Wisdom Councils in FE News
Andrea Gewessler has written two articles on Wisdom Councils for
FE News, the Further Education, Skills and Work Based Learning online news magazine. Andrea is interested in finding useful ways for engaging with
organisations and communities to bring about meaningful and lasting
change. Having
been a participant and a facilitator of the Wisdom Council process, Andrea believes that Wisdom Councils have a lot to contribute towards exploring the
role of democracy in solving many of the complex problems that ail our
society.
In her first article, A Matter of Democracy, Andrea concludes by describing her experience with Dynamic Facilitation and Wisdom Councils:
"What resonates deeply with me is that Dynamic Facilitation intends to
work with the complexity of an issue and therefore focuses on the system
rather than its components. Although tougher for the facilitator, there
is a high level of scope for change that goes well beyond doctoring
symptoms. Wisdom Councils appeal because they want to work with this
passion that people have for complex issues and quite different from
Stephen Coveyʼs recommendation in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People for people to concentrate on their circle of control and
influence i.e. the things that they can directly influence and control
such as their diet, their own education and exercise habits, Wisdom
Councils want to get people involved in the circle of concerns. These
are the things that we often feel powerless to change. Wisdom Councils
are a mechanism for organisations and society to reclaim that ability to
influence and co-create. I can see huge potential for using wisdom
councils to engage learners, employees and local communities and for
people to have a say on things that really matter to them."
"...these approaches give politicians finally a way of really knowing what concerns their local citizens, what their pains and wishes are and are so able to work much more productively for the people who elected them. Instead of double guessing they tap into the wisdom of the people. And that insight is not just there, it gets created through and amidst the conversation.
What the Office for Future Affairs has learnt is that these approaches work particularly well in two cases, firstly with communities which are simply innovative, who welcome change and creativity and always want to improve further – they really appreciate the insights gained from this type of work.
Secondly, they also find these approaches work when communities are at the end of their tether – when a problem has become so painful that a solution simply has to be found. The fact however is, that this is a continuum with a rather large middle that remains fearful of embracing approaches that enable self-organisation, that open up choice creating dialogue, innovative solutions and allow people to take responsibility."
These are excerpts... please read Andrea's complete articles at FE News:
1. A Matter of Democracy, and 2. Approaches to change
Wise Democracy Victoria (WDV) has Dynamic Facilitators available for organizations and businesses interested in achiving breakthrough results. WDV has completed three randomly-selected Wisdom Councils and three randomly-selected Creative Insight Councils for the City of Victoria. For more information on the synthesis of results see www.shapeyourfuturevictoria.ca. Also see the review of Citizen Insight Councils Victoria 2010-11 (loads a separate pdf file).
0 Response to "Wisdom Councils in FE News"
Post a Comment