Conclusion--An Open Way

How can we solve our tough problems without resorting to force? How can we overcome the apartheid syndrome in our homes , workplaces, communities and countries , and globally? How can we heal our world's gaping wounds?

The answer to these questions is simple, but it is not easy. We have to bring together the people who are co-creating the current reality to co-create new realities. We have to shift from downloading and debating to reflective and generative dialogue. We have to choose an open way over a closed way.

This injunction to open up is not surprising. Many texts on marriage , management, negotiation, and spirituality give similar advice. What is surprising is that when we make this simple, practical shift in how we perform these most basic social actions talking and listeningwe unlock our most complex, stuck problem situations. We create miracles .

How can you get started? Here are ten suggestions:

1. Pay attention to your state of being and to how you are talking and listening. Notice your own assumptions, reactions , contractions, anxieties, prejudices, and projections.

2. Speak up. Notice and say what you are thinking, feeling, and wanting.

3. Remember that you don't know the truth about anything. When you think that you are absolutely certain about the way things are, add "in my opinion" to your sentence . Don't take yourself too seriously.

4. Engage with and listen to others who have a stake in the system. Seek out people who have different, even opposing, perspectives from yours. Stretch beyond your comfort zone.

5. Reflect on your own role in the system. Examine how what you are doing or not doing is contributing to things being the way they are.

6. Listen with empathy. Look at the system through the eyes of the other. Imagine yourself in the shoes of the other.

7. Listen to what is being said not just by yourself and others but through all of you. Listen to what is emerging in the system as a whole. Listen with your heart. Speak from your heart.

8. Stop talking. Camp out beside the questions and let answers come to you.

9. Relax and be fully present. Open up your mind and heart and will. Open yourself up to being touched and transformed.

10. Try out these suggestions and notice what happens. Sense what shifts in your relationships with others, with yourself, and with the world. Keep on practicing.

These suggestions are simple but they are far from easy. Most of us certainly Ifail to follow them most of the time. They are challenging because they require us to make a subtle and fundamental shift in the way we relate to the world. In opening ourselves up, we are lowering our defenses and giving up autonomy and control. We are unclenching our fists and allowing our certainties and identitiesour selvesto be challenged and changed.

There is a story about a man who wanted to change the world. He tried as hard as he could, but really did not accomplish anything. So he thought that instead he should just try to change his country, but he had no success with that either. Then he tried to change his city and then his neighborhood, still unsuccessfully. Then he thought that he could at least change his family, but failed again. So he decided to change himself. Then a surprising thing happened . As he changed himself, his family changed too. And as his family changed, his neighborhood changed. As his neighborhood changed, his city changed. As his city changed, his country changed, and as his country changed, the world changed.

How can we change ourselves in this way that allows us to contribute to changing the world? Again, the answer is simple but not easy. We have to practice. To practice meditating, we simply take notice of where our mind is, and continue, over and over, to bring our attention back to our breath . Similarly, to practice opening ourselves up, we simply take notice of how we are, and continue, over and over, to bring our attention back to being present, relaxing , and opening up. Fortunately, we have abundant opportunities to do this practice: including in every conversation, in every context, every day.

This practice and this work are part of a larger emerging movement that is being pioneered by people working in all contexts, at all scales , all over the world. In the early 1990s, when our Shell team looked at what was going on around the world, we came up with two plausible stories about the future: Barricades, a scenario characterized by fear, closing down, and fragmentation, and New Frontiers, a scenario of hope, opening up, and wholeness. Since then, nearly every group I have worked with has articulated one scenario in which vested interests replay the status quo over and over, in a downward spiral, and another scenario in which a broad, dialogic coalition creates a better reality for all. Everywhere people are struggling to develop a more open and participative way of addressing the immense challenges we face.

Like all pioneering work, the results of this open way are so far uneven . Sometimes they are outstanding and sometimes not. We still have a lot to learn about how to do this well. This will take time and practice. And like all human work, it is not a panacea. "Out of the crooked timber of humanity," philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote, "no straight thing was ever made." But this open way is important, promising , and hopeful.

The greatest gift this work has given me is hope. What inspired me to move to South Africa in 1993, and what continues to inspire me in other settings, is the hopethe noncynicismof the people who believe they can contribute to creating a better world. In 1998, a journalist asked Czech president Vaclav Havel if he was optimistic or pessimistic about the war in Bosnia. "I am not optimistic," Havel replied, "because I do not believe that everything will turn out well. And I am not pessimistic, because I do not believe that everything will turn out badly . I have hope. Hope is as important as life itself. Without hope we will never reach our dreams."

In late January 2004, I was in India. I spoke with the president of the country's biggest business association, who had just come back from the elite World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He was hopeful and excited about both global and local trends, and at the same time deeply concerned . "The real problem we have," he said thoughtfully, "is that everyone is talking and nobody is listening. What kind of world are we creating?" Then I spoke with the president of an Indian grassroots organization, who had just come back from the competing, populist World Social Forum in Bombay. "It was a festival of protest against the status quo," he said, shaking his head. "I really believe that, as the slogan of the World Social Forum says, 'Another World Is Possible.' But how can we bring this other world into reality?"

Every one of us gets to choose, in every encounter every day, which world we will contribute to bringing into reality. When we choose the closed way, we participate in creating a world filled with force and fear. When we choose an open way, we participate in creating another, better world.