Deep Democracy is an approach that helps individuals, relationships and / or groups address issues, make decisions and resolve conflict. The methodology has been developed and promoted by the Southafrican Psychologist Myrna Lewis among others.

In her presentation Myrna Lewis explained first theoretically the progress of a common decision making process within a group. She stressed the importance of giving every single person the opportunity to say their opinion and to face the conflict, if there are opposing positions.

After giving the theoretical background she demonstrated the Deep Democracy methodology by leading a "soft shoe shuffle discussion" for all the conference participants. After choosing a fictitious topic the participants were asked to proclaim their opinion by standing close to the person with who they agