Universal Values, Universal Teams —

Because the three primary values of sustainability are universal to all people of all races, ethnic groups, cultures, and nationalities, the synergism of the these values can empower local “Design and Validation Teams” to collaborate with other Teams anywhere in the world. Doing so gives local communities the same global capability as international corporations to collaborate with the best minds that are also working on similar topics of social sustainability and ethical and moral issues. And, it gives them a firm and sure foundation to argue their findings in any nation and in any venue. No central authority or control or overarching organization is needed to begin this process.

Teams provide a “learning environment.” Remarkably, Design and Validation Teams inherently become a learning environment that will have community-wide and society-wide repercussions. Team members will learn about the value system, beliefs, assumptions, and expectations of the culture; and come to understand whether they are socially sustainable, ethical, moral, or not. Individuals and families will become more fully aware of how they can effect positive and constructive change to their larger society, and begin to become more responsible for their actions. The effects of social sustainability will become personal, societal, and international.

Teams sharing results globally. Because of the universality of the values, sharing results between Teams, globally, will empower constructive change of older systems of social institutions and policies in all cultures and nations to become more universally socially sustainable. Developing moral designs of social sustainability is truly an ideal that requires progressive stages of designing and planning the social, political, and economic programs that lead to sustainability. Once the plans are formed, the process of implementation must include short term plans that complement long term plans. Implementation then will lead to greater and greater social stability, peace, and eventually social sustainability.

Caveat — History demonstrates that it takes many decades, even centuries, to build a civilization, but only years or decades to decline and even collapse. Building a sustainable global civilization will require conscious, deliberate and consistent intention and application to complete this multi-decade and century project — that and a precious awareness that social change will be a constant annoyance until then.

The discussion below involves a team of individuals who are working through the Schematic to discover answers to the pragmatic moral problems they face or will face as individuals, families, and communities.

The team environment is recommended for two reasons: 1) It does not have an authoritarian structure, and is less likely to have an inherent authoritarian bias built into its validation process; and, 2) it provides a far more objective method of examining beliefs and their underlying and frequently unconscious assumptions. Assumptions become far more visible to objective team members who have differences of opinion about a belief.

CAUTION: While the three primary values are inarguably central to survival, existence, and sustainability, heated discussions about beliefs in the Design Team, on the other hand, can unravel the Team’s work. Because of that problem, it is suggested the Team begin writing the “Global Statement of Project.”

After validating a moral issue, or social project, then it is time to discuss the strategies of designing sustainable policies and organizations. Though the processes are very similar and closely related, separating them offers an uninterrupted process of moving the development of organizational vision, intention, operating philosophy, and mission into statements that are consistent with the values in the Schematic. Implementation brings another set of hurtles that are best addressed after these earlier statements are written.

A common, neutral morality. It is important for the good working order of the team to recognize immediately that most significant moral issues are not solely viewed from the philosophic position. We know all too well that the political arena has used moral issues as political footballs to support their position and/or weaken the opposition’s position. What has developed over millennia is that religious and political interests and positions have come to define the morality of society.

What is proposed is radically neutral: The public becomes co-responsible for developing and adopting a code of morality that supports social stability, peace, and sustainability. Ideological and cultural neutrality is necessary because the topics of morality that arise through life until death will become very, very familiar to billions of people around the world as our civilization becomes more and more unstable, more hostile, less peaceful, and unsustainable. A neutral code of morality would help everyone make sense at the personal level of social turmoil when those tough decisions have to be made — decisions that aid peace, social stability, and social sustainability of families, communities, and societies.

One of the best places for trying to resolve moral and ethical questions is in a Design and Validation Team setting. Expect that the work of the team will generate a great deal of heated discussion by individuals who identify with traditional positions and who have never discovered or challenged their fundamental assumptions regarding moral issues. The work of the Team will be challenging if only because our traditional morality was never designed for a global society that must move into a sustainable future, … or decline, collapse, and disappear.

A Team Methodology for Policy Formulation and Moral Decision-Making —

The four elements below describe a combination of validation and interaction in a team setting so that almost any social issue can be validated in the terms of contributing to social sustainability, or not.

1. LIFE, Quality of Life, Growth and Equality; Empathy, Compassion, and “Love,” (Column #10)

These seven values provide the criteria for testing the validity of all entries the team will make in columns 6-9 of the Schematic. They provide the final criteria for validating the policy analysis, organizational designs, and decision-making processes chosen to support social stability, peace, and social sustainability.

2. Schematic for Social Sustainability Design and Validation.

Fundamentally, the Schematic is a “learning device.” It provides a thorough exploration of topics to help the team gain access to understanding the sustainable implications of the topic. It provides a methodology for developing the proof for the conclusions the Team develops.

Validation comes through the transparent process of examining and cross-checking all beliefs (and assumptions), expectations, and measurable behavior against each of the seven values.

3. Design and Validation Teams

Local Teams are “learning organizations” as Peter Senge would interpret them. To paraphrase Senge in his book, The Fifth Discipline, “In an era of immense social change, and social and global problems of immense dimensions, no individual has the answer.” And, “Team learning is vital because teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations. This [is] where ‘the rubber meets the road’; unless teams can learn, the organization cannot learn.”

