As we discuss planetary regeneration and planetary regeneration, Sideways has stepped forward into work with the bioregional movement and stirred the pot around collusion and cooperation. What does it even mean to cooperate? I mean, logically shouldn’t there be an Earth Regeneration Fund and a Planetary Bioregional Governance Body? WHOAH. We can’t build that trust overnight, but that is our declared trajectory.
Let’s start with a blog about collaboration, cooperation, collusion and being in cahoots. For this occasion we have invented out of thin air a completely non-scientific scale from 1-10 for cooperation, so we can start to see where we are vis-a-vis other individuals or organizations.
- Not actively sabotaging others. Sabotage comes in many forms, and we’ve seen quite extreme sabotage, including purposely upbidding or outright buying land crucial for watershed restoration and using it for personal wealth. If you are not actively sabotaging those you think are uncool, you are already collaborating at level 1! Congratulations.
- Not gossiping. If you’ve been in the ___ field any amount of time, you’ve had at least one bad experience with someone. If you are human, talking about bad experiences is pleasurable for you at some level, and perhaps you think you are helpful in warning others that so-and-so is not trustworthy. Yet, the only time it is appropriate to state your opinion on so-and-so is when someone says directly to you, in a private and unrecorded conversation “I am thinking about working with so-and-so.” Simply put, gossip is any time you speak badly about someone to a third party who cannot help in any way. If you speak about the troubles with a commitment to fix the problem with people who can help, that doesn’t count as gossip, but you have to be sincere in your willingness to actually solve the complaint. Plain old complaining is gossip. If you have consistently refrained from talking smack about those you think are uncool, congratulations, you are at level 2 of collaboration.
- Acknowledging the contribution of others. Although you know that your way of approaching bioregionalism (or another challenge) is better and smarter than their way of doing it, when their name comes up in a conversation, you don’t just stay silent, but say whatever good thing you have to say about them. It might be as simple as “Our approach is different but we need many approaches to find out which one is best.” Acknowledge we are all on the same planet and we are trying our best. They are well-intentioned and blind to their own shortcomings. Maybe you are too. Or maybe you’re not totally blind to your shortcomings but there they are, thus far immovable. Come to think of it, I am rather fond of some of my own shortcomings. So if you regularly find yourself acknowledging the good intentions or positive aspects of other organizations and people, you are at level 3 of collaboration. Congratulations!
- Sharing the stage. At level 4 of collaboration, you would participate in a conference or panel together, host someone on your podcast, and cross-post each other’s events. Now you’ve moved from “live and let live” to actively promoting one another. It’s low-risk, and mutually beneficial because you can both build your “audience”. Unless so-and-so is really bad, you aren’t taking any risk upon yourself to share the stage. Both sides gain legitimacy. Welcome to level 4. Usually, this is what people mean when they say they are collaborating in the regenerative movement. This is also the maximum available without doing the work of creating new containers for collaboration. This is why the Systems Orchestration Team has emerged from Sideways and The Design School for Regenerating the Earth. We recognize that there are no formal containers or structures available beyond level 4 collaboration. That’s why there are so many misunderstandings because level 5 is…
- Active reconciliation. Misunderstandings and mistakes are part of the human construct. If you have taken action to actively apologize, seek deeper understanding, or resolve a conflict between your organization and another in the field, you are at level 5. This conversation is a lovely demonstration of how easy that can be. It isn’t even clear that these two dudes have any misunderstanding at all, they just use different ontology. Aren’t humans silly? We can argue about whether to say “sustainability” or “regeneration”. The other thing the conversation demonstrates is courage. Someone had to initiate this conversation. Both people had to be willing to listen to a different opinion. And they both agreed to make it public as a demonstration that anyone, any time, can initiate a conversation to deepen shared understanding. You don’t have to have an “outcome” for every conversation, especially to reach deeper levels of collaboration. All of the levels of collaboration from level 5 requires a tolerance for other people’s beliefs and a suspension of ego. While some individuals and organizations have taken on these reconciliation and facilitation efforts, there is no official structure. Many of us find ourselves in situations where we would like to reconcile our differences but we don’t know where to go for a good facilitator, or the other side doesn’t agree to our facilitator choices, or whatever else. This can lead to social media debates or even court cases. Any time you apologize, accept responsibility for your shortcomings, or discuss your differences in a non-judgemental way, you are at level 5 on the collaboration scale. You’re moving rapidly towards being in cahoots!
