Why Does Hazar Imam Wish the Institutions Continuously Tap the "Jamat's Wisdom" and "Think Together"? | Ignition Proposal
EDITOR'S NOTE: If you had the opportunity to review Thinking Together (originally called The AFTA Proposal) during its development, we strongly recommend you download and review the current version as it incorporates the latest, relevant Imamat guidance from the Diamond Jubilee and has also gone through dozens of refinements over the past three years.
Introduction
Three years in the making, Thinking Together (a PowerPoint presentation) is an idea to help realise Mawlana Hazar Imam's 2017 wish for the Institutions and Jamat to have "an ongoing process of thinking together" to seek "community wisdom, the wisdom of the Jamat" -- which, to us, appears to be Hazar Imam's 21st Century best practice for Jamati progress -- when making community decisions or discretionary policies.
Thinking Together lets the Jamat better voice their ideas, priorities, views, insights, and satisfaction.
We wish to clarify Thinking Together is simply a proposal for the Jamat's consideration. Nevertheless, some Jamats or institutions may find it worthwhile adopting.
Shorter Version of Thinking Together
Complete Version
Click here or on the PDF icon to download and review the complete Thinking Together PowerPoint PDF
The proposal covers:
- Why does Hazar Imam say "seek wisdom of the jamat" after appointing leaders?
- Don't we already "think together?"
- What does "thinking together" mean?
- Does "thinking together" change the institutional organisational structure?
- Examples of Hazar Imam "seeking wisdom of the Jamat."
- Examples of "thinking together."
- Hazar Imam urging the Jamat to be confident, creative and bring forward their ideas.
Relevant Ignition Interview
To learn more about concepts in Thinking Together, please listen to our exclusive interview, Thinking Together and Open Innovation, with Open Innovation expert, Dr. Karim Lakhani of Harvard University. A brief teaser is below:
Suggested Readings
- How Humble Leadership Really Works, Dan Cable | Harvard Business Review (link)
- Using Open Innovation to Identify the Best Ideas, Andrew King and Karim R. Lakhani | MIT Sloan Management Review (link)
About Ignition Paradigm Proposals
Ignition Paradigm Proposals are where we float our own novel perspectives, ideas and insights, all grounded in Hazar Imam's advices for everyone to reflect over, first individually and then with a few friends, over coffee, or in small gatherings, such as book clubs, classrooms, institutional committees.
Proposals may highlight what we feel might be unrecognized challenges or issues and offer our opinions, ideas or alternative perspectives for them, however, we do not insist on either our opinions over the challenges or our alternative perspectives. Nevertheless, some may find our opinions helpful and we hope the new and alternative perspectives will spark others to build upon them.
Ignition Paradigm Proposals are inspired by Hazar Imam's guidance in Pakistan, 1989:
Bring forward your ideas. It is only a stupid person who does not listen to ideas. It means he is like a horse ... who lives with blinkers [and] all they can see ahead of them is a little tiny dimension of light.... It is only that sort of a horse that goes straight, straight, straight, straight, straight and it never looks for a new direction, a new idea, something creative. Let's not be a horse with blinkers.... No, that is not for our Jamat. (1989, Pakistan)
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