We accompanied Más Madrid in the development of a series of Collective Intelligence and Adaptation to Change Workshops in preparation for the 2021 municipal elections in Madrid, Spain.
CONTEXT:
Más Madrid is a progressive political force based in Madrid, Spain, that identifies itself as "the green, feminist and social justice alternative" for all residents of this municipality. In 2021, in the run-up to the municipal elections in Spain, Kubadili accompanied Más Madrid in the design and facilitation of a series of participatory, open and creative Collective Intelligence and Adaptation to Change Workshops, which aimed to develop ideas and design strategic and consensual actions aligned with the vision of the political platform. The workshops also sought to strengthen their teams and generate working agreements.
The Más Madrid team and its candidate for the 2021 elections, Mónica García. Photo: Más Madrid
LISTENING TO THE CHALLENGE:
Más Madrid came to us with a challenge: they wanted to generate a training session in which participants could determine in a collaborative and participatory way based on their own experiences as members of Más Madrid. The objective behind this session was to seek a shared understanding and generate alignment between the objectives they pursue as a political force.
METHODOLOGICAL DESIGN:
With this challenge in mind, our team began its work with the political force, approaching it from the perspective of complexity, analyzing the organization through the lens of integral theory and the different stages of organizational consciousness in order to propose a map of cultural transformation.
Initially, a team was formed with members of Más Madrid and Kubadili, with the objective of seeking a shared understanding and generating an alignment of objectives, as well as defining roles and organizational work agreements. After this, a first work session was generated between both teams, with the objective of delivering the content of the training session. Throughout this session, several participative activities were proposed that sought to achieve enriching conversations and horizontality. After this first session, the team worked together to design the training session based on the content that was defined and prioritized during the first session.
EVENT AND Y RESULTS:
Finally, the day of the training session arrived. This participatory training space was designed by both teams as a creative and imaginative workshop in which the members of Más Madrid could devise and propose strategic actions aligned with the vision of the political force and agreed with the rest of its members.
In this sense, at the beginning of the workshop, attendees were asked to express their ideas through a simple form. The ideas had to comply, however, with a series of slogans pre-defined by the work teams in the design stage of the workshop: they had to vindicate proposals from Más Madrid's program, they should not require the presence of the party's main candidates, they should not generate waste or harm the environment and, finally, they had to be framed by the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change or the social crisis.
Once the slogans were set out, the participants were divided into working groups that began to think and devise how some of the ideas that emerged from the forms could be self-managed. The team formed by Kubadili and the campaign committee of Más Madrid had the key role of moderating and supervising the groups, supporting them in making decisions and harvesting the conversations and knowledge that emerged in each team.
The Más Madrid team at the end of the training session. Although the session was held in person, the Kubadili team facilitated the event virtually. Photo: Más Madrid
This training session led to a wide variety of initiatives that were successfully implemented in the run-up to the elections: a marathon in which hundreds of members of Más Madrid passed around a baton with a QR code printed with the platform's electoral program that ended up in the hands of the candidate on May 1; the design and production of totally ecological posters, bicycle tours throughout Madrid, tai-chi and ballroom dancing sessions for the elderly in open spaces, and many other proposals.
"It is a new way of understanding politics, making the most of creativity and collective intelligence with the use of cutting-edge organizational tools," said Daniel García, coordinator of the training session on behalf of Más Madrid.
RESULTS IN NUMBERS:
The training session lasted 3 hours and consisted of 9 hours of design and preparation.
100 members of Más Madrid participated in the meeting.
More than 4 actions from the training session were implemented.
4 specialists from Kubadili participated.
3 specialists from Más Madrid participated.