The most pressing dangers we currently face result from the conflict of competing absolutisms that divide the world between oppositions that can never be mediated.

Four governing principles should thus guide us in the emerging network culture:

1)  Embrace Complexity: increasing complexity tends to enrich life but can be overwhelming; “for those who appreciate the value of complexity, subtlety and nuance become important virtues…clarity is not necessarily a virtue, and decisiveness can be destructive in a complex world where things are not always clear”,

2)  Promote Cooperation as Much as Competition: while competition is necessary for any healthy organism or organization, it is fatal if not tempered by cooperation (which becomes all the more important as interdependence increases);

3)  Accept Volatility: since creative emergence occurs in conditions far from equilibrium, the volatility it engenders provides opportunities that need not be threatening (some deconstruction is necessary in every constructive process);

4)  Cultivate Uncertainty: doing so serves as a corrective to every truth that claims to be absolute; uncertainty marks the elusive horizon of life (’the futuer is threatened less by doubters than by true believers”).

The term brings up the old debate about competition and cooperation, and which is the most useful for our species / communities / businesses etc. , right now.

The recent dramatic rise in food prices forces us to think about grabbing or sharing. Depending upon our world-view we will be reaching out our hands to snatch a scarce commodity or stretching out to share what we already have. With 5% of the worlds population residing in N. America and consuming 30% of the world’s resources we face a stark dilemma.

John Renesch describes this dilemma as a ‘maturity’ issue. Renesch compares the short-term desires and wants of a child with the delayed-gratification and long-term consequences considered by an adult. I can’t agree with him more. The world is shrinking and if we can’t find a way to get along and ‘play nice’ as a global community, then we must expect to have problems.

Here is John Renesch talking very briefly about the need for us to ‘grow up’ as a species:

You only have to scratch the surface of ecologies in nature to find deep levels of cooperation. If it is not cooperation you find, it will be healthy levels of accommodation. Foxes, coyotes and wolves for example. Although man has often depicted these three creatures as highly competitive studies have shown that each them avoid bloodshed when ever possible. By carefully carving their stomping grounds into appropriate niches each ‘dog’ pretty much keeps to their own turf – avoiding bloody and unnecessary combat.

Howard Rheingold gave a very thoughtful talk on the topic of collaboration at TED. Here it is:

[From C. Otto Scharmer: 'Theory U']

Daily we can find more and more evidence that our age is becoming less predictable and change continues to accelerate. Yet there are things to be optimistic about -http://www.ted.com/is a wonderful site with a massive collection of videos, articles and audio recordings designed to be of interest to the thoughtful, purposeful mind. I particularly like this posting in the TED Blog about reasons to be optimistic – beats the broadcast news any day.

If you still need a ’shot in the arm’ maybe Robert Wrights 18 minute talk will do it for you?

In an essay entitled ‘The Nueroeconomics of Trust’ Paul Zak demonstrates (check out the video attached) with the use of extensive experimental research that we human are predisposed to cooperate with and trust each other. By carrying out a series of ‘trust games’ Zak revealed a number of quite surprising results. One of the most fascinating conclusions was that when participants of the experiment extended trust to other subjects – the recipients of the trust experienced significant increase in oxytocin levels in their blood stream. Oxytocin is a human hormone that triggers feelings of connection and bonding.

This research has many implications. One is that when we extend trust toward another person we are changing their body chemistry. In the case of oxytocin we are actually increasing the desire in the other person to reciprocate trust and help.

The other is that trust begins with us – by extending it to others we can begin a process within which everyone starts to be capable of greater levels of trust. The reason this experimental research is so interesting to me is that trust is the foundation of collaboration. Without it there will always be significant limitations on the depth of the Collaborative Intelligence within a group.

Mentoring and coaching will become more important as a way to effectively transfer all the ’soft’ information and skills between the generations. Other management strategies to assist gen Y in taking over the reins are:

• Providing training in time management
• Offering community involvement opportunities
• Creating a system, for frequent public praise for performance
• Creating many opportunities for team involvement
• Customizing the career paths for employees

Knowledge management is a core issue. Beyond internal mentorship and coaching programs, building communities of practice provides many advantages to businesses struggling to maintain their effectiveness. Coordination of individual strengths and high levels of collaboration have rapidly become building blocks of highly successful teams.

“If you try to change your behavior without first changing the underlying structure causing that behavior, you will not succeed. This is because structure determines behavior, not the other way around.” Robert Fritz

“I was swimming along and noticed a tasty morsel. I grabbed it, but a sharp, shiny, hard thing got stuck in my mouth. Suddenly, I was pulled from the water and the next thing I knew, I was in a whole new world. A great big thing grabbed me and pulled the sharp, shiny, hard thing from my mouth and threw me back into the water.”

The other fish looks shocked and asks, “Water? What water?”

The last animal to discover water would be a fish, and we would be the last ones to discover our assumptions about reality because we are so immersed in them.
The same is true of other assumptions we might have about ‘reality’ (a much over rated concept) especially about the importance of competition. Many people consider life to be a struggle in which the things we want or need in life must be fought for. Upon closer examination nature is based on cooperation, a part of which is competition. The deeper structures of nature however consist of finely balanced synergies not turf wars for resources. Something to consider as we look around at how nation states are conducting themselves. This is part of the reason I am slightly obsessed with ‘Collaborative Intelligence’ as a principle that will serve all of humanity at this point in time.