Global Research Assembly

Chicago Nexus

July 1976

OPERATING PRINCIPLES OF

INTRA GLOBAL MOVEMENT

INTRODUCTION

The following twelve groups of operating principles contain those guidelines drawn from movement experience of some 20 years. The principles range from references to the Art of War by Sun Tzu to the most recent insights gained from work in local community development around the world.

While some two hundred principles are given, this is only a beginning. This effort may be considered the base upon which to build an even larger compendium for the guidance of Those Who Care, whatever may be their particular assignment.

The emphasis throughout is on operating practically in a time of doing. The sayings are arranged under twelve categories which are the keys to success:

1. Tao 7. Speed

2. Structure 8. Control

3. Decision 9. Indirection

4. Information 10. Double Action

5. Discipline 11. Situation of Advantage

6. Human Nature 12. Planning

THE TAO

Effective operation in any dimension

requires insight into the profound

depth of life.
  1. The spirit is finally the key factor. Once the troops' spirit has internally crumbled, the battle is lost.
  2. Use symbols strategically not superstitiously; remember that profound change happens only through symbols.
  3. Use celebration as a tool for signaling the recent victory and anticipating the future victory.
  4. Conduct accountability daily for the sake of absolution.
  5. Allow the symbolic to take precedence over the practical.
  6. Use your body, face, stance, tone of voice, posture and dress as instruments of presence.
  7. Use humor to provide creative distance from tragic absurdity.
  8. Discern how to give form to what is already happening.
  9. Dress intentionally for the occasion to honor it and enable it.
  10. Use task­related decor to impact troops with the profundity of the current campaign.
  11. Care for yourself in order to be able to care for others. Your spouse can't care for you, your colleagues can't. Let it go one day and it gets compounded.
  12. Accept tension­filled assignments as caring for you.
  13. Take time to lick your wounds.
  14. Remember the task is what sustains you; allow the mundane to disclose significance.
  15. Go to Daily Office every day to remain an ally, not an enemy of the Dark Night of the Soul and the Long March of Care.
  16. Gain the advantage over the day by beating everyone out of bed. Reap the harvest of the day by late­night brooding. Demand a fine piece of creativity from yourself before you climb between the sheets.
  17. Take good care of yourself by charting your day and learning to deal with intrusions.
  18. Be a bold, inscrutable, mysterious presence.
  19. Remember there is more than one well that people can fall down. Profound consciousness can be expressed in many ways.
  20. Be sensitive to the new face of the movement and give it concrete form.
  21. Wear, and be the presence of, the blue as a practical reminder of the stance of Those Who Care.

STRUCTURE

.

A Structured Revolution concerns the

strategic use of troops for achieving

victory. Front­line warriors, back­up

specialists, new recruits and the general

himself all engage in the common

battle for the common good.
  1. Use the resources, structures and forces of the situation in which you find yourself; everything you need for winning already exists in the situation.
  2. Organize the task according to the structural forces available to do it.
  3. Make trans­rational assignments. Brood through assignments carefully.
  4. Make assignments in such a way as to stretch, not protect the troops.
  5. Make assignments according to the demands of the mission, not according to an individual's neuroses.
  6. Organize your troops horizontally and insist on participation from all.
  7. Continually re­configure the troops to sustain motivity.
  8. The fewer the troops, the greater the need for their strategic placement.
  9. Have the name of someone in every micro.
  10. Management and control of the many is the same as of the few. It depends upon the symbols that address the depths of one's being.
  11. Use structures to care for human beings. Find ways for all to be engaged significantly.
  12. Hold the tension between internal life and moving it, moving it, moving it.
  13. Grasp the situation as a single task with one aim, not merely the job you have to do
  14. Use the Troika.
  15. Select a person to shadow the consultant from among the local leaders as a training tool.
  16. Use the local shadow to provide access to community power centers in order to authenticate the local story and to train future leaders.
  17. Favor team operation whenever possible.
  18. To do a miracle think it through, plan it well. Provide the instruments beforehand, ensure that everyone as an assignment and the tools needed to do it.
  19. Work behind the scenes to ensure that things run smoothly. Whoever sees the need does the deed.
  20. Meet the enemy with fresh forces, disciplined and well­prepared. When the enemy is equally well prepared, avoid him.
  21. Protect your flanks. Position the enemy so that his vulnerable places are unprotected.
  22. Know how to use both large and small forces.
  23. Let the mission do the healing. Keep plunging the troops into the mission.
  24. Use the normal forces to engage the enemy and the extraordinary forces to win. At the same time prevent the enemy from uniting and consolidating his forces.
  25. When quality is important, give large chunks of time to skilled people.
  26. Build events that engage new colleagues.
  27. Strike with the right force at the right time. Momentum and timing are key. Watch out for the enemy gearing up to strike you; protect your vulnerable spots.
  28. Meet financial obligations; it is an opportunity for engaging colleagues rather than another drain on your energy.









