Holistic Goal formation
At the heart of the course will be the holistic goal formation
process. The holistic goal gives a group a ‘magnetic north’
against which it can make decisions in the design and implementation
of its Permaculture design. This process starts with everyone
involved being aware of and describing what the ‘whole’
in a given situation is. This has three parts:
1. Who are the decision-makers at all levels in the group?
2. What is the resource base? This refers to the physical: such
as natural resources and buildings and equipment. The resource
base is also very much about people: who are the people not involved
directly in the decisions about the piece of land but have some
kind of interest in it?
3. What are the finances that are available or could be generated?
The next, very critical part of the process is to form a holistic
goal. The first step answers the question: how do you
want your life to be in the ‘group’ (whether that
be a family, a community, a community supported agriculture scheme,
a school or any kind of group), based on what you value most?
This is all about those involved talking about and sharing and
understanding the values that matter to them and the quality of
life that they would like? This is the starting point for the
group as they look to working together. Everything thus starts
with their values. No assumptions are made on this. Those involved
talk deeply about their values and the quality of life they want.
In this discussion they come to understand each other. Everyone
has a chance to share what is important to them. All too often
work in groups doesn’t spell things out like this and instead
proceeds on assumptions.
The second step in the holistic goal formation process is to capture
the overall purpose of the group in a simple, straightforward
statement. In the case of a family or community that has not been
set up for a purpose, you obviously ignore that part of the process.
The next part of this step then states what the group must produce
to achieve its quality of life (thus agreeing how it will put
its values into practice) and how it might acheive this. These
‘products’ may be tangible, such as ‘a variety
of highly nutritious food’ or they may be intangible, such
as ‘an environment in the group in which creative ideas
can flourish’. Again this is a question of spelling things
out clearly.
The third step in the holistic goal formation process looks at
sustainability of the resource base so as to keep the forms of
production going. This includes a description of how the land
must be far into the future if it is going to sustain the production.
This focuses on describing how the ecosystem processes are functioning,
50 or 100 years from now. The Permaculture design then comes in
to give detail to the landscape part of the goal. It also describes
how the ‘group’ must be in order to keep having the
support and backing of all those people listed in the resource
base above, those people who have some kind of connection with
the group, for example buyers or suppliers, or local authorities,
or maybe the media; depending who the ‘group’ is of
course.
The course will take participants through this goal formation
process and give them a chance to form a goal in a simulated situation
themselves in small groups. As with all aspects of the course
there will be handouts that explain the process in depth.
