The Innovators Gold lies at the “intertidal zone” between conventional domains of knowledge. We encourage your organization to form teams under the office of the CIO(Chief Innovation Officer) to set up a Core Discovery Challenge framed as a “puzzle” using the Explorers Wheel. Practicing with the Explorers Wheel is the most powerful means we know to cultivate creativity and innovation around central challenges in your organization. Below is a brief description and a template.
This module includes an app I have invented, The Explorers Wheel, and it is enriched by a new field my colleague, Bill Moulton and I refer to as “Big Heart Intelligence”. This module has a grand scope, and introduces you to passions that have occupied me intensely during the last decade. In this module I will draw a direct line to our core focus in this course on community resilience.
Albert Einstein famously observed, “We cannot solve our problems with the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” In other words, a new cognitive process, indeed a new Mind, is essential. And today the world is replete with complexities—often referred to as “wicked” problems—that we scarcely anticipated, and which demand Intertidal thinking and Big Heart Intelligence. As we discussed in the Introduction to this course, and in a special Evolutionary Conversation ( to be announced), Intertidal Thinking and Big Heart Intelligence offer a unique perspective on how to plan for and effectively manage increasing systemic risks at all levels of civil society.
Silo Thinking
We must recognize at the outset that the malady is of our own doing, for in large part we have placed ourselves in a conceptual prison by the way we have dissected and framed knowledge, and therefore our inquiry. I am speaking of silos of specialization which not only canalize inquiries, but punish those who dare to venture professionally outside their domains of specialization. At the same time, silo thinking is applauded at our most prestigious educational institutions of learning. I find particularly amusing the quote often attributed to Erwin Griswold, former Dean of the Harvard Law School, who according to a learned friend of mine proudly remarked, “At the HLS we sharpen mind by narrowing it.” Indeed, Griswold has a point. Lawyers are generously rewarded and remunerated for their hypertrophied capacity to parse legal arguments—for good or ill.
An important question, it seems to me, is whether silo thinking is conducive to resilience, or even our collective survival? And further,is there a way to preserve some of the benefits of a beartrap mind, which is how Abraham Lincoln’s law partner described our 16th president, with a capacity to expand and deepen the mind at the same time?
Intertidal Thinking
I would like to introduce you now to a new mode of thinking that addresses the problem of silos directly. I call my discovery “Intertidal Thinking.” Why intertidal? The term refers to the intertidal zone between the sea and shore which marine biologists inform us is biologically the most fertile. It is the same with our Mind. The intertidal zone of our Mind is also fertile ground where rigidly siloed fields of knowledge meet, and also the place where ideas appearing in the external shore of our conscious brains are washed with the waters of our unconscious Mind. It is here where I believe we will discover the inventor’s or innovator’s gold.
There is ample evidence for this proposition. Here are a few examples from transdisciplinary research and ChatGPT4:
- Interdisciplinary Medical Research Centers: Institutions like the Broad Institute and the Wellcome Sanger Institute bring together researchers from diverse fields such as genetics, biology, computer science, and medicine to advance our understanding of diseases and develop new treatments. The Human Genome Project is a prime example of a successful transdisciplinary effort in genomics.
- One Health Approach: The One Health approach recognizes the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health. Researchers from various fields collaborate to tackle zoonotic diseases and global health challenges, as seen in the largely successful efforts to combat diseases like Ebola.
- Cybersecurity: Addressing cybersecurity threats requires a transdisciplinary approach involving computer scientists, mathematicians, psychologists, and policy experts. Innovations in encryption, threat detection, and cybersecurity protocols have resulted from such collaborations.
The cultivation of Intertidal Thinking involves several related skills:
- The first is: How to see the periphery?
- A second is: How to connect the dots?
- A third is: How to integrate the dots in a coherent way?
- A fourth is: How to discover and find meaning in the mosaic or Rosetta Stone?
The Explorers Wheel
At this point I would like to introduce The Explorers Wheel, which can help you address all three simultaneously.
The first thing to note is the eight circles, or “moons.” They are organized around a central idea, theme, or challenge, represented by the Enso.
You will find a lengthy description of each moon in my flow paper electronic book The Explorers Mind, available in your reference materials. You can also observe how I have populated the moons for illustrative purposes linking each to an important aspect of resilience.
I invite you now to formulate your own central Resilience Challenge in the form of a Discovery Question. I have provided one example—How can I increase my Integral Resilience Quotient? I refer to this central question as your “Core Discovery Puzzle or Challenge” (CDP or CDC). Please place it at center of the Explorers Wheel.
