Where Do You Stand?

On Monday night, just hours before the surprise police raid on Zuccotti Park, the Values and Leadership Roundtable hosted its monthly Network Reception and Dialogue on the topic “Perspectives on ‘Occupy’.”

We assembled a diverse group of Roundtable members and guests to explore where people stood on the Occupy movement and in relationship to the 1%.   We hoped that the Occupy Wall Street group would join us, and indeed their press office had indicated one or two people from Zuccotti were planning to attend.  Perhaps they had a premonition of the impending crisis and were otherwise occupied.

Even without them our group reflected the larger American society, with some ministers, a few students, and some young professionals just starting their careers, one in law, one as a physician another from Wall Street.  There were executive coaches and corporate consultants, a hedge fund manager, an investment advisor specializing in socially responsible investing, and a noted business school professor.  And it would not be an Intersections event if we didn’t also have a noted Native American spiritual leader and a musician who worked with children and did some street performing. Truly a group of “unlikely voices” around our virtual table to discuss a very topical issue: The “Occupy Phenomena”, as we called it.

We did not seek to define or limit the discussion in any way. Rather, we created the opportunity for people to place themselves physically in relation to the “Occupy Movement,” first and then in relation to the “1%” second.  That is, we created a “hotspot” in the middle of the room, named it “Occupy” and asked people to stand physically relative to the hotspot based on their affinity as they uniquely understood “Occupy” to mean. People then broke into the small groups with others who stood near them to explore what that meant to them.

Then the “hotspot” became “the 1%” and people rearranged themselves relative to that idea and again broke into groups with those around them to explore the meaning of their location.
It was an incredible evening full of discovery for everyone in the room.  What did people discover?  One person said he came into the room thinking “Occupy” was just a bunch of aimless trouble makers, and now looked at them as icons of our social ills.  Another person exclaimed that they were more aware of the differences within the groups – that is within the “1%” --  and was wondering how they could be made to talk with each other to address the social challenges – unemployment, poverty etc.

Our process revealed a spectrum of views and interests stretching from one hotspot “Occupy” to the other hotspot “1%”, which might account for one common theme that emerged from the conversation, respectful engagement.   The thought expressed was that despite real issues and divisions in our society, it may not serve either end of the spectrum to further balkanize and divide.  Can one effect change at the top without engaging those at the top?  There was recognition that the bottom 99% actually needs the top 1% in many ways, and the top 1% ultimately succeeds only if there is a healthy, robust society.  

We ended the evening with questions about what each of us could do when we left the room and went back to our daily chores.  A difficult question for many, yet a number of creative and energizing solutions were offered.   How do we affect culture? One participant is going back to their work to explore how they might find major corporations sympathetic to the goals and engage them in an educational effort.  Another person asked the question “What can we each individually contribute to a more just society?”  It was actually expressed by asking “What are you willing to give up?”  Perhaps the 1% is the number that ought to reflect the minimum that each person is willing to contribute to the common pool of public good seeking to solve the extremely difficult and challenging issues confronting the nation and the world.

And for Intersections, we asked everyone to leave and find someone to add to the Values and Leadership Network, to help us grow a network for change in our society that can eventually become a movement for values based leadership.  Want to join?  Sign up here!