Sunyata Group and Partners cultivate and deploy High-Performance Systems (Individuals | Teams | Organizations | Constellations) to guide, develop, and document insights; initiate prototypes of revised governance systems and improvement approaches that increase the joy of being, playing, and working together; and improve bottomline relational and organizational performance outcomes (financial | personnel | personal satisfaction).
Building High-Performance Human Systems is based on “Belonging.” Belonging is a double-edged sword in that its historical etymological roots is that “race” and “genus” had the same meaning: genetically related by biological lineage (phenotypic | genetic) inheritance from a common source or breed — regardless of physical appearance.
At a species level, the morphological and genetic differences between races are statistically insignificant. However, the cultural definition of “race” (technically “ethnicity”) is: “of the same tribe” (communal identity) — where tribal “Belonging” might be defined by a myriad of traits (observable criteria) such as geographic location, language, physical appearance and characteristics, mental/physical abilities, religion/spiritual group, or socio-economic class. At a cultural/societal level, the differences between “tribes” can be extremely large.
Then you have the modern cultural deconstruction of “race” as a purely social construct that combines “race” and “ethnicity”: groups that have observably similar physical characteristics and/or culturally defined behaviors/traits.
We examine how people define their cultural identity — what traits (observable criteria) do they define as important, and why (memes); and what changes in how they combine these traits lead to different definitions of belonging and cultural identity.
The end-goal is planetary thriving across human constellations and across other lifeforms that possess brain-stems.
Community-Owned Resource Development (CORD)
Community-Owned Resource (Education | Real Estate | Business) Development (CORD) is a management integration function that researches, educates and trains, develops, and implements sustainable, reusable, and replicable full-functioning prototypes of Building Beloved Community (BBC) that generate long-term systemic positive thriving — that are economically rational over time in terms of values manifestation, customer satisfaction, relational engagement (community), financial performance, and systemic process improvements. CORD provides and makes visible the integration of technical/structural optimization with relational optimization by integrating intersectionality awareness (DEI) social/cultural knowledge and skills with technical/structural knowledge and skills to produce persistent high-performance teams (Beloved Communities) that result in community thriving and resilience. All elements of CORD work are “dollarized”, allowing for, and setting-up standardized pre-post outcome reviews in terms of cost-avoidance (CA), cost-savings (CS), and/or revenue improvements (RI).
This also means that the DEI efforts are explicitly examining past, present, and theorized data, using CA/CS/RI to measure impact to the economic bottom line of any historic or proposed mindset and strategy. CORD uses Community Infrastructure Categories (CIC) developmental proxies such as the Holistic Social Impact (HSI) [CIC Economic Development Scores | Developmental Performance Level Scores | Political Power Level Scores | % Social Return on Investment (SROI) | % Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) | % Economic Rate of Return (ERR): (Economic Rate of Return: % Return from Financing | % Return from Sale | % of Operating Profits)] will be integrated into the assessment processes.
CORD uses a “Grounded Theory Action Research” (GTAR) approach will be a recursive process consisting of a series of fast loops through a number of selected steps — within the larger cycle of all of the steps that get defined within a given “project.” GTAR research project structures will address:
- Entry & Contracting – project design and initial inquiry and goal setting
- Data Gathering – theory designs, data gathering and research
- Data Synthesis & Joint Diagnosis – theory testing, results reporting
- Joint Goal Setting and Action Planning – prototyping recommendations
- Prototyping Interventions – aligned with previous phase
- Measurement and feedback – project/subproject completion
CORD is a “Constellation” builder and integrator of Beloved Community(s). It uses the “Constellation model of collaborative social change” to solve the complexities of individual group efforts not having the mandate, resources, or motivation to jointly-optimize resources, talent, relationships (diversity), learning, invention, leadership, sustainability, leverage, etc. CORD drives the identification, research, and analysis of the relational/cultural and technical/structural theories, strategy and policy prototypes, and prototype implementation and post-implementation assessments of “Constellation” members. This is accomplished through iterations of CORD Beloved Community development education, training, and iterative development prototyping that leads to stable usable builds. CORD participants teach and learn together, and have Sunyata Group-affiliated mentors that provide additional “theories-of-mind”, guidance and counseling, advice, and feedback to mentees ⏤ as well as serving as role models, teachers, counselors, advisors, sponsors, advocates and teammates.
CORD Constellation-based Education & Training Themes:
Building Beloved Community
Tagline: “Transform Othering into Belonging and Thriving”
Building Beloved Community studies the awarenesses and practices that transforms oppressive behavior (“Othering”) into “Belonging” — by creating safe and supportive environments within organizations, and within neighborhoods and communities. The Practice of Beloved Community results in the measurable manifestation and sustainment of individual, organizational, and environmental ecosystem wellbeing (safety | health | wellness) and thriving.
Leadership & Organizational Development
Tagline: “Emotional-Social-Cultural-Cognitive-Organizational Proficiency”
Leadership & Organizational Development (Emotional-Social-Cultural-Cognitive-Organizational (Awareness | Skills | Competency) is the study and practice of the behavior-specific and observable emotional-social-cultural-cognitive-organizational (ESCCO) competencies required to achieve individual, group, and organizational / community goals, objectives, and innovation. Participants learn about measuring results as economic, humanistic, and environmental costs and benefits (the Triple Bottom-line mentioned above) while examining the psychological dynamics between leaders and leaders, leaders and followers, followers and followers, and inter-community engagements.
Holistic Integrated Mastery
Tagline: “High-Performance Individuals and Teams”
Holistic Integrated Mastery is the development of high-performance individuals and teams. It creates and teaches holistic mastery process-based lifestyles and professional practices that develop personal and professional mastery of specific cultural area of interest such as sports and athletics, wellbeing (health & wellness), arts and entertainment (visual-sound-movement-literature-materials), fashion, food and farming, religion / spirituality, science – engineering – technology, government/NGO, and food and farming.
Process Management & Performance Optimization
Tagline: “Improve Relationships – Processes – Technologies”
Process Management & Performance Optimization is the development of awareness, skills, and competencies regarding the relationship and dynamics between between communal functioning and technical operational excellence. It prepares a foundation of understanding and tools for applying quality/process improvement and performance optimization at the intersection of relational and technical processes and systems to achieve developmental and operational excellence.
Commons Development
Tagline: “Thriving”
Commons Development is the study and practice of development and stewardship of the Commons (Commonwealth) that can promotes thriving. It examines the technical and cultural distinctions between and impact of Cultural Identity-Orientation (“Individualistic” | “Communal”), and of privately-owned “Enclosures” and collectively held property (Commons). Participants learn the impact and sustainability of the interactions between existing financial, economic, natural, and human systems. This includes interactions with to: the Commons with respect to human relationships, natural resources, converted assets, and economic models; Universal Basic Investment (UBI), Commons Community Ownership Frameworks, and Community Development & Real Estate Frameworks.
Partners | Programs | Projects (Current | Potential)
(TBD)