Breathing Life Into Local Government Codesign

Originally conceptualized by psychologist J.P. Guilford in the 1950s and expanded in the 1960s, these two modes of thinking represent complementary processes within problem-solving and creativity:

• Divergent Thinking involves generating multiple possibilities, encouraging creativity and open-ended exploration.
• Convergent Thinking narrows these ideas to find the most appropriate and feasible solutions through logical reasoning.

Guilford’s work remains foundational to contemporary approaches in innovation, education, and design and is highly applicable to local government codesign processes.

Guilford identified four main characteristics of divergent thinking, all of which play a crucial role in asset-based codesign:

• Fluency – The ability to generate multiple ideas or solutions quickly, helping local governments consider a broad spectrum of community-driven initiatives.
• Flexibility – The capacity to explore different perspectives and adapt to evolving needs, ensuring that solutions are inclusive and responsive.
• Originality – The ability to propose novel ideas that challenge traditional approaches, fostering innovative policies and programs.
• Elaboration – The skill to refine, develop, and implement ideas in practical ways, ensuring they translate into actionable community improvements.

To operationalize divergent and convergent thinking, many practitioners turn to the Breath Pattern, a framework from The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner and colleagues. This model, also known in the Art of Hosting community, describes the natural rhythm of group thinking; expansion (divergence), tension (the Groan Zone), and decision-making (convergence).

 

1. Divergent Thinking: Expanding the Conversation & Opening Up Possibilities

This first phase in the Breath Pattern process invites expansive thinking, encouraging the generation of as many ideas as possible without immediate judgment or evaluation. It is grounded in the belief that every community holds untapped creativity, wisdom, and lived experience and that true innovation begins by making space for this richness to surface. Divergent thinking relies on curiosity, open-mindedness, and the willingness to explore new perspectives, even (or especially) when they challenge the status quo. By intentionally creating environments where all voices are welcomed (especially those who are often excluded) local governments can unlock a broader range of possibilities and move from needs-based consultation toward strength-based participation.

 

Example: A city council initiates a series of pop-up public forums to reimagine a long-neglected urban park. Residents are invited to share their hopes, dreams, and wild ideas for the space, with facilitators encouraging imagination rather than feasibility at this early stage. Suggestions include:

• A fully fenced dog park to support pet owners and social connection
• A food forest with edible plants maintained by local volunteers and schools
• Large-scale murals by local artists celebrating the area’s cultural diversity
• A weekend amphitheatre for youth performances, storytelling, and community cinema

 

These open forums don’t just collect ideas, they foster community energy and trust. Participants feel seen and heard, and creative momentum begins to build. By resisting the urge to evaluate or critique too soon, the council creates fertile ground for innovation, inclusion, and co-ownership of future plans.

This phase sets the tone for the entire co-design process. It signals that the community’s ideas matter, and that creativity, diversity, and bold thinking are not just welcomed; they are essential.

 

Transition Point: As the energy of idea generation begins to settle, the group reaches a sweet spot, where minds have been emptied of their initial thoughts, and participants become more open to deeper dialogue, complexity, and the movement toward what comes next.

 

2. Emergent Thinking: Navigating Complexity Through Struggle & Sensemaking

As ideas multiply and perspectives diverge, groups enter what’s often called the Groan Zone which is a vital stage of emergent thinking. This phase can feel messy or uncomfortable, but it’s a necessary threshold where true innovation and deeper understanding begins to take shape.

The Groan Zone is not a failure of process; it’s the fertile ground where collective intelligence emerges.

 

The Groan Zone happens when participants:

• Struggle to prioritize ideas
• Experience tension between differing opinions
• Feel overwhelmed by the complexity of decisions

 

Example: Some residents envision a quiet green space; others advocate for a vibrant public plaza. City officials and facilitators must navigate these competing visions while maintaining trust and collective focus.

While it may feel unproductive, the Groan Zone is the place where diverse inputs become shared meaning. If skipped or rushed, solutions risk being superficial, exclude important voices or fail to meet actual community aspirations.

In many groups, this discomfort is misinterpreted as a sign that something’s gone wrong. Meetings may be adjourned prematurely or revised and repeated and decisions made to “move things along” can ignore inclusion and erode trust or momentum.

But when held with intention, the Groan Zone becomes the heart of participatory process. This is where emergent thinking thrives and new patterns, connections, and creative possibilities begin to surface. It is a space for sensemaking, not just decision-making.