- Helping, supporting, or working together. The most fruitful collaborations involve doing work together. Whether it’s joining for a river cleanup, teaching regeneration in a local school, advising your colleagues on fundraising, or providing an office space, Level 6 involves actually putting some human capital on the line. One of the reasons we don’t see this type of collaboration is that it’s invisible in online spaces. Within the regenerative movement, almost everyone has done this type of collaboration. This is the type of high-level collaboration that deepens understanding and trust. We might not agree about ontology or philosophy, but everyone wants the garbage cleaned off the beach. Returning your neighbor’s power drill in good shape and with a bunch of home-grown herb goes a long way towards overcoming political differences. At level 6 one or both parties are taking risks with their resources, and successful interaction ends with an increased level of mutual obligation. Either you feel the need to reciprocate, or you feel you would take a greater risk next time because they were trustworthy with the resource you provided. (If this sounds counter-intuitive, think about the last time you did something unpaid and felt great about it.) In the “consensus” economy, the risk is mitigated by the transfer of money. In the regenerative economy, we will need to build infrastructure that symbolizes levels of trust and reciprocation. By nature, this type of interaction isn’t quantifiable, so it’s delicate. This is why there are so many ritualistic and storytelling aspects of cultures where mutual trust is the primary form of currency. We will be doing a lot of experimentation in this area as we develop new architecture of a trust-based economy. For now, congratulate yourself on those relationships where you do have a Level 6 level cooperation, and notice where you are using the word collaboration without having taken any real risks.
- Shared commons. At level 7, parties take mutual risks involving shared resources. Ideally, for the regenerative movement, this is a commons that has a physical component and provides some level of basic needs. Examples include car sharing, tool libraries, and commonly used lands (like a park or forest). By sharing these resources, people reduce their impact on the environment while maintaining or even increasing their quality of life. The P2P foundation has documented hundreds of such commons, but almost all of them are designed within a membrane. You are either a member of the car sharing group or you are not. A collaborative commons would involve multiple organizations sharing a resource. For example, a bioregion might want to create a commonly-held grain mill or produce canning center. Instead of putting all the risk on the “business owner”, a community of farmers could co-operate the commons, train children at the high school to operate the equipment, and provide food for themselves and other aligned organizations. Where we use money as a proxy for trust, this type of collaboration is almost impossible. Most cultures today have lost the institutions required for this type of collaboration. For many Level 7, you need robust governance. Yet, if you are in a location where you have a bicycle commons, shared river stewardship, tool sharing, or seed library, you are participating in a level 7 collaboration. WIkipedia and the Internet Engineering Task (IETF) force are global digital commons that have functioned for decades. In the IETF, we have at least one incredibly successful example of a shared global commons for critical infrastructure at a level 7 on the cahoots scale.
- Shared regulatory and judiciary entities. Values and codes of conduct are only as good as the organization’s ability to adhere to them. As we develop our bioregions, we don’t want to end up in court over disputes. We want mediation, remediation, and graduated sanctions as outlined by Elinor Ostrom. Our concept of an Ostrom5 is one potential way we can implement shared remediation, enforcement, and compromise. Even having contracts that name mediation facilities outside of the court system would be a major step towards deeper collaboration. If you know of any such contracts or organizations that have shared mediation agreed upon BEFORE conflict arises, let us know. We don’t know of any. We’ll be building the Ostrom5 structure out as we find the coalitions that want to share these structures.
