1993
Towards a New Order of Meeting Participation
The following is an experiment in outlining a proposed contract between participants
in a meeting. In the spirit of depth psychology, it is designed to acknowledge
specifically the pattern of interacting roles at the shadowy 'roundtable'
hidden within every meeting. This roundtable and the relationships are illustrated
by Figure 1. The
emphasis is on the nature of the specific contractual bonds between participants.
An analogous text was developed subsequently relating to a Community
Participant Contract in Towards
a New Order of Community Participation (1997)
PARTICIPANT ROLE REMINDER
1. We are less rewarded for our involvement in a meeting when we assume that our role
has been more central to its processes than when we are able to question its value to
other participants.
2. We degrade and pollute the meeting environment more when we assume that any negative
impacts of our initiatives on other participants are of little consequence than when we
have doubts concerning the ability of the meeting to deal with them.
3. We exhibit a greater degree of ignorance in a meeting when we assume the adequacy of
the knowledge we demonstrate than when we question its validity from the perspectives of
other participants.
4. Our contributions are less nourishing and enlivening to other participants when we
assume that they are naturally fruitful than when we question their fruitfulness to
others.
5. We contribute more to the mismanagement of a meeting when we assume that our
favoured procedures are the most useful to other participants than when we have doubts
concerning their efficacy for others.
6. We are less productive in a meeting when we assume we are responding productively to
other contributions than when we have doubts concerning the contribution of our efforts to
the productivity of other initiatives.
7. We are more threatening to other participants when we assume that our role is not
experienced as intimidating and discriminating by some than when we question how others
may be threatened by our actions in the meeting.
8. We bring more malaise to a meeting when we assume that we are paragons of well-being
than when we have doubts concerning our degree of health in the eyes of others.
9. We are more exploitative in a meeting when we assume that our initiatives do not
impoverish the experience of other participants than when we question this possibility.
10. We make more inappropriate contributions to a meeting when we assume that they are
naturally appropriate than when we have doubts concerning their degree of appropriateness
to other participants.
11. The representation of reality that we endeavour to communicate to other
participants is experienced as more incoherent when we assume that it offers unique
integrative advantages than when we question whether this may be the case for others.
12. We are more effective in turning cultural and religious celebrations into
meaningless rituals when we assume that they are not experienced as such by some than when
we question why this may indeed be the case.
MEETING PARTICIPANT CONTRACT
0. Preamble
0.1 Since it is in the minds (and hearts) of meeting participants that the
problems of the world emerge, it is in our minds (and hearts) as participants
that these issues should be addressed. Endeavouring to respond to societal problems
as though they were purely external and distant, fails to respond to the mind-set
which continues to reinforce them and ensures their continuing unfruitful treatment
in the meeting environment.
0.2 The collective impotence of the 1990s (including the creative diplomatic delays
over Yugoslavia, Somalia and the Sudan) justifies a certain impatience with regard to
conventional meeting processes. The low expectations and levels of satisfaction associated
with events like the Rio Earth Summit suggest the need for a sharper focus and a more
radical evaluation of meeting performance. The systems of checks and balances, or
challenge and support, need to be rendered more explicit in meetings. There is a need for
'tighter ships' following the limited successes associated with meeting
permissiveness in the past decades.
0.3 The conceptual and behavioural challenges of 'sustainable development'
are too easily projected onto the formulation of larger, global strategies conveniently
beyond the control or responsibility of individual meeting participants.
0.4 Meeting participants need to take greater responsibility for the quality of the
meeting as a whole rather than designing personal participation strategies which
effectively delegate such responsibilities to others. Participants can no longer afford to
be primarily concerned with their own track or function. Operational content needs to be
consciously given to values such as solidarity or the Japanese concept of group harmony
('wa').
0.5 In endeavouring to respond to the challenges of meeting structures and
processes, the tendency to delegate or allocate responsibility to another is somewhat
similar to electing a 'mummy' or a 'daddy' or a 'police
chief' -- leaving the electors free to be playfully disobedient and to scorn any
seemingly heavy-handed disciplinary measures. It is part of the problem for which each
participant needs to take greater personal responsibility.
0.6 Each role in a meeting is supported and handicapped by other roles. The task in
the meeting, as in wider society, may be seen as one of becoming conscious of and working
with the complementarity of these roles in order to achieve higher orders of consensus and
sustainability.