 

The facilitator’s role is to normalise the discomfort, slow the pace, invite curiosity, and help reframe differences as gifts rather than barriers by:

• Allowing contradictory ideas to coexist without forcing early closure
• Making space for people to see from new perspectives
• Encouraging pause and reflection to support better long-term outcomes

 

Updated Example: Rather than choosing between a park or a plaza, residents explore a hybrid space with quiet gardens on one end and community gathering areas on the other.

By holding space for emergence, communities learn how to think and feel together, building not only better solutions, but stronger relationships and deeper community capacity.

Transition Point: In this generative pause, a sweet spot emerges where people begin to ask “what if?” and explore new ways of working or being together, setting the stage for focused decisions and aligned action.

 

3. Convergent Thinking: Refining to Move Toward Action

After navigating the complexities of the Groan Zone, a phase marked by differing perspectives and the challenge of sensemaking, the group begins to shift into convergent thinking. This stage involves synthesising the diverse ideas generated earlier and narrowing them down into feasible, community-supported solutions. It is a purposeful process of aligning possibilities with practicalities, using critical evaluation, dialogue, and consensus-building to focus energy and resources.

Convergent thinking is characterised by four key traits: clarity of purpose, criteria-based decision-making, commitment to collective outcomes, and action orientation. It doesn’t mean discarding creativity but rather refining it into something tangible and achievable.

 

Example: After rich discussion, story-sharing, and input from local experts, the community agrees on a plan for a shared-use public space that balances multiple needs:

• A quiet garden on one side for reflection, relaxation, and small gatherings
• A flexible event space for weekend markets, performances, and workshops
• Murals painted by local artists to honour and celebrate the neighbourhood’s history and culture

 

This convergence ensures ideas become viable plans, grounded in community priorities and practical realities. It reflects the range of community ideas (divergent thinking), shaped through sensemaking, struggle, and integration (emergent thinking) and refined through critical evaluation and consensus (convergent thinking). This is the stage where community vision becomes commitment, and commitment becomes action.

At the heart of participatory community building lies the principle of inviting people into meaningful conversations, tapping into their strengths, and co-creating solutions that reflect the diversity and energy of the community. The following strategies reflect a whole-systems approach to facilitation while recognising that communities thrive when divergent, emergent, and convergent phases are not rushed, but held with intention.

In local government, structured facilitation and culturally responsive engagement techniques are key to navigating the Breath Pattern effectively.

Beyond the Breath Pattern, several tools enhance the codesign journey in local government. Each tool supports different moments in the divergent-emergent-convergent cycle, helping to align intention with action.

Encouraging Divergent Thinking:

 

Exploring possibilities, surfacing voices, and generating collective energy.

Facilitation Techniques:

• Asset Mapping & Gift Discovery: helps groups discover what already exists (people’s gifts, community resources, local institutions) before moving toward solutions. It’s grounded in ABCD and sets the tone to encourage imagination, inclusion, possibility-thinking, and reframing problems as opportunities.
• Yarning Circles: Grounded in First Nations practice, these invite storytelling, deep listening, and relational trust using culturally respectful and spacious dialogue formats.
• Learning Conversations: Exploratory conversations, grounded in ABCD, these invite participants to share their Concerns (what they don’t want to happen), Dreams (their preferred future vision) and their Skills & Abilities (what they can offer).
• Open Space Technology: Let participants create the agenda based on what they care about most, using a “marketplace” approach, individuals propose and host sessions, allowing energy and interest to guide the conversations.

 

Best Practices:

• Start from strengths – map and celebrate existing assets.
• Offer multiple entry points – use visual, multilingual, and creative tools.
• Meet people where they are – in schools, skate parks, local markets, and digital platforms.
• Host with curiosity and care – design for comfort, inclusion, and joy.

 

Why these work:

• These formats inviteauthentic participation and help shift from needs-based problem-solving to possibility-focused dialogue. They allow emergence to guide direction, not pre-designed outcomes.

 

Divergent Examples:

1. Northern Grampians Shire Council

• Context:
  Northern Grampians Shire Council sought to engage local residents in shaping community development priorities, particularly in rural areas where engagement had previously been low and traditional consultation methods had limited reach.
• Action:
  The council facilitated a series of Learning Conversations to uncover community members’ concerns, dreams, and contributions, and used Open Space Technology to let residents co-create the agenda and lead discussions on what mattered most to them.
• Outcome:
  This approach surfaced a wealth of untapped talents and ideas, strengthened local relationships, and generated community-led initiatives that aligned with people’s passions and existing strengths, laying the foundation for more resilient, asset-based planning.

