Knowing ‘why’ will define your own goal and give you the motivation to create the best life can offer you. Without having confidence in your ‘why’ behind you, your chance of realising your goals and dreams  will be minimised and will leave you in a position where it will  be easy to quit. So, Citizens need to know their ‘Whys’ as do their academic supporters. Once everyone is clear of ‘why’ they are undertaking a collaboration they can begin the process of any development. Why future problems and issues have to be undertaken by collaborations is that today’s and tomorrow’s solution will require an understanding of complexity and perhaps even chaos. Our way to find out the ‘Whys’ of our enablers and citizens was simply to ask them about their motivations for becoming involved. The detail of our findings is in Part II, but to ease understanding here our colleague Ian Cooper did a simple analysis to reveal its essence now as a simple Wordle diagram. Below are the top words used by Academic Enablers to describe their motivation for Citizen Enablement:

So lets now begin to consider the ‘how’ and ‘what’ we might do to begin any successful Citizens Enablement.

4.1 Reflection:

Peter’s first question to James when they started their discussion on what he called a ‘magic question’, because it opened up something unexpected to him, was ‘Are you in control of your own destiny with respect to Citizen Enablement? Rate it from 1 to 10. 10 means you are in total control and 1 of course you have no control. Peter’s remark to James was: he had searched the internet for a survey – the only found one so far: Locus of Control Example https://www.surveyshare.com/template/352/Locus-of-Control

James hopes he can rate the control of his own life, and his future, at around 9 on Peter’s scale. But he further believes it should be important for most of us, including himself, not only to be in control of their our own destinies, but, more importantly that others should not control us. And as Der Speigel said, the 35% who are well educated, are in a position of easier personal control because of their skills and capabilities; they may not need our support, but they might also be in a position to help others. James feels he is one of the lucky ones in this respect. However, it may be that everyone may not have the ability/skills to be able to be in control or to communicate this to others. But many more citizens James works with seem able to be in greater control of their own destiny after initial support; for instance he worked with young persons’ with disability issues so they could develop their own social networking system for themselves that was truly mind blowing (Powell, 1997). Furthermore, Contraception: the Board Game (Case Study 3, page 46) shows how, even the young can take control of their own, sexual lives, and learn to share best practices from fellow young people using the best principles of ‘positive deviance’; positive deviance (PD) is an approach to behavioural and social change based on the observation that in any community there are people whose uncommon but successful behaviours or strategies enable them to find better solutions to a problem than their peers, despite facing similar challenges and having no extra resources. Barbara Hastings-Asatorian used UPBEAT evaluations and observations from the young learning about contraception to continuously improve the effectiveness and marketability of her developments until she became an acknowledged world leader in her chosen development area; this is a good example of positive deviance in operation of this case study.

However, many poor citizens are in communities that feel they may well be disenfranchised from controlling their lives, almost like those in concentration camps where their guards control their every action. Rather, these people stand back from any decision making which might enable real change for themselves – as Mary Douglas in Purity and Danger (1966) would say ‘to them life is like a lottery’ – only a lucky chance could ever make any real difference to their lives. When we start with such citizens, at the early stage of any project, few of them actually feel they have any real control, but by hard work of an Enabler – a person  who makes things possible – this changes positively, for nearly all citizens (see Victor Frankl’s “man’s search for meaning?”, (1999). So unaligned citizens may well become true stakeholders in their own futures sharing a real vision with fellow citizens  and knowing precisely what’s at ‘stake’. So, for instance, the Community Banking and Community Land Trusts projects (Case Studies 1 and 7, pages 34 & 66) show, with a little initial external support, citizens can truly develop professionally managed facilities, normally only open to those from a very different culture.

Peter then further asked James:

• What does it feel like to be above 6, related to the question of controlling your own destiny?
• And when you feel in control of your own destiny, how can you start to help others be in control of theirs?

According to James, life is about a continuous process of striving to be in control. So for him, he is continuously trying to become a person who endeavours to help others and use whatever skills he has, at the local level, to help other citizens achieve their own enablement, then becoming empowered to enact change and thus enhance their personal desires.