0.7 Can meetings and their participants cultivate a greater sense of self-awareness,
self-reflexiveness, or sense of presence appropriate to the challenges of the times?
0.8 The following draft invites further revisions that build in
sharper and clearer understanding of the lessons for meeting processes from the major
clusters of social challenges that tend to be their concern. It is valuable to see the
roots of such challenges in the dynamics of meetings -- where people as participants may
well find the clues to more creative responses to the equivalent problems in wider
societies.
CONTRACTUAL BONDS BETWEEN PARTICIPANTS
Acknowledgement of Interacting Roles
at the Shadowy Roundtable Hidden within every Meeting
Each of the roles below is positioned around a 'roundtable' in an
accompanying diagram (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/round.php).
The relationships between the roles below are indicated on the diagram. You
can click back from any role in the diagram to the description below.
Role 1. 'Unemployment' Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to respond to the tension
between waiting for opportunities offered by others and creating opportunities
which others will find beneficial in the meeting. It also requires that each
be attentive to the ways in which his/her initiatives effectively exploit others
without appropriately recompensing them.
We are less rewarded for our involvement in a meeting when we assume that our role has
been more central to its processes than when we are able to question its value to other
participants.
In this mode each experiences the anguish of being underemployed in the meeting. This
may be perceived as the failure of others to acknowledge the role that s/he performs in
the gathering or their failure to create openings to make use of the skills that s/he
brings to the event. As a consequence there is a frustration at not being able to
contribute effectively, associated with a sense of not being appropriately rewarded for
what s/he has to offer. But at the same time, and when given the opportunity, each will
tend exploitatively to use what others have to offer, offering minimal acknowledgement and
psychic rewards.
More fundamentally, through this mode the meeting and the participants are challenged
as to how to make best use of the opportunities of the occasion and how to be
appropriately rewarded. The frustrations of underemployment can easily expose participants
to a sense of alienation and purposelessness.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the constraint of fairness (Role 7)
in undertaking significant initiatives (Role 1).
- Complementarities: Reconciling opportunities for significant initiatives (Role 1) with the dilemmas of exploitation (Role 9)
and of appropriate management (Role 5).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Developmental and expansion orientation also common
to product development (Role 10), procedural development (Role 7), and population development (Role 4).
Role 2. 'Degradation of environment'
Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to take on a stewardship
capacity in caring for the many features of the cultural ecosystem constituted
by the meeting. This involves recognition of the build up of potentially negative
consequences of any intervention and the manner in which others must be depended
upon to help render them innocuous.
We degrade and pollute the meeting environment more when we assume that any negative
impacts of our initiatives on other participants are of little consequence than when we
have doubts concerning the ability of the meeting to deal with them.
In this mode each degrades the meeting environment by exploiting the resources it
offers in ways that ultimately threaten its viability. As a socio-cultural ecosystem, the
meeting is effectively a habitat for a wide range of psycho- social roles. Conventional
meeting processes, that are most 'productive' in the short term, exploit this
system in ways which progressively degrade it and deprive it of any capacity to renew
itself. Favoured meeting processes generate waste products which tend progressively to
pollute and poison the emotional and intellectual exchange processes and to render
infertile any common meeting ground.
More fundamentally, through this mode the meeting must create a space for the natural
expression of participants, giving pattern to their relationships as an ecosystem. It
challenges belief in the possibility of any underlying homeostatic principles governing
the global relationships amongst participants and their initiatives.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the constraint of personal development (Role
8) in endeavouring to manage the collective environment (Role 2).
- Complementarities: Reconciling management of the collective environment (Role 2) with fostering new skills and abilities (Role
6) and developing more appropriate products (Role 10).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Structural and mediatory responsibility also common
to group management (Role 5), insight management (Role
11) and self- management (Role 8).
Role 3. 'Ignorance / Mal-education'
Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to be sensitive to the
inadequacies of his/her perspective and to compensate for the inadequacies of
others in the meeting, whether or not these can be effectively brought to their
attention.
We exhibit a greater degree of ignorance in a meeting when we assume the adequacy
of the knowledge we demonstrate than when we question its validity from the
perspectives of other participants.
In this mode each is complacent about his/her level of ignorance to the point of
revelling in the adequacy of their comprehension of the dilemmas faced by the meeting or
its participants and the appropriateness of the answers s/he can supply. This ignorance is
further nourished by communications which pander to easy modes of understanding and do not
attempt to challenge them. Education from such a perspective then tends to reinforce this
sense of adequacy and ignores its own irrelevance to the real inter-sectoral challenges
faced by the meeting.