 

2. Catholic Care NT’s NO MORE Team

• Context:
  Catholic Care NT’s NO MORE Team was looking to strengthen internal team dynamics and align program development with the lived experiences and capacities of its staff, many of whom are based in remote Aboriginal communities.
• Action:
  The team engaged in asset mapping to identify individual and collective strengths, and used Yarning Circles—a culturally grounded practice—to foster trust, deepen understanding, and guide both team building and program design.
• Outcome:
  The process built stronger team cohesion, revealed culturally relevant approaches to service delivery, and helped shape programs that were more reflective of staff knowledge, community priorities, and place-based realities.

 

Navigating Emergent Thinking and the Groan Zone:

Holding complexity, working through tension, and staying with the questions.

 

Facilitation Techniques:

• Deep Listening & Circle Practice: Use structured turn-taking to ensure every voice is heard, especially during tension.
• Learning Conversations (continued/deepened): Learning Conversations canevolve into deeper listening spaces where complexity, discomfort, or contrasting views are explored without rushing to agreement and become critical in the “sense-making” stage, where individuals begin to reconcile different truths and move toward shared meaning.
  • World Café: Create hospitable space for layered conversation across diverse groups to build relational trust and surface community wisdom and diversity.
  • Deliberative Dialogue / Citizen Juries: Create space for holding multiple truths by providing time and space to wrestle with tough issues together and encourages “both/and” thinking.
  • Visual Harvesting: Use visual tools (e.g., asset maps, storytelling, graphic facilitation) to surface opposing views and find shared ground.
  • Appreciative Inquiry Questions: Re-frame challenges through a strengths lens by applying powerful questions: “What’s working well that we can build on?”

 

Best Practices:

• Embrace the mess – name the groan zone, normalise discomfort, and slow down.
• Use local stories and data – ground the conversation in shared realities.
• Design for shared power – ensure facilitation is not top-down but peer-led where possible.
• Hold space, not solutions – shift from “fixing” to “facilitating emergence.”

 

Why these work:

• These approaches helphold space for difference while avoiding premature convergence. They build emotional and relational capacity for transformation by embracing the “groan zone” as part of the process—not a problem to solve.

 

Examples:

1. Neighbourhood House Victoria’s Network West

• Context:
  Network West, a collective of Neighbourhood Houses in Victoria, was navigating diverse perspectives and experiences across its network, particularly during times of change and uncertainty. There was a need to hold space for complexity and ensure all voices were heard.
• Action:
  They implementedCircle Practice as a regular learning and dialogue tool—creating structured, respectful spaces where participants could speak and listen with equal opportunity, fostering deeper understanding and connection across difference.
• Outcome:
  This approach strengthened relational trust across the network, enabled the coexistence of multiple truths, and built a stronger culture of shared learning and collective leadership, even in moments of tension or transition.

 

2. Mimal Land Management

• Context:
  Mimal Land Management sought to engage local youth in envisioning future education and employment pathways that were meaningful, culturally grounded, and connected to Country.
• Action:
  Through anAppreciative Inquiry process, they co-developed powerful, strengths-based questions with Elders, staff, and young people to explore what was already working well and what aspirations existed for the future.
• Outcome:
  This led to a clearer, community-driven understanding of youth aspirations and potential pathways, informed by local values and strengths, and helped guide the development of initiatives that supported youth engagement in land and cultural work.

Moving from ideas to action; aligning, prototyping, and co-creating next steps.

Facilitation Techniques:

• Prototyping Workshops: Encourage participants to use “safe-to-fail” experiments to test small-scale ideas in real time using available resources and feedback loops.
• Designing for Wiser Action: A structured peer-coaching process where individuals or teams present a real initiative or challenge and receive focused support from others to clarify purpose, identify next wise steps, and deepen strategic action grounded in their strengths and context.
• Affinity Mapping & Weighted Voting: Support collective decision-making that’s both transparent and inclusive using participatory prioritisation to focus collective energy without losing diverse input.
• Collective Action Planning: Break down goals into small, doable next steps within teams or community groups to identify “next wise steps” aligned with their assets, not just tasks.
• Visual Harvesting: Invite participants to use colour, drawings, sticky notes, string, or symbols to build shared meaning and create Group Action Plans to clarify and communicate the co-owned outcomes.

 

Best Practices:

• Create peer-powered clarity – use the collective intelligence of the group to help individuals or teams refine their purpose and uncover next wise steps, ensuring action is both strategic and grounded in local assets.
• Celebrate small wins – track progress visibly with community-created scorecards.
• Support local leadership – elevate champions and connect them with tools and allies.
• Design feedback loops – keep the process alive through transparent updates, reflective circles, and adaptive planning.
• Always leave room for emergence – even in planning, allow flexibility and iteration.

