takes the form of a network of regional and/or city initiatives united by the bold vision of each region/city developing its unique capacity to support its social systems in realizing their highest potential to uniquely serve all life they impact.

Our main approach and ‘vehicle of choice’ for navigating this transition is GALE – generative action-learning expedition.

Continue Reading

Co-creating a future that works for all life — for all time

We have the potential to co-create a future that works for all life — for all time. Realizing this potential requires deep personal and systemic metamorphosis in every sector and at every level of our society. ‘Destination Blue Star’ is GlobalGEA’s strategic framework for guiding our complex social systems (regions, cities, corporations, institutions, etc.) on the journey from where we are to who we can become – humanity’s highest potential.

At the highest level, Destination Blue Star takes the form of a network of regional and/or city initiatives united by the bold vision of each region/city developing its unique capacity to support its social systems in realizing their highest potential to uniquely serve all life they impact.

Our main approach and ‘vehicle of choice’ for navigating this transition is GALE – generative action-learning expedition:

• Generative — Designed and implemented in a way that becomes self-regulating, self-sustaining, self-improving, self-propagating and self-evolving. It’s life-enhancing and energizing
• An Action-Learning process – All learning in service of generative actions; all actions designed to generate learning ripples
• An Expedition — a purposeful journey where all of the social systems learn to become increasingly conscious of their choices and of the consequences of those choices. This expedition serves as a ‘rite of passage’ for the participating social systems — from striving to be the best in the world to being the best for the world.

GALE can take an infinite number of forms. It is always designed for and co-evolved with the inhabitants of the system in question. You can learn more about GALE here.

How might the GALE approach be initiated at an organization, city and/or regional level?

• If your commitment is to explore the possibility for an ‘organizational metamorphosis’ initiative, then Project 10X could be an ideal low risk, high potential engagement with GlobalGEA
• If your commitment is to explore the possibility for a city or regional metamorphosis initiative, then you may want to consider the 5-Day GALE Leadership Intensive as an ideal 1^st step

If you are energized by either possibility, please contact Max Shkud or Bill Veltrop. We would be delighted to engage in an exploratory conversation with you.

The FAQ below describes various aspects of Destination Blue Star and GALE in greater detail.

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Destination Blue Star FAQ:

1. What are you trying to transform? Are there specific issues and/or problems that you focus on?
2. How do you do it? What is your approach? What methodologies do you use?
3. What might a GALE (Generative Action-Learning Expedition) look like for my region or city?
4. Why the ‘metamorphosis’ metaphor?
5. Why an ‘expedition?’
6. How long might a GALE take for my city?
7. Why are you primarily focusing on regions and cities?
8. Regions and cities seem impossibly large and complex. Why not start small?
9. What is needed for a region or city to begin such a transformational journey?
10. What’s the incentive for leadership of a given organization to support a regional or city GALE?
11. How can I help start a GALE in my organization, region or city?
12. What’s the relationship between ‘Project 10X’ and GALE?

What are you trying to transform? Are there specific issues and/or problems that you focus on?

At GlobalGEA, we don’t focus on any particular issue or problem such as poverty, hunger or climate change. This is because we are convinced that most all of our socio-economic and environmental ills are a result of our unconscious and often dysfunctional social systems. By ‘unconscious social systems’ we mean that these systems (organizations, governments, corporations, cities, media, education, healthcare, etc.) are largely unconscious of the far reaching, often unintended and harmful outcomes and ripple effects of their functioning. It is this unconsciousness – together with the lack of caring and capacity to act differently – that produces many crises and problems that are visible to us. Wouldn’t it make sense to ‘fix’ the very source of these ills – our unconscious social systems – instead of investing our precious resources trying to fix the never-ending ills? At GlobalGEA, we think so – and we are committed to affecting this kind of deep systemic change.

You might ask, how do you ‘fix’ our social systems? Good question. We are big fans of the mantra “All systems are perfectly designed to get the result the get.” In other words, if we are unhappy with the results that our social systems produce today (e.g. unemployment, poverty, wars, pollution, etc.), we need to look at their flawed and unconscious design and ask ourselves – what kind of design would produce different results – the results we all want?

At GlobalGEA we serve as guides, social architects and designers in support of those social systems that are ready for and committed to become fully conscious of and accountable for the results they produce – to reinvent themselves as Green/Blue-Zone social organisms – to develop the systemic consciousness, caring and capacity to continually increase their lasting contribution to the wellbeing of all life they serve.

GlobalGEA has the unique intellectual, experiential, social and spiritual capital to support the leadership of any complex social system in this deep metamorphosis.

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How do you do it? What is your approach? What methodologies do you use?

The transformational journey for an organization, city and/or region involves navigating a fundamental shift in our dominant worldview. It’s a shift that involves reversing the design principles that are at the root of the social ills we’re experiencing throughout our planet.

Our main approach and ‘vehicle of choice’ for navigating this transition is GALE – generative action-learning expedition:

• Generative — Designed and implemented in a way that becomes self-regulating, self-sustaining, self-improving, self-propagating and self-evolving. It’s life-enhancing and energizing
• An Action-Learning process – All learning in service of generative actions; all actions designed to generate learning ripples
• An Expedition — a purposeful journey where all of the social systems learn to become increasingly conscious of their choices and of the consequences of those choices. This expedition serves as a ‘rite of passage’ for the participating social systems — from striving to be the best in the world to being the best for the world.

GALE can take an infinite number of forms. It is always designed for and co-evolved with the inhabitants of the system in question. (You can learn more about GALE here.)

How do we do it? We always work from the deep commitments of those who would lead such an action-learning expedition. Our Blue Star Future serves as a template in supporting a leadership cohort in co-evolving their ideal vision for the system(s) they steward. We specialize in what we call ‘chrysalis work’. We create the context/container and provide guidance for these committed leaders and practitioners as they navigate ‘metamorphosis’ for themselves and their systems. This ‘chrysalis work’ involves both unlearning our limited and limiting ways of seeing, thinking, being and acting, and also finding ways to begin to unleash our unlimited potential as individuals and as social systems. It’s a social process. It’s something we need to learn to do together. Chrysalis work is designed to provide the requisite time, space, context and support to achieve this metamorphosis.

The most important success factors in a metamorphosis expedition involve how you begin:

• Who has the ‘right stuff’ to serve as committed leaders and practitioners in this extraordinary transformational journey?
• How do we launch this expedition in a way that enables the leadership cohort to achieve ‘escape velocity’ — to get beyond the gravitational pull of a worldview that is literally sucking the life out of our planet?

Our Project 10X (for organizations) and 5-Day Leadership Intensive (for regions and cities) are designed as ideal first stage ‘launch vehicles.’ Both support leadership cohorts in together exploring the unlimited new territory that is opening up to us.

