Module 3

Sitting in the Fire

—

Arnold Mindell, Sitting in the Fire: Large Group Transformation using Conflict and Diversity recommended by Annette Dhami

“Behind the world’s most difficult problems are people – groups of people who don’t get along together. You can blame crime, war, drugs, greed, poverty, capitalism or the collective unconscious. The bottom line is that people cause our problems.

My teachers told me to avoid large groups: they are unruly and dangerous. The only way work can be done, they maintained, was in small groups where law and order prevail. But the world is not composed of docile little groups. Enforcing law and order can’t be our only strategy for resolving problems…

Enforcing order does not stop riots, hinder war or reduce world problems. It may even kindle the fire of group chaos. If we don’t permit hostilities a legitimate outlet, they are bound to take illegitimate routes. This book demonstrates that engaging in heated conflict instead of running away from it is one of the best ways to resolve the divisiveness that prevails on every level of society – in personal relationships, business and the world.“

—Arnold Mindell, Sitting in the Fire: Large Group Transformation using Conflict and Diversity

Reflections from Annette: 

Questions that I am responding to:

The relationship between this text and Annette:
This book ‘Sitting in the Fire’ by Arnold Mindell named things that I had experienced and witnessed for some time. That the kinds of problems that deeply matter to humanity and problems of groups, or collaborations, or many people engaging with many people to orient, behave and relate in different ways. The things we need to do and build to make changes in complex systems are fundamentally shaped by the way that we interact as groups to do them. And in those groups, conflict and collaboration necessarily coexist.

Why is this relevant?
It means that getting from one place to another does not involve a straight line – often the journey is lateral. To go fast as a group you first need to go deep and slow. To shift behaviour you address not behaviour but mindset. To create action you focus not on action but the conditions that shape it. This text for me was a beautiful articulation that to reach ways forward in groups you need to embrace conflict. And this is a lesson I have experienced over and over again when I have tried to make things linear or neat, and failed. I have learnt that designing to foster collaboration is also designing capacity for difference and tension. And designing organisations with life-centric goals is also designing for the capacity of a group to face the hard truths of the world; to ‘sit in the fire’ across difference and disagreement, and to find a beat to dance together.

Questions for the students:

1. When in your life have you stewarded a group to do something?
2. What was hard about it? What created joy?
3. When have you experienced that changing something may not mean taking the ‘obvious’ or direct route?
4. What does this tell you about you how groups operate and how you might work with them?
5. What do you think design can help to unlock in how groups behave?