More fundamentally, through this mode the meeting is faced with the challenge of what
kinds of learning experiences within the meeting can meet the needs of participants with
quite different knowledge bases. Especially challenging is the need to communicate a sense
of historical perspective, notably when participants have lost any sense of relationship
to historical roots or to the value of the collective wisdom of the past.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the constraint of impoverishment or exploitation (Role 9) in fostering the use of information (Role 3).
- Complementarities: Reconciling fostering the use of information (Role
3) with protecting the vulnerable (Role 7) and with ensuring the
emergence of new insights (Role 11).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Fostering and promotional endeavours common to
collective projects (Role 9), use of skills (Role 6),
and the expression of cultural beliefs (Role 12).
Role 4. 'Undernourishment / Malnutrition'
Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to be attentive to the
forms of information and energy which are nourishing to others and their initiatives.
Ways should also be sought to encourage others to supply forms of information
which can ensure their survival in the meeting. It also raises dramatic questions
concerning the conception (and 'tabling') of issues during the event
and the manner in which this should be curtailed, if at all.
Our contributions are less nourishing and enlivening to other participants when we
assume that they are naturally fruitful than when we question their fruitfulness to
others.
In this mode each experiences the limited nourishment offered by others to interests or
projects that s/he seeks to further -- to the point at which people and/or projects suffer
a form of emotional, intellectual or spiritual 'starvation' during the meeting.
But equally each intervention tends to contribute relatively little to the meeting in a
form which is experienced as palatable and nourishing by others. As such each is both a
cause of malnutrition in some and a victim of undernourishment from others. Few
participants enjoy a healthy information diet throughout a meeting. These effects are
often a consequence of the rapidly rising numbers of initiatives and perspectives
clamouring for attention as the meeting progresses and creating an insatiable demand for
project resources.
More fundamentally, it is through this mode that the meeting is faced with the question
of who should be allowed to originate and present new issues and initiatives -- of what
kind, in what quantity, and under what circumstances. The tendency of the meeting to be
overrun by new issues, to which adequate attention cannot be given, then raises the
question of whether and how such natural creativity should be curtailed -- especially when
it may be perceived as either one of the principal joys of meeting or vital to the sense
of security of the originator.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the constraint of product appropriateness (Role 10) in nourishing collective development (Role
4).
- Complementarities: Reconciling nourishment of collective development (Role 4) with individual health and development (Role
8) and with expressing the relationship to cultural and spiritual insights (Role 12).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Developmental and expansion orientation also common
to procedural development (Role 7), initiative development (Role 1), and product development (Role 10).
Role 5. 'Domination / Red tape /
Mismanagement' Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to act responsibly in
developing the governance of the meeting, recognizing that regulations that
may be satisfactory and logical to some could well be totally inhibiting to
others. Any conflicts can be seen as challenges to collective learning.
We contribute more to the mismanagement of a meeting when we assume that our favoured
procedures are the most useful to other participants than when we have doubts concerning
their efficacy for others.
In this mode there is a tendency to subscribe to simplistic meeting structures and
processes which do not have the capacity to deal with important latent conflicts or to
move the meeting forwards in a fruitful way. As such failures become evident, in the face
of new challenges within the meeting, these procedural devices are experienced by some as
increasingly inadequate and artificial. They may also be judged as primarily serving the
interests of the meeting establishment, and other vested interests, rather than the
participants in general or the declared purpose of the event.
More fundamentally, it is through this mode that the ways in which power in the meeting
is distributed and controlled can be understood, especially as they are used to mediate
between opposing initiatives, to articulate new goals, and to ensure the implementation of
acceptable new steps towards them. It is in this sense that concerns about a policy vacuum
are expressed.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the constraint of allowing emergence of new insights (Role 11) in ensuring the management of the collective enterprise (Role 5).
- Complementarities: Reconciling appropriate management (Role 5),
with opportunities for significant initiatives (Role 1) with the
dilemmas of exploitation (Role 9).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Structural and mediatory responsibility also common
to environmental management (Role 2), insight management (Role 11) and self- management (Role 8).