What methodologies do we use?  We focus on those methodologies that are inherently generative  — methodologies that apply at all levels of system; that will evolve and spread without a lot of outside support; that will grow even in rocky soil.

Barrett Values Centre’s Cultural Transformation Tools is a great example of a generative methodology applicable at all levels of system, in any kind of social system, within any culture on our planet.

We specialize in ‘generative C-work’ — in identifying and inventing methodologies that have the potential to spread naturally throughout all parts of an organization, city and/or region. We are very discerning in our choice of methodologies, focusing on those that best grow systemic capacity for learning and change.

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What might a GALE (Generative Action-Learning Expedition) look like for my region or city?

Historically we think of journeys in 3D space — traveling from one ‘place’ to another ‘place.’

GALE involves starting with your ‘place,’ your city, and you set out on a quest to discover and to fully unleash its essence — its unique gifts — its highest purpose. Traditional 3D journeys consume energy. GALE is an eye-opening, synergy-seeking, energy-generating experience for all to become fully engaged in its ever-unfolding process.

One scenario for how a GALE might unfold for your city:

• It could start with a few people who care deeply about your city and want to invest themselves in creating a future that works for all of its inhabitants.
• They would engage Bill Veltrop and/or Max Shkud in exploratory conversations to sketch out both a broad path forward and manageable first steps.
• This core group could identify and engage a cohort of a couple of dozen ‘game-ready infinite players (GRIPs)’ to participate in a 5-day City Leadership Intensive. This 5-day event would challenge this cohort to begin 1) to envision your city’s version of a Blue Star Future, 2) to experience themselves as a generative action-learning community, and 3) to picture potential next steps on their city’s Metamorphosis Journey.
• Their first pass vision for your city’s ideal 2020 future will be further evolved and actualized as the next phases of your city’s journey unfold.
• A GALE is a commitment-based journey: Always starting with ‘Innovator’ and ‘Early Adopter’ leaders and social entities, who in turn, attract the ‘Early Majority.’ It’s a natural ‘pull’ strategy. There is no pushing involved.
• It’s an appreciative journey: There are many wonderfully generative initiatives throughout your city. Your GALE would be designed to fan those embers — to promote and support that which is already serving life.
• Ideally it’s a journey that ultimately contributes to every individual and every social entity discovering their highest purpose, developing their unique gifts, and consciously contributing to the wellbeing of aspects of the social organism that is your city.
  

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Why the ‘metamorphosis’ metaphor?

We are a very young and immature species. Judging from the net impact of our myriad social forms on the wellbeing of all life, we seem adolescent at best. Our major social systems (governance, commerce, education, health care, military, agriculture, media, etc.) show caterpillar-like traits: myopic, consumption and growth-centric, and slow moving.

The Monarch caterpillar has been gifted with the capacity to create a chrysalis for itself to transform into a Monarch butterfly. It spends about a third of its life cycle in going through a dramatic metamorphosis.

The social systems that populate and define our cities and regions have taken decades and even centuries to become what they are today. To navigate the great transition to social forms that are committed to maximize their contribution to the wellbeing of all life they impact is the challenge of our time.

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Why an ‘expedition?’

An expedition is defined as a journey with a specific purpose. GALE is a journey to free humans from a worldview that has imprisoned most of our species for millennia. It’s a journey wherein we reinvent our social forms in ways that maximize their contribution to the wellbeing of life.

Our social forms have been swimming in the mechanistic, reductionist, materialistic, separatist worldview for centuries. This worldview has become to us as water is to a fish — invisible.

How do we best support our social forms in transcending today’s life-constraining worldview and evolving worldviews that best support our journey to our highest purpose? It’s a journey that ultimately involves all life in a given region and/or city.

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How long might a GALE take for my city?

If the generative action-learning expedition is fully embraced, it becomes an infinite game. It doesn’t end.

The ideal GALE for your city would unfold in a way that both yielded point-at-able near term benefits, and also made tangible year-over-year movement toward your city’s unique vision of its Blue Star Future. Ideally, it would include growing the capacities of its organizations, its neighborhoods and its institutions to be continually finding new ways to make a difference for all those they serve.

Ideally there would be citywide events to celebrate the city’s emergence as a model for societal metamorphosis everywhere.

As your social forms evolve, new possibilities open up.  As your city develops generative alliances with other cities and regions, the infinite game can evolve in ways that ultimately embrace of all life throughout our planet.

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Why are you focusing on regions and cities?

We define the ‘region’ to include relatively whole ecosystems — natural and man-made. A ‘region’ is large enough to be politically and economically significant, and small enough to be called ‘home’ by its inhabitants.

We are a predominantly urban species. If we are to evolve our social systems in ways that best serve the wellbeing of all life, our cities must help lead the way.

By identifying our regions and cities as ideal units of design, it is possible —

• To rise above the pervasive sense of hopelessness and helplessness implicit in today’s entangled and fragmented social systems.
• To realize myriad economies of wholeness. (The true costs of fragmentation is staggering. The true benefits of designing our social forms as models of and contributors to wholeness are HUGE.)
• To unite the game-ready infinite players (GRIPs) from all sectors, levels and walks of life. (We are not alone. We’re all in this together. Together we can create a future that works for all of life.)
• To turn the energy of frustration and helplessness implicit in today’s forms into the unlimited energies that exist in all conscious living systems that are whole.
• To achieve the ‘economies of scope and scale’ needed to understand the root systemic causes of a region’s ills.
• To evolve developmental capacity that can serve all those systems where leadership is committed to transformational change

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Regions and cities seem impossibly large and complex. Why not start small?

Finite games tend to be ‘either/or.’ Infinite games tend to be ‘both/and.’

A Destination Blue Star for your city would initially involve only a small number of committed players who are able 1) to embrace the complexity inherent in your diverse, entangled social systems, 2) to discover the elegant simplicity — the essence of your city, and 3) identify manageable next step initiatives that both demonstrate immediate on-the-ground results and also move your city toward its ideal future vision.

As the vision for your city’s vision of its ideal future gains clarity and ownership, and as it grows its supporting infrastructure and expertise, more and more generative initiatives will spring up in support of that overarching vision. Most of these initiatives will be both small and in the service of that larger vision.

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What is needed for a region or city to begin such a transformational journey?

All that is needed is a handful of core players who are deeply committed to exploring the possibility — and have the consciousness, caring, commitment and courage to begin the conversation. Goethe said it well:

“What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it!
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

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What’s the incentive for leadership of a given organization to support a regional or city Destination Blue Star?

