2008-07-28 Evergreen/Conifer Co-Creative Design Team, – CDT#29
Evergreen, Colorado
Celestial Teacher: Sondjah Melchizedek
Topics: Individual perspective: Feedback, assessment & appraisal
Self-participation
Team process
Effectiveness
Productivity
Personal growth
Amendments to program since its inception
Group invitations to Monjoronson
Hypothesis for the purpose of this Design Team
Creating solutions, not solving problems
Interactive process
TR: Daniel Raphael
July 28, 2008
SONDJAH: Welcome my friends, to another evening together. It is good to be with you and to rejoin our efforts together consciously. This is Sondjah and I am here to be with you this evening for several regards. The first of which—and I wish you to address me later in this presentation—is to provide us with your assessment of your participation within the team, your assessment of the team process and the effectiveness assessment—your assessment of the effectiveness of the team, the team process, and yourselves to move forward and to be productive.
This has nothing to do with criticism, simply an appraisal, feedback to us. We are in touch with you on many levels; we are in this regard, observers. We care not so much about what you are thinking and how you are processing information during the team process, but how you participate, how you provide yourself to others and to the team and to the work that we are doing, and how you are effective within your own right, and how you are growing. We can observe many things, but we wish to have your own assessments of what is going on in the group, from your individual perspective. It is my wish—our wish, collective wish—that you individually would provide some feedback on these different topics, which I have suggested.
As you know, this one is going be the presenter at San Miguel De Allende, Mexico, at the developing a sustainable world workshop, and we wish to have an assessment before he leaves, so we can make adjustments during the workshop. Those of you who attended the workshop at Snowbird last year in October, know how the program changed during the hours it was in existence. We amended the program as necessary for it to be more effective, and we wish to do that too, this time, if necessary. We come up with a much better product, process, and development, with your active contribution, your conscious contribution.
Please note that we will be in touch with you as you present your views about the team, its process and your participation. You will give us information on several levels, besides your words that we wish to assess. We are not covert about this, but simply wish you to know how we operate and that we do not violate your thinking at any time, but simply may tap into it, when you are in contact with us, which is the dialog that goes on in the morontia realm, when you have conversations with others. There is conversation and there are many levels of interaction that go on between you, just as you understand verbal and non-verbal body language communication, so too do morontial beings understand the connotation and intention of those that they are in conversation with, on many levels.
Those of you, who have begun in the beginning in October, now have spent approximately ten months involved in the Co-Creative Design Team process. You have much more knowledge and awareness about what is occurring than anyone else on the planet, as far as a mortal is concerned. You have provided tremendous contributions to this process, as we have said repeatedly. We truly want you to appreciate what you have done, without getting a “swollen head” or embellishing your self-importance, but you truly have made significant contributions to the work of Monjoronson, for the Co-Creative Design Team process and the Working Team process, which you have not begun, but which works in a similar manner.
I am here on Monjoronson’s behalf to tell you and share with you, his appreciation for your willingness to come together as a group to ask him questions about issues that you had in doubt, or which seemed ambiguous to you. This is a very legitimate means by which other groups can come to invite Monjoronson to their group to speak with them. By this notice, Monjoronson is inviting other teams throughout the world, to come to conscious group connection between each other, to determine your questions, examine your questions and then invite Monjoronson to answer them at your next session. Those of you here, do you understand this invitation?
Student: Yes.
SONDJAH: Is it ambiguous?
Student: No.
SONDJAH: We want this to be clear to the readers of these transcripts, throughout the world, that Monjoronson is available when they have questions from the group. This does not negate or abrogate the possibility and the potential probabilities that he will be in contact with individuals, who have questions to him directly in their reverie, in their meditations.
Are there questions now from the members on any topic that we have worked on in the last 10 months? (Pause.) You may take a few moments, and later we will examine any potential questions that you have. I would now appreciate receiving inputs from members of the team, beginning on this one’s left. So, please provide us your feedback, your assessment and appraisal about the team, the process and its effectiveness, that you have experienced thus far. Please.
Mike: This is Mike. A few observations and maybe a recommendation or two: My sense is that we would be… what we’ve learned from experience is that we could be more productive, if we hold sessions which are totally committed to the work, whatever the assignment might be. In this case of course, lately it has been the educational system. I think if we were to have say, a two-hour session, where that’s really the work we did, and we had materials available that we could refer to, materials from what would now be the web site and the model that John put together for us, I think we could make much more progress, more rapidly. It is not that the TRing is not of value, and the questions and answers are indeed of value, but I think a concentrated work effort would get a lot more done, a lot more quickly, I think. It would probably raise more discerning questions in the process.