DECISION

Decision is the key to winning or losing.

You win or lose before the battle. The

war can't be lost until you decide.
  1. Victory is won only by your prior decision to win. To merely hope to win is to be defeated before you every start.
  2. Identify the task to be done and put your resolve behind it.
  3. Stage the happening that celebrates the decisional victory.
  4. Remember the real issue is how to move it; resist the temptation to worry about loose ends.
  5. Be versatile in your varieties of roles, as you walk with kings and local man.
  6. Build your campaign plan and brand it on the inside of your forehead.
  7. Use trial balloons as a tool to build consensus.
  8. Use the large group for overall consensus on the plan, smaller groups to decide on the steps.
  9. Unclarity is the result of not making necessary decisions.
  10. Keep the brackets on the presently insoluble.
  11. On a call, believe that the thing you are asking for is possible for every person you're calling on.
  12. On a development call ask for one thing: money.
  13. Find a way to get paid for doing the mission.
  14. Shoot for the sky when making a call.

DISCIPLINE

Without a disciplined body of troops

operations will come to a standstill.
  1. Discipline has to do with shaping the forces and the situation. It is your decision to keep at the task and keep it moving.
  2. Establish a clear picture of the victory that has been won, and of the next victory to be won.
  3. Motivate the troops to win. The motivation issue is the major portion of the task to achieve victory.
  4. The general will work in the front lines as a sign of the task's corporate nature.
  5. Sing to enliven the group and to symbolize the common task.
  6. Rehearse the story that holds the real significance of the task.
  7. Symbolize a statement of consensus by some ritual observance.
  8. Know when to terminate a task.
  9. He whose ranks are united in purpose will be an unopposable force.
  10. All house staff are generals, so avoid categorizing some troops as exclusively back­up, and assign them to circuits.
  11. Assign the special forces to exchange with the warriors from time to time.
  12. The morale and discipline of the troops are your responsibility. Regard them as your beloved sons and they will die with you. Indulge them and they will be useless.
  13. A general thinks through his situation, formulates his strategy and 'buys' time to await the hunch.
  14. There is one team and one task; the whole team is responsible for the whole task.
  15. Bracket the apparently insoluble issues, but name a time to reconsider them.
  16. Trust the models formed by consensus. Beware of the latest bright idea.
  17. As you observe peoples' engagement in a task, be careful also to observe the evident contradiction.
  18. Don't get caught with your models down. For each task have a comprehensive checklist and use it.
  19. Centrums exist to serve the local.
  20. Judge the outcome of your works by the effect, not by the effort.
  21. You are nobodies in history; you are solely out to release new life.
  22. Never take yourself too seriously.
  23. To be the religious is to be "nothingness." To seek money, notoriety or praise as your goals is to become their slave.
  24. Look to yourself first to discover where the perversions are.
  25. Hold in memory the lives of warriors who throughout history gave their lives and strive to imitate them.
  26. Beware of 'going native'; resist the temptation of thinking my area or region has such special problems that they transcend the global model.
  27. The gun of an outfit is the decisive "someone" who takes charge of a project, does not know what it means to succumb to fear, and yet remains a nobody.
  28. Deal with the contradictions in every thing you do at every moment.
  29. Keep all plates spinning, spot the slowest one and give the necessary effort to accelerating it.
  30. Extend yourself to the task of daily changing one person's life.
  31. Leave each call honorably with the door open behind you.
  32. A Human Development Project is self sustaining. Don't depend on outside money.
  33. Retain incoming funds for as long as possible in the HDP.