Organizations that master the art of 1) unlocking the highest potential of their people, 2) developing generative leadership and 3) systemic capacity building will not only survive, but thrive in a world of ever-increasing turbulence.

Such organizations will also be in a potent position to influence and contribute to the metamorphosis of the region(s) they call home. The healthier and more resilient the socio-economic and natural ecosystems that make up an organization’s environment, the better it will be for the organization and all of its stakeholders.

We’re all in this together.

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How can I help start such a GALE in my organization, city or region?

Are you a GRIP? Do you care deeply about your organization, city or region and want to invest yourself in creating a future that works for all of its inhabitants? Contact Bill Veltrop or Max Shkud for an exploratory conversation.

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What’s the relationship between ‘Project 10X’ and GALE?

Project 10X is a strategic capacity-building process that helps an organization find the developmental sweet spot in addressing these three critical challenges:

• Unlocking the highest potential in all its people
• Developing generative leadership throughout the organization
• Growing new organizational capacities quickly and organically

Project 10X is a low cost, low risk, action-learning initiative designed to organically grow an organization’s leadership and capacity to address complex non-linear, whole-system challenges.

The success of any regional and city GALE will hinge on its ability to support organizational transformation. Project 10X enables organizations to action-learn their way into the work of systemic transformation.

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Never has the business environment been so challenging and performance bar so high for organizations. Businesses must learn to innovate, perform and adapt better, faster and more economically than ever before – while still continuing to deliver their short- and medium-term results. That’s a steep hill to climb even with the best people. Yet according to Gallup, over two-thirds of Americans are disengaged at work.

In solving this conundrum, business leaders are faced with three critical challenges:

• How do we engage the deepest passions and gifts of our people – their highest potential?
• How do we grow our organization’s capacity for rapid learning and change?
• How do we develop leadership capable of successfully addressing increasingly complex, whole-system challenges?

Project 10X is a strategic capacity-building framework that helps organizations address these three challenges in way that is organic, truly generative and lasting, weaving systems-change expertise throughout the fabric of the organization.

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Bill’s career began with Exxon in 1953. He started as a project engineer, later developed the first mathematical planning models of its largest refineries, and then went on to pioneer innovative approaches to organizational renewal and design in Exxon USA, Exxon Enterprises and Esso Nederland.

While with Exxon Bill 1) guided a major organizational renewal initiative at Exxon’s flagship Baytown, Texas refinery, 2) initiated the first socio-tech design of Zilog’s Nampa, Idaho microprocessor plant, and 3) served as lead consultant for the socio-tech redesign of Rotterdam’s refinery organization.

After leaving Exxon in 1985 Bill conducted a global inquiry: Who have been successful in transforming large organizations, and what efforts have best supported those efforts? Then, as an external consultant, he initially worked primarily with Canadian corporations. These started at plants but escalated to corporate level initiatives, including a ‘breakthrough’ corporate merger involving Imperial Oil and Texaco Canada.

In 1990 Bill founded ICOD, The International Center for Organization Design. During ’90 and ’91 Bill and his colleagues conducted a number of international conferences designed to bridge between the various “technologies of transformation” — to demonstrate the potential for creative collaboration among those who guide the transformation of large systems. ICOD’s Gamma Learning Expedition series included change strategy teams from Esso Resources Canada, Gulf Canada, MW Kellogg, Petro-Canada, Shell Canada and TransAlta Utilities.

In the late ‘90s Bill served as architect and guide in designing and leading ‘action-learning expeditions’ in high tech and construction corporations. In 2000 he co-founded Pathfinders with his wife Marilyn. Their innovative Pathfinder Circles have been foundational to the emergence of ‘Chrysalis Work’as a core discipline in the metamorphosis of both leadership development and our diverse social forms. In 2007, Bill co-founded MISA – Monterey Institute for Social Architecture.

In 2011, Bill Veltrop and Max Shkud co-founded GlobalGEA (Global Guild of Evolutionary Architects). Their deep commitment is to the ‘metamorphosis’ of social systems throughout our planet (education, health care, commerce, governance, media, agriculture, etc.), in a way that best serves all life — for all time.

Contact Bill at bill@globalgea.net

Unleashing the ‘10X Shift’ in Individuals and Organizations

Never has the business environment been so challenging and performance bar so high for organizations. Businesses must learn to innovate, perform and adapt better, faster and more economically than ever before – while still continuing to deliver their short- and medium-term results. That’s a steep hill to climb even with the best people. Yet the odds are that close to two-thirds of your workforce is disengaged.

In solving this conundrum, business leaders are faced with three critical challenges:

• How do we unlock the highest potential in our people? How do we engage their deepest passions and gifts and direct them toward the most urgent needs of the organization?
  
• How do we grow new organizational capabilities quickly in response to rapidly changing conditions? For example, how do we innovate more, change faster, communicate/collaborate better, deliver quicker, make better decisions, etc.?
• How do we develop distributed adaptive leadership capable of successfully addressing increasingly complex, whole-system challenges like the two above?

Project 10X is a strategic capacity-building framework that helps your organization address these three challenges while growing your company’s overall capacity for adaptive learning and change.

While many organizations invest their training and development dollars in one or more of the three areas, those efforts tend to be isolated and piecemeal, thus rarely achieving the desired lasting shift in culture and organizational capacity.

Project 10X ‘works the sweet spot’ where the three capabilities ‘dance in dynamic concert’ and multiply each other, growing the organization’s adaptive capacity at every level of system.

Project 10X is distinct from more traditional, packaged, classroom-based, push-style training programs in several ways:

• Begins with a high-priority capacity-building challenge identified and fully supported by top leadership
• Engages a diagonal-slice cohort of high-functioning, well-respected volunteers committed to serve as ‘changemakers’ in addressing this challenge in a way that helps shape your organization’s future
• Focuses on order-of-magnitude shifts (10X) in the lasting contributions of the participants to the organization and to its immediate and extended stakeholder families
• Integrates personal development and organizational commitments naturally and organically
• Decisively action-learning centric – learning primarily in the context of real systemic challenges; ‘pull’ learning rather than ‘push’ learning
• Naturally grows agile, silo-transcending, collaborative action-learning networks capable of responding to changing requirements quickly
• Self-propagating, self-improving and self-evolving – both ‘horizontally’ and ‘vertically’
• Low cost – can start small and spread/grow organically; this allows for rapid prototyping and course correction early at low risk

If you would like to explore Project 10X for your organization, please contact Max Shkud or Bill Veltrop

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Project 10X FAQs:

1. Why ‘10X’?
2. What is the design for a Project 10X initiative?
3. What organizations should consider Project 10X?
4. Why is Project 10X a potent leadership development strategy for an organization?
5. How does Project 10X build organizational capacities? What capacities are you referring to?
6. Who would be engaged in a typical Project 10X initiative?
7. How can my organization justify the time investment from the participants?
8. Why do you emphasize ‘quality of relationships’ so strongly?
9. You emphasize the organic, open-ended, self-managing, self-evolving nature of Project 10X initiatives. Why is this important?
10. What is the difference between leadership skills and systemic capacities?
11. What outcomes can be expected from a Project 10X initiative?
12. What are the costs and potential risks of a Project 10X initiative?
13. Why is GlobalGEA offering to do Project 10X on a ‘pay-for-performance’ basis?
14. Assuming there is Project 10X – Phase 2, how might it be different?
    