Secondly, I think there is great value in considering—although there is more work to it—recording the whole discussion that takes place, not just the TRing. The TRing has been incredibly positive, and the feedback has been great, and the encouragement has been terrific, but there’s been a lot of that, and we still struggle with trying to capture what was asked, presented and discussed and determined, in the discussion, between the participants. Now we tried to record the session that way, and got a little operator failure, but I think there is merit to that, if it can be transcribed—something of that length.
And again, I think better use of the recording tool of the model that John put together, so that we can have ready updates to that, and have the output of that available for review, either prior to coming to a session, or during the first part of a working session.
And the last suggestion I would put on the table for consideration, is using one or more of the sessions where you [Daniel,] will be absent, to do what I’ve just described, which is having a working session, not getting into the TRing necessarily, or trying to—most of us are either reluctant to do that, or are darn new to it, and I’m not sure that that is the best use of our time.
Daniel: This is Daniel—thank you.
Dick: I think the sessions have been extremely beneficial and I like the format and feel we have a very cohesive group, and we are getting a lot, as we go through each topic. Questions are coming to people that need to be answered, and they benefit the whole group. The nice part is that the questions continue on after we leave here. I feel that Spirit has brought new people to the group that are contributing to the benefit of the topic, our understanding of the topic, and we can also benefit the people who are coming to the group. I feel like we are growing; it’s been a good growing experience. At first we started out talking about relationships, and now we are talking about particularly teaching young people, and I benefit from the discussion because I have a grandson now.
We are just very close and I feel the benefit I’ve gotten from this group and from John’s teachings, benefited our relationship, so if it can work here, it can work else where as well. My particular topic, we haven’t gotten into yet—my particular area of most interest, and that is community development—and that’s okay. That will come when it needs to, but I’ve found out that one of the members of our group is into that very much, and I feel the doors are going to be opening along those lines, in fact they’ve already started opening along those lines. So the only real question I have is I feel we are getting the benefit, I know that Monjoronson is working around the world, and I hope he is working with groups that may seem to be antagonistic to our way of life, and can bring a better feeling of love between us and those other groups.
Daniel: Do you have any recommendations?
Dick: Yeah, reach the Imams over in Iran, particularly—I think there has been something—it’s happened in Iraq—it’s noticeable. The country is starting to come together.
Daniel: Can you keep it on the topic, please?
Dick: Well, you asked about other locations, and I just brought up where I feel it needs to be, in answer to your question, but no, the benefit I feel has been tremendous.
Kristen: I think my role is just “cheerleader and encourager.” I’m new and still learning, no real …(not audible)….
[Note: She was visiting and came to the group with her mother.]
Daniel: How about an encouraging assessment to process?
Kristen: To what degree? As far as for the sustainable education?
Daniel: Yes, you could use that as an example. The team process? The working process?
Kristen: I think the team in general is on a good track, as far as knowing where they want to go; it’s just finding a final direction and staying on that to a finished product, but that’s the hard part of anything. It’s the final stage, so it’s a challenge for everybody.
Daniel: Thank you. If you think of anything, we’re going to have two rounds here, in case you think of anything that comes up.
Linda: Well, I haven’t been involved from the beginning and have been inconsistent, but from the time that I’ve been here, it’s been really insightful and helped me to clear the cobwebs and think about things, and contribute… I think what Mike suggested as far as having possibly a two-hour session, where you just really get down and work, I think that would really be beneficial.
Debbie: If we are just looking for the points of creating a sustainable education, that that’s what we are supposed to be here for, and working on right now—understanding that the topic can change—I feel like we need more structure, but I’m a structure person, [into] organization. What happened last week? What happened the week before? I don’t know how to use John’s web site, but we need more of a running tally of what was done, what progress was made, what are the beliefs—do we have them down? What are the values that go with that? And the criteria? And have it in a form, where we can go back and we can change, we can add, we can do whatever we need to do, to develop it into a complete piece of work. I think we need to stay on topic, is another thing.
Daniel: Yes! That’s the hardest thing. We are all guilty of going off topic, including myself.
Patrick: Well, being a new guy brought in, and I am honored to be plugged into the group. As you know, I’ve been brought in because of my passion toward that [which] I’ve created. I am really honored that it’s being considered by this group. I’m really grateful for the input, the feedback—certainly the help that I’ve gotten in editing—and I just look forward to the whole, gaining momentum and getting work done. [Ed. Patrick has written a manual for teaching children happiness. His web site is: www.KidsCanDoAnything.com ]
Daniel: As a recent newcomer you do not have much experience with this group, but on a scale of 1 to 10, could you rate the effectiveness of the group?