The best working teams are those whose members enjoy the dynamics of a team setting, with individuals who have had some experience in the functions of their roles; and whose members are willing to risk not knowing the answers ahead of time; and who have a common interest in the topic that they are exploring. A certain amount of personal humility is necessary to allow the “flow” of the synergism of the Team Process to surface.

The Design and Validation Team consists of 5-11 people with 7-9 being optimal. It is not a committee or a discussion group. Team members have specific roles and functions. Members are of equal authority.

Team Roles.

These roles support the synergism that develops in the Team Process as members work through the Schematic.

Organizer – In a community setting this person represents that unique 1% of every community who sees that something needs to be done and initiates and organizes friends and neighbors to accomplish the work.

For a Design and Validation Team, the process begins with a “burning issue” the Organizer wants to resolve, followed by discovering friends, neighbors, and associates who have a similar concern about that issue or topic. The next task is to begin “Team Bonding Exercises” to build trust within the hearts of team members. Experience has shown that teams need a dedicated time each week, and a dedicated meeting place for their work. Meeting online has NOT proven to be an effective method of team work. Too many non-verbal and social cues are missing from interpersonal exchanges.

Facilitator – The Facilitator must be able to separate their primary function from their role as member of the team. He/she is NOT a leader, el Jeffe, or “head of the team,” but an equal member of the team. It is very helpful if the Facilitator has had training in group dynamics, group facilitation, team processes, mediation, and “meta-talk.” This person must also be very observant to identify and reveal the unspoken assumptions that creep into the dialogue process.

This person facilitates the work flow and social flow of the team, group dynamics, and team process; and also monitors the evolution and development of the Team process, and records the conduct, developments, insights, progress, and product of the Team; and makes suggestions as to how to improve the Team process.

Recorder – The Recorder has two main functions, but does NOT record verbatim as this would prevent him or her from making their own contributions to the team process:
1) Recording the occasional “Ah-ha!” and insight, conclusion, or succinct comment that is often forgotten when it is later recognized as an essential piece of a larger puzzle.
2) Noting the change of topics as the discussion changes suddenly. This allows the team to pick up the “lost line of inquiry” of the preceding discussion.

Inquiring Members – These members have the single-minded pivotal work of inquiry by asking insightful and intuitive questions that reveal the layers of their topic. Understanding the “arts of inquiry, discernment, and reflection” is essential for the full exploration of topics.¹⁰  Everyone on the team is an inquiring member, and in many ways everyone assists in all role functions.

Inquiring Team Members are cooperative, non-competitive, respect each other, and appreciate each other’s differences. They see themselves, individually, as one-with-the-whole of the team where individual contributions are greater than the sum of their numbers.

“Consultant” – The Consultant must be able to separate their primary function from their role as member of the team. The Consultant offers the Team a strategic perspective to support the work of the Facilitator and to help the Team see how their project fits into their society’s progress to evolve toward social sustainability in terms of 50-500 years.

In a rapidly moving team process diversions may occur, and if they are pursued too long they will lead the Team away from its productive course. Sometimes the Facilitator may also get caught up in this diversion. This is much like what happens on the ski slopes when going too fast – getting off track, into loose material, and bogging down. As the Consultant has been chosen because of their expertise in the topic area, they may be asked by members for their opinion about the topic of issue. Otherwise, it is important that the Consultant act as a silent member, not allowing his/her expertise to overshadow the social-team process that often produces unexpected results.

4. The Design and Validation Team Process

The Team Process involves the team members
1) fulfilling their role functions,
2) interacting with other team members, and
3) working through the procedures of the Schematic.
Typically, a synergism develops in the team process as members offer the complemental skills of their roles in the discovery process of working through the Schematic.

Overall, the Team Process involves developing proofs of validation, similarly as a high school geometry class that is working together to write geometrical “proofs.” A “proof” is a written account of the complete thought processes that are used to reach a conclusion. The striking difference between the Design and Validation Team Process and a high school geometry class process involves exposing the hidden assumptions behind all of our beliefs about what ought to be done, or not done.

Each step of the process is supported by previously validated axioms, postulates, theorems, corollaries, hypotheses, theories, and definitions, or proofs of social sustainability. In the case where there are no earlier proofs, the team will have to develop those first.

• The best way to learn how the Design and Validation Team Process works is to do so experientially.

Conclusion —

Communities will need the development of “Design and Validation Teams” to discuss and practice developing socially sustainable decisions regarding hundreds of social topics; and to test and validate social issues as being morally sustainable or not. Fortunately in the process, teams will be informing and educating other citizens in their community. Those same individuals will carry their knowledge and skills into their companies, agencies, departments, boards of trustees and directors, and other organizations.

The hierarchies of central governments have consistently proven themselves incapable of implementing successful social projects at local levels. Beginning at local levels, local community citizens can anticipate several years to initiate and fulfil their original intentions. By accepting social sustainability as a common goal local, state, and national organizations will need to re-invent themselves to rewrite the social contract between governments, citizens, and the public. The moral commitment is huge as it requires more of this generation and the next than any previous or future generation.

   
"Interpreted concepts of what someone thinks will work
best will always fail until those artificial concepts become
more Taoist with the flow of life, and its holism. When
the decisions of organizations vary widely from the
values of our species they will eventually come into
 conflict with the public.”
 

¹⁰  Sesno, Frank (2017). Ask More : The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change.