Why ‘10X?’

“In the industrial age, an exemplary worker might produce 25% more than average; now, a great engineer may create two-hundred times the value of an ordinary engineer” – Jay Cross

We agree with Jay Cross. This is why Project 10X is designed to grow an organizational culture and environment where everyone is inspired, supported, and has opportunities to create 10X shifts in the lasting value of their contribution — a culture where such growth is organic, fulfilling and fun — where it is a norm and basic expectation.

“If you were to create a 10X shift in the lasting contribution you are making to the organization and its stakeholders, what would it look like?”

At the core of Project 10X is a powerful concept and process we call ‘10X Commitments’. It is a personal commitment to a radical shift in the lasting contribution one is making to the organization and the world. “10X” refers to an order-of-magnitude shift, one that feels impossible – a shift that demands exploration outside the box of one’s current thinking – a shift that requires creative collaboration. The following features help provide a better sense of the 10X Commitments process:

• Designed to escape the gravitational pull of ‘business as usual’
• An on-going ever-evolving process; more a state of mind than a specific goal; a privilege – not a grudging duty
• Personal and ‘organizational’ 10X Commitments work in synergy
  • “What ‘inner work’ would best support my organizational 10X Commitment?”
  • Calls upon participants to discover, develop and mobilize their deepest gifts, talents and strengths
  • Grows high quality relationships – a trusting and supportive ‘10X Action-Learning Community’
  • Has been evolved and thoroughly tested with over 20 years experience in different settings

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What is the design for a Project 10X initiative?

The design of Project 10X is customized to the unique culture and challenges of the client organization. Here is one picture of how Phase 1 of Project 10X might unfold:

• Exploratory conversations with the organizational ‘gatekeeper’ and/or sponsoring executive
• Interview organization’s top team and developmental leaders to ensure good fit between this organization’s culture and a proposed P10X strategy
• Develop criteria and strategy for inviting, engaging and enrolling the ‘Changemaker Cohort’:
  • Ideally 12, 15,18, or 21 participants collectively representing a diagonal slice of the organization
  • Eager to play a pioneering role in this action-learning expedition — and capacity to take it on
  • Each participant seen as a credible leader and changemaker — horizontally and vertically — an innovator and early adopter
  • Open and curious about inner work and ‘development’ in general — a committed and self-actualizing learner
  • Conscious, caring and courageous in service of organization and its stakeholders
• Organization’s leadership team agrees to support Phase 1: They identify a project leader and also a sponsoring executive who would be a full participant in Phase 1 activities; also agree on the high priority challenge(s) to the cohort
• ‘Advertise’ for and select cohort volunteers
• Begin ca 3-month Phase 1 action-learning experience – with 6-9 ‘cohort days’:
  • 2-day kick-off workshop
  • Weekly co-creative coaching trio sessions (primary support for evolving individual 10X Commitments)
  • Monthly 1-day workshops to debrief, reflect and course correct
  • Monthly interim lunch + working session
  • Phase 1 completion workshops to harvest learnings, present recommendations to the organization’s leadership team, agree on the journey ahead

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What organizations should consider Project 10X?

Project 10X could be relevant for complex organizations in any sector (private, public or NGO). Some of the criteria for a good fit might include:

• Innovative, dynamic, fast paced culture; operating in a rapidly changing, highly competitive environment/industry
• Committed to developing ‘leaders fit for the future’ – growing leaders who are highly creative, systems-minded, relationship-centric, deeply committed stewards of the organization, its stakeholders and the larger world
• Ready to invest in growing a truly generative culture of creativity, contribution, resilience and aliveness
• Recognizes the strategic importance of building systemic capacities (e.g. innovation, responsiveness, learning, adaptiveness) – not just individual skills
• Sees ‘capacity-building capacity’ as a crucial collaborative advantage in the fast-changing world
• Committed to purposefully developing its people – unleashing their 10X potential; sees it as key to success
• Disenchanted with traditional, packaged, classroom-based developmental offerings and approaches, and is willing and ready to pioneer a more organic, open-ended, deeply engaging, action-learning centric approach

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Why is Project 10X a potent leadership development strategy for an organization?

Traditionally, leadership development has focused on developing the leadership abilities and attitudes of individuals. In recent years there has been more attention to ‘systemic leadership development.’

Project 10X goes beyond both definitions by focusing on developing leadership ‘capable of transforming today’s complex, non-linear, whole-system challenges into rich opportunities’ to grow the many organizational capacities to survive and thrive in a world of uncertainty and turbulence.

Project 10X is pioneering new leadership development territory. Cohort participants will be discovering and inventing pragmatic, highly valued ways of addressing highly urgent systemic challenges facing the organization – all the while consciously growing the organization’s ‘capacity-building capacity.’

Project 10X is based on the assumption that the development of leadership for today’s world is a ‘pull’ rather than a ‘push’ challenge.

Project 10X initiatives will be designed as generative initiatives. These 10 Design Principles for Generative Initiatives will help illustrate the potency of this approach.

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How does Project 10X build organizational capacities? What capacities are you referring to?

Phase 1 of an organization’s Project 10X initiative would focus on the organizational capacity that the leadership team agrees is its highest priority — the capacity most important to now and future sustainability and thrivability of the organization.

Examples of potentially important organizational capacities include —

• Evolving the organization in a way that inspires all members to discover and fully give their gifts and passion at work
• Unleashing innovation in everybody, all the time, every day
• Improving resiliency — the ability to respond and adapt quickly to changing conditions
• Creating a climate of high trust and appreciation
• Developing high customer loyalty
  

The selection of the ‘organizational capacity’ that the leadership team sees as its top priority is a crucial step in a Project 10X initiative. Ideally the team spells out why developing this capacity is so important and is truly united around its priority. Some rationale for its importance:

• Top leadership’s taking this stand will help ensure that we attract the ideal mix of Phase 1 participants. As Jim Collins advises: ‘Get the right people on the bus’
• We will be looking for a systemic solution. This could involve the entire system. It is good to have all top leaders ‘owning’ the initiative and being supportive of its unfolding process
• The real work of Phase 1 will involve countless connections with many different players. The higher the priority and level of support, the more eager everyone will be to contribute.

