Partnership society
Some of my earliest exposure to the work of Rockridge was coming across the powerful idea of Strategic Initiatives. Everyone seems to retreat to their pet issue and has a hard time aligning with other groups that don't focus on that issue. The work we need to do is not just to appeal to other progressives, but to the swing voter, the bi-conceptual, and even those who seem at odds with our values. We must find the common ground. And we must find the biggest umbrella of values and principles that encompass multiple issues. How do we even begin to figure that out unless we work together? So in thinking out what brings us together, I was working through a fairly common idea that could be a strategic frame: Partnership.
My intent is to bridge people together who have different worldviews, to create a small shift away from self-interest to shared interest, and to help bring about ideas that will lead to strategic initiatives. I think it's a good model for us as progressives because it includes our values as well as values of people at other points on the political spectrum. We need to bring together fellow progressive in uniting behind common values, and we need to create relationships with groups outside our usual sphere of influence.
The advantage of this concept is that it can bring together a wide American audience, both progressive and conservative, who can relate to the main aspects of partnership, relationship and business. It can appeal to many in business, including those who own small or family businesses. It can appeal to married people, couples, friends and teammates who think of their relationships as partnerships. Partnership includes the progressive values of community, responsibility, prosperity, opportunity, fairness and equality (in marriage, in business, in community and in government).
We always need to be thinking about what has broad appeal, while remaining authentic and true to our values. For progressive values to once again be obvious common sense, we have to bring people back from the edge of the cliff. We don’t want extremism on either side, we want balance. We want a world in which we work together for our common goals. We cannot spend our time coming up with things that only appeal to the base, we must always think of the broadest reach.
PARTNERSHIP:
- Requires mutual responsibility, accountability and participation.
- Promotes cooperation, collaboration, and bipartisanship.
- Needs open communication, trust, and diplomacy.
Partnership evokes:
Marriage and friendship, partners in peace, getting along, working together, standing together, side by side, looking out for each other, two heads are better than one, got each other’s backs, both doing your part, sharing the burden, players on the same team, equal footing, you both have a say, allies, alliances, effectiveness, productivity, and balance of power.
Between people, it includes values of equality, freedom and privacy:
Marriage partners or couples.
Doctors with patients.
Family care decisions.
Between groups, it includes values of shared responsibility, inclusion and fairness:
Grassroots with legislators.
Government with the people.
Business, government or church with community.
Alliances between groups to move forward into the future (e.g. the Apollo Alliance which brings together environmentalists with unions and business).
In business it evokes sharing the burden and sharing the rewards. Combining efforts makes you more efficient, enhances opportunity and innovation, can make you more prosperous and secure.
It counters the On-your-own-ership society. It is a substitute for ownership (changes ownership vs. community to co-responsible or co-ownership of community).
Politically it includes values of strength, effectiveness and democracy:
We need strong partnerships with our allies. We don't want to go it alone in the world.
Americans want a balance of power and don't want partisanship.
We don’t want politics by hostile takeover, we believe in a partnership society in which we work together for America’s future.
And just for fun, includes:
Dance partner
Grab your partner
Bridge partner
Study partner
Partnered with your buddy
Howdy pardner
Not specified
N/A
Not specified
Selling to "the right"
Of course, it's not conservative extremists we need to sell to. The challenge is to get the people can go either way thinking in terms of "we're all in this together" rather than "you're on your own".
Selling to the right
I do feel we need to "sell" to the right. We need to offer them the chance to be able to experience the nurturing parent family experience.
Partnership Society
(Note: how about creating a new tag on Governance that is about reframing and restructuring Governance so it operates to the advantage of the Progressive agenda?)
Agreeing 100% with StacyG's vision of the Partnership Society, I'd like to build on it.
As described, the Partnership Society is about attitudes, images and outcomes. I agree that is a good start, but there's more. In my experience, having good attitudes and shared vision is not enough. Without a process roadmap to guide the partnership team through the thicket of conflicting interests and issue complexities, the endeavor will bog down in endless wandering discussion, or regress into polarized debate among competing positions. Fortunately there is a universal structured path that leads through this thicket. (Framing: well intended but somewhat naive children lost in a thicket, rescued by guidance from the nurturing parent that provides clues to unravelling the mystery.)
The framework can be expressed in terms of four questions.
1. Who are the stakeholders and what are their deep, heartfelt interests?
2. What is a Definition of Success, in terms of qualities of outcome (not any particular form of solution) that delivers satisfaction of the aggregate of stakeholder interests?
