How might we...
- Practice/Emergence: How might we practice the five elements?
- How might we generate our own definition of governance in a way that steps away from models of 'command and control' towards an ethos of surrender?
Hypothesis
If we create our own definition of governance that is not rooted in ‘command and control’, then we will bring to life something that lives into our values of equity, love, and liberation.
Design
- Reference existing definitions of governance.
- Brainstorm possibilities for alternatives (via words, drawings, poetry, song)
- Share with group
- Explore if there are ideas we are all coalescing around.
Metrics
Success:
- We share a brief moment of uninhibitedness with each other.
- We have an opportunity/excuse to tap into our inner child/playful side
- We come up with a definition for governance that is closer in alignment of who we are.
Failure:
- No one wants to participate.
- People get stuck in their heads.
- We limit ourselves with internal/external restrictions.
Learnings
- In order to define governance we also felt like we needed to define power.
- We seemed to coalesce around some definitions of power and governance that were helpful. “Power is the ability to achieve purpose.”
- Finding simplicity that can allow for a more adept navigation of complexity
- I’d like to see what we do with some of the synthesis we did today in other experiments
- Taking the time to define does not limit the experimental nature of an experiment. It can create parameters that we need in order to think bigger.
- “Governance is the set of systems we set up to live out our values.”
Decisions
It seems like we could shape definitions of governance and power to carry forward. Not exactly decisions, but movement toward more synthesis, and possibly another experiment.
Questions
- If we are honing in on governance as a form of ethical or purposeful power, when do we use “power” to mean “ability” (e.g. in our governance experiment we might want group X to be able to do Y/have ability Z) and when do we use it to mean a “relationship” (we want group X to make a decision that used to be made by Y) and is it important to have the same understanding about this.
- Do we have a sense of an integrity of concept around governance, or are folks questioning the basic definitions of governance?
- I don’t think we ever quite got to the question of harm which I think was sort of the impetus for setting up this experiment originally – ID’ing the role of governance and governing bodies in addressing harm.