What I have enjoyed most about writing this book has been allowing the time to immerse myself in deep reflective time, resurfacing what we have learnt over the years. Some of these things I had almost forgotten, as we use these techniques so often I almost take them for granted. Some were the complete opposite.

Creating safe spaces, curating diverse teams, coming up with piercing focusses are all things we do now at every meeting. 

Others though have taken me by surprise.

Here’s two such new learnings, or rather more clarity.

When our members come into the sacred space of a Collective Intelligence meeting they are also coming into a place of purposeful learning. Purposeful learning is similar to what professional sports people undertake at training. They undergo specific intense practice, and get feedback in the process.

This is the same in our teams as our members are learning to listen intently and be an active team member each and every minute. Asking open questions in relation to what has come before, and building on each other's input.

Which has led me onto the next piece of clarity. I witnessed recently a new member not being able to build on his team mates conversation. Instead he was dominating the conversation and not allowing the dialogue to flow, to the demise of the whole team. I was fascinated with this and it got me very curious about what was being lost as a result.

Then the analogy hit me. It was like watching a band playing and one particular musician could play the instrument, but not make music with the band.

So I went on a mission of discovery. I needed to learn about how a band makes music, so I set up a conversation with Nick Granville, a professional guitarist in Wellington, who I have known since before he picked up a guitar.

I asked Nick about my analogy. He said you are talking about the art of riffing, which is when a group of musicians are jamming and they are watching and listening to each other intently. Building off each other, not dominating, creating space for each other and creating unique music as they played.

That's exactly what a CQ team is doing when they are in flow, they are riffing off each other. Love it.

Those are two examples I explore further in ‘As it turns out’ ‘No one’s got their shit together’ Plus much much more.

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