So then Peter asked further: How would you define destiny? To Peter, who is passionate about continuous learning & development, that is his main driver and enabler for wellbeing, sustainability and peace. And, since his university studies, his research and participation in European Projects, he has been involved in continuous learning & development. Peter supports this by technology, so the learning provisions he offers can be easily scaled and accessed globally. Now he works as internal development consultant in the Migros IT department, with the focus on enabling HR Transformation supported by SAP Success Factors Cloud Technology in the core administration processes of HR (see Peter Palme’s CV in Part III). Like Peter, James, has a love of adult learning, as a life-long Academic with a real interest in adult and continuous education. His early years were stymied by academic failure, but he was lucky enough to change all that and to go to university in Harold Wilson’s ‘White Hot Technology’ of the sixties, when anything seemed possible. He studied at UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology), which it’s Principal Lord Bowden considered to be Britain’s MIT, he found the joy of higher learning for himself and was guided by academics who helped him pass that love onto others. So, to him, destiny is not what’s life meant to be initially, or what’s written in the stars or an inescapable fate. Perhaps a better way of looking at the destiny issues is to ask the questions “who are you trying to please in what you do or what do I really want to do for me?”  Peter says some ‘people might believe they have as set destinies at birth, more like a fate, or for others, who are diagnosed with a fatal disease that will likely will cause their death in a certain time frame’, and may believe that is destiny for them. Yet Peter goes onto say divine fate may well exist but, even in this situation, ‘they still have control over the journey towards it and in some instances might even prolong or possibly change the outcome circumventing their projected death.

This is not the destiny James believes in, as he doesn’t feel it is something that happens to you by divine decree, or fortune, but rather because of your living conditions and personal situation. For him, his newly found destiny started when he considered a new direction to live his life. The ICCARUS project (Case Study 13, page 71) shows how normal citizens, including normal but bright fire officers often with poor academic learning, can become the managers of major fire incidents; and the leaders, and developers, of suitable educational aids can learn to use advanced IT systems to make this occur cost-effectively.

The two different views of Peter and James reflect a humanitarian/religious split but there are similarities in both in relation to the ‘control’ one can exert in either journey. So, what are the choices we all make and how are they derived? James is clearly aware of the awkwardness of using the word destiny in his context, but to be able to fulfil the difficult tasks of changing a culture when driving for Citizens Enablement and then Empowerment, changing living conditions, requires vision, persistence and passion which become a sort of forward looking destiny; necessary if such a leadership is to work. Such characteristics are required as the catalyst needed to tackle and solve the undoubted obstacles to change whether that be luck, political power or, indeed the support of a social enabler/mentor. For James however, once you have found your own values in life, maybe even through serendipity in his case, destiny, in this forward looking sense, starts to be your confirmed way of being and doing, no matter in what circumstances you find yourself. It requires you taking speedy action and responding quickly to the result and then repeating success regularly. This sort of destiny may not begin as the pre-ordained path of your life. However, if you are to survive in a world that may wish you not to change it must become your destiny. Then, with patience, persistence, effort and vision, you will find a way to suit you; it can become your way. As Gormley says, which was reported earlier, you too can become a maker – a creative in your own right or someone who can learn to make the future they desire in any sense of that word. It could be as simple as giving and sharing your love with everyone you meet. Or when you are living out your purpose in life, you start living your personal meaning of destiny. When you are aligned with your destiny, your life is joyful, delightful, exciting, and fulfilling. So, this is what James means by his destiny and he sincerely believes everyone should try to find theirs and a way of life that is right for them. Only fear and negative imagination may stop us, but we have to work around that. His way, because of his interest in life-long learning, is to help others find theirs, or at least show them how to begin to realise there is a destiny of this kind for them. With hindsight he may have chosen a better word to describe this underlying characteristic he believes is so essential. So for instance he might have chosen the word ‘calling’ which the renowned British individualistic photographer, Michael Parr, used about his acquired drive to achieve. Or he could have used the notion of (self) efficacy – how well one can execute a course of action  to deal with prospective situations Albert Bandura(1982). Taken together these views mean much the same to James, who sees them as relevant antonyms, alongside will, volition, choice, deliberation and the like, to describes the power of how he now feels. The Smart City Futures project (Case Study 11, page 68) showed how local citizens could similarly gained control over their own destinies through a conferring process that enable them to share ideas with each other in their own terms.

4.2  Understand or define your position first, listen closely to those citizens you wish to enable and CHANGE your own position first, to meet their needs

Typically, little normally changes to the environment you perceive, or in your own behaviour – anyway that which gives you a real sense of progress. However, you must strive to take control of what you can control and drive to improve your lot. But James believes you should, avoid changing others first, until you’ve first changed yourself.

Peter then asked James:

• “How does it feel right to you when you sense an increase in self-development and control over your destiny or the journey to your destiny?
• ‘How does it feel wrong: If you feel blocked, upset, or frustrated because you are waiting for others to act. Especially if is a larger issue that first seems too big for you to feel any control or influence over – e.g. global warming, etc?

