The challenge for communities is to reach a consensus on how to solve increasingly complex and interrelated societal problems. Communities must build the capacities to define and address new ways of relating, as well as the specific individual issues and preferred outcomes they identify as crucial to their futures. Consensus democracy is a process that communities can adapt to sustain their health and deal more effectively with this complexity.

INTRODUCTION: LEAVING TRADITIONAL REALITY'S WOMB

INTRODUCTION: LEAVING TRADITIONAL REALITY'S WOMB

The times call for an understanding of ambiguity. The society is increasingly fast-paced, interconnected, and complex. We sense that certainty is a thing of the past, if it ever existed beyond the limits of our understanding. Local leadership finds itself in need of the development of ideas that are totally non-traditional - so-called "out of the box" thinking.. Our Communities of the Future leadership development approach recognizes this need and has begun to develop non-traditional techniques to help citizens move beyond the frustration of chaos and confusion. We utilize poetry as one way to help leaders develop a sense of comfort with ambiguity and the times in which we live. If simple words can be interpreted differently, and each interpretation be correct from different points of view, maybe this technique will help local leaders see the need to get beyond standard and traditional answers.....and draw them to a new "context of the future."

"The focus of my thoughts become diffuse
As the light from prior eras
Reaches the reality of my mind.
Who understands that which cannot be seen
And yet needs to connect the unseen with the known?
In a dancing of potential shadows context will take form only
When we decide which door to open.....
And, in so doing, touch our souls to God
Forever leaving traditional reality's womb.....

I wrote this poem as a result of a session with a local leadership development group in Nebraska....but it could just as easily have been in North Carolina or Texas. It reflects the frustration local leaders feel as they struggle to understand what leadership will require in a constantly changing, interconnected and increasingly complex society. How often we hear the refrain, "tell me what to do, I don't have time to talk about ideas. It reflected a "we need to act, not talk" philosophy.

Such a comment reflects a perception, an understanding, that leadership is action. As leaders, we tell people what to do, and they follow. This assumes leaders know what to do, and, in turn, that

followers trust their leaders enough to do what they say. This traditional approach to leadership served us well as long as experience was the teacher and provided the answer to the leader's question, "what action should I take."

For years I watched my Dad voluntarily surrender control of situations in our community so that other people could offer their talents, and, in so doing, become local leaders. I never realized that I was watching a form of leadership important to the 21st century. In truth, I often wondered if Dad just didn't like conflict. It never seemed to bother him that someone else got credit for what I knew Dad had started.

About the age of thirty-seven, I had an "aha moment." It suddenly became clear to me that Dad knew what he was doing as a leader. However, until I had enough experience in leadership positions, I never realized that his emphasis was not only the task, but the development of people. Until experience gave me enough wisdom to understand his motives, I falsely interpreted lack of action at times to be fear of conflict....and nothing could have been further from the truth.

In my aha moment at thirty-seven, I realized that there are parallel needs of leadership. I had always focused on the short run projects of action. My Dad was mature and secure enough in himself to be interested in the longer run. He had come to understand that a key part of leadership is to create "capacities" in others over time. He realized that the insecurity of people often lead to a need of affirmation by others. Therefore he chose to help others succeed through his indirect actions. He nurtured others, at times without it ever being obvious. Dad took delight in knowing that he had been of help to someone else. His wisdom was in the way he helped....not doing for others, but in creating an environment for others so that they would feel comfortable taking risk.

It is only now that I realize I was watching a man for all ages who was just being himself while living what he believed his faith required of him. In so doing, he illustrated one key aspect of 21st century leadership. In remembering his life after his death, I now understand that Dad had transformed himself over time, and had reached a level of faith and consciousness where it was his "human nature" to be there for others. It is because of my Dad that I know we have the capacity to evolve human nature beyond total self-interest and intense competition.

As a result, and without realizing it on my part, my Dad had become the symbol of a key attribute of what I have become to believe a 21st century leader should have....the ability to nurture others to help them become capable of new ways of thinking and doing. We live in a time of transformation, where traditional ideas often lead to obsolete methods. There is no greater challenge today that to rethink how traditional assumptions need to change, and how traditional institutions need to be retooled.

As long as things stay the same or change occurs slowly, it is appropriate to use traditional ideas and only reform basic approaches. In other words, in times of slow change, the focus is to reform what has existed for years. A traditional filter of experience is enough. All that is necessary is to make improvements on basic assumptions. But when the rate of change speeds up, old assumptions are no longer enough.

"We are living in a time when mastering change is probably the most important thing that leaders can help their organizations do, because the conditions under which businesses and governments are functioning today are more turbulent, more chaotic, more challenging than ever."