Patrick: I think I have to gain a clearer understanding myself of the real “meat” of the mission, of the group. I understand the idea of sustainable education for children, but the real “meat” behind that, and the implementing of those ideas, the “taking action” part, that I’m looking forward to discover. On a scale, I would say a 7 out of 10.
David: I certainly enjoy the group and the fellowship. I’m not sure that I have any more understanding what I’m doing here now than I did 6 months ago. I’m not sure that I’m well geared to address that. It’s certainly different than what I’m doing for a living, and the lack of concrete results is simply foreign to me. They say we’re doing a good job—I’ll take them at their word and pass it back to Mike.
Daniel: The evaluation so far, hasn’t excluded my performance as facilitator. I want you to know that’s on the table too.
Mike: If I were to rate the effectiveness of the group, it would be closer to a 4 or 5. That’s not intending to be negative, it’s just that I think what David says resonates very well with me, and with what Deb said resonates with me. I’m much more task oriented. I can conceptualize and strategize and visualize, and everybody knows I can go there, but at the end of the day, I want to know that we accomplished something. And when we come back next week, as Deb was saying, I’d like to know what it was that we accomplished and have it in front of me, in an approachable, accessible way, so we can go right from there to what’s next. Here’s where we left off, what do we do next? I think that the way the process is worked, hasn’t lent itself to that.
We literally do not see each other or talk about this for the most part, until we get here on Monday nights. That’s why I think our working session might have some merit to get us focused, and we can look at how do we…. Deb’s experience of not being able to feel comfortable about using the web site is going to become [something that] some people are going to shy away from, so the task is not to become a webmaster. The task is how do we capture the data and make it accessible and approachable and usable to everyone, so they don’t have to go learn a new skill set, or fiddle around with a computer. I think that can be done, so I think we’ve on the right track.
In terms of your facilitation, I’ve been extremely pleased with your facilitation. I get a little bit … “frustrated” may not be the right word, but I guess my appetite for clarity is not always fulfilled when questions are responded to by Monjoronson. And that’s probably to be expected, because we are living in two different places. Also, I keep shying away from reading the text of that large book over there [referring to The Urantia Book], but I’m comfortable with that. I don’t think it’s anything that’s thrown me way off, but the last question/answer session I think went a long way for me in terms of clarity—it probably didn’t go as far as I’d like, but you know, I think it’s an exciting process. Certainly nothing I’ve ever done before.
Daniel: Yes, I’ve never been in an experience like this either. I don’t know who has, but it’s been very different. Thank you. Dick?
Dick: I have to say your facilitation has been excellent.
Daniel: Thank you.
Dick: I’ve gotten a lot out of these sessions, but I think what was just mentioned, I don’t think we have a way of evaluating ourselves, our own process. And I think maybe part of that is my fault. I’ll take responsibility for my part of it, but I’m learning a lot, and I like working with the group—it’s a good group to work with. They’ve got a lot of different ideas that come out of it, and a lot of questions have been answered. The topics themselves, haven’t particularly turned me on, but that’s alright; I’m here to learn, and I think they’ve helped me grow.
One of the things I’d like to know, If Monjoronson cares to elaborate on it, is to give us a little more measurable information about how this Teaching Mission is being given throughout the world. It’s one thing for us to sit here, maybe a lot of it is being done throughout our country, but how much is being done throughout the world? That’s one of the things I’d like to get a feel for.
Daniel: Thank you. Anything additional, Kristin?
Kristen: Well, I’m very new—I usually do not come to these, but I think that a lot of people are task oriented, and I guess how I always work on projects is, “What is the main goal?” “ What’s the goal that you guys are set out to do?” “Is there a defined result that’s been set out?”
Daniel: Not really.
Kristen: I’ve always worked with “what am I working to do?” and I set tasks to accomplish that. If some of those tasks I can help out with, I’m more than happy to volunteer my time and effort to doing that. But for me, it’s “Kris, I need you to edit this,” or “Put this in the web site,” or as far as that goes, I’ve offered to help out in that area, but I don’t know how to develop something, if there’s not a main goal in mind. I don’t know what that is, like if I get the …?…, or something ambiguous like, “What are you working to do?” Is this like brainstorming, like you do before something, or are you still in the brainstorming stage and just shooting out ideas? Or, I just don’t know how to focus my attention toward something unless there is set goal and maybe tasks in doing that. Just like if you want to write a research paper—“What are you writing it about? What’s your thesis? How are you going to answer that? So, what is the thesis of the group?” That’s just kind of how I look at it.
