How do we implement CoCreation?
We don’t.
Saying the word “implement”, we imagine a lot of work, which has to be done to make a change. Very often it means working out a plan for the wanted behavioral changes and following up on that plan: Does everybody behave as planned? It takes a lot of work to change people’s behavior.
In CoCreation we don’t change people’s behavior. We invite people to change their way of thinking and when we think different, we behave different. We want everybody to be the human being, they are meant to be, we want to strengthen integrity. We don’t want anybody to do as we say, because we say it.
When I am invited to CoCreate and I receive the invitation, I thrive to find my state of being. I thrive to connect with the deepest truth in me, listening to what wants to emerge, being open to whatever happens. I recognize my brains attempt to make plans for the next steps: When this is done, my next step will be … I let go of them, wait and see what happens.
In our Book CoCreation group we have had many good reflections on our curiosity questions about CoCreation. Listening to ourselves, listening to each other, listening to a deeper voice. We have experienced a change within us. Suddenly each of us realized that our way of seeing the world had changed. I realized that my behavior and my way of listening had changed. When somebody says something, that I cannot agree on, I don’t see us as potential conflictual – I just see different perspectives.
I am much more aware of my purpose in life and how it unfolds comparing to our intention in the group. I enjoy inviting others to CoCreate: asking for their curiosity questions, the questions that drives them, their purpose of life, who they are, what emerges in them.
In our group we have seen the inner change in each of us, even though we also want to see some physical result from our work. It is like the inner change doesn’t count, if it cannot become physical.
Christine describes a way of doing from a state of being. I will unfold it later.
I also get the thought that mankind has focused on physical change: building bridges and houses, farming, producing and so on. There was a huge need and it was a revolution to be able to do it. We still focus on the physical change – even when it is personal or organizational change we want. We focus on the physical changes in behavior, we want. We imagine that changing people from within is impossible. We can only change their outer behavior. This is an assumption – I think we can gain a lot from deconstructing it.
It is true though, that we cannot change the way other people think. They can only change it themselves. But we can invite and inspire them to change the way they think, their beliefs, the way they see the world. We can talk and reflect on our beliefs, explore them, suggest new beliefs and explore their implications in our actions.
I get this thought: What if as mankind has been focusing too much on physical change, so much that we now try to achieve inner change by changing physically? Like applying a new it-system, when we want employees to behave different? Like making open offices when we want collaboration?
Very often I hear the argument that we cannot implement this or that, because not all people are good and some are going to “cheat”, not doing their job and so on. But it is very seldom I hear that we then decide to try to change how people are, make all of us better humans.
I believe every human being has something good and special and some unique essence and capability – maybe they don’t know themselves, maybe I am not able to see it. I would like to invite all people in the world to CoCreate – being ourselves, letting others be themselves, helping each other changing ourselves into better humans.
I recently came across an engineering project with a very technical goal. When we talked about the purpose of the project, it was much more “soft” – off course we don’t want technology due to itself, but due to the impact on our lives. Looking at the “soft” purpose, it became obvious that developing trust and a better relationship between some of the key persons was one of the most important “milestones” to achieve.