The 3-Span Bridge Lens distinguishes organizational capacity building from individual capability building:

• Expertise required — GlobalGEA will be guiding/supporting the cohort throughout Phase 1. We will be helping participants identify what other expertise might be most appropriate for the chosen organizational capacity.
• Infrastructure required — The formal infrastructure for Phase 1 is described above. The cohort is challenged to invent and evolve whatever additional infrastructure they see appropriate and needed to achieve its mission.
• Resources required — Organizational leadership would invest in 6-9 days of formal cohort workshop time. They’d also be identifying a project coordinator, perhaps a half-time assignment. Leadership team time investment is roughly one day total for Phase 1.

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Who would be engaged in a typical Project 10X initiative?

• Cohort participants — 12-21 ‘diagonal slice’ members selected from the pool of volunteers. The time commitment of these ‘changemakers’ (in addition to the ‘6-9 cohort days’) would be a function of the Phase 1 Challenge issued by the sponsoring leadership team.
• Executive cohort participant — To serve as full participant, mentor, block-remover and bridge-builder
• Organizational leadership team (i.e. sponsors) — Time and attention to participate in exploratory interviews, identify the top priority capacity-building challenge; agree on criteria and approach to cohort selection; engage with the cohort at the end of Phase 1 to agree on a path forward. (About 1 day total)
• Other organizational involvement — Cohort changemakers will engage with a number of other organizational members in the course of Phase 1. However, time involvement for any given non-cohort member is expected to be minimal

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How can my organization justify the time investment from the participants?

A Project 10X initiative will take a significant investment of time and attention from the participating changemakers (i.e. cohort members.) Let’s look at how some of the most innovative companies in the world justify such investments.

Google, 3M and W.L. Gore allocate 10-20% of their employees’ time on self-directed innovation. And that’s only part of the investment. These companies understand that critical systemic capacities – such as “Meaningful Innovation Everywhere, All The Time” – don’t get built through slogans, famed guest speakers, classroom trainings, copied best practices and/or top-down culture change efforts. Building strategically important systemic capacities requires time, attention and ownership from the carriers of the organization’s culture — formal and informal leadership throughout the organization. This would ensure that change is (a) meaningful, (b) well supported, and therefore (c) lasting.

Whether your organization is ready and willing to tap its best and brightest talent is a good test. Just how important is the desired systemic capacity to your organization’s success?

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Why do you emphasize ‘quality of relationships’ so strongly?

Please refer to the Quality of Organizational Energy picture and Quality of Relationships and Agreements charts.

Developing high-quality co-creative relationships plays a pivotal part in evolving and bringing to life the 10X commitments of the Project 10X participants.

In addition, over the last 12+ years we have seen strong consensual validation from multiple organizations that there is an exponential relationship between quality of relationships and such organizational variables as —

• Trust
• Open communications
• Collaboration
• Innovation
• Productivity
• Health and wellbeing
• Attracting and retaining talent
  

Quality of Relationships is not the only important variable. However, it always seems to be one of the top 1-3 factors associated with both dysfunctional/toxic and sustainable/generative cultures.

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You emphasize the open-ended, organic, self-managing, self-evolving nature of Project 10X initiatives. Why is this important?

We’re entering a new era where the Industrial Age ‘PUSH-approaches’ to leadership development are grossly inadequate. The increasingly complex, systemic, non-linear and interdependent challenges facing organizations today demand approaches to development that are more ‘PULL-style’ – organic, open-ended, purpose-filled, self-managing, self-propagating and self-evolving.

We are convinced that organizations that have mastered the art of weaving the capacity for systemic learning and change throughout the fabric of their operations will have an enormous competitive and collaborative advantage in these turbulent times.

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What is the difference between leadership skills and systemic capacities?

Systemic capacities can be seen as complex and purposeful configurations of skills, relationships, stories, visions, values, processes, structures, etc. that enable the system to survive and thrive in rapidly changing environments.

So while systemic capacities certainly include leadership skills, they go much beyond them. Systemic capacities cannot be attributed to any particular individual or even a group; rather, they are a property of the whole system – they, in essence, ‘live’ in individuals, relationships, stories, visions, structures, etc. – the ‘social fabric’ of the organization. This is why growing systemic capacities is a much bigger challenge than building individual leadership skills, but also a much wiser investment in the organization’s long term success – an investment that has a much higher ‘True ROI’.

Please review ‘How does Project 10X build organizational capacities?’ to get some clues for what is involved in systemic-capacity building.

You may ask, what kind of leadership is required for the special work of building new organizational capacities? The leader capabilities we’ve found most important include —

• Consciousness — A readiness and joy in exploring beyond the box of your current beliefs; an openness to new ways of seeing; an awareness of the myriad ripple effects of ones actions and inactions.
• Caring — Feeling and exhibiting concern and empathy for others is essential in creating and sustaining a ‘Blue Zone’ organizational culture.
• Commitment — Goethe says it well: “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness… the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.”
• Courage — A capacity building journey is rarely a predictable straight-line path. It is more like a marathon than a sprint. Seen as an action-learning expedition, it has its ups, downs and side trips. This journey requires courage, steadiness and determination. Goethe comes to rescue again: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

Project 10X is designed in a way that naturally helps leadership grow these individual capabilities in the service of growing crucial new organizational capacities.

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What outcomes can be expected from a Project 10X initiative?

Project 10X is designed to organically grow an organization’s capacity for learning and change critical to surviving and thriving in the rapidly changing world. In particular, Project 10X aims to:

• Grow the organization’s capacity to develop ‘leaders fit for the future’ – highly creative, systems-minded, relationship-centric leaders deeply committed to being stewards of the organization, its stakeholders and the larger world
• Develop the organization’s ‘capacity-building capacity’ – ability to build systemic capacities deemed critical to the organization’s long term success
• Evolve a generative Green/Blue Zone culture – a culture of creativity, purpose and contribution; a culture that unleashes the 10X potential in individuals, groups and the entire organization

Because of the open-ended nature of Project 10X, more specific outcomes will vary depending on the challenges and focus selected by the sponsoring leadership team. At the very least, the participants will:

• Have an extraordinary personal, professional and leadership development experience
• Grow value-adding co-creative relationships — horizontally and vertically
• Contribute to shaping the org’s culture of the future

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What are the costs and potential risks of a Project 10X initiative?

