How can you optimize the impact of “integral”? That was the question asked by Roger Walsh at his keynote at the Integral Europe Conference. As ever, his wisdom was framed to inspire practise as well as contemplation. We always gain insights about Integral City work from Roger’s guidance (see the blog series on “5 Practical Steps for Applying Integral City Theory“).

Urbanfest Team

Urbanfest Team

So let’s consider ways that we can optimize our Integral City Work.

Commit to Do High Quality Work

Firstly we can begin by committing to do high quality work – as Integral City Practitioners, Catalysts and Meshworkers. As a Community of Practise, we have defined the practices of each level of practise, so that practitioners can become progressively more skilled in disciplines that are relevant to understanding the city through integral lenses.

Knowledge Areas

We started by mapping  the 12 Intelligences as the focus and outcome of the disciplines for Integral City work.

Our knowledge frames for Practitioners (who work at the scale of individual organizations and leaders) include:  Integral Framework, Spiral Dynamics, Living Systems, Complexity, Integral City, Personal Management, Integral Life Practise and/or Integral Transformative Practise .

Our knowledge frames for Catalysts (who work at the scale of connecting two or more City Voices, organizations or sectors) include:   Leadership Development, Team Development, Art of Hosting, Inquiry, Conflict Resolution, Social Artistry, Polarity Management, Eco-Footprint, The Natural Step, Balanced Scorecard, Values Tools, Appreciative Inquiry and Holacracy

Our knowledge frames for Meshworkers (who work at the scale of the city, aligning, cohering and meshworking around Purpose, People, Priorities and Planet) include:

 Facilitating, Learning Design
 Thinking & Learning Communities
 Calculating Carrying Capacity for: Social, Cultural, Environmental, Economic

To advance high quality Integral City practices at all scales ,we have identified these basic knowledge areas as necessary to commence high quality work. This enables each level of practice to build on what they learn in practice, so that they can co-design experiments (like Learning Lhabitats), solutions to challenges (like Russian City Development Urbanfest initiatives) and publish outcomes (like the qualities of the 4 Voices of the City,  the Integral City 2.0 Online Conference and the Integral City Book).