Role 6. 'Underproductivity /
Overproductivity' Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to be sensitive to the
levels of involvement of others in the meeting and to ensure that the attention
is challenged so that each is effectively present there. Each should take some
responsibility for questioning his/her own tendency to cultivate other agendas
or to overstate a particular case.
We are less productive in a meeting when we assume we are responding productively to
other contributions than when we have doubts concerning the contribution of our efforts to
the productivity of other initiatives.
In this mode we may, at one extreme, respond minimalistically to the formal
requirements of the meeting with little sense of engagement or involvement. Such
'working to rule' can be so skilfully done that no criticism is justified. It
may also manifest as various forms of 'absenteeism', whether simple
inattentiveness or actual involvement in alternative activities and agendas, possibly
outside the meeting. At the other extreme we may each choose to exploit every opportunity
to produce and develop a favourite argument or insight beyond the needs of the meeting or
its capacity to benefit from it.
More fundamentally, it is through this mode that the productivity of the meeting as a
whole is assessed. This may involve such primary activities as the 'mining' of
bodies of knowledge, the evocation and accumulation of various forms of psycho-social
energy and commitment (notably as funds), or the cultivation of perspectives vital to the
nourishment of the meeting. Aspects of the work may involve refining or processing the
results of such activities for wider distribution amongst participants. The work of the
meeting may be seen as directed to its social (re)construction, whether in the form of
team building, the creation of fellowship and solidarity, or the design of specialized
environments (commissions, workshops, etc). As such there may be concern about the quality
and weaknesses of the meeting infrastructure and its associated services and facilities.
From this perspective, the concern here is with the meeting as a habitat and with the
sustainability of its development.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the constraint of expressing collective cultural
insights (Role 12) in ensuring the fostering of new skills and
abilities (Role 6).
- Complementarities: Reconciling management of the collective environment (Role 2) with fostering new skills and abilities (Role
6) and developing more appropriate products (Role 10).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Fostering and promotional endeavours common to
collective projects (Role 9), use of information (Role
3), and the expression of cultural beliefs (Role 12).
Role 7. 'Injustice / Criminality / Injured
innocence' Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to be vigilantly attentive
to the tendency of others to take unfair advantage of situations in the meeting,
whilst at the same time recognizing that others must necessarily impose similar
constraints on his/her propensities.
We are more threatening to other participants when we assume that our role is not
experienced as intimidating and discriminating by some than when we question how others
may be threatened by our actions in the meeting.
In this mode each may at one extreme rejoice in an air of innocence, whether sincere or
deliberately assumed, concerning the fairness with s/he responds to others. Such innocence
then defines anything offensive or discriminatory as being the responsibility of others at
the gathering. At the other extreme, the role exploits opportunities in the meeting for
action in an underhanded or unfair manner, often behind the scenes and possibly with
accomplices. Such initiatives may well be unconscious. They are often undertaken at the
expense of vulnerable groups represented at the meeting, whether minorities of one kind or
another, or those subjected to some special handicap. Part of the challenge is that any
such 'success' may be valued as a mark of superior meeting gamesmanship. The
only constraint may be seen in the shame or guilt of being 'caught' and subject
to formal censure. The consequences for the victims of such practices are considered
incidental.
More fundamentally, through this mode the meeting is faced with the challenge of
insecurity and fear engendered amongst participants and its destructive effects on the
meeting as a community. It raises the question of the pattern of rights and
responsibilities amongst participants and how it is to be protected.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the need for risky significant initiatives (Role 1) in endeavouring to protect the vulnerable (Role
7).
- Complementarities: Reconciling fostering the use of information (Role
3) with protecting the vulnerable (Role 7) and with ensuring the
mergence of new insights (Role 11).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Developmental and expansion orientation also common
to product development (Role 10), initiative development (Role 1), and population development (Role 4).
Role 8. 'Illness / Malformation /
Therapy' Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to be sensitive to the
unwelcome challenges s/he brings to the emotional, mental or spiritual hygiene
of the meeting. Each should be prepared to act in a supportive/therapeutic role
to others, whether they are in distress or causing it. But enthusiasm for any
therapeutic role or fashion should be conditioned by recognition of the difficulties
of challenging its use as a panacea.
We bring more malaise to a meeting when we assume that we are paragons of well-being
than when we have doubts concerning our degree of health in the eyes of others.
