Nation Transformation: As Easy As 1-2-4-ALL?
— Transforming Organizations, Revitalizing Communities and Developing Human Potential
What is Nation Transformation?
And does it work?
The ‘typical’ nation transformers many of us are too familiar with, at least from history class, but often also from personal experience; include elections, war, economic change and collapse, the discovery of natural resources, climate change, racial and/or religious tensions, economic disparity, independence [from, for example, a colonial power, the EU, the USSR . . . ] and other, often rather destructive, forces.
But what about intentional Positive Nation Transformation? Is it possible?
The ‘power of the round’ is ingrained in my personal journey and identity, as Der Runde Tisch [the Round Table] was the convening mechanism that brought together East German leadership and opposition – that eventually lead to the reunification of the two Germanies on October 3rd, 1990 after the Revolution of Candles in 1989. I would not be talking to you without the dialogue that happened on that actually rectangular table. [For more see nexus4change.com/blog4change/2019/der-runde-tisch].
Guyana is another example of a place that is in the middle of a transformation - the question is how positive that change will be. It’s an amazing place with recently discovered oil reserves. My family - well, my wife’s family - in Guyana is part Portuguese, part Indian, part African - that we are certain of! Her cousins and nieces and nephews are additionally Amerindian, Chinese, British, Dutch… Yet at the moment, the country is anxiously awaiting the results of an election that took place this past Monday. It seems to have gotten diminished to an Us vs. Them of ethnic division as the two majority parties have generally split along the lines of descendants of African slaves vs. the descendants of Indian indentured servants (or ‘slavery 2.0’ as my daughter calls it). Throughout its recent history, the coalition and then tension between Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese has seemingly ebbed and flowed in the progress of the country. I am anxious for Guyana and hope for opportunities to learn about bringing more collaborative tools to Guyana in the near future.
In our webinar in early March of 2020, Collaborative Change practitioners and leaders convened for a conversation to consider the merits and challenges of Nation Transformation. Using the 1-2-4-All Liberating structure in virtual breakouts, the following are some of the insights and questions that came out of those conversations:
What are the implications for country-level healing when we are ‘not in each other’s breath’ [i.e. in virtual engagements]?
National efforts must focus on Polarities: the Both/And rather than Either/Or of the challenges being addressed. Consider approaches like the Illumination Project, for example.
Find opportunities for pilots at the community level to then scale & spread what works - and make sure that you are pilot testing things that are actually scalable.
Enable conversation rather than arguing, cohesion rather than separation - by using appreciative approaches.
Establish a focus on empathy.
Where can this be started? Seek to leverage national conversations around issues that are less binary, and therefore hopefully less divisive, for example in most western contexts education and healthcare; rather than immigration and taxation. What those conversations are will differ in different countries.
Roland Sullivan challenged us to explore how the framing of a system as a country vs. as a nation could have implications on the willingness of its members to engage with a change process. He is currently involved in working to convene a ‘Dannemiller large group interactive’ (based on the work of Kathy Dannemiller) - possibly virtually - for 3 days in the Philippines that would bring community and country leaders together to work on solutions for eradicating poverty - via a country-wide transformation journey. Other countries are ‘in the wings’ to see if these processes and procedures are powerful enough to change entire countries. What do you think?
Check out NEXUS4change’s webinar series of 30-min. high-impact change tool talks. Check our events page [www.NEXUS4change.com/events] for more on the power of Design Teams, the Change Formula, Collaborative Roadmaps, Appreciative Benchmarking and more.