Island of coherence

Competencies or criteria of islands of coherence

1. 1. is Multi-scale coherence integration that combines strong internal identity and practices with strategic external networks. The Global Ecovillage Network demonstrates this, through permaculture principles and consensus decision-making internally, while maintaining active partnerships with universities and policy institutions externally.
2. 2. is Strategic network positioning that involves certain members acting as bridges between different social circles, cultivating weak ties for diverse information access, and recruiting opinion leaders who can legitimize causes.
3. 3. is Adaptive learning systems that enable continuous experimentation and knowledge sharing. The Santa Fe Institute exemplifies this through radical interdisciplinarity. They bring together physicists, biologists, economists, and anthropologists in intensive collaborative environments that generate paradigm shifts across multiple fields.
4. 4. is the Demonstration capacity that proves viable alternatives work in practice. Mondragón Corporation has 81 cooperatives with 70,000 worker-owners and more than 12 billion euro annual revenue. They demonstrate that democratic economic models can operate successfully at scale and inspiring cooperative movements globally.
5. 5. is Narrative power that shapes collective meaning-making and expands the possibility horizons. Religious communities in the Civil Rights movement provided both organizing infrastructure and moral frameworks that legitimized social transformation.
6. 6. is Patience capital that maintains long-term orientation which enables sustained transformation efforts, even when facing short-term pressures or setbacks.