Integral City identifies 4 Voices of the City: Citizens, Civil Society, Civic Managers and Business/Innovators. Each of these Voices has organizational forms, but some are more developed than others.

The organizational voices of Civic Managers and Business/Innovators are commonly expressed through their public and private institutions both of which have decades of practices and multitudes of consultants with methodologies to grow organizational capacity.

However, Citizen and Civil Society organizations are often less sophisticated with fewer resources available to help improve performance. Often these not-for-profits and/or associations have little experience or guidance to aid development or performance.

But surprisingly, Citizen and Civil Society Associations (CCSA) can learn valuable habits from the honey bee.

A beehive must produce 40 pounds of honey per year in order to survive. The survival strategy that the beehive has evolved depends on the performance of five roles: conformity enforcer, diversity generator, inner judge, resource shifter and intergroup tournament player.

Read the full story of how Citizen and Civil Society Associations can learn from the honey bee capacities for sustainability, resilience and evolution in Enlivening Edge here.