- Merger. Shared treasury, a shared legal entity, or joining up to make a formal cooperative puts you at the ultimate level of cooperation. Maybe you even form a micronation! You are no longer cooperating, you have achieved oneness! Our mission is to get as close to this as possible. Having a shared legal entity doesn’t mean you agree at all times (or even most of the time). It means you have put in the governance structures that allow your shared entity to reach consent / consensus on almost any problem that comes your way. There is no right path to oneness. Many models exist. The key is trust and deepened relationships. If you are married, you are at level 9 of collaboration at least with that one partner. If you have one legal entity with multiple people operating inside of it, you are at level 9 with those people. You could argue that a DAO offers level 9 collaboration, because of the shared treasury aspect. Depending on your rug quotient, that may be the case.
- Interdependency and multiple overlapping shared commons, particularly for necessities. A functioning bioregion is a self-sufficient one. Said differently, we are only able to destroy our bioregions because we are resourcing our societies from outside of our bioregion. When we restore our natural interdependence, we have reached stage 10 of collaboration, where we need all of the structures mentioned above in order to survive. This isn’t to say that we need to get everything from within our ecosystem, but if we could survive as a network, in case of an emergency, without outside help, then we are truly functioning as an ecosystem or a bioregion. When we are able to do this as a movement, we are no longer dependent on coercive corporate structures. In other words, our freedom as a movement is dependent on our ability to take care of ourselves. If we don’t want Big Brother, we need to learn to fend for ourselves, not as individuals, but as a movement of people who care about the planet. Some Indigenous cultures still function at level 10, at least to the degree that their natural environment has been left intact. The structure we want to create has multiple different overlapping institutions because there is no “right” way to do culture. There is no “right” way to do restoration. Together we can create regulatory and communications mechanism to ensure we care for our commons, without interfering with the culture of the other organizations in the commons. This is how we get true diversity: not by imposing order from above, but by sharing responsibility for the physical resources that provide our sustenance and happiness on the planet. This is level 10 on the collaboration scale.
As stated at the beginning, this is a non-scientific attempt at providing a framework where we can better define “collaboration” and set goals for ourselves and the network as a whole.
Levels 8-10 represent different architectures for coordination depending on preference. A merger or creation of a micronation will generally tend towards hierarchical organization. You’ll hear different rational arguments about how voting, cooperatives, and shared councils of elders are decentralized governance mechanisms. But just look at a picture of sociocracy. Notice there is a center. Same with DAOs and sub-DAOs, or any type of representative council.
We’re not saying there is anything wrong with centralization, just that we aren’t going to pretend that it’s decentralized. No matter how wisely chosen your council of elders is, it’s a hierarchy. It might be the best way for humans to organize for all we know. We put it at level 9 randomly, or not so randomly, because we envision larger networks of interdependency to be more scalable than 10. If you try to scale hierarchy… Oh, wait. You live in a world with an EU, a UK, a UN and a USA. How is the U thing going?
Basically, the merger-based collaboration tops out when it comes to diversity of values and cultures. It is important at smaller scales of collaboration. You can’t have everyone operating as an individual, just as your cells in the body don’t operate independently, but as parts of internal organs. So, depending on the scale, 9 and 10 are the top level to reach. None of what we are discussing above is easy. Our team at Sideways has joined forces with the Design School for Regenerating the Earth to address the technical and social aspects of collaboration among all of those working within bioregions to restore healthy planetary function and healthy culture. We are already involved in a variety of conversations at level 5, Active Reconciliation. If you or your organization is in need of such facilitation, reach out. We are working on a reciprocity basis, so this isn’t some kind of sales pitch (In the medium to long term, these efforts do need to be funded by the network as a whole, but we don’t want to create barriers to participation.).
Furthermore, we have set up a few calls to better solidify how we as the Systems Orchestration Team can support the movement. Please sign up and join us. Registration here: Part 1 Part 2
