| Worldwork
Methodology
I was always interested in the field of
engineering, and in fact, some of my best friends are
engineers ;-) If fundamental research studies organic
processes that occur in the universe, to find the rules
and principles that govern these processes, then engineering
is the applied science that looks at how these rules
can be translated into practical steps and methods to
improve our everyday lives. Often, engineering solutions
are discovered before fundamental research has understood
the details about how the processes actually work. The
engineer understands intuitively how a given process
can be broken down into steps that can be simplified
and used practically. Due to nature of their developer,
Arnold Mindell, Processwork and Worldwork always had
a strong focus on an engineering approach to understanding
science, spirituality and community life. Mindell, in
my view, follows the classical principle of the indigenous
mind, in which relationship to the whole, spiritual
insight, and practical applications that make life easier
form an inseparable whole. As the Hopi saying goes:
Does this talk grow corn?
The beginning years of development were
especially focused on observing the organic processes
that individuals and groups seemed to take. To use the
analogy of a river: a river follows the bed that nature
made for it, or more accurately, the interaction of
the river with the terrain creates an observable river
bed in which the river flows. If we study this interaction,
we can develop methods for channeling the river along
its natural line to further facilitate its flow. In
the same manner, the perspective and principles of deep
democracy are inseparable from the interventions and
methods that we use to bring them to light.
Just as in the Australian Aboriginal
tradition, the individual aptitude to hunt for daily
food can not be separated from the momentary relationship
of the hunter to the dreaming process of the whole,
and the role that the community plays within the larger
scheme of things, the Worldworker can intellectually
understand structure of the collective within which
she works or functions, facilitate the emergence of
a whole and understand it at the same time as her own
myth of emerging as a person within the collective.
If you think of an organization as being
to some extent subject to a “self-organizing principle”,
then it is crucial for the organization’s well
being that this self-organizing principle is made visible,
so that it can be seen and interacted with. The term,
“self-organizing” is most often used today
as a euphemism for a process that we have no control
over. If the process is not organized by a person or
the leader, so goes the thinking, it must be self-organizing.
Consequently, our awareness is usually focused on what
we can organize, and disturbed by what seems to be un-organizable
and unpredictable. Worldwork methods aim at making the
self-organizing structure visible, which allows for
interaction around it. This in turn brings awareness
to the different parts of the system, which can then
be used for various purposes, including personal psychological
or emotional enrichment, learning about who we are,
material productivity, increased bottom line etc. In
short, they can be used to grow corn.
Self-organizing tendencies can be played
out as roles. Amy
Mindell has been instrumental in showing us how
roles can be viewed as puppets, dancing on the string
of the puppet master - namely the group spirit, quantum
mind, or self-organizing principle. Individuals and
subgroups “slip” into puppets and act out
the scripts that the organizational spirit has written.
Here is a list of methods that can be
used for making these tendencies visible. Please explore
the site for further details:
Here are some Worldwork Methods. For more
details and additional methods, look at case descriptions,
and the specific links which show these applications
in different environments.
Role-play, or giving voices to
roles: flashing out invariant, non-local aspects
of groups. This process depersonalizes these aspects,
which allows the group to process them and access the
information without scapegoating the particular member
or subgroup that is a local expression of that role.
Ghostrole: A role that
is marginalized by an organization or group. Individuals
in that group may find themselves having thoughts or
feelings associated with the role, but would never express
them out loud because of a group culture that is against
this particular viewpoint or behavior. Ghostroles come
up as gossip or water-cooler talk. They can be found
in unintentional signals such as in tone of voice, body
posture, and other implicit communication styles.
Edge: the “landmark”
at which a possibility becomes real, potential energy
turns to kinetic energy, and the quantum wave collapses.
Emerging tendencies become manifest. Groups and individuals
show particular behaviors around edges. The facilitator
can notice these behaviors, hold down the edge, and
assist groups in birthing the potential that is trying
to emerge.
Hotspot: the point at
which a group comes closer to an emerging process, and
the atmosphere gets hot. This term is borrowed from
geology - infrared pictures of a region show you the
hotspots, volcanic processes that are close to erupting,
emerging. Not all hotspots are conflictual, but all
hotspots require the group/team/organization to change
its identity.
Coolspot: After the
process around the hotspot has emerged and the group
has temporarily changed its identity, a coolspot appears.
The group energy settles into a new equilibrium. Coolspots
work as strange attractors, pulling the group through
turbulence.
Framing: We frame a
picture to make it visible. We want it separated from
its surroundings so that we can look at it as an entity
unto itself, and so that we can understand its message
better. Framing takes out a significant aspect of a
process and freezes it briefly in space and time to
make it visible, so that it can be seen and used by
the participants.
Personal Awareness of the facilitator:
In a field, the facilitator is a role, as are the leader
and the follower, the elder and child, and the criminal
and the law enforcer. In a quantum approach to groups,
the observer-slash-facilitator is also non-local, meaning
groups have built in self-facilitating tendencies. Some
of these tendencies are localized in the facilitator,
and others appear in the participants. The Facilitator
must use her awareness to track the emergence of these
roles, and to support others to step into the role of
the facilitator.
Noticing and Unfolding Quantum
Flirts: fractual experiences, barely lasting
long enough to be noticed, and finding their message
for the whole.
Directional Work: Directional
Work brings together indigenous concepts of directions
as non-local field qualities and Quantum Electro Dynamics,
which focuses on understanding the paths of Quantum
Objects, a modern day myth about understading complex
directions, that our lives and the lives of organizations
can take.
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