Mastering Change Rosabeth Moss Kanter

However, the more I become interested in 21st century community sustainability, the more I realize the need to add new filters to be able to comprehend the kaleidoscope of change expected in the 21st century.

Like everyone else, the traditional filters of experience and knowledge have formed the framework of how I understand, interpret and integrate what happens around me. As long as the old filters worked, I saw the world as I thought it existed.....and part of it did exist that way. Things were predictable. I could be in control and control events with enough time and effort. There were standard answers to everything...one best way to lead; one best way to do homework; one best way to answer a question on tests; one best way to do a job, etc.

For many years, I tried to improve on what I was taught as the right way to do things. Knowledge and experience always combined to add to assumptions already existing. I never realized that the only questions I asked were "receiver questions"...questions that asked people in authority for an answer. I would act based on what I was told, yet never ask questions in order to question basic assumptions.

This was ok as long as things worked. We could continue to improve what had worked for years. In other words, we could reform traditional ideas. But when the very concept of how things are done

begins to change, reforming old ideas is no longer enough. We must begin to think about experimenting with totally new approaches - and this leads to a new approach to the future

*a future whose context is constantly changing, where standard answers are no longer appropriate

*a future where a new class of questions is required - questions which ask "are the underlying assumptions of how we do things still appropriate?"

*or "are there totally new principles at work as the society begins to be transformed?"

"There are good reasons for suggesting that the modern age has ended. Many things indicate that we are going through a transitional period....It is as if something were crumbling, decaying and

exhausting itself, while something else, still indistinct, were arising from the rubble."

.............. Speech, "The New Measure of Man" Vaclav Havel

Nothing is transformed in the same way or at the same rate. Transformation evolves, sometimes slowly, sometimes more quickly as small tributaries of change converge. In either case, seeds must be planted, then nourished, for transformational change to occur.

As I think back from 1999, a seed of how to understand transformation was planted in my mind in 1968 by watching the Fosbury Flop for the first time. Only now do I have a context to understand the importance of the day I watched the summer Olympics high jump event. The announcer kept talking about the strange new technique of Dick Fosbury. Dick who? I had never heard of him ( as is true with most agents of transformation ). His "Fosbury Flop" broke all the rules of traditional high jumping methods.

He did not jump over the bar looking down at the pit...in fact he totally reversed the technique by running to the bar and then jumping over backwards with his face looking to the sky. Fosbury was given no chance by traditional pundits and announcers. Comments made bordered on ridicule because his method was a complete innovation, and was not the standard answer to traditional high jumping. It was because of a totally new innovation that Dick Fosbury transformed this track and field event. And he won.

As illustrated by the "Fosbury Flop," all transformation is based on changing underlying assumptions. Local leaders have usually reached their present position of authority because of their experience with traditional methods. This explains the tension which occurs when leaders expect to use their experience only to deal with issues, and find that old ways no longer work. They become very frustrated and often revert to power approaches to deal with the issue based on their experience. Until recently, experience has always been a great teacher for leadership. Experience still teaches one how to develop judgment and wisdom. Experience also gives one an understanding of people and diverse situations. However, what experience no longer gives is "context."

Because of the rapid explosion of knowledge, content constantly changes.

*A student of civil engineering finds 30% of learned information obsolete by the time of graduation from college. *Business activity is being restructured with networks of entrepreneurs as the impact of electronic communication allows individuals to work simultaneously on diverse teams creating different projects.

*Government officials can find out what citizens think on any issue at any time as the electronic infrastructure expands throughout the nation.

"With Net-based virtual learning centers, school will become something you do, not someplace you go. Online classrooms can include not only lectures and other materials posted by the teacher, but

E-mail exchanges ( teacher/student and student/student ), bulletin boards or chat rooms for class discussions, and tests. Using the Net, education no longer will need to have students gather at one time in one physical location unless being there serves a specific purpose."

"Net Future" Chuck Martin

The constant changing of content leads to a constantly changing context. If a local leader does not keep up with changing trends and their interactive impact on issues, the leader will always be one step behind. If a leader acts on obsolete information, the decision made will be wrong and will lead to increased frustration for everyone. Either a local leader begins to appreciate the need to think about trends and new, innovative ideas ( a futures context ), or actions will be increasingly obsolete, with no chance for success.

It is becoming apparent that our local communities need to prepare for the challenges of a society that is in total transformation. There are no models available. No longer will there be a standard approach to anything. Leaders in local communities will need to experiment with new approaches based on totally different underlying assumptions.

At the same time that local communities are dealing with day to day problems, the leaders will have to learn how to begin to introduce "capacities for transformation." The Center for Communities of the Future has identified a maximum of five new capacities for transformation which it considers necessary for the long term health of any community:

Process leaders are involved with connections....people, ideas, and organizations. The emphasis of process leadership is the creation of new concepts, methods and techniques which will help frame a constantly changing 21st century world. The skills of process leadership will emphasize:

a) understanding the impact of trends of the future

b) building processes leading to shared vision among diverse people and organizations, and

c) by intent, transforming one's internal emotional structure to allow the capacities to facilitate without the need to control.

2) Creating a "futures context" A future’s context can be constructed by participants in any process whose goal is to understand the impact of future trends. One of today's key issues is to build actions which will resolve present

problems. If the context within which any issue considered is obsolete, no action plan will be appropriate. All people who aspire to become 21st century leaders will need to gain knowledge of many trends, and understand how these trends impact current issues.

Any community which does not create an electronic infrastructure within the next decade will not maintain vitality in the 21st century. Not only will entrepreneurs need to be able to access information to compete in an international market, but citizens will need to be able to respond to questions linked to the resolution of important community issues.

The impact of interconnections will be many. With the society moving faster and faster, and with the electronic infrastructure drawing distant peoples together, everything will become interdependent. One of the most important impacts of such an interaction will be the slow realization that people need to help each other succeed. A new definition of the common good will be born, and its power will be the driving force behind the development of an increasingly complex

society.

All citizens will need to develop basic 21st century skills defined as:

*An ability to access information on the Internet

*An ability to network diverse people

*An ability to facilitate generative dialogue in small groups

To insure that long term "capacities for transformation" are evolving at the same time that current basic community issues are resolved, it is important for local leaders to grasp the concept of parallel processes. Strategic planning for short term projects will be implemented at the same time that new capacities for transformation are established using a different set of skills and knowledge.

Whereas predictability and control of actions and outcomes are the underlying assumption of strategic planning, transformative capacity building requires small networks of interested people to self-organize new ideas utilizing well thought out experiments. Task oriented people will be drawn to strategic planning methods, while those who see value in dialogue will work in collaboration to develop new ideas, concepts, methods and techniques. Strategic planning will be done in larger groups, where the importance of inclusion is recognized. Building capacities for transformation will emphasize small groups of 10-20, whose participants has volunteered to be involved to think about the future in new ways.

In her new book, Web World and the Turning of Times, Sally Goerner emphasizes that "knowing comes before doing." This is an important concept for local leaders who are involved with issues which require an understanding of futures trends before any appropriate decision can be made. As the rate of change in society increases, all issues will need to be considered within a futures context.

So what does this mean and how is it done? A futures context is the framework or umbrella of thinking that is used to think about present of future issues based on the interconnection of future trends. Any one who is interested in creating a futures context needs to:

1) become familiar with future trends

2) be able to ask appropriate questions and to understand the impact

of trends on issues

3) be able to connect apparently disparate ideas

* A city planner needs to understand the impact of telecommunications with regard to zoning issues ( i.e., home office ).

* An educational leader needs to understand the impact of constantly changing information on how evaluative systems are structured ( i.e., limits of standardized testing when considering evaluation of innovative thinking ).

* A city clerk of the future will need to consider how to reconstruct the traditional role of the city clerk ( to include information flow for local officials interested in building teams of local citizens

capable of designing experiments for testing local electronic democracy ideas).

The Center for Communities of the Future is experimenting with two new methods to help evolve the concept of a "futures context" within the thinking and operations of local organizations throughout a community. All of the COTF experiments utilize the principles of chaos/complexity theory to include:

1) self - organization People come together and decide how to proceed as a group. Self-organization can relate to small meetings or large processes. There is structure, but one conforming to the dynamics of the moment and not artificially defined by one person or a small group.

2) richness of outcomes coming from the application of simple rules to initial conditions

Algorithms of a 21st century society will become important. Examples of this approach:

* always finding something of value in what someone says

* connecting diverse people for the common good

3) bio - feedback

If a society is in constant change, local community experiments will be necessary to learn. No matter what the outcome of an action, the feedback will help all communities learn how to adapt. It is of great importance that all local areas become learning communities.

4) emergence

One of the most significant challenges is to build a framework of community processes which allow new ideas to emerge without prior control or prediction. This concept of evolving new ideas requires new approaches to leadership and instant communications. Innovations will emerge from experiments if those involved understand the overall goal of the process and are allowed to make many mistakes.

