APPLYING POLARITY THINKING TO COMPLEX SOCIETAL ISSUES

Chief Greg Mullen, Margaret Seidler, Jake Jacobs, Bob Seidler and Chandra Irvin (to appear in an upcoming issue of Practicing OD)

           We are at a pivotal moment in our country as it relates to police trust and legitimacy. To do nothing is not an option; to engage in a journey that has been challenging, risky, and has the potential to inform generations to come has been our responsibility and honor.

Police Chief Greg Mullen

City of Charleston, SC

We experience the tension and conflict existing in complex systems all around us -– companies, governments, families and communities. In this case study, we explore the application of Polarity Thinking to a community tension in Charleston, South Carolina, that is sadly present in most cities and towns across America. We italicize the many polarities we leveraged throughout this work.

CURRENT SITUATION

Recent events, both locally AND nationally, have highlighted the eroded relationships between police departments AND the communities they serve. Feeling an obligation to honor the victims, survivors and their families, Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen conceived a project to use the principles of Polarity Thinking. Over time this obligation was leveraged with another pole, celebration, as progress in the effort and broad-based support enabled people to see the power of possibilities in working collaboratively.  Chief Mullen called this effort the Illumination Project, a metaphor of shedding light on the dark corners of society where shared police and citizen understandings were most needed..

PURPOSE

The project was designed to brings together all parts of the community AND to foster engagement and civil dialogue in support of a common Greater Purpose. This “GPS” was to further strengthening and broadeN collaboration between the city of Charleston police AND the citizens they serve. Two key societal values (also called a Polarity) guided our work: Public Safety AND Individual Rights. Our intent was to help citizens see the WHOLE picture and recognize that the two poles are interconnected, needed AND , with expected tension. We engaged the community upstream of inevitable challenges rather than waiting for events to occur. In this time and place, moving from reactive to proactive lessens damaging and harmful reactions between police AND the community and creates sustainable positive relationships between police and the community.

OUTCOMES TO BE ACHIEVE

• Enhance community-police relationships throughout the community AND across the entire Charleston Police organization.
• Give voice to all segments of the entire community, in a way that promotes calm and measured exploration of issues and ideas.
• Agree upon changes that preserve the best of both societal values of Public Safety AND Individual Rights.
• Increase the capacity of community and police to have civil, meaningful dialogue when addressing difficult issues.
• Celebrate AND nurture those aspects of the police-community relations that are working well.

Develop specific, concrete, implementable plans that are measured for success.

THE PROCESS

The Illumination Project process unfolded over a twelve-month period in five phases:

PHASE 1: PLANNING AND DEVELOPING THE PROJECT

Identifying a project plan and building a strong client and consultant relationship. We also identified the core polarities below and drafted maps for them to test their efficacy.

Core Polarities Leveraged in This Phase;

• Public Safety And Civil Liberties
• Respect for Law And Respect for People

PHASE 2: DEVELOPING THE STEERING GROUP

The Steering Group consisted of 22 members, a diverse group of key community stakeholders from neighborhoods, businesses, education, faith-based organizations, community activists, law enforcement, media and others. They learned the basics of Polarity Thinking as part of their launch, as well as confirming the core polarities from Phase 1 could provide the greatest positive impact. This phase focused on being inside the circle of power AND outside the circle of power. In efforts like this one, who gets to decide who gets to participate and how are the people with the real power. It was important to make sure the Steering Group represented a microcosm of the larger community to ensure all voices were “in the room” and once there, were able to be heard.

PHASE 3: ENGAGING THE COMMUNITY

“Listening Sessions” were the heartbeat of the Illumination Project. This name is a good example of polarities needing to be understood in context. Plenty of talking – and talking over each other – had happened for quite a while. The focus of the Listening Sessions was learning and at this point, that was best done through a focus on listening. We held 33 Listening Sessions throughout the community, reaching over 850 residents, both adults and youths. The sessions generated more than 2200 ideas for strategic planning purposes, nearly evenly split between actions police could take and citizens could take to improve their relationship, with trust and legitimacy. The strategic plan that culminated from these efforts resulted in the 86 strategies in the plan, 66 which came directly from Listening Session input. We also engaged the community through faith-based prayer gatherings at different houses of worship, leveraging the multarities of different faiths and the polarity of focusing on the practical aspects of the work AND focusing on the spiritual aspects of the work.

PHASE 4: EVALUATING THE PROJECT

The College of Charleston’s Joseph P. Riley, Jr., Center for Livable Communities, our research partner, conducted a baseline assessment of citizen and police perceptions of each other. There were also measures for success for each of the 86 strategies and the original core polarity and GPS that provided us a common, unwavering direction, especially during the most contentious periods of the process. While there is always a call for “Action” in efforts like this one, we realized that is only one pole. The easiest other pole to define would be “Planning.” We found that framing Planning broadly enabled us to include the research work that will be so vital to testing our hypothesis that applying a polarity-based approach to complex societal issues is a promising path to pursue.

PHASE 5: PROVIDING A MODEL FOR THE REST OF THE NATION

While there is, and needs to remain a strong focus on Charleston, the city alone is only one pole – the other is the entire country. With police and citizen tragedies appearing on the news at all let alone as frequently as they have, success in Charleston is far short of what is needed. This polarity was foreseen at the inception of the Illumination Project, so much so that providing a national model was in the very first measures of success.

CONCLUSION

We were faced with a multitude of points of view and positions held passionately held by a wide variety of stakeholders. Our bringing a polarity lens to these situations made it easier for others (and ourselves!) to affirm the differences (poles) and discover common goals (Greater Purpose Statement) In addition to the polarities described above these below enabled us to create virtuous circles of increased trust, a deeper understanding of legitimate, respectful police authority and citizen responsibility to do their part in creating a safe city.