INFORMATION

To command an army you must know the local

situation, the command issues and the tactical

situation. Not to know these elements

is to confuse the army and hand the victory

over to the enemy.
  1. Never demean the academic but berate those who try to reduce life.
  2. Don't undertake a campaign until you know where you are, what the circumstances are, what the trends are, what the unique local factors are, what the ability of the leadership is, what the organization and discipline of the troops is like and whether or not you have a consensus.
  3. Observe, probe and spy on the trends of history and the deep currents of the time. Know where people are talking from and what they acting out of.
  4. Know the situation. Know the enemy. Know the trends. Know yourself and your victory will be complete.
  5. Know the enemy and your real situation; otherwise you are operating in an illusion and are in great peril.
  6. Insure victory by gaining access to a large reservoir of data and insights from the global repository. Take from and contribute to the repository.
  7. Keep objective statistical records to monitor every phase of the operation and use them as wall decor.
  8. Always brief and debrief the circuit teams.
  9. Grid and art form every situation you are in and let it inform your decisions.
  10. Use your third eye and third ear to estimate the enemy's situation correctly and avoid having the situation blow up in your face.
  11. Carve out time for brooding through the task and force yourself to get it down on paper.
  12. Make the night deliver its wisdom.
  13. Use evaluation at the completion of a task for the sake of informing the future.
  14. When reporting on the battle hold the tension between using the objective level to celebrate the victories and the interpretive level to extract guidance for the future and the deep significance of the present.
  15. Take good notes. This represents a decision to honor your colleagues' wisdom, to value the wisdom of others as much as your own and to take responsibility for the mission by being the Xavier.
  16. Know the principles you would not violate.
  17. Maintain your critical inventory of supplies.
  18. Use an objective consultant to deal with polar log jams.
  19. Pay attention to the local mores.
  20. Remember the "Last Fat Lady."
  21. Use referrals and entrees when doing calling. Don't call without an introduction.
  22. (HDP) Deal with groups individually. Know the income of last year for each family to know if it increased.
  23. Insure that the local base is an independent economically autonomous unit.

HUMAN NATURE

Strategic use of human propensities

is often the key to success.
  1. Build on strengths of others and live with their weaknesses.
  2. Never cut off the enemy's escape but always cut off your own.
  3. Create intentional chaos as seed ground for new models.
  4. Do not press an "enemy" at bay for this would lead to a desperate battle.
  5. Ask for too much rather than too little.
  6. Use basic contexts to relieve anxieties.
  7. Don't attack people, but, when necessary render them impotent.
  8. Be able to identify incipient paranoia.
  9. Never tell people more than the situation requires.
  10. View a chaotic place as one where much work is going on.
  11. Be attentive to insights of others.
  12. Look for ways to honor the group.
  13. Keep an attitude of detachment from the concrete task while at the same time participating in it.
  14. Rehearse "you can bend history" from time to time.
  15. Practice what you preach.
  16. Be firm, yet "cool".
  17. Don't broadcast your anxieties and beware of negativism.
  18. Remember that development is evangelism not charity.

SPEED

Avoid protracted operations. Elongated

timelines hinder the operation. Short

timelines help it.
  1. Victory is the aim, not doing a process. Prolonged operations reveal a decision to look good trying, but not to win.
  2. Move with speed by miracles. Operate miraculously to carry out implementaries in your battleplan. Decide on what the miraculous victory will be for the day.
  3. Set a short time to accomplish the task. Anything longer than six hours becomes a work project, not a miracle.
  4. Do all the programs all at once. Win victory in every aspect of the campaign in the very first week.
  5. Go in pursuit of the first major funding gift that will be symbolic enough to release other funding.
  6. Don't get bogged down in last week's tactics. Keep moving forward. Keep the momentum up. Keep on keeping on.
  7. Release colleagues for action who insist on standing still when everything is demanding 'move it.'
  8. Keep the circuits moving; do one town in the morning and another in the afternoon. Know when to dig in and when to keep moving on.
  9. Long range planning can be a trap. It is impossible to win a protracted war.
  10. Get on top of the situation before you hit the room. Don't enervate the troops by long meetings that excuse from doing the victory of the day.
  11. To win battles and take your objectives but to fail to exploit the achievements may be described as wasteful delay. They give the enemy a chance to regroup his forces and strike back.
  12. Bracket all extraneous cares.
  13. When faced with difficulties, divide them and bracket part of them. To do otherwise is to let them overwhelm you.
  14. Think through what you want to accomplish every day.
  15. Attack the major contradiction.
  16. Don't allow goals to paralyze tactics and implementaries.
  17. Avoid overkill when dealing with authorization. Trust the nod that has been given and operate out of it.
  18. Create a timeline of the quarter, the week and the day
  19. Institute a system of self checking daily, weekly, monthly to grade your success in every phase of the operation in order to sustain momentum.
  20. Remember as you go into battle that the war is the next one hundred feet in front of you.
  21. Trust that every situation possesses the inherent elements allowing you to move it.
  22. Hit the road by 8 o'clock.
  23. Manage the time you can control to achieve effective management.
  24. Work over against the mind­set of summer relaxation in order to gear up for fall programs.
  25. Hold the tension between the temptation to immediate action and kairotic time.
  26. Win in the situation by acting, it is not enough to see through a situation and stand inert.
  27. Engage totally while waiting for clarity.
  28. Make everything you do a symbol. Organize tactics and implementaries into miracles.