5) bifurcation ( network building )

Networks will replace hierarchies. Small webs of intricacy will continuously be formed and eliminated as need arises. The structure of the society will be based on network building, whether business (webs of entrepreneurs ), government ( project teams of democracy ); or education (virtual schools ).

6) fractals ( consistency within larger systems )

Important principles will be applied in common ways, no matter what size the scale. Small webs at the local level will require the same type of communication as larger list serves.

7) webs of intricacy ( linked small networks )

The society will be built around small webs ( or networks ) of people and organizations that are linked by common purpose. The ability to change quickly will become a foundation principle for the society, especially at the local level. Small groups of people will be the key innovators of new ideas which can then be spread quickly through electronic means as well as other connected small webs.

The 21st century think tank concept brings together small networks of interested people to introduce them to concepts and trends of the 21st century. This will help them understand how to evolve transformational approaches to existing institutions. Such a group can be sponsored by any community organization ( or organizations ). The intent of the 21st century think tank is to build a base of people who are knowledgeable about future trends and transformative concepts, and who can introduce those ideas and techniques to people and organizations throughout the community.

It is important to understand that small "webs of intricacy" do not have to include representatives from all key organizations ( a basic principle of strategic planning ), but need to include only people who are truly interested in thinking about the future. Once these groups begin to understand the impact of trends and transformative assumptions, they can work to develop other small groups and build a critical mass of people in the community capable of thinking within a futures context.

One of the interstate networks developed by COTF in 1999 consists of a group of local community colleges in six states. Representatives from each of these colleges will collaborate to develop a "futures institute" which will be integrated within the scope of each college curricula.

This focus has been established to provide a way for community colleges to begin to integrate trends of the future into each curricula. Unless our learning institutions develop the capacity to help evolve a "futures context" throughout their organizations and community, obsolete information will be provided which will lead to ineffective decisions and people who are unable to participate in the

job market or be effective citizens in the 21st century. Each "futures institute" at a community college will develop the capacity not only to provide information about future trends, but to help nurture community citizen leaders learn how to resolve issues within a futures context.

"We tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."

............... Petronium ( Greek Philosopher , 210 BC)

All communities need to create leadership development programs to help prepare "process leaders" capable of building "capacities for transformation" at the local level. To this end, all participating individuals need to develop the following skills and knowledge:

a) an ability to create a futures context within which transformational thinking can be nurtured.

b) an understanding of how to build connections and shared vision among diverse people.

c) a personal internal transformation that occurs as the individual gains immense patience, develops tolerance and compassion, learns to listen effectively, and is able to help other people become successful without the need to be given credit.

In a time of historical transformation, chaos seems to reign. Traditional standards and underlying assumptions crumble before our eyes, leaving us with few clues to the future. Our first impulse is

to make things more efficient....yet, in so doing, we add to the instability. Leadership in the 21st century will require an understanding of how to introduce new ideas indirectly, how to ask appropriate questions, and how to connect disparate people and ideas.

Soon it will dawn on us that traditional leadership of direction, predicted outcomes, and the need to control, is inappropriate in a dynamic society of constant change. Yet until we come to realize the

need to build new capacities through experiments of new thinking, we will automatically revert to the control techniques found in the idea of leader - follower.

And yet we sense that the times in which we live are of such significance that a new world order is forming....one with purpose, and one whose meaning can only be revealed at the end of the journey.

Yet as we look around, having the capacity to recognize our existence, we look to become a vehicle through which creation flows.....and, in so doing, redefine leadership. How we connect each other for the common good of our dynamic culture is a burgeoning challenge. No longer will it be appropriate to say what's good for me as an individual. We stand on the edge of understanding that there is no separation, one from another, in an interdependent world. What great opportunity to live in a time where our choices could lead to a society rich in collaboration, intricate in structure, and focused on meaning for life.

"There is a thread running throughout the whole of scientific and spiritual thought.....east and west, ancient and modern.....that is rarely acknowledged today. It is that the exquisite order woven throughout the world is evidence of that ineffable process of reality which brought us to consciousness and which is still at work today. This thread is being restored. This restoration is a core part of how the new science helps reconcile science and spirituality.

"Web World and The Turning of Times" Sally Goerner

One thousand years from now archaeologists will find the following words, and pause to understand their meaning:

"No longer did the past serve the future

And when we turned to look aheadWe realized that others had been there before." Those local communities whose leadership takes the risk to redefine what it means to lead within a futures context will find their names among those that "had been there before."

It is our great opportunity to live at an historical moment when, together, we can craft a new form of leadership for a society in transformation.

"Not as a creator, but as a vehicle through which creation flows."

.....Ken Murphy

ABOUT RICK SMYRE