Out-of-pocket costs — GlobalGEA is offering to design and guide the initial phase of an organizational Project 10X initiative on a pay-for-performance basis:

• We would agree on a minimum ‘sustainability fee’ + expenses
• After the completion of Phase 1, the leadership team would evaluate the value added contribution of GlobalGEA and, if warranted, pay an added fee, with a predetermined upper limit
  

Other costs — The larger investment is the time and attention required of the cohort and management. See “Who would be engaged in a typical Project 10X Initiative?”

Potential risks

The risks are miniscule if —

• The organization’s leadership team fully understands the initiative and is committed to pioneering this new territory, e.g., to serving as learning leaders and leading learners, and
• There is a true partnership between the organization and GlobalGEA in maximizing the contribution of this project to the now and future success and wellbeing of the organization.

Meeting those two conditions will ensure minimal risk. Why? Because the harvest in terms of leadership development (for both the cohort and the leadership) can far outweigh the total costs — independent of the immediate systemic outcomes.

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Why is GlobalGEA offering to do Project 10X on a ‘pay-for-performance’ basis?

Though the many elements of the Project 10X approach have been proven in various organizational projects and initiatives, we are pioneering new territory. GlobalGEA’s pay-for-performance offer reflects both a willingness to share the risk — and a confidence of the generative value-adding potential of this approach.

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Assuming there is Project 10X Phase 2, how might it be different?

Every organization is unique, with its own culture and character, its own history and mix of challenges and opportunities.

Phase 1 is truly a phase of exploration and learning — a vehicle for beginning to explore the highest potential of the organization and its members.

Phase 1, if engaged fully, will be full of rich learning and growth for all involved. As we move together toward the conclusion of Phase 1, we will have a solid basis for deciding if there is to be a Phase 2, and if so, how it should differ from Phase 1.

The possibilities are endless, e.g., it could be optimal —

• To extend Phase 1 with the same cohort and appropriate adjustments
• To advance a Phase 2 strategy that supports evolving Phase 1 findings in a way that becomes a part of the organization’s ‘modus operandi’
• To utilize Phase 1 leaders in applying this approach in different units in the organization

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A first step toward a future that works for all life, for all time

Context

Our current state is very troubling: We are collectively experiencing a growing collective conviction that ‘business as usual’ will guarantee an ever-worsening future for humanity. We’re beginning to wake up to a most ‘inconvenient’ reality:

• Most all of our ‘greening activities’ can only incrementally slow our rate of environmental degradation, not turn things around.
• Our rate of socio-economic degradation seems to be increasing with no pragmatic overarching strategies emerging that could reverse that trend.

We’re at a choice point in our evolutionary journey.

To shift from business as usual (the Red/Orange/Yellow scenarios) to a more generative trajectory (Green/Blue scenarios) requires that we grow up, mature and become collectively responsible. This is a daunting challenge.  It’s new territory. It involves consciously choosing to undertake what could become the greatest evolutionary leap since the invention of photosynthesis.

We suggest that you play with and study Our Next Evolutionary Leap model. Understanding this model and its embedded distinctions are foundational to describing our proposed first step on a pathway to a dramatically more promising future — one where all of our social systems find it in their self-interest to hold themselves responsible and accountable for their net contribution to the wellbeing of all life they affect.

The time has come to be bold and outrageous. We are proposing that we take a stand for ‘societal metamorphosis’ — an action-learning journey that ultimately involves everyone and affects all life — for all time. Societal metamorphosis is a process of ‘coming of age’ for our social systems — all of them — everywhere.

This initial description of our proposed ‘GALE Leadership Intensives (GLIs),’ can help us visualize a bootstrapping process for attracting and engaging a requisite variety and critical mass of pioneering leaders (both positional leaders and potential change practitioners).

By creating a transformational experience for such a community of leaders/practitioners, and equipping them to envision an ideal 2020 regional/city/organization’s future and a viable path forward, we can launch a movement that could become irreversible.

Purpose of the GALE Leadership Intensives

These abbreviated (5-day) ‘generative action-learning expeditions’ are intended to serve as an introductory transformational experience for all those who will be playing leadership/entrepreneurial roles in a lifelong journey to enable their regions/cities to develop their capacity to support the transformation of their various social systems (organizations, neighborhoods, communities, institutions, governments, etc.).

The intensives are designed to equip 18-24 leaders/practitioners to play pioneering roles in shaping and implementing a startup strategy for their region/city/organization’s transformational journey.

Intended Outcomes from GALE Leadership Intensives

GLIs will —

• Provide a paradigm-shifting experience — from traditional ways of seeing to the more generative ways implicit in all aspects of a regional metamorphosis journey.
• Engage the participants in growing a vision of both an ideal 2020 future for their region/city, and also a broad strategy for getting there.
• Support the participants in creating and evolving their personal and ‘systemic’ 10X commitments.
• Demonstrate the nature and efficacy of chrysalis work in the special work of regional/city metamorphosis.
• Introduce those lenses, language and practices that will ensure that this first step of the journey is truly generative for the players and the region. These shared ways of seeing and working together will do much to grow relationships across today’s boundaries.
• Produce a founding community of leaders and potential change agents who have a good grasp, excitement about, and commitment to this unique transformational journey. The boundary-crossing relationships, coupled with shared experience and high purpose, will be wonderfully integrative. We begin to see the region as a whole, consisting of interdependent wholes.
• Develop a cohort of regional leaders/change agents who have collectively experienced Blue Zone action-learning — who have the relationships and basic skills to support collaboration and innovation across our many boundaries.
• Produce several “products,” e.g.,

* An enhanced, shared, compelling web-based story for your region/city’s journey to an ideal 2020; including scenes from the intensive.
* GLI 2.0, an upgraded and streamlined version for general use in starting up new chrysalis teams.

• Set the stage for a multi-day Wisdom Accelerator-based gathering that would bring the “GLI grads” together with other key regional/city leaders —

* to bless/upgrade the ever-evolving  regional/city vision
* to reboot individual 10X commitments* to explore potential generative alliances
* to decide on pioneering prototype “chrysalis teams”
* to lay the foundation for the 2013-20 Regional/City Capacity-Building Journey

Potential Design Features for these GALE Leadership Intensives

• Live-in for these prototype gatherings — preferable close to nature. Stack the deck for success.
• Design/lead in a way that maximizes ‘generative learning’ (self-managing/improving/evolving, energizing, multiplying benefits, constructive ripples, moving towards wholeness)
• Would utilize four distinct structural configurations:

* Total Community — Both as a community of practice/commitment during the day and as a Wisdom Council in the evenings.
* Co-creative Coaching Trios – These would be initiated early on and would be the primary on-going mechanism for supporting individual “Core Work.” These trios would be stable and meet multiple times during the week — and on-going thereafter
* Systemic Scouting Teams - These might be R&D exploratory teams or special work teams
* Individual Work

