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What you need to know: What you are being asked to think about

This document is intended to let you know what the “Framing the Big Picture” on-line process using Synanim is all about. Understanding this is likely to help you to contribute in a more meaningful way.

Ultimate goal of this process

We would like this “Framing the Big Picture” on-line process to provide a basis for deciding:

What sort of global NVC organization, or globe-spanning configuration of organizations, or non-organization-based systems, if any, will we work to collectively bring into being within the next few years? What would we like this organization or these organizations or systems to be doing?

After the “Framing the Big Picture” process has surfaced longings of the global NVC community that are relevant to these questions, the remaining phases of the “Process for a New Future” will make practical decisions about exactly what will happen, and will begin implementing these decisions.

We want these decisions to be made because we imagine that it might be possible for the life of the global NVC community to be more wonderful.

Those who have initiated this process are in leadership roles at the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC). CNVC has been the closest thing there has been so far to a global NVC organization. We recognized that some people have been dreaming of more life-serving ways that the global NVC community could organize itself. We further recognized that whether or not such dreams could come into reality was likely to be strongly affected by whether or not the CNVC leadership committed to supporting new new ways of organizing (or new ways of doing things in what global organization already exists) in coming into being. The leadership of CNVC values such dreams being realized, and so has made this commitment.

The on-line process is ultimately about getting input on what the community would like to see happening at the level of global systems and organizations that affect the world-wide NVC community. This focus does not mean that we regard issues related to individuals or local organizations and systems as less important. Rather, these global issues constitute an area in which CNVC’s commitment to support implementation of community-decided changes is likely to be particularly significant. It’s what we have the most ability to help change.

What comes first

Although we ultimately want to get answers about what we collectively will do at a global level, that’s not where we will start.

Any activities we engage in at a global level are simply strategies. Before we talk about strategies, it makes sense to talk about underlying needs we are trying to meet, and purposes we are trying to serve.

Why do we, as members of the global NVC community (those for whom NVC is somehow significant to us) want to even consider organizing? Organizing is something that people do when they want to collectively accomplish a purpose that they share, and which they can’t accomplish as effectively by themselves. What purpose do we share?

A prior generation of leaders at CNVC identified a purpose of creating a world in which:

• everyone values everyone's basic human needs and lives from a consciousness that connects with the universal life energy and natural oneness of all life.
• where every individual embraces self compassion
• where people joyfully and compassionately contribute to each other and resolve conflicts peacefully
• where the systems and structures we create in economics, education, justice, healthcare, peace-keeping and other areas across our global interdependent community reflect that consciousness and evaluate their actions against their contribution to life and the human needs they ultimately serve.

Perhaps a purpose something like this might be shared by many of us?

Or perhaps we could talk more simply, about bringing NVC to people, and spreading the consciousness that underlies NVC so that it affects the ways that people live and work together?

At the level of our underlying shared dream for the world, it is likely that those who will be drawn to participate in this process have a great deal in common. So, the process will not necessarily dwell on trying to find just the right words for this shared dream.

Nonetheless, our underlying shared purpose is conceptually the starting point for everything else.

Session one

In the first on-line session, the focus will be on looking at why we want to spread NVC and its underlying consciousness, what is getting in the way of that happening as quickly and fully as we might like, and what we could do that might make us dramatically more effective in achieving our goals.

Discussing these topics lays the foundation for what comes in session two, by addressing the fundamental question, “What would we, as members of the NVC community, like to be collectively doing in general?”

Session two

In the second on-line session that each person participates in, the focus narrows down by moving from what we would like to be doing in general, to how we can support this happening through how we organize – and how organizing at a global level in particular plays into this picture.

This session introduces some new ideas beyond what was under consideration in the first session. What role does coming together in an organized fashion play in supporting our goals? To what extent does it make sense to do things locally versus doing them on a more widespread basis?

There is potentially a distinction between a “global organization” – which has the ability to interact with people or organizations around the world, and a “large scale” organization that could potentially draw upon more resources. A given organization could be “global” or “large scale” or both.

What sort of organizations or network of organizations might serve our collective goals, and what would it make sense for such organizations to be doing?

Later sessions

Everyone who wants to will participate in sessions one and two. As discussed in the document on how to work with Synanim, there will also be additional sessions, which some people will be invited by the system to participate in.

These additional sessions will involve considering variations on the questions asked in the first two sessions. These questions will also be considered with different mixes of people, to integrate what was learned in earlier sessions.

What do we mean by “organize”?

We sometimes frame the question we would like to see answered as being about how the global NVC community would like to organize itself.

In general, “organizing” is a matter of creating systems intended to help life flow in a way that we find desirable.

Often, organizing may involve creating an “organization.” An organization involves:

• a purpose which the organization exists to serve;
• systems that help serve the organization’s purpose;
• people who are involved with the organization, through running it or benefiting from it or being impacted by it.

So, when we ask about organizing, it is important to think about the purposes of the organization, how it might serve those purposes, and who is likely to be involved.

name="_GoBack"The “who” we are asking to participate in this on-line process includes anyone who is interested in participating. It is possible that the process might lead to a vision of an organization serving an equally broad group. And, it is also possible that a vision might include organizations involving more narrowly defined groups of people. The ultimate question is how to best serve whatever purposes we share.

Relationship to what currently exists

In thinking about the issues raised in this on-line process, we suggest imagining “If CNVC did not exist, what soft of organization or organizations would we want to create and place at the heart of the NVC community?”

In practice, CNVC does of course exist, and engages in a variety of activities. But we would like to root this process in asking what it is that would serve life if we could create what we would most like, and then look at how to get to something like that, given where we are now.

Where we have been

The Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) was founded in 1984. CNVC supported Marshall Rosenberg in sharing NVC around the world, through the end of 2011 when Marshall retired.

Since then, CNVC has continued to certify NVC trainers; offer 9-day International Intensive Trainings (IITs) around the world; host a website (cnvc.org) where people can find out about trainers, trainings, and NVC in general; respond to inquiries from the public; and run an on-line bookstore selling NVC materials. In the past, CNVC also played an active role in funding and publicizing NVC-related projects around the world.

Many additional NVC organizations now exist. Most of these NVC organizations are primarily focused on a particular geographic region.

The question we now face is how to evolve what currently exists to contribute to making life more wonderful.