Daniel: Okay. Those are some good questions. Very good questions!
Kristin: And how does it contribute to apparently…? I’m not really conscious of if there are other groups like us, working toward something. Are we working on the same thing? Is everyone working on something different? How does it come together? Are we just doing the same thing somebody else is doing? Are we spinning our wheels, or are we all working on something that’s going to be cohesively put together into one thing?
Daniel: Very succinct. Thank you.
[The group erupted with laughter and chatter, saying they won’t let her go back to college.]
Kristin: Even if it’s not working toward something, I like being here. You guys are cool to hang out with. There are only good feelings here and beneficial attitudes going on, so….
Daniel: Thank you. Linda?
Linda: I’ll second on that! I love coming here; I love the group, but again, it’s kind of like Deb was saying, I’m really the same sort of, “What are we doing?” and what did we do last week? Can we build on that? And I’m the same way—I’d like to see it on paper, I’d like to go back and refer to it, and then progress from that. And the same that everybody else was saying, I think and I feel the same way. I come up from Lakewood—it’s not that big of a deal because we get to “walk—but I think that if I could see something progressing, I would be much more excited about digging in and doing what we’re doing.
Daniel: Okay, good.
Debbie: I think if we could see some graphing, taking a structure, and you could easily see what you’ve done, where you had been, you’d be more likely to think about it during the week, and form ideas and thoughts about [where] to go from here. So, I’m kind of with Mike on the 4 or 5’ish level. I think we can change that.
And [as for] the facilitator, I like our facilitator!
Daniel: Well, thank you.
Debbie: The only suggestion I have in regard to facilitation is that sometimes you are just too nice. When it gets like “crazy off track,” I think you need to “bang on that thing” a little more, and if we all agree to know what the “banging on the chime” means, it would just bring our attention back to getting in focus, getting back on track.
[Note: Daniel has a timer that has a soft chime sound, to gently end a meditation, or mark a set time for discussion, and so on.]
Patrick: I came into this already possessing a passion and a permission, so again, it’s kind of like plugging into, or providing whatever I’ve got that works for whatever your mission is… if it works, then great! That’s what I’m here to help out with.
Daniel: You’re here for a reason, that’s for sure—for many reasons.
Patrick: I totally feel that.
David: I agree that you are a great facilitator.
Patrick: Thank you.
David: I also concur with Mike, Kristin, Linda, and Deb—pretty much everything they said. If we were building a house, you’d see some progress. We’d know where to step so as not to step into the concrete. As Zigler said, “It ain’t a goal if you can’t see it.”
Mike: Based upon that input, it raises some questions that I had. We could discuss it here, or we can go to Sondjah, or…?
Daniel: My take is that he’s fully prepared to engage these questions and what you have presented, and answer a number of Kristin’s questions.
Mike: I’ve had a hypothesis that either it’s full of water, or hot air… or something. It needs to be adjusted, based upon what I’ve heard.
Daniel: Do you have a hypothesis?
Mike: Well, should I say it succinctly? Him [meaning Patrick] being here is not an accident; we know that. And I believe the reason he’s here is to give us focus on implementation. You take the real thing in the real world today, but you’re leaping over all the existing infrastructure, artifacts, boulders, blockades and bureaucracy, to get to the heart of a meaningful thing, and to build self-esteem and so forth, with kids. I think that with whatever work we do here has to take on the notion of how we ever implement it.
In parallel with that, my thought was that to fill in the blanks for some here, that the context is that we are going to get an opportunity sometime in the future, according to a whole lot of celestial beings and spiritual writers, to kind of do a re-start—like you “re-boot your system.” The re-boot won’t be in the context of the existing infrastructure of society and culture, and if that’s true then we don’t just go off to school on the yellow bus in the morning.
To use the example of education, what would it look like to go to school? What would school look like? What would you teach? How much bureaucracy and administrative support, and reporting, and funding, and collaboration? And… how much is home schooling, and how much is [by the] community group? All that is implementation, in the context of a re-start. That’s what I got out of a history of Monjoronson’s work, and then all the other things we’ve been reading. If that’s wrong, then I don’t know where we go from there, because if that’s the context, then we can say, “Okay, we have an objective.” At some point in time—and maybe that’s the wrong word—we’re going to have an opportunity for a re-start. Our objective is to be ready, with enough thought put into some of these cultural, social, institutional re-designs, that we can kick that up and move forward—whatever the re-start climate and environment might look like at the time, which I don’t pretend to speculate.