CONTROL

Either the enemy will determine the

situation and hence the victory; or you

will create the situation to which he

must conform. The one destined for victory

is in charge from beginning to end,

no matter what the circumstances.
  1. In every situation the elements exist that enable it to be moved.
  2. Create your own situation.
  3. You are out to release the yes latent in the situation.
  4. Turn every no into a yes. Believe that the person you are calling on is capable of an affirmative response.
  5. Analyze the indicative mood in a situation. Know the mood needed to win and gradually transform the indicative mood into the necessary mood.
  6. Delimit the geography; deal with all the problems simultaneously; push to the depth human issue; use symbolic power to effect change; work with all age groups.
  7. Build drama into the schedule to avoid the necessary humdrum turning into perfunctory routine.
  8. Build a temporary value screen for a particular task to reduce the ambiguity just enough to enable it to move.
  9. Never assume a context; he who sets the context generally wins.
  10. Transform your village or town to make possible the transformation of every village and town. Your turf is the whole world, your situation the whole of history.
  11. Being like Xavier allows one to have the whole world wherever he is.

INDIRECTION

Life is always indirect. The strategy of

indirection is simply an imitation of life itself.
  1. One who is master of the enemy's fate moves without any trace of control; is an invisible catalyst; is constantly on the alert for any manipulation on the part of the enemy.
  2. The one who uses the direct and the indirect approach makes the devious route the most direct and turns misfortune into advantage; the one who does not, remains at a disadvantage and is defeated.
  3. Attack the enemy's strategy; this is the art of indirection. You are out to release men from disabling mindsets; you are not out to chain them to another yoke.
  4. Never attack the enemy's stronghold head on; to do so is to lose the battle and your troops as well. Fight directly only when there is no alternative.
  5. Utilize the element of surprise; come at the enemy with the indirect approach. Find the weak point and then move on with top speed. To fail to do this is to accept defeat by default.
  6. Transform the structures from within so as to move them into the future; to destroy them is to cut off all possibility.

DOUBLE ACTION

Formulating winning policies means to live

in creative tension; holding polarities is

balance within one's being; to fail to do so

is to fall off on one side which leaves a

vulnerable point for the enemy to exploit.
  1. Social change is ever going on. Tension is of the essence; conflict and struggle is that without which structures cannot move into the future
  2. The authentic Transestablishment at any one moment is either being the authentic Establishment or the authentic Disestablishment, whichever history demands.
  3. There are times when the orders of the sovereign are not to be obeyed. If there is no chance for success, do not use the troops; if it is not in the best interests of the state, do not act; if you are not in danger. do not fight.
  4. Don't give up; keep at it; to draw a line beyond which you would not go is to resign in defeat.
  5. Neutralize public officials only enough to get the task done.
  6. Avoid seeking support from middle echelon bureaucrats. Don't report to underlings.
  7. Co­operate with nobody, but be prepared to use everybody and everything to carry out your battleplan and so win victory.
  8. Allow social agencies to enable the task in accord with the plan. Never allow them to interfere with your battleplan.
  9. Keep the law without being bound by it.
  10. Obey God and the deep currents of history.
  11. Sustain the tensions built into your battleplan as you carry out your own assignment.
  12. Intensify the complexity of any situation. This initiates new paradigms of action. Do not try to force fresh chaos into stale models.
  13. Beware of saying yes to all demands simultaneously. Operate out of your revolutionary timelines and not the world's timeline.
  14. Never attempt to do the revolution on somebody else's terms.
  15. Keep your eyes open to the need for mid­course correction.