• The ‘trios’ and ‘scouting teams’ would be designed to be relatively autonomous. They would generally meet each day, sharing what they’re learning and vetting their emerging thinking.
• Part of the ‘Individual Work’ could include serving as champion/steward for some specific measure of community well-being, e.g., time consciousness, quality of listening
• Creating your lifeline and telling your story (probably in coaching trios; then highlight learnings in total community)
• The 10X commitment theme will be emphasized throughout the gathering

* Personal10X commitments will have two foci: Core Work and Systemic Work
* One’s personal systemic 10X should reflect one’s true work and relate to the regional/city metamorphosis initiative
* Systemic Scouting Teams committed to carry an initiative forward may also come forward with their team 10X commitment

• Each Scouting Team could provide a member to participate in brief ‘review and course correction sessions’ at the end of each day.
• We will provide web-based descriptions (GlobalGEA.net) of the key concepts and tools that will be used during the gathering.
• This event will lay a foundation for developing a culture of appreciation, co-creative collaboration and innovation essential for a successful regional capacity-building journey.
• The prototype GLI will focus on evolving the emerging vision for the What and How of their proposed journey. The Scouting Teams will be a primary means for this vetting/upgrading this vision.
• We could capture enough “footage” from this event to help us get traction in the next stage of this adventure.

What supports these GALE Leadership Intensives being seen as an attractive investment for potential funders?

• We will be laying the foundation for a regional/city infrastructure with the charter and the capacity to guide the region/city toward a future that works for all.
• Implementing this GLI proposal would produce a community of highly influential players committed to developing the region/city’s capacity to transform its systems in ways that benefit all. Our experience with this pool of players, and their experience with these pioneering beginnings, will serve the region well in evolving and implementing the next steps on our journey together.
• This would be a bold, high visibility initiative that would help attract both expertise and financial support from within and outside our region/city.
• Regional/city capacity for collaboration and innovation would be significantly enhanced through this investment alone.
• The experience will provide a solid foundation from which to envision, prototype and evolve the next phase of this pioneering journey.
• The week will be an extraordinarily potent leadership development experience independent of the future course of action followed by the region/city.

We help complex social systems (e.g. regions, cities, large organizations and foundations) grow their capacity for ‘chrysalis work’ – purpose-driven, paradigm-shifting, continually-evolving systemic learning and change.

Our primary approach to working with any system is to co-design and help implement a Generative Action-Learning Expedition (GALE) within that system.

We typically start with a GALE Leadership Intensive – an introductory transformational experience designed to equip 18-24 leaders/practitioners to play pioneering roles in shaping and implementing a startup strategy for their system’s transformational journey.

We serve as —

• Guides on this extraordinary action-learning quest
• Social architects of new developmental infrastructures (chrysalis work) required to support the ‘metamorphosis’ of the system
• ‘Companions of destiny’ — sharing a quest for a world that works for all life
• Generative allies to those ‘stewards for the future,’ developmental entrepreneurs and ‘providers of generative services’ who together will create a ‘generative developmental ecosystem’ — a marketplace intended to support our transition into an Age of Conscious Evolution.

The following FAQ helps further clarify what we do:

What do we do?
How do we do it?
Who are we?
10 Ways We Create Value
What do we mean by ‘chrysalis work?’
Why is the ‘capacity for systemic chrysalis work crucial?’
What is our mojo?
How is GlobalGEA structured?
What is our business model?

How do we do it?

Our primary approach to working with any system is to co-design and help implement a Generative Action-Learning Expedition (GALE) within that system.

GALE can be seen as a unique developmental strategy designed to grow the systemic capacity for chrysalis work — purpose-driven, paradigm-shifting, continually-evolving systemic learning and change within a system — in a way that continually increases the system’s contribution to the wellbeing of all life impacted by that system.

The design of each GALE is tailored to the specific culture and needs of the system(s) involved. A typical GALE usually starts with a GALE Leadership Intensive – an introductory transformational experience (a mini-GALE) designed to equip 18-24 leaders/practitioners to play pioneering roles in shaping and implementing a startup strategy for their system’s transformational journey.

NOTE: An important part of the GALE strategy is growing a vibrant marketplace connecting transformational leaders and generative initiatives with that expertise most relevant to and efficacious for their developmental journey.

Who are we?

Max Shkud and Bill Veltrop serve as instigating leaders of MISA’s GlobalGEA initiative. We are a growing community of transformational leaders, champions of generative initiatives, providers of generative services, stewards for and investors in a future that works for all life, for all time.

We choose to believe that the root cause of our myriad local and global crises lies in the flawed/unconscious design of our social systems. Collectively our systems are caterpillar-like — myopic, focused on growth and consumption. Essentially all of our social systems (governance, finance, education, health care, commerce, agriculture, media, etc.) share the same design flaws.

We choose to believe that the growing global crises are a clear signal that the time has come to address the root causes, and to learn to transform our social systems in ways that reverse those pervasive design flaws:

1. Redefine ‘success’ in terms of systemic contribution to the wellbeing of all life affected by those systems.
2. Design for control with people vs. control over people
3. Design these systems with the capacity to self-evolve in ways that best address ever-changing challenges and opportunities.

GlobalGEA is a commitment to promoting and supporting a societal metamorphosis throughout our planet.

10 Ways We Create Value

1. Holding the highest vision for our social systems and humanity as a whole — a Blue Star Future — compelling, audacious and (if we shift a few key paradigms) attainable.
2. Finding ways to help cities, regions and organizations grow their capacity to support their metamorphosis — their journey toward their version of a Blue Star Future. This involves developing local expertise, infrastructure and resources that will best support that journey.
3. Fully investing our selves and our unique ‘experiential, spiritual, social and intellectual capital,’ in those cities, regions and organizations blessed with pioneering leadership committed to multiply their lasting contribution to the wellbeing of all life they impact.
4. Co-evolving pragmatic, low risk, high leverage first steps toward their version of a Blue Star Future vision.
5. Serving as ‘architects and guides’ in supporting the planning and execution of those first steps.
6. Identifying and building on existing initiatives in ways that can multiply their lasting contribution to the wellbeing of the life they touch.
7. Identifying, engaging, appreciating, challenging and developing providers of ‘generative change methodologies’ in a way that best supports regional, city and organizational metamorphosis.
8. ‘Seeing’ and calling out the special genius in individuals and their organizations. Every city, region and organization has the potential to multiply its lasting contribution to the wellbeing of life they impact. The same is true of the individuals that make up those social systems. Where there is commitment to unleash that capacity, we are committed to helping them ‘make it so.’
9. Growing local expertise, developmental infrastructure and the relevant forms of capital needed to sustain this special journey.
10. Co-creating and co-evolving generative alliances in the service of all of the above.