James believes you begin to feel different, by starting to work out your own position and values and then find like-minded people to work with, who feel as you do. This is exemplified Steven Covey, who revealed the important characteristic of the 7 habits of highly effective people (1989). There might even be Citizens who already have the skills to help achieve their own ends, and then you need to work out a way of helping them. But, even when citizens don’t already have the confidence to try the new, again listen to their needs and work with them and you will find a way. This requires a great deal of listening to their needs, desires and wants and working with them to develop a way to enable them to achieve their desires, eventually by themselves. It may take time, but it’s worth the effort; this is supported by the work of John Forester in the planning arena on what he termed as the ‘deliberative practitioner (1999). Along similar lines the SEEE Oxford paper Wim Veen recently introduced to the Leonardo team, and an except  shown in Annex1, gives some clues of how this might work after Covid 19 for the area sustainability. And nearly all the cases studies in Part II show how citizens can be empowered and then enabled to develop changes for themselves of value to their communities putting personal ideas into ventures that work in practice.

4.3 Analysis

It is important for those wishing to help others, firstly collect as many facts as you can about those you want to work with – including understanding what it is in their circumstances that prevents them from achieving their aspirations and the social, economic and political constraints on their actions and skills that can be used to help them; whether they be citizens, small businesses and communities; you really need to get to know their needs desires and wants. You have to see what each citizen in any community is already, or could be, capable of achieving by themselves, what they never will be able to do and how your skills can be used to help them learn how to do things for themselves. It is particularly important to ask open questions of understanding to guide your ways of helping their SELF-ENABLEMENT. This is far from being a trivial task as the skills, capabilities and authority of those professionals presently in control provides them with a structural power that is difficult to overcome or rebalance, particularly in the UK. Whatever the problem, in order to understand the progress you are making in any development, as citizens try to rebalance things in their favour, it is necessary to evaluate what has been achieved, give feedback to the developers of change and what needs to be done to ensure proper Citizens Enablement. In this context, all the cases presented later all do this using the same general principles that were developed in the UPBEAT project (Generic Process A, page 26); in  particular, this is normally undertaken using its matrix to visualise team and project development in a fairly gentle, but clear way; this uses and evaluator process with a linked questioning framework to guide Enablers and Citizens with a sensible way of approaching any problem or issue. The value of this evaluation and it’s associated analyses were validated on over 250 successful projects undertaken across Europe and built into the generic approach adopted by the PASCAL International Observatory known as PUMR, and seen in more detail in Generic Process B (page 31) and on web-site http://pumr.pascalobservatory.org.

4.4  The Key to Enabling Others – an important reprise

We repeat, the most important way to help Citizens Enablement is by listening closely to those Citizens and adapting your own ways of interacting with them so you can help them deliver what they want, rather than what they can realistically obtain. This clearly raises an important issue of how to raise both Enablers and Citizens aspirations to want the desired changes, and to enact them, without extending their expectations of what is a critically achievable in practice. There are certain Sustainable Development Goals we might all strive to achieve, such as Guenter Koch’s ‘Economies for a Common Good’, but we all must make sure what we strive to do to help Citizens achieve is what they actually want, and not what you might think they might want. This is not a trivial task to cope with but it is a critical issue bearing in mind while working with those you are seeking to empower; failure to match aspirations with realisable expectations easily leads to disillusion and this is where the capable Enabler/facilitator has a real role to play.

The base line for the sort of Citizens Empowerment, that James eventually strives for, must begin with Enablement, since he has a selfless desire to help others, to truly help them define what they want for themselves and then achieve it. He realises it will be difficult to achieve the full, more radical and politically questioning form of Citizen Empowerment, since it will require a redistribution of power from those who have it already. Enablement, on the other hand, can at least can mainly be achieved without radically upsetting the status quo, although any change impacts the status quo to a greater or lesser extent; . However, you only need to listen to the needs and wants of citizens to realise those in power rarely ceed their authority, to others, including citizens and communities, however, as we show in Case Study it may need the Enablers to become politically aware to deliver some change, some of the time. Enablers having professional, or other skills of those in power, need to use their understanding of those in power to enable them to help citizens achieve their own ends. Such active listening avoids the desire for those professionals, who know what should be done, to ‘fix’ things the way we would normally do. The HART project (Case Study 11, page 66) shows how a fun game could empower, lay volunteer controllers of Housing Associations, to properly ensure their duty of care was honoured in the control of a third of Britain’s housing is well managed and Unlimited Potential (Case Study 5, page 52) shows how normal citizens and even those with disabilities can take control of their own destinies.

• When is it successful?

The recognition of success is when the citizens show they have actually achieved their own ends and, ideally, start passing this enablement process to others – themselves becoming leaders of their own Citizens Enablement. However, even when successful in the short term collaborations should always strive for continuous improvement especially, if developers are designing citizen suitable products for the open market. All the projects shown in the Case Study portfolio are extremely successful in their own terms, especially to the citizens who have been a major controlling part of them and who own these developed products and facilities.