 

Why these work:

• These techniques maintain acommunity-led rhythm, where action is grounded in the group’s energy and strengths, not just external expectations. They also help embed local ownership and adaptability from the start.

 

Examples:

1. Moonee Valley Council’s Women’s Leadership Program

• Context:
  Moonee Valley Council aimed to support women in developing leadership skills and taking active roles in community life, especially in diverse and underrepresented communities. There was a desire to move beyond theory into practical application.
• Action:
  The program integratedlive prototyping into its training sessions, encouraging participants to test ideas in real-time, gather feedback from peers and community, and adapt their initiatives based on what they were learning as they went.
• Outcome:
  This hands-on approach empowered participants to lead tangible, locally-relevant projects with confidence and adaptability. It strengthened local leadership capacity and fostered a network of women actively engaged in shaping their communities.

 

2. Playgroup SA

• Context:
  Playgroup SA wanted to better understand how staff experiences and perspectives aligned with the needs and realities of playgroup users across diverse communities in South Australia.
• Action:
  They usedvisual harvesting to capture staff insights, surface shared values, and map connections between internal perspectives and user experiences, enabling clearer storytelling and deeper strategic alignment.
• Outcome:
  The process revealed common themes and aspirations, creating a shared vision for service delivery. It also supported more responsive program design and helped staff feel more connected to the impact of their work on families and communities.

The use of divergent, emergent and convergent thinking within asset-based codesign doesn’t just lead to better policies; it also shifts power dynamics:

• Community members move from passive recipients to co-creators.
• Governments learn to listen, adapt, and co-lead with diverse stakeholders.
• The process builds civic trust and long-term resilience.

These shifts are particularly important when working alongside First Nations communities, where culturally grounded practices like yarning, respect for story, and place-based decision-making strengthen legitimacy and connection.

By integrating the full cycle of divergent, emergent and convergent thinking, with attention to their distinct cognitive characteristics, local governments can foster truly collaborative, asset-based solutions that are inclusive, culturally grounded, and implementable.

By integrating the principles of divergent, emergent and convergent thinking through facilitation tools like the Breath Pattern, local governments can:

• Foster inclusive and creative idea generation
• Navigate complexity and disagreement constructively
• Translate community visions into implementable and fundable plans

This approach doesn’t just solve problems; it builds stronger, more equitable communities grounded in their own strengths.

When local governments embrace a full breath of thinking, from the wildness of ideation to the clarity of action, they don’t just build better projects; they build better relationships, trust, and lasting community capacity.

Use the questions below to spark individual reflection, team dialogue, or strategic planning sessions. They are designed to both deepen understanding and challenge current practice in local government co-design.

• How might your council apply the Breath Pattern to a current initiative?
• Which facilitation strategies could improve engagement with marginalized voices?
• What new partnerships could help translate community ideas into action?
• What assumptions about community engagement or “expertise” might need to be unlearned in your organisation?
• In what ways might your current decision-making processes suppress emergence, rather than invite it?
• What would change if local government trusted community wisdom as much as professional advice?
• How might discomfort and disagreement be reframed as signs of progress rather than problems to fix?
• Where in your current practice could you slow down, not to delay action, but to deepen it?
• What’s one courageous step your council could take to redistribute power and co-create with community?

Books and Articles:

• Guilford, J. P. (1950).Creativity. American Psychologist, 5(9), 444–454.
• Guilford, J. P. (1967).The Nature of Human Intelligence. McGraw-Hill.
• Kaner, S., Lind, L., Toldi, C., Fisk, S., & Berger, D. (2014).The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass.

 

Frameworks, Organisations, and Tools:

• Art of Hosting. (n.d.).The Breath Pattern. Retrieved from https://www.artofhosting.org
• Asset-Based Community Development Institute. (n.d.).ABCD Principles of Practice. Retrieved from https://resources.depaul.edu/abcd-institute
• Jeder Institute. (2020).Participatory Community Building Guidebook (Version 2.1). Retrieved from https://www.jeder.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Participatory-Community-Building-Guidebook-2020_v2-1.pdf

• Scharmer, O. (2009). Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

 

Examples from Practice (Referenced in-text):

• Northern Grampians Shire Council (used Learning Conversations and Open Space Technology)
• Catholic Care NT’s NO MORE Team (asset mapping and Yarning Circles)
• Neighbourhood House Victoria’s Network West (Circle Practice)
• Mimal Land Management (Appreciative Inquiry for youth pathways)
• Moonee Valley Council’s Women’s Leadership Program (live prototyping)
• Playgroup SA (visual harvesting across statewide programs)