Building remarkable capacities

Something remarkable is happening in Fort Collins, Colorado.

I recently caught up with two brilliant friends involved in the Fort Collins citizens' assembly, where randomly-selected residents gather to deliberate solutions to a public land use issue.

Though only halfway through the process, their progress is inspiring. Because residents consciously created conditions to collaborate, they're discovering their collective capacity to find innovative, shared solutions within their differences of experience and perspective.

What once might have been barriers to collaboration—backgrounds, belief systems, political affiliations—have transformed into the source of collaboration. They've become the raw materials materials for community development.

You've likely heard of "the wisdom of crowds," where groups outperform individuals, even experts, on certain tasks. What's emerging in Fort Collins and other citizens' assemblies transcends this form of collective intelligence.

The capacity to collaborate.

In Fort Collins, we're witnessing specific collaborative capacities that transform how people interact with one another:

• The capacity to genuinely listen without immediately forming counterarguments
• The ability to hold space for contradictory perspectives without rushing to resolution
• The skill of building upon others' ideas rather than competing with them

These aren't just feel-good social skills—they're fundamental capacities that determine whether a group can address complex challenges together. Like a strong foundation, they create the possibility for more advanced forms of collaboration and better outcomes.

At Common Light, we help leaders see the world through capacities—the recurring patterns of thought, feeling, and action exhibited by individuals and groups—and their associated experiences and outcomes.

The collaborative capacities emerging among everyday residents in Fort Collins accompany feelings of shared purpose, civic pride, enthusiasm, humility, and hope, all creating promising conditions for good public policy solutions.

These same capacities are accessible to any organization—whether business, nonprofit, or public office—willing to intentionally create the conditions for collaboration to flourish.

As Fort Collins demonstrates, when we allocate resources (time, energy, money) to deep collaboration, we tap into new, flourishing ways of interacting with one another, which give way to new, flourishing experiences and outcomes for everyone.

From remarkable capacities flow remarkable results—and that is truly something worth noticing.