Multi-Generational Collaboration: Discovering One Another

DiscoveringOneAnother

In the summer of 2004, theWorld Café, the

Berkana Institute, and the Shambhala Institute

for Authentic Leadership convened an

innovative inquiry into intergenerational

wisdom and collaboration for the common

good.Amulti-generational teamthat ranged

in age from 23 to 81 hosted the gathering.

What we thought would be a small ‘learning

laboratory' of 20-30 people took off likewildfire.

The meeting, held in Nova Scotia,

Canada, rapidly mushroomed to more than

80 participants from 18 different countries

whose life experience spanned eight full

decades. We were amazed and delighted!

From that powerful encounter, we began to

realize that if we and others could create

spaces for authentic dialogue and effective

collaboration across the generations, a

tremendous force for social change and

innovation across the globe might be ignited.

The demographics alone reveal this exciting
opportunity. In the U.S., for example, members
of the ‘Boomer Generation' (now in
their 50's and 60's) are entering their elder
yearswith amuch longer lifespan than earlier
generations. Members of this generation
helped to launch the civil rights, environmental,
women's and social justice movements.
Many still want to make a difference,
and have the time, health and wealth to
actively contribute. Those in the Millennial
Generation (in their teens to late 20's) are just
discovering their own passion for creating
more life affirming futures. "At the center of
our newconsciousness of connectedness and
change is a dynamic form of transformational
activism," Joshua Gorman, founder of
Generation Waking Up, noted in the Fall
2007 issue of Kosmos Journal. "We are taking
up our world's two most urgent needs-
spirituality and social change-fusing them
together, and unleashing powerful pathways
to personal and planetary transformation."
These two generations alone are estimated to
be 163 million strong and make up more
than 50% of the current U.S population. If
even a small percentage of the people who
really care and want to make a difference
from these two groups had opportunities to
‘find' each other and learn to use each others'
gifts in the service of a better world what
might we be able to create together?
Just at the time we most need all of our
unique contributions and perspectives to
discover innovative paths forward, we suffer
in cultures around the world from the rapidly
escalating tendency to separate ‘us' from
‘them'-to create barriers rather than bridges
in the face of differences in religious or
political beliefs, cultural values, personal
lifestyles and relationships between the
generations. Yet it is painfully clear that none
of us in this vulnerable and interconnected
world can go it alone.Howcanwe honor and
use each other's unique contributions and
gifts to access the collective wisdom and
co-creativity that resides in us, as a single generation,
alive and awake together-whatever
our chronological age or stage of life.

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