Daniel: Your hypothesis is correct. This is a long-term project and we are here scratching the dirt with them. So, if you’re ready?
SONDJAH: This is Sondjah. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. We know that they come from deep within you, and that you have shared yourselves in these thoughts at the deepest level of your sincerity. We appreciate your concerns and your contributions. You have raised many points, and if I have missed some, please ask them again. I am not going to ignore your questions at all, but want to address every issue that you have presented here, within the last 20 minutes.
First of all, this is a long-term project, as Mike has mentioned to you, that this is initiation of re-designing a society, that you have the plans/designs in place for a future time when your society will be re-booted, when there is a calamity or collapse or some situation that makes it possible for you to re-invent your social institutions very rapidly, without chaos. Simply it will collapse and you will present these designs, and there will be sensibility, where there is chaos. Therefore, these plans will be seen, admired, respected, and implemented.
As far as implementing them now is concerned, that is not an issue; that could be in 5 years, it could be in 50 years, or a 100 years. It depends on the situation that develops in your world that creates and brings about the possibility of your re-booting of your society.
We have begun with relationships as a means by which you can engage a topic that is interesting to you, of which you are not experts, but of which you have many opinions, many thoughts and much experience. It was a means by which we could engage you and gain your interest, your contributions, and for you to engage each other in a productive manner.
This truly is an experiential process for us as well as for you. You may feel that you are fumbling around, and that you have produced little, but we measure contributions and productivity in a much different manner. We measure it in terms of your abilities to work together, and to work towards productivity, to engage your minds with cooperation for creating solutions, rather than solving problems.
You are truly creating solutions to individual groups and celestial interaction. This is an interactive process on several levels, one of which you have never engaged in on an active basis before. You are an experiential group; you are an experimental group; you are a developmental group; you are all those things simultaneously. You may feel you are fumbling around, but that is simply part of the process. You are now eager to bite into something more sustainable for your own group’s productivity, and this too is an inherent aspect of an important product of our work, is that you find a process to sustain your activities here, where you individually are so interested that you think about it during the week and come together next week, ready in hand to make another contribution, and so it goes.
This is something new for us, as well as for you. You truly are the only ongoing, productive team at this time that is engaging these processes simultaneously, with a celestial/spiritual consultant. There are others who are interested in this, others who have begun, but none who have taken the reins as you have. It is not for lack of interest, it is actually a lack of perspective on the individual’s part and their places within it. Many of you expect results so soon, so immediately, and these have been slow in forthcoming.
I will now, not challenge you, but offer you the opportunity to devise a process among you for objectively, measurably producing results with each meeting. I wish you to use—solely use—Patrick McMillan’s material on developing, engendering happy children. This is a distant subset of sustainability, within sustainable individuals, families and sustainable education. It is a crossover between family dynamics, community dynamics and educational dynamics. You need not be concerned about that—I only offer you a diagram for you to understand where this sits and how it is relative to a sustainable education. Sustainable education’s purpose is to develop a sustainable individual, in a sustainable community, in a sustainable world. This is all circular.
Happiness is a measure of the achievement of sustainability for an individual, meaning that they find satisfaction and happiness, being attached to goals of their own, being attached to goals of a higher nature for themselves and for their world, in the part of a larger picture. This is what you are to do, and this may be slow-going, but it is very definitive and very determinative and confined. Patrick’s material is published; it is known. We wish you to go within that document—those documents—to determine and to ascertain and identify the underlying beliefs of that document.
You will then trace that back to at least the three elemental values of sustainability, of life, of equality and growth. You may discover other elemental values, which are essential to creating happy individuals. You will then develop a listing of expectations, for each of those beliefs, and with each expectation, you would have measurable performance standards for them. This is very clear; this is very defined; it is very definitive; it is very contained, and you will find all those answers within those documents.
Now the purpose of this is several-fold: One is that you will have an existent object of sustainability, which is clearly defined. You have clear goals in mind that you are to achieve, and in doing so, you will achieve two other things, and I want you to—this is part of your work before you begin doing this—is to determine how you will work together. Who will do what? Who will write on the board? Who will read the material—and you will all read the material, which I would suggest you do—but you will have a process of procedure within your group for defining your results, for achieving your results. “If we do this, we will get this, and we will write that down.” You may, simultaneously, if your group is large enough, to have one or two individuals working simultaneously on a laptop computer, connected to the web site, where you can input that data almost simultaneously as the work is done on the white board.