In this mode we each exhibit unhealthy behaviours and attitudes which, due to their
infectious or contagious nature, may directly threaten the behavioural health of other
participants. As disabilities or malformations, such behaviours may also call for some
form of therapeutic intervention, including use of prosthetic devices, to enable us to
interact on an equal basis with others. The therapeutic measures evoked, and any need for
constraint or quarantine, can seriously inconvenience the flow of the meeting. Such
unhealthy psychological conditions make it difficult for innovative initiatives emerging
within the meeting to survive into maturity through their period of dependency.
More fundamentally, it is through this mode that we distinguish those processes which
enhance our sense of well- being as a participant as opposed to those that contribute to
unproductive forms of stress. Both raise questions concerning our understanding of the
nature and direction of our personal development.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the constraint of the health of the collective
environment (Role 2) in endeavouring to ensure individual health and
development (Role 8).
- Complementarities: Reconciling nourishment of collective development (Role 4) with individual health and development (Role
8) and with expressing the relationship to cultural and spiritual insights (Role 12).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Structural and mediatory responsibility also common
to environmental management (Role 2), insight management (Role 11) and group management (Role 5).
Role 9. 'Impoverishment / Exploitation /
Wealth maldistribution' Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to explore the kinds
of wealth produced and distributed during any meeting and the ways in which
such processes can be made more equitable. Although a rich experience for one
may be judged as unfruitful by another seeking different benefits, the 'gap'
between the 'rich' and the 'poor' should be a matter of
continuing concern.
We are more exploitative in a meeting when we assume that our initiatives do not
impoverish the experience of other participants than when we question this possibility. In
this mode we find ourselves, on the one hand, impoverished by the quality of the meeting
dynamics to which we are effectively exposed. We experience ourselves as exploited by
others more skilled in manipulating meeting processes in which we would like to
participate more fully in order to benefit to the extent that they do. On the other hand,
when the situation presents itself, we use our skills to exploit others, however much it
impoverishes their experience of the gathering, in order to profit more fully from the
event ourselves.
More fundamentally, it is through this mode that what is valuable to the meeting is
defined and the manner of its distribution within the meeting is controlled. This can
readily lead to manipulative transactions between groups of participants that amount to
'profiteering', 'rip-offs' or 'dumping'. Some groups may
build up debts to others, conditioning their behaviour and creating long-term dependency.
The pattern of who owes what to whom becomes a major determinant of meeting dynamics,
making it difficult to undertake new initiatives freed from such burdens of past debts and
obligations. Groups of participants can be plagued by inflationary conditions in which too
much energy and enthusiasm is chasing too few concrete initiatives.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the constraint of fostering the dissemination of
information (Role 3) in exploiting the advantages that it offers (Role 9).
- Complementarities: Reconciling appropriate management (Role 5),
with opportunities for significant initiatives (Role 1) and with the
dilemmas of exploitation (Role 9).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Fostering and promotional endeavours common to use
of skills (Role 6), use of information (Role 3),
and the expression of cultural beliefs (Role 12).
Role 10. 'Shoddy workmanship / Overskill /
Overdesign' Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to be sensitive to the
quality and reliability of the contributions made, avoiding specious arguments,
ploys and appeals, and discouraging their production by others in the meeting.
But care should also be taken to avoid sophisticated arguments which disempower
others and reduce their ability to participate. In either case, all participants
are required to perform a maintenance function in response to defects in the
contributions of others.
We make more inappropriate contributions to a meeting when we assume that they are
naturally appropriate than when we have doubts concerning their degree of appropriateness
to other participants.
In this mode we each contribute inappropriately to the meeting. At one extreme, this
may take the form of ill- conceived or ill-crafted interventions that are far from being
the best of which we are capable. Such 'unreliable' interventions force others
present into a 'maintenance' mode, to the point of devoting excessive resources
to compensate for such inadequacies. At the other extreme, this may take the form of
highly skilled interventions which others are unable to match and which are beyond the
real needs of the moment. This has the insidious effect of creating dependency on the
supply of such 'overdesigned' contributions and the peak experiences that they
seem to offer. It devalues simpler contributions which may well be more appropriate to the
evolution of the meeting.
More fundamentally, it is through this mode that the issues of the appropriateness of
the psycho-social sciences used in the meeting are assessed, together with any supportive
communication technologies. Both raise questions concerning the degree of responsibility
with which insights and know- how are developed, brought to bear, and transferred amongst
participants in the meeting environment.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the constraint of nourishing the collective development (Role 4) in endeavouring to develop more appropriate products (Role 10).
