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Synergy and Collective Intelligence
We are living in a time of change and acceleration – on a global, social and personal level.
The challenges we face as a species – like climate change, economic crises, social disparities and natural disasters – cannot be tackled individually.
Instead they call for a holistic, integral approach and a growing awareness of our deep inter-connectedness with the unfolding of all life.
Collective Wisdom, Synergy of Teams, Co-Intelligence – all these terms point to the fact that humans are discovering that wholes can become more than the sum of their parts. Groups of humans can become more intelligent than the individuals they comprise.
Extraordinary creativity and effectiveness can emerge when an entire group of people – for instance in communities or business – are willing to synchronize their thinking through alignment with a common concern.
The remarkable dance of birds in flight, the creative synergy of a sports team in flow, the genius of a team of scientists contributing their best and the Buddhist concept of Sangha (a community of spiritual seekers) – these are but a few examples of how a higher order of capacity can take over when fields of connection and coherence are deepened.
The New We
During this conference we will look into the question of how communities can contribute to the wellbeing of the larger society and planet.
What potential do communities have? Which living skills have been developed in communities that could effectively be transferred to other organizational fields (e.g. NGOs, city councils, business)?
The complexity of our world invites us beyond pure reliance on our individual competencies on the one hand and depending on egalitarian, consensual close-knit communal structures on the other. The first has kept us confined to counter-productive power struggles and our ego-personality. The second has slowed down our ability to take decisions and actions in a world.
Transparent communication prepares the ground for collective wisdom to unfold and, together, they can lead to a new level of ‘we’; a ‘we’ that is more than the sum of the individuals concerned. New levels of consciousness and perception can open up and the horizon of our thinking and feeling is broadened.
Evolutionary Change
In order to stay in sync with evolution and enjoy the constant change, we need to incorporate new capacities: How can we process and integrate rich fields of information at a much higher level of speed and complexity?
How can we transform our organizations, our communities, and our personalities into open and cooperative systems? Both autonomy and intimate cooperation are called for.
We will explore the four following dimensions:
- Transcendence: A higher common focus supports us in experiencing synergy in groups
- Interpersonal Clarity: Transparent communication leads to a higher level of awareness in our social systems
- Economic Foundation: Manifestation of projects on solid financial ground
- Service to the World: Supporting the evolutionary development of the whole
We will work with our collective intelligence during the conference in an experiential way.
Presentations, talks, meditations and use of the World Café method will inspire us in this process.
We invite all those interested and look forward to an inspiring network of different viewpoints and a lively exchange.
The Conference is hosted by the Academy of Inner Science (www.innerscience.info) in cooperation with GEN – the Global Ecovillage Network (www.gen.ecovillage.org, www.gen-europe.org)