You have set up yourselves a good piece of work, but it is very elemental. It is essential to your group, and it is essential to all other groups that form after yours. You are truly moving forward in a slow, plodding, exploratory method, finding your way through the thickets, through the valley, and to over the paths into a new land. You are pioneers, as we have said many times. You have immense expertise in doing this work. This is truly a simple organizational task, with very definite outcomes to achieve. I would be most happy to confer with you anytime you wish. This one will be out of the country until the 17th of August, and will be available on the 18th, which is a Monday of your next meeting that he will be able to attend. If you have someone who can TR myself, or someone in this capacity, you are most welcome to invite them, to invite me to do so. This is not facetious—I do invite you to try. By the absence of this one, you will truly have the opportunity to devote your time to this work, and to the chores at hand.
I know that I have been speaking extensively here, answering many questions, though I feel that there are several questions, [concerning] situations which I have not addressed, that you raised during your analysis. If you have them now, please bring them to me. (Pause.) If, on the other hand, I have covered all your topics of interest and questions, then please as well say so, so that we can move ahead.
Mike: I think we are okay.
SONDJAH: You do not need to be shy to direct the facilitator in how he can be more effective to assist you. Your recommendations are noted; he has noted them and may be more aggressive in his facilitation and discipline of the team. Thank you. Now, I release you, until you call me back. Good evening.
(Thank you from the group.)
Mike: We could get him a ruler! (Laughing.)
Daniel: Now do you want to take a break and think about that? Come back and start—because he gave you some thoughtful things to chew on. It’s 7:34. Or do you just want to leap into it?
[Some comments were inaudible—too many talking at once.]
Daniel: What’s missing from the group is that no one has hired you. No one has given you a work plan. No one has given you any sales projections and goals and contacts. You’re basically developing your own inner organization. Their concerns are that by having someone appointed as the/a leader, or as “The” leader, then everybody kind of defers and then when things go down the toilet, they say, “Well, why didn’t you do something?” So in this case, they truly do not want to do that; they want us to develop a small team, sustainable, organizational process.
Dick: If we look at our purpose as to practice being a co-creative design team, I think we’ve succeeded, because we work well together. I don’t really think we need a disciplinarian, if we start to get off track a little bit. I think there are a lot of thoughts that are generated, that individuals have to express, and then we can go on. If we go way off track, then that’s another thing. However, I think there are a lot of good thoughts and ideas that come from different people, at different times, and I’d like to encourage those to continue.
Daniel: What I’ve seen about that, is that if you have a diagram, you start with a topic and then [jump] to a related topic, and to another related topic—then there is no relationship any more to this one [meaning first topic}.
Dick: Well if that happens, then …
Daniel: I’ve seen that repeatedly.
I agree with the process; now we need to have an organization; we need to have a means of producing.
Mike: I’d like to offer Kristen to do the input to the web site.
Daniel: Seriously!
Kristin: Oh, did I offer to do that?
Debbie: You said, actually, “I’d be happy to.”
Mike: And I’d be happy to help with that, because if we get the discipline—which we’ve been doing—forwarding your notes, then I can, in a sense, distill them and feed them. If we were to feed them to you, then you could update the web site, and then we can experiment, which we haven’t done, with how do you print anything out of that thing? In addition, how do you get something out of there that’s useable? I think some of it would be exploratory, but I’m sure we could do it.
Daniel: My take on the site is that it is right now, elemental. We need to fumble ahead and find out how to expand it, without causing too much retro damage.
So, can we move on to working team process, for working on this? I mean we have the perfect “kernel” and that’s Patrick’s material. It needs a kernel. It’s a whole piece, and we’re going to do the opposite. They gave me a piece of material last year, last September/October, before the workshop, and it had to do with inductive and deductive reasoning. We will use Patrick’s material and “deduce,” like Mr. Watson, and his cohort detective, what the beliefs are. How did he come to this? How did this come together? What are the underlying beliefs? Nowhere in Patrick’s material do I see a bulleted list of beliefs that underlie his material. Or the values. Or the expectations. He has the performance criteria, right?
Patrick: I think in terms of expectations, my own personal belief anyway, is that what I expect an individual to “get” from my program is an increased level of optimism. In the case of children, an increased level of resilience, an increased level of compassion, of gratitude, ….
Daniel: Excuse me for a minute. That had been on the criteria set. How do we make it that? How does it show up? Okay? And so, let’s say we are finished with Patrick’s material, and we have the values; we discovered a couple more values that underlie it; we found some associated values. And then we have a list of beliefs; we have a long list of expectations, and we have a long list of criteria. Now this is an example that people can go, “Oh, I’ve got it! Now let’s go to healthcare.” Okay? Who has a document like Patrick’s in healthcare? And so, we have some “finders,” some researchers, who go out and try to find whole health kernels of wisdom, as Patrick’s is related to ….