SITUATION OF ADVANTAGE

He who knows when he can fight and when

he cannot will move only when he has the

advantage.
  1. Operate from a situation of advantage. Don't waste your life in a situation where it is patently impossible to be effective.
  2. Never move until you have the advantage; it is suicide to move otherwise.
  3. Your purpose is to protect the people and promote the best interests of the sovereign. If the situation is one of victory, fight; if the situation is one of disadvantage, do not engage.
  4. Move on the soft underbelly. Bracket the hardcrust areas.
  5. Occupy a position which facilitates your actions; protect your vulnerable spots; position the enemy so that his vulnerable points are not protected. Without the advantage of the situation you cannot get started.
  6. Get the enemy looking in another direction then sneak up on him and attack swiftly. Beware, he is trying to do the same to you. Watch the situation for signs of his presence.
  7. Don't enter a situation where you know you're going to lose.
  8. Miss no opportunity to master the enemy. The only alternative is a position where the enemy can master you.
  9. The crux of operations lies in pretending to accommodate yourself to the designs of the enemy; when he presents an opening strike swiftly.
  10. Never do the same thing twice in the same location.
  11. Obtain local authorization before you move in. Obtain introductions through Aunt Ida and take Aunt Ida with you on the calls.
  12. Build authorization before the campaign begins. Build firm support after you have begun to succeed.
  13. Let the symbolic leader know you are there.
  14. Listen for the image your audience is operating out of and weld it to reality in a new way.
  15. Tell the story that will find the hot button.
  16. To campaign effectively concentrate at first on a few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results.
  17. Keep your temper. The minute you lose control the situation takes charge of you.
  18. Keep your cool so that you can break up others' cool. Never destroy that which you are over against.

PLANNING.

Effective operations depend on

effective planning.
  1. Trust the corporate planning methods as being ontologically grounded. They work.
  2. Periodically take time to get out the big picture.
  3. Do the whole revolution before you start by means of transrational planning.
  4. Give the whole group a picture of the total task to avoid tunnel vision.
  5. Keep a comprehensive checklist of the total operation. Know what you are bracketing and for how long.
  6. Cover the entire battle field transrationally.
  7. Work through in detail the steps required to stage each event or complete each job. Clarify how each of the specific tasks is to be done.
  8. Battleplan each day through to the last detail.
  9. Prioritize and timeline the jobs involved in a task.
  10. Stay in dialogue with the situation and let it inform you.
  11. Use intrusions and interruptions as a way of checking the inclusiveness and practicality of your battleplan.
  12. The key to actuation is clustering and timelining implementaries and doing continual tactical modification.
  13. Condition yourself to think tactically and contradictionally all the time.
  14. Attack the major contradiction and avoid taking potshots at whatever moves.
  15. When you win, do not repeat your tactics but respond to the circumstances in an infinite variety of ways; modify your tactics in accord with the current contradiction.
  16. Schedule the programs transrationally: 1 the first quarter, 6 the next quarter, 36 the next quarter, 216 the last quarter.
  17. Symbols occasion social change. The abstract transrational model is high symbol and it is high symbol that changes history.
  18. Focus on the imaginal impact of your charts.
  19. Do the whole operation with miracles.
  20. Don't underestimate the corporate power that comes from squared off tables and centerpieces.
  21. Leave able generals room to move so they can select the tactics suitable for victory.
  22. To select a town or village walk through it with all your senses tuned; talk to the local people only after the ''aha" hits. Then apply rational criteria to check your intuitive responses.
  23. Target the rural heartland, not the urban centers.
  24. Effectiveness is not efficiency.
  25. Treat indicative battleplanning as a term of evangelism
  26. Use the all­is­good stance for effective contradictional discernment.
  27. A revolutionary uses shotgun, not a rifle.
  28. Follow the battleplan rather than your next good idea.