We are not in the business of improving ‘caterpillar effectiveness.’ Nor are we in the business of ‘butterfly design.’ What we are best for the world at is helping complex social systems become masterful at chrysalis work — at all levels of system.

What do we mean by ‘chrysalis work?’

Chrysalis work involves the creation of safe “containers” in which individuals, groups and systems can transform themselves and the systems they inhabit. Read this post to gain some insight into the nature of chrysalis work, its key design principles and ripple effects.

Chrysalis work varies dramatically as a function of the size, complexity and nature of the social system involved. In the case of complex social systems (e.g. large organizations/institutions, cities and regions), chrysalis work involves growing and evolving special developmental infrastructures – special ‘scaffolding’ – that support the system in the deep learning and emerging newness implicit in its transformational journey.

We see chrysalis work as the missing link required to consciously evolve our social systems in a way that will best serve all life.

Why is the capacity for ‘systemic chrysalis work’ crucial?

The capacity for systemic chrysalis work is crucial when the nature, depth and complexity of change call for a true metamorphosis of the system – when the system’s stories, structures and behavioral patterns must be reinvented to fit the new purpose and new paradigms.

GlobalGEA’s commitment is to support and guide complex social systems through a deep metamorphosis – from mechanistic/myopic to consciously evolving blue-zone social organisms, from caterpillar-like to butterfly-like.

Chrysalis work is distinct from more traditional, incremental approaches to change that in most cases aim to make the existing system more effective at what it already does.

What distinguishes chrysalis work from other approaches to change and transformation?

While our systemic chrysalis work includes and builds upon some of the [more generative] traditional approaches to organizational learning and change, it is distinct in the following ways:

• It facilitates and supports a metamorphosis in every aspect of the system’s functioning – its purpose, values, relationships, agreements, structures, patterns and outcomes
• It aims to grow generative B/C-work capacity within the system – rather than relying on a variety of specialized change methods delivered by external practitioners
• It is 10X commitment-based for all participants — every step of the way
• It embraces action-learning as a key design principle. Action and learning are multiplicative: All learning in service of generative actions; all actions designed to generate learning ripples
• It is wholeness-centric — learning and developing from wholeness toward wholeness, every step of the way. It transcends the separatist philosophies, ideologies, designs and practices endemic to most all of today’s social systems
• It embodies a Blue Star Future — is a collective commitment to evolve Blue Zone relationships and agreements among its participants and in all of its immediate and extended stakeholder families
• It is designed to become self-sustaining, self-regulating, self-propagating and self-evolving
• It is designed to maximize generative ripples both within the system and extending to other allied systems
• It is thus truly capable of supporting and guiding the system through a deep metamorphosis – from mechanistic/myopic to a consciously evolving social organism, from caterpillar-like to butterfly-like

What is our mojo?

Our magic lies in our ability to see the unique genius within individuals and social systems, and to co-design the chrysalis experiences that enable those individuals and systems to learn how to discover, develop and unleash that extraordinary potential.

In the Industrial Age we learned economies of scale. The Digital Age has introduced us to economies of scope. We’re entering a planetary era where our capacity to survive and thrive is dependent on our embracing economies of wholeness — where we awaken to who we are as co-creative beings and who we can become as conscious, caring social entities. Our mojo lies in our capacity to support systems in realizing these ‘economies of wholeness.’

It is becoming clear that our future capacity to survive, much less thrive, as a species depends on developing the capacity of our social systems (education, finance, heath care, governance, etc.) to shift from their myopic growth and consumption-centric caterpillar-like state to becoming butterfly-like, beautiful forms that co-create with their environment.

How is GlobalGEA structured?

We might best be described as an emerging network of generative alliances. These alliances all share the vision of evolving our social forms in ways that best move all cities, regions and planets toward a Blue Star Future — a commitment to promote and support societal metamorphosis — a movement toward an age of consciously evolving social forms.

What is our business model?

Implicit in each generative alliance is what we refer to as a ‘WeBe Agreement,’ an agreement to find the most generative ways to mutually support the wellbeing of each other and the alliance itself as an integral part of the work of the alliance.

Our goal is to approach the mutual nurturance design challenge in ways that —

• Respect the unique needs and appreciate the unique contributions of each party to the success of the initiative
• Maximize the generative ripples of all kinds that flow from this alliance (including the ripples from the nature of the WeBe Agreement itself — think ‘sacred economics’)
• Best ensure that all parties are delighted with the results from the agreement

Possible Business Model for when in generative alliance with a pioneering city, region and/or organization:

Phase 1 — GALE Leadership Intensives

• Exploratory conversations — No fee
• Field visit (3 person team) — Out of pocket expenses + modest honorarium
• 5-Day Leadership Intensive(s) — Mutually agreeable lump sum + expenses covering design and delivery of initial Intensives(s)
• Follow up conversations — No fee

Phase 2 — ‘Wisdom Accelerator Gathering’ following the Intensive(s)

• Exploratory conversations — No fee
• Detailed strategic planning for WAG event — Lump sum or per diem
• Wisdom Accelerator Gathering — Mutually agreeable lump sum + expenses covering design and delivery of WAG

Phase 3 — Startup and Demonstrate Developmental Teams

• Retainer fee for 6 months
• Evaluate and repeat for 2^nd 6-month period, etc.

Phase 4 — Scale Throughout City/Region/Organization — Fees TBD based on to-date experience

Hypothetical Example for Phase 1:

1. Several progressive leaders want to explore the possibility of regional metamorphosis for their home region.
2. They contact Bill and/or Max and engage in exploratory conversation to co-imagine how they might ‘bootstrap’ such an initiative — how they might co-evolve a plan/story that would attract a critical mass and requisite variety of players and resources to take the first step on what could become the journey of their life times.
3. They invest in bringing a small GlobalGEA team to the region for face to face ‘conversations for relationship, possibility, opportunity and action.’
4. In this hypothetical example, the f2f coming together yields —

• A strategy for video and/or audio interviewing highly visible/credible players in a way that 1) begins to grow a Blue Star Vision for the region, 2) creates media artifacts for both local and GlobalGEA.net utilization, 3) educates and engages these prospective evolutionary architects (PEAs) in a way that grows their sense of ownership for the initiative.
• Appreciation for the kinds of capital needed to begin this regional initiative, and plans for attracting that capital.
• A solid foundation for continuing to grow a generative alliance between GlobalGEA and this core team of regional stewards.
• A clear plan for proceeding with ‘Phase 1’ of their regional metamorphosis initiative.

5. First cohort attracted
6. GALE 5-Day Intensive
7. Harvest learnings from joint experience to date
8. Decide on next steps