[Note: Transcriber has trouble telling Linda and Deb’s voices apart at times.]
Linda (?): What do you mean by healthcare? Are you talking about mental health?
Daniel: All healthcare. What would a sustainable healthcare system look like?
Linda: Oh, I see where you are coming from.
Daniel: Therefore, what we are doing is showing people: Here’s a document. Here’s the outline. Now you can apply this overlay to another field. Okay? So, you [Patrick] showed up because you have a “whole” business, and we’re going to dissect it.
Deb (?): So, kind of you want to draw—I’m just trying to clarify how to do this—you want to draw from Patrick’s—obviously his systems are working, so you want to put a process to that, or out here you may want to …?… his material? Just to have the outline, so you can take anything, and put it in that process. And Patrick’s would be a great example: Here’s the process, look how it fits in there. Okay.
Daniel: Right. This is show and tell. Then people can go out there and find this document, and find this document, and find that document, and then plug it into the same process. You might go through a hundred-page thesis or manuscript, and you might find only two underlying beliefs! But if they contribute to the end sustainable project, suck them out and use them.
Patrick: That makes a lot of sense, yeah.
Mike: A parallel would be: We started a couple of meetings ago to pull out beliefs, right? And one of the beliefs—roughly recalling—that every child has the right to learn. In a healthcare, as an example, in holistic healthcare model, you might say that every person has the right to be healthy. I mean, so what we are trying to do is develop the skill-set to identify the beliefs inherent in your work, and we can go from there, all the way down to criteria, and we do the same thing in parallel in many other enterprises, as you were saying. It is a perfect model.
Daniel: The belief is that happy children are productive individuals, become happy, productive individuals as adults. And healthy individuals are productive, sustainable contributors to a healthy community and a healthy society, both on a physical basis and mental health, and social health, and emotional health. Therefore, those are the underlying beliefs, that everybody has maybe a “right” or “access” to healthcare services.
Patrick: A “right” and an “access.”
Daniel: Because they have an inherent contribution to make, or on the other hand, what we are seeing is people have an inherent—what’s the opposite of contribution, [parasitic?] where they draw on the resources of society, without contributing to the society’s good? So by pro-actively engaging sustainable projects, in the end, when this time comes, we’ll have a means by which we can institute or enliven these designs in our society.
And I think, by us working on this within our organization to fuss through the process of how do we design in our team, a working process to produce results, is now what’s on the table. And then we can get to your work. Does that make sense? I mean, we can work on his material, and simultaneously work on the [Co-Creative] Working Team process, of how to become productive. In this regard, I don’t have much advice for you, because we have people who have been doing this all their professional life.
Debbie: So now what are we going to do? Who’s going to make us an outline, before we start going?
Kristin: I think the outline pretty much already exists, if you just go through Patrick’s material and kind of add or subtract a few things, but obviously, the whole… it may take a little bit of work.
Debbie: So, is this where we want to start next week? Is with Patrick’s document? And do you have a specific to start with? The grown-ups?
Daniel: Everybody should be on the same page.
Debbie: That’s what I’m thinking..
Daniel: …and everybody should read 5 pages. Seriously, I’m not going to be here, but …
Debbie: Do we look at the grown-ups first?
Daniel: You’re going to look at all of it.
Debbie: I’m talking about to start.
Daniel: Yeah, to start.
Patrick: Friday the 8th, for a couple of hours, I’ve got a presentation to the PTA, and I was going to record it, just because it’s not going to be written out and I’m not reading it. I’m just going to let it flow, I think, and maybe not [go] too deep. And in that too, I may be able to pull out some…
Student: Which school?
Patrick: Elk Creek.
Daniel: So which document should the team start with?
Patrick: Personally, I would say the grown-ups, because it gives details of everything that’s in the children’s.
Debbie: That’s what I was feeling like. During the channeling, what were the three keys that he asked us to pull out of Patrick’s document? Or the main keys?
[Everyone talking at once.]
Kristin: Life, equality and growth?
Linda(?): …the underlying beliefs of expectations and measurable performance.
Daniel: Some of these things will be between the lines. You’re going to read between the lines, because the beliefs are inherent in context.