The first thing I invite you to do is to survey the entire Explorers Wheel and to pay attention to which moon you are most drawn to; you may detect a special “tug” from this moon, as if it were reaching out to you. For example, you might elect Beauty, or perhaps it elects you! You ask, “How might Beauty help to enhance my resilience?” Then you contemplate this question until an insight comes to you and you write this down.
Next please connect your first moon to the next moon that holds greatest promise to enrich your discovery process, that seems to tug at you. If you have connected Beauty to your Resilience CDP, you may decide that the Past can lend powerful perspective in connection with Beauty to deepen your insights around Beauty and Resilience. Please now bring up in your Mind’s eye your Past and see if you can discover a connection with Resilience and Beauty. Write this insight down also.
Continue following this protocol until you have connected all of the moons to your CDP. If you cannot find any connection in a particular moon, it is fine to jump over that moon.
Then look at the CDP as a gestalt, a single unifying picture.
Congratulations! You have just demonstrated that you understand and are able to apply “Intertidal Thinking.” You may find it is fun to explore making it a habit on any important problem or challenge you are facing.
As you proceed, you may want to enrich and deepen your discovery process by reformulating, revising, and refining your CDP based on what you have already uncovered. The second order CDP can then become the central focus of its own Explorers Wheel, surrounded by its own eight moons.
As you will note in the materials, I was very influenced in designing the Networked Brain moon by Dr. Norman Doidge’s book, The Brain That Changes Itself, which is about neuroplasticity. I have always conjectured, but not tested in any scientific way, whether the enjoyable use (and joy may be an essential factor) of the Explorers Wheel will itself build neuroplasticity. This question might make an excellent Ph.D. thesis.
Big Heart Intelligence
Big Heart Intelligence (BHI) refers to the ability to combine and temper the power of our Mind with the wisdom and creative energies of the Heart.I would like to show you now not only how to connect, but also how to enlist the capabilities of your 6th sense to address complex wicked problems requiring resilience.
First, please refresh your memory by taking a moment to practice Just Click! You will recall that Just Click! immediately engages your eudaemon, good inner spirit, higher intuition, or conscience.
In this context, I invite you to enter this place of connection with your Heart, and observe the CDP from its perspective as well. See if you can observe what I have noticed often: Your Heart’s reply may often be very different from what your Mind is telling you.
One reason for this is that the Heart has a unique power to tap into a larger “field” of consciousness. It lives in a domain where the Past and Future dwell together in the Present.
The obvious way to reconcile this seeming conflict between both Mind and Heart is to observe your CDP from both perspectives—an integral perspective. You may discover that this fresh way of exploring, discovering, thinking, and solving problems is very practical and useful.
The Explorers Wheel already begins this process of integral thinking. I invite you to experiment with combining Mind and Heart from the outset when you formulate your original version of the CDP or bring Big Heart Intelligence to play in a second round. I don’t believe it really matters. In either instance, what is vital is to focus the power of both Heart and Mind to address the central resilience or other challenge at hand. I invite you to compare the results you get from the following protocol. I have found that I often receive one answer when I simply use my analytic and logical mind; I get another answer when I only inquire of my Heart; and that often I get a deeper and wiser response when I inquire and listen carefully to what my integral Mind and Heart tell me together. There is a bit of an art to this, because we have actually become siloed in ourselves. We are not accustomed to an integrated state.
I trust you are with me so far. This may be unfamiliar terrain. That is OK. We have reached a new but critically important frontier of human consciousness. If you have questions, please ask them in the Q&A section in the Collaborative Learning Platform.
And there is one last crucial dimension implied in everything we have been discussing. Let’s make it explicit: The Heart is the domain of conscience and deep values that holds the keys to our survival. In fact, I urge that an evolution in values will provide the beacon and bedrock to help us, as a species, to survive in a world hurtling toward chaos—seemingly hell bent on its own destruction.
Therefore, I advise you to make explicit the values that underlie the inquiries and discoveries you are making with The Explorers Wheel, and inquire how these values, if widely adopted, can help you individually, and your community, cultivate resilience in finding a compassionate path through the wilderness.
Finale: Of all the elements in The Explorers Wheel, one in particular may prove indispensable on your journey, and that is the moon of Wisdom. Throughout history, Wisdom of all virtues has been recognized and revered in virtually all societies and cultures throughout time. In the Book of Psalms there is this beautiful passage honoring Wisdom:
For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, And the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: And all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; And in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: And happy is every one that retaineth her. — Proverbs 3:14-18 KJV
Wisdom, in addition to being a transcendent evolutionary value or virtue, is also an evolutionary process and a skill. Simply put, we can learn to become wise, or at least wiser.