In an example of Escape Velocity from the most recent Great Recession, a large public utility in the western United States was losing money. They were having union-management conflict and facing the grim prospect of having to let people go. Despite all of this and with the intent to expand people’s energy and enthusiasm, the CEO threw his hat over the wall in an act of trust. He told every employee, individually and together, that if they performed to certain standards, none would lose their jobs. In those moments of being “for” one another, they broke free from the gravity of a culture of distrust, goals segmentation, and not ‘being in the same boat’ that had plagued them for years. A wildfire of innovation, cooperation, and collective action emerged, making a new future real. During the worst of the recession, the company realized its biggest profits ever, and in the following five years moved near the top of its industry against every business, quality, and social measure.
In each case, Escape Velocity from the pull of gravity of culture or identity increased suddenly by imagining and committing to a compelling future that reshaped current perceptions and actions. This was a “Future-Present-Singularity” in which the desired future became the new context of what was happening moment to moment. As with astronauts in the space program, people’s’ energy and commitment to acting as ambassadors from the future took flight. All sorts of things happened that would not have otherwise been possible.
Collective Intelligence is the shared or group intelligence/wisdom that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals. There is an emerging body of research and application showing great promise in the use of this energetic phenomenon. It’s more than conceptual and always consists of more than words and numbers, often also being expressed in emotional form (feelings), spiritual form (nobility of purpose), or physical form (as in the power to act). However it’s expressed, Collective Intelligence possesses, exerts, or displays great increases in individual and collective energy.
While the boundary limits of Collective Intelligence are given by the context or fundamental mission of the enterprise, Frank Herbert(6) cautions us that, “Most civilization is based on cowardice. It’s so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards that could lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.”
We saw this limitation demonstrated in a major corporation where the prime directive to managers and engineers was, “Be aggressive, but don’t rock the boat.” In such a circumstance, intelligent individuals only think what they are paid to think, at least in public. This was a teaching of cowardice in areas that were not seen as being in service to boundaries set by hierarchy. If, as Herbert says, “There is no such thing as rule-driven creativity,” this accounts for the lack of unbridled innovation in most large organizations, which develop increasing numbers of rules.
Space exploration is a prime example of how Collective Intelligence can be incredibly powerful in the right context. The Overview Effect, in which the world literally changes by changing how we perceive it, could not have been experienced by an astronaut acting alone. Thousands of people, using the tax dollars contributed by millions of people, responded to the stirring vision enunciated by President John F. Kennedy, who vowed to “.., put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade.”
When it comes to Collective Intelligence, there is always a paradox. Glass artist Michael Smith(8) says, “Creativity unleashed is a matter of allowing intention and flow, design and freedom, together.” Collective Intelligence is akin to Energetic Awareness in that it consists of interacting flows of multiple forms of intelligent phenomena.
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