About IntelliSynthesis
None of us is as intelligent alone as we are collectively. When everyone affected by a problem participates in creating solutions, breakthrough intelligence emerges that no individual or narrow group could generate on their own.
This is IntelliSynthesis®—the logic and intelligence all around us, within us, and in others, often hidden by posturing, positioning, and politicizing. That practical intelligence flows when people set out to explore and advance their mutual benefit, unencumbered by narrow self-interest.
IntelliSynthesis is also the active process of applying this intelligence to a problem or opportunity that can benefit from collective input. It begins by asking a thoughtful set of questions to a group of people, then synthesizing their responses into solutions, next steps, or new questions.
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 fear of losing ground or desire for competitive advantage, 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—not rigid prescriptions, but ways of approaching collective work:
Create from the future, not the past. A critical shift occurs when participants move beyond data and pessimism from the past and create from the future. As soon as you turn your vision forward, free of predetermined conclusions, you become present and open. IntelliSynthesis shows up, and everyone thinks smarter. New possibilities, solutions, and opportunities appear for creating a new future.
Everyone's contribution is valuable. Everyone's contribution is valuable. Almost every word someone says matters. Draw out the reserved and humble voices. The real opportunity of dialogue is to invent in the moment what no one knew before—not just gather individual perspectives.
Unleashing intelligence through alignment. Individual and collective intelligence emerge when people align their actions with interests beyond their own. IntelliSynthesis grows stronger as that alignment expands—from narrow self-interest to benefiting the community and ultimately supporting the long-term well-being of all of humanity and nature. The broader your commitment, the greater the breakthrough intelligence available.
The Inclusion Paradox
We have learned something counterintuitive: including all individual perspectives and concerns, rather than making consensus more difficult, makes progress easier. The more stakeholders and perspectives you identify and involve, the greater the return from each person's investment of time, listening, and contributing. Whole-system solutions arise that wouldn't have been visible otherwise.
Consider what happens when stakeholders are excluded. 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 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 most affected?
Stakeholders don't begin with shared interests. However, the most effective solutions combine everyone's needs, concerns, and opportunities into common interests. This is what occurs when groups come together in IntelliSynthesis.