Mike: I offered a few weeks ago—and I still think it’s correct, unless someone wants to say otherwise, which is fine—that to start with values just gets us in muck and mire, because the beliefs can apply to every other value. So starting with something that’s in the grown-up guide, you say, “Uh, that’s a belief, great,” let’s go to identifiable beliefs, and then go back and say, if that’s a belief—that every kid has a right to learn, or whatever—then what’s the expectation? If a child can learn, what do you expect that to look like, exactly? In the real world? Oh, it looks like the kid is mastering the material on whatever level, on a very steady basis, no interruptions, etc. Great! What’s the performance? What’s the measurable criteria? Well, that they will be able to absorb the material and move on at a steady pace, that looks like this: X number of things per….
Now the challenge in designing a system, or of dissecting a system like that, is that we can err in getting so hung up on the performance criteria, that we start judging the individuals and the system and trying to figure out why it’s broken, because this kid can’t absorb it—that’s the way we are. We keep trying to correct that which isn’t perfect for everybody, so we add more rules and more programs and more tests.
Daniel: You don’t need to get into minutia for performance. For expectation, one or two things—that’s fine.
Patrick: What I’m doing now is looking for a way to measure the performance for what I do at Elk Creek, to see if I should do it up to a year—for the entire school year—maybe perhaps a monthly very brief questionnaire that goes out to each teacher, if they notice anything. Do you know what I mean?
Linda or Deb(?): The hard thing about that is measuring personal growth. If you’re talking about going into sociology, how do you measure personal growth? You’d have to ask the person. Why not send out something to the students—“Do you feel like you’ve experienced growth?” How does the teacher know, … Personal growth is measured by yourself.
Patrick: Right. I think there’s some value in that. I totally agree with you; I would do the same with the children, and have them do a very brief little thing, but having that adult observation, especially with a teacher when they see a particular child that they know is withdrawn and they can see that that child is coming out of its shell and starting to socialize more, or things like that.
Linda or Deb(?): I would hate to get discouraged though, just because there isn’t visible growth—there could be a lot of other types of growth. (Absolutely.) And so I’d hate to solely base the performance on that, although visible is easier to measure.
Patrick: There’s also at home, too, because what I’m doing is I’m recording a two-hour training blurb for parents. It’s a two-hour thing that they can answer all the questions and stuff, and I want to prep them for that too. I would love to be able to send them monthly e-mail questionnaires that they can send back, to see how it’s coming.
Daniel: (Ding!) So it gives you an example of what we can do and not get too far down the track. The work of this team, is path finding—it’s finding the way—and we’ve gotten to the point now, where you have enough angst in yourselves and the group, to want to engage a new process for producing, and that’s where we are. You will be setting at least one example, if not several, for other teams, and what they can anticipate as they become a team.
I have a friend in Lithuania, who has been e-mailing me. I don’t know how Lithuanians think, but I would imagine it’s similar to what we do. It would be interesting to see how they work in a team—maybe they can’t work in a truly egalitarian basis, without a leader or someone who is the head and tells them what to do. And maybe one person will totally get it—understand it and say, “Okay, I’ve got it for everybody now, this is how we do it, and I’m going to tell you how to do it, and you guys do it!” I don’t know—maybe that will work.
So how you—we—engage this next process of how to have an organization and an inner process of producing results, is on the table. Someone has volunteered to input into the computer. Someone has volunteered to assist her in working with the site—
Mike: Two foolish people, right off the bat. (laughter)
Daniel: …and so I’m a facilitator, but I’d also like to see what does this look like? I guess that’s my thing—what does this look like that you’d like to do?
Mike: Actually, I don’t think we are very far from having something that is visible, tangible material to look at. We’ve collected a lot of beliefs, and a lot of expectations. I think it will go much more quickly and flow more smoothly when we can all look at the same document and see what we put in there last week. We could even change the colors for each week and see what progress we made.
Daniel: And so, as a facilitator, I say, by next week you will have read 5 pages of the adult document.
Student: It really didn’t seem that long to me.
Daniel: I’m amenable. Also, it may be easy reading, but when you guys start to discuss this, you know where you’re going to go. It may take you all night to get through page one—I don’t know. You will be amazed at how quickly you will begin to identify beliefs and associated expectations, and have in mind shortly thereafter, some measurable criteria.
Mike: Does everyone have a copy of the adult guide?
Daniel: I think everybody received a copy by email. Are we ready to close for tonight? And you have an idea of what you’re going to do next week? Read 5 pages, underline it or make notes.
Student: Does that include the introduction?
Daniel: It should include the introduction.
David: How many pages are in the entire document?
Daniel: 36 Pages—it’s a good document, very tight.
Patrick: I didn’t want it to be one of those long ….
Daniel: Sondjah has signed off unless you request him back. I’m really tickled about how this night has gone! We turned some dirt here: it’s really good. Thank you!
