Structuring for Collective Wisdom

What is a Wisdom Council? 

The Wisdom Council is a new way to involve and empower people in larger systems such as business and non-profit organizations, government agencies, towns, cities, and nations. Using random selection and high-quality facilitation, the Wisdom Council brings together a wide diversity of perspectives to creatively address the issues that affect everyone. By repeatedly creating a “microcosm” of the larger whole, and providing feedback to the larger system, a system-wide conversation is catalyzed. On a civic level, Wisdom Councils bring us together as “We the People” to address the big issues, such as global warming, terrorism, poverty, and money in politics, and begin creating a truer form of democracy.

What does a Wisdom Council look like?

Every three to six months, twelve members of a community are randomly selected to meet for a few days. The group is offered high-quality facilitation support, designed to ensure that differences are fully honored in a creative process discovering common ground. Afterward, the findings of the Wisdom Council are presented back to the larger system as “Statements of the People.” The Wisdom Council has no formal authority, yet the integrity of the process gives it great symbolic weight. Everyone is invited to hear the statements, reflect on them with others in small groups, and report back their own perspectives on the findings. This participatory presentation sparks a larger conversation that draws out differing views and expert opinions.

Each subsequent Wisdom Council is free to choose its own issues. At the same time, the repeated iterations tend to build upon what was done previously. This on-going process serves to highlight the creative contribution of diverse perspectives, while developing collective intelligence and a shared sense of the common good.

What makes the Wisdom Council unique?

Wisdom Councils:

1. Do not have an agenda, but instead are free to discover and choose their own issues to address.
2. Engage in a creative process that fully welcomes divergent perspectives.
3. Are composed of participants who are selected by a random process, much like polling.
4. Do not use voting, but instead are supported in discovering authentic common ground.
5. Are on-going.
6. Are not designed to carry formal authority, but instead to develop the higher moral leadership of “We the People,” offering that guidance and direction to existing leaders.

Resources on the Wisdom Council

• The Center for Wise Democracy supports local, national, and global communities in using Dynamic Facilitation and Wisdom Councils to address complex social issues and generate a collective will to solve them.
• Society’s Breakthrough! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People by Jim Rough. www.SocietysBreakthrough.com
• The Co-Intelligence Institute works to further the understanding and development of co-intelligence. It focuses on catalyzing co-intelligence in the realms of politics, governance and cultural evolution.