The cooperative gestalt is the mindset required to promote shared understanding and mutually supportive behaviour. During my time as Director of the Forum for Youth Participation & Democracy (Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, 2011-2015), I met with leading practitioners to establish the key ingredients that would enable the cooperative gestalt to flourish and cooperative problem-solving to spread. These include personal dispositions that need to be cultivated and organisational arrangements that should be put in place.
A selection of resources
• 'The Cooperative Gestalt': on the role of lifelong learning in developing a cooperative mindset (Question the Powerful, November 2013).
• ‘Cooperative Problem-Solving: the key to a reciprocal society’: on the key elements of successful cooperative problem-solving, as jointly agreed with a group of academics and practitioners (Question the Powerful, October 2012).
• ‘The Case for Cooperative Problem-Solving’: how cooperative problem-solving can help to tackle social, economic and environmental problems (Question the Powerful, May, 2012).
• ‘Cooperative Problem-Solving & Education': on the evidence for suggesting why cooperative problem-solving should be taught more widely (published by the Forum Journal, 2013).
• Synetopia Protocol: a protocol for assessing how well any group or organisation is run to enhance the common wellbeing of its members through cooperation (2015).
• ’Guide to Synetopia’: a listing of short essays relating to the concept of synetopia and its applications to reforming society and institutions (2016).
• 'The Cooperative Gestalt Approach to CSR': practical implications for corporate social responsibility (2015).
Supplementary Materials
• ’Learning more about Cooperative Gestalt’: Notes from keynote speech, ‘Power of Adult Learning’ conference (University of Edinburgh, 23 October 2013).
• 'Niccolo Machiavelli’: an interview with Henry Tam on Machiavelli’s advice on civic republican leadership (2014).
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For a full listing of related resources, go to: Together We Can: resources for cooperative problem-solving