- Complementarities: Reconciling management of the collective environment (Role 2) with fostering new skills and abilities (Role
6) and developing more appropriate products (Role 10).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Developmental and expansion orientation also common
to procedural development (Role 7), initiative development (Role 1), and population development (Role 4).
Role 11. 'Misrepresentation and
Disinformation' Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to recognize the limitations
of language and philosophies in honouring the complex richness of the realities
experienced by those at a representative meeting. Each needs to recognize that
failure to understand how s/he is part of the communication problem guarantees
failure in understanding the nature of any response that might be appropriate.
The representation of reality that we endeavour to communicate to other participants is
experienced as more incoherent when we assume that it offers unique integrative advantages
than when we question whether this may be the case for others.
In this mode each seeks to cultivate a particular representation of the reality of the
meeting and the world of issues of which it is an articulation. Whether deliberately or
inadvertently, the selective presentation of information can be used to give substance to
certain issues and to deny it to others. In this way each effectively denies aspects of
reality favoured by others at the meeting, emphasizing other aspects in ways which some
will judge to be exaggerated and even dangerously distorted, however seductive they appear
to others.
More fundamentally, through this mode enthusiasm is expressed in the meeting for
particular philosophies, ideologies and belief systems. This is matched by efforts to
reconcile them and, through them, the vested interests with which they are associated.
This presents a dilemma between partial perspectives of greater relevance to some as
contrasted with more integrative perspectives which cannot be effectively grounded or
widely comprehended.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the constraint of managing the collective enterprise (Role 5) in ensuring the emergence of new insights (Role
11).
- Complementarities: Reconciling fostering the use of information (Role
3) with protecting the vulnerable (Role 7) and with ensuring the
emergence of new insights (Role 11).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Structural and mediatory responsibility also common
to environmental management (Role 2), self- management (Role 8) and group management (Role 5).
Role 12. 'Tokenism / Hedonism /
Ritualism' Metaphor
Contractually, this role calls for each participant to manage the tension
between the 'public relations' challenge of the moment and the deeper
work of the meeting with its implications for the longer-term. It calls for
each to be sensitive to the aesthetic or spiritual sins, whether of commission
or omission, that may accompany the resolution of this tension.
We are more effective in turning cultural and religious celebrations into meaningless
rituals when we assume that they are not experienced as such by some than when we question
why this may indeed be the case.
In this mode the unique, celebratory opportunity offered by the event is recognized as
a vehicle for the spirit of the moment that may be important as a symbol within wider
society. This may take the form of special rituals, declarations or appeals, which
constantly run the danger of being experienced or judged as tokenism. It may also offer
much welcomed opportunities for social and personal exchanges. These may however be sought
for their own sake as recreation and judged by some as a hedonistic betrayal of the
purpose of the meeting.
More fundamentally, it is through this mode that the meeting draws upon its cultural,
symbolic and spiritual resources to clarify and affirm the meanings and values that are
the justification for more tangible initiatives. Both culture and religion may encode
insights into potential relationships which the intellect has as yet been unable to
articulate in a comprehensible manner. It is in this sense that concerns about a spiritual
or religious vacuum are expressed.
Role relationships:
- Challenge: Responding to the constraint of fostering new skills and abilities (Role 6) in ensuring the expressing of cultural and spiritual insights (Role 12).
- Complementarities: Reconciling nourishment of collective development (Role 4) with individual health and development (Role
8) and with expressing the relationship to cultural and spiritual insights (Role 12).
- Systemic formal equivalents: Fostering and promotional endeavours common to
collective projects (Role 9), use of skills (Role 6),
and the use of information (Role 3).
Example PARTICIPANT COMMITMENT FORM
As a participant in the scheduled meeting entitled:
I hereby accept my contractual obligations to other participants as indicated above. In
the same spirit, I equally accept the necessity for my actions as a participant to be both
facilitated and constrained by their responses to me.
I further accept that collectively we will endeavour to achieve a deeper understanding
of the pattern of challenges and opportunities suggested by the dynamics of major social
problems as they resonate within the meeting -- with the intention of achieving higher
orders of consensus that should empower us to respond more effectively to the root causes
of such problems.
Name:
Date:
Signature:
Document to be returned to the meeting organizers.
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