IntelliSynthesis

IntelliSynthesis® is the logic and intelligence all around us, within us, and in others—often hidden by posturing, positioning, and politicizing. This practical intelligence flows when people set out to explore and advance their mutual benefit, unencumbered by narrow self-interest.

IntelliSynthesis is also an inquiry-based process for thinking alone and with others. Working individually, you can use it to think through a problem by asking yourself thoughtful questions and synthesizing your own responses. Working collectively, it applies this intelligence to problems or opportunities that benefit from broader input—beginning by asking thoughtful questions to a group of people, then synthesizing their responses into solutions, next steps, or new questions. When everyone affected by a problem participates in creating solutions, breakthrough intelligence emerges that no individual or narrow group could generate alone.

This method has proven effective in countless engagements across our work—from developing a forest-to-market strategy in New Mexico that revitalizes forests and communities, to assisting Nevada stakeholders in creating the most comprehensive, holistic state freight transportation plan in the country.

Why is IntelliSynthesis needed?

We've engaged with over 11,000 stakeholders across North America's industrial systems, communities, and government. Our society's dominant way of relating shapes nearly everyone's interactions and problem-solving: bright individuals advocating narrow approaches motivated by a desire for competitive advantage or fear of losing it, collectively producing suboptimal results for everyone—including themselves.

Three debilitating dynamics characterize conventional approaches to problem-solving:

Institutional barriers: Legal and regulatory structures shaped by competition and mistrust prevent the collaboration needed for breakthrough solutions.

Inadequate forums: Government, industry, and citizens interact from a distance through commissions, hearings, studies, and reports—when the keys to real results are dialogue, agreements, commitments, and action plans.

Disrespectful design: Meetings that invite stakeholders at large to attend general-subject discussions waste people's time and attention, exhausting participants and communities.

There is no lack of intelligence, expertise, or desire to solve the world's problems. The issue lies in the scarcity of effective forums and methods for developing those solutions without being derailed by excessive competition, mistrust, and "establishments" with vested interests in problems that remain profitable—for now.

IntelliSynthesis is available to anyone willing to look beyond personal interests to achieve shared benefits. It requires including all stakeholder perspectives within a system—not just the powerful or convenient ones. When you involve everyone impacted by a problem or opportunity, you establish approaches that are implemented and effective.

This isn't naive optimism. It's a stark but essential truth: we can't ensure safety for ourselves and future generations without a fundamental shift in how we approach problem-solving and opportunities.

Core Principles

IntelliSynthesis operates from several fundamental orientations:

Create from the future, not the past. A critical shift occurs when participants move beyond data and pessimism about the past to create from the future. When you turn your vision forward, free of predetermined conclusions, you become present and open. Collective intelligence emerges. New possibilities, solutions, and opportunities appear that weren't accessible when everyone was defending positions shaped by yesterday's constraints.

Every contribution matters. The real opportunity in dialogue is to discover together what no one knew alone—and this requires capturing what's expressed. Almost every word someone says contains value. Write it down. Draw out the reserved and humble voices and capture their contributions alongside the confident ones.

Intelligence through alignment. Higher intelligence emerges when people align their thinking with interests beyond their own. IntelliSynthesis grows stronger as it incorporates local community interests—and stronger still when it extends to the long-term well-being of all humanity and the natural world. The broader your commitment, the more intelligent your collective thinking becomes.

The Inclusion Paradox

Here's what we've learned that runs counter to conventional wisdom: including all individual perspectives and concerns doesn't make consensus more difficult—it makes progress easier and faster. The more stakeholders and perspectives you identify and involve, the greater the return from each person's investment of time. Whole-system solutions arise that no individual or narrow group could have conceived.

The cost of ignoring this principle reveals itself in unexpected ways. A charter school demolished a beloved playground to build a classroom addition without consulting the students who had played there since they were five. The outdoor stage where they held performances, the walkway with family acknowledgments carved into bricks—all gone. A 12-year-old later explained that these meaningful elements could have been preserved, transferred, or repurposed if anyone had asked. How much institutional wisdom and community connection was lost by failing to include those who knew the space best? More to the point: how much time, conflict, and community trust could have been saved by spending an hour listening to the students who used that space every day?

Stakeholders rarely begin with shared interests. But through IntelliSynthesis, the most effective solutions emerge by weaving everyone's needs, concerns, and opportunities into genuinely common ground. In the charter school example, including students wouldn't have slowed the building project—it would have created a better design that preserved community meaning while meeting institutional needs. This is the inclusion paradox in action: more voices, better solutions, faster implementation.