3. What methods will be used to explore for possible solution-forms, and what methods of evaluation will be used to select the best?
4. Having made a seledction, how do we know it is a good one? Has the process been done well? Do facts and assumptions hold up? Is there any fatal flaw in the selected solution that has been overlooked?
(Framing: breaking a complex problem into simple, common sense steps that follow in logical order. Transparent process, obvious result.)
Of course, for this framework to succeed, the partnership team must be educated in its use and have the discipline to follow it. (Framing: the kids are smart and disciplined and will benefit from the instruction provided by the nurturing parent)
Partnership Society
Yes, we do need a process. And the process can be dialogue (reference to David Boehm and to the book "Learning Organization" another author and not sure of name.) It would be great to have a strategic initiative that created organization that developed and trained and made sure the nurturing parent values were brought to all through dialogue.
Process-frames trump Issue-frames
(I'd like to enter this comment under the tag of "Governance" but that tag doesn't exist yet)
Do process-frames trump issue frames? Well, maybe not, but they are as important.
By process-frames, I mean the frames we operate under regarding the processes we use to come to resolution of an issue. Process-frames are about the values that underlie our processes, and the assumptions about what kinds of process frames do and do not work.
The current process-frame for democratic process is debate. Contending positions vie in the legislative halls, corridors and back rooms. We expect, as a matter of faith, that the strongest and best will prevail in a fair debate. The best we can hope for is to make sure the debate is fair.
By accepting this frame, we play into the Conservative hand. Think about it. Debate is fundamentally adversarial. By accepting adversarial process as a given, we are playing on the conservative's home turf. We are conceding that the world is inherently dog-eat-dog. Doing this, we implicitly undercut most of our Progressive frames. If we expect to prevail, we've got to shift to a process frame that supports Progressive values.
That process-frame is collaborative. It presumes that all interests in a particular issue are engaged as partners in a common solution-discovery quest. It presumes that all participants respect all other views as sincere, even if they don't agree. It presumes that all agendas are open and on the table with nothing hidden. It presumes all are working toward the common goal of a solution to the issue that is satisfactory to all participants (except perhaps a self-marginalizing die-hard fringe).
I have a whole lot of ideas on how to structure a collaborative process and how to make the shift so that kind of process becomes the norm. I'm hoping a subject thread can be opened up where a group can work together on this theme.
process-frames trump issue-frames
This is response to your last paragraph. I would also like to see a tag which would focus on structuring a collaborative process. What of the subject thread, "creating a collaborative process"?
Partnership Society
I am with you on this. Strategic initiatives based on strategic reframing are crucial. And we still need the strategic reframing for particular issues also. We do need to appeal to other progressives, to biconceptuals and those who seem at odds with us. The partnership model (we are sailing in the same ship) appeals. I'd love to hear if there may be other words or frames to see what may appeal and draw the most.
All of this speaks to me of the need for dialogue between and with all. The shift to shared interest seems to be a move toward nurturing parenting. The shift to shared interest from narcissistic self-interest is also the shift to "best" self-interest.
I see this partnership society would be based on the nurturing parent model values and principles: universal values which can appeal to all. Partnership society may be another frame for nurturing parent model. Nurturing parent values applied to all relationships. I believe this might be a dialogue society in the sense that respectful, mutual dialogue between all participants might be the tool that allows the partnering to occur. We do need to appeal to and offer to include other progressives, biconceptuals and those who seem at odds with us.
What do you think of a strategic Inititiative which focuses on making sure that reframing is created and brought to all parties? Values and reframes are studied and developed. There is mutual, respectful dialogue about how best to reframe values and offer them to all the various groups. There is dialogue about training, about best training and how to bring it to all groups. Some central, core group or groups make sure the nuturant parent values are promoted and brought to all. Through this strategic initiative we ensure we continue to work on creating the partnership society based on nurturing parent values. The dialogue is the tool for creating and nurturing the partnership society.
In a spirit of dialogue, as contrasted to attempts at imposing values, the nurturing parent values are offered to all until enough can accept them that we can move into a partnership society.
New! what bridge?
The first thing that jumped into my head at your second paragraph was Clinton's bridge to the 21st century, and I'm pretty far to the left, so the term "bridge" may evoke a strong negative reaction from those on the right. It bols down to the "your on your own" vs. "we're all in this together" mindsets, and won't be an easy sell to the right. What seems to make perfect sense to most of us on this forum may sound totally absurd to those with the opposite mindset.