We live in extraordinary times. The greatest tool-makers in history have just delivered us a fertile planetary infrastructure that nourishes our world with communications, energy, tools, and food of all kinds. It's now time to build another layer of evolution upon that rich and connected foundation.It's time to ask ....why did we put that gorgeous warm dancing fire in a box in the basement? Why don't we sing together anymore? Where are the story-tellers? What happened to dancing in groups? Where did the rocking chairs and hammocks go? Where are our town centers with park benches? How come all the older folks fade into oblivion? Where are the rituals to pass into manhood? Is marriage the only way to formally couple? The infrastructure we built around the planet is great....but its not the solution to quality living.
We don't need to limit our future world by just growing up to be a global economy, or a new web of technology, or worse, another bigger more pervasive government. These are really important foundations to build on. But, we should aim higher.
What we really need is to build a new civilization. That won't mean we will stop being at the business of building a functioning world that "works". That will continue. Now, however, we can aim together at a world that ennobles the grand state of life that's possible on planet earth.
In this next phase of planet earth's evolution we can focus on the social inventions that rest upon the technical break-throughs occurring around us daily. A garden flowers when the root structure is strong. But, damn, let's not forget to flourish. Let's not forget to fully experience the earth and all of her sensual treats. Let's go for the most expansive states of being and with that release our genius.
Happily enough it seems likely that our many technical breakthru's will also continue at a pace stronger than ever to complete this root structure for the developing world. In reciprocal fashion, our tribal worlds of great cultural variety can help articulate the redesign of the more technically driven world. We can create meaning and experience in our lives while we are making things to make life easier. Progress is a compounded adventure.
For this important new work, we need a class of leaders who are interested in creating social inventions like new communities. Corporate leaders are especially good candidates for such culture-building practices since they themselves are responsible for some of the most important new communities on the planet.
They can glean the richest of the social traditions that remain and at the same time take them several steps forward to support higher states of being for their groups. Social architecture aims at these more enriching circumstances. We can have soul as a goal.
Sometimes the corporate world will describe this phenomenon as creating the right supportive corporate climate. But, the tools to create such an environment are obscure.
The purpose of social architecture is to make known the tools and practices for the conscious construction of a planetary Civilization.
Prevailing approaches say to use management control techniques to take care of most organizational details and hope the culture can take care of itself. Ancient wisdom says build a strong culture with empowered teams and individuals and they will automatically take care of the details. In times of great change the empowered group naturally steps up into the new changes...they don't wait for the next program to move. They don't have to disassemble a rule to reassemble an appropriate response. The new responses become the new traditions.
Great cultures take great strides naturally. Leaders as social architects will need a new set of tools and principles to work toward this new more self-actualized dimension of evolution. Whereas, traditional engineers and architects to date, have principally focused on functional specifications for buildings and a sense of place,the social architect is a culture-crafter. Yes, we want a world that "works" for everyone...and...there are dimensions beyond that.
The new work is designing powerful social conventions, loving communities and advanced environmental settings so that the desired states of being can be evoked. States of grace, states of joy, states of feeling nature and other extraordinary "in-the-zone" team experiences can be increased with this practice. We strive towards a flourishing of life, not merely a satisfactory existence. Why? Because it's possible.
Life that used to be available only to kings and queens is already available to a significant number of people. Just for a moment imagine the plates of food you yourself have consumed in the last year. Picture them all resting on a football field. Many Kings and Queens never ate that well. Then add the entire philharmonic orchestra you carry in your pocket...1404 years of musical experience available instantly on a plastic disc. How about the telephone connection to friends halfway around the world who may be in a restaurant when you call? You get the picture! And we haven't mentioned the art of combining these modern tools together in a thoughtful cultural way.
These practices can be carried to leaders of organizations, leaders of cultural corridors like towns, and leaders of global networks of all sizes. Everyone can benefit from the skills presented here because even the family is a social grouping that can be consciously improved. The social architect can also play a role in actual physical constructions, like buildings, when the space is needed to support a special set of being levels or special cultural bonding. Notice the similarity here to shamanistic practice.
Great shaman worked the whole tribe's state of being. We can measure the physical structure's realized effects as we measure the success of a good party....on the euphoria scale. We will experience the new interactions in voice qualities, gestures, and the participation of the group. We will come to recognize and feel expanded states. Meters, dials and profit margins can't be expected to measure the rich multi-dimensional experience of culture.
Corporations today are the key tribal groups in our new global mix. Culture will be spread not by borders but in interpenetrating fields of influence. Interestingly, corporate cultures, unlike production systems, are replicated today in a random and relatively mindless way. Corporate culture itself is a "cookie-cutter" model being adopted on the planet at a shocking rate by older cultures who should know better. They each deserve a more tailored and lively solution.
The social architect's primary work is to map the social system in place. He or she then listens carefully and assembles the most empowering new solutions drawn from the culture itself, finally seeing that they are powerfully heralded tothe whole group. This may sound like a mouthful but it can be compared in a general way to the work of a physician. It involves diagnosis with an x-ray. It involves bedside manner with a fine ear. It involves a prescription albeit it in a larger context with a bit more of a broadcasting mentality. The social architect doesn't extract disease, he or she exposes genius.
At this moment the expansion of culture is rampant. We need mindful adaptation. Western rock videos are seen in tribal communities and the youth there believe the destructive behavior on the screen is real and expected. The results are disgusting. Does Asia need to become another concrete culture in the name of business! Asia, now caught in the prevailing business model, seems to be overlooking the powerful ancient ways that can allow them to adapt to their own rich and unique cultures without catcing the dreaded desease of techno-frenzy.
While the Chinese are busy building the western metropolis, westerners are buying up books on feng shui and moving to the country. Westerners have discovered the separation and hectic pace of the modern business model and are going the other way! Who will intervene? Or is everyone destined to live out each other's folly?
To help understand the crafts of culture it is helpful to be reminded of some of the tools that construct culture. Cultural designs can now be consciously furthered by leaders trained in social architecture who focus on ideals not issues and create:
- energizing parties
- archetypal folklore
- purposeful heraldry
- ennobling chivalry
- essensual contact
- empowering manners
- rewarding ceremonies
- meaningful rites of passage
- aligning grand mythology
- the rooting stories of the genesis of the organization presented at high council or in legendary corporate cathedrals.
These skill ~based outcomes will be clarified on this journey. These tools may seem strange to you at first reading. What has been previously described as traditions are actually tools. And, through the marriage of these ancient processes with modern ideals, perhaps culture can have its day again.
With this design approach, our path to a richly diverse world of global cultures is improved. With leaders at all echelons consciously building cultural practices, the world will not be subject to the purposeless but compelling movie and television stories of the countries that have a monopoly on media products. Practical tools of social architecture have been especially created in this journey so that leaders can shape cultures everywhere. Social leaders need to know more than how to just manage to the bottom line.
Such a toolkit can create a sufficient diversity to produce a meaningful renaissance in planetary affairs. We can build a garden of rich cultural alternatives. Through the application of social architecture principles and tools, we can evolve as a civilization toward a continuously designed dynamic idealism, a delicious social ecology and a new expanded concept of living.
GO PLANET! CHALLENGE
