What is CSD?
Collaborative Solution Discovery: A suite of powerful and universal process principles that enable a group of diverse stakeholders to discover an effective solution to a complex, contentious issue.
The effective solution:
- Actually works well to deliver the needed outcome.
- Is flexible so its shortcomings can be corrected and it can accommodate unexpected change.
- Is stable and endures because it enjoys consensus stakeholder support, and is not subject to attack from opponents.
Works At Any Scale
Do you have a sticky issue in your neighborhood that needs to be resolved but a clash of differing viewpoints is preventing agreement? CSD can help you and your neighbors settle the issue. Are you concerned with the future of our nation as a global bastion of personal freedom and effective democratic process, where the transformational shift from adversarial power politics to the collaborative, relational paradigm is the path to the future? CSD, as a specific and executable instance of the collaborative paradigm, provides a model for that future.
Whatever the scale of your problem, however large or small the scope of your issue in space and time might be, throughout this site you can find guidance about how to set up a solution-discovery process that responds to your need.
Why It Is Necessary
The present state of the world presents us with two highly unpleasant but incontrovertible truths. If you find these assertions hard to accept, then what alternative do you see?
The majority of serious issues confronting humankind today are highly complex and contentious.
Adversarial power politics is fundamentally incompetent as a process for creating effective and durable solutions to complex, contentious issues.
So, if we accept these assertions as true, what outcomes can we expect? They lie in a range between two extremes.
- With luck, humanity may be able to continue fumbling, muddling, wrangling and bungling along, maintaining an existence but making little progress.
- If certain perceived existential threats are as powerful as they seem, human society may crumble to a disastrous state, or cease to exist at all.
Clearly, to avoid these outcomes, something must change. Obviously there is no way to reduce the complexity and contentiousness of the issues. That is a given. So, the only choice is to reject adversarial power politics, as unlikely as that may seem. Collaborative Solution-Discovery provides a realistic image of a new paradigm to replace the old, failed adversarial paradigm
Important Features of CSD
- CSD engages all stakeholders from the very beginning to completion of the solution-discovery process.
- CSD follows a logically sound and transparent path from initial problem awareness to solution in-place and operating.
- The stakeholders are the owners of the needs and values to be fulfilled. The experts, in service to the stakeholders, construct the solution to fulfill the aspirations of the stakeholders.
- Participant-empowering leadership facilitates stakeholder engagement, manages the Solution-Discovery process, and inspires all participants in their commitment to collaboration, while remaining unbiased toward whatever solution options emerge.
The Challenge: Untangling Complexity
The unaided human mind fails miserably when confronted with complexity of more than a trivial degree. Untangling complexity requires powerful, well-organized methods. Doing so in a timely manner usually requires the force of a team, equipped with the necessary disciplines and knowledge of the situation, to apply those methods. Collaborative Solution-Discovery is the roadmap for organizing such an enterprise.
While application of industrial-strength tools for addressing high levels of complexity requires professional training and experience, this site provides an introduction to these methods that is suitable for the less challenging issues that are commonly encountered. If resolution of your issue requires professional skills and competence, the descriptions of the process tools in this site will help you identify the professional help you need.
Spirit
All the world’s major spiritual traditions and religions share certain profound values: love and compassion, mutual support for one another, inclusiveness with no strings attached. CSD implements these values. They are an important source of its effectiveness. Adversarial power politics can also operate with these values, but this is very difficult and very rare.
The Essentials
The five essential building blocks of CSD are:
- Stakeholder Engagement and the Solution Search Path establish the Solution-Discovery Process.
- Project Orientation and Tools for Untangling Complexity enable and support expeditious and effective execution of the Solution-Discovery Process.
- Leadership is the overall mantle of caring and way-showing that motivates and maintains the spirit of the endeavor, while remaining neutral to whatever solution emerges.
The Voice of CSD
The Muddle Buster is the name chosen for the voice of CSD on this site, in the role of introducing CSD as an effective process paradigm for complex contentious issues, and lifting people out of the fumbling, muddling, wrangling and bungling state of being trapped in the old, incompetent adversarial power politics paradigm. The “Contact Us” page (click at upper right) opens the path for one-on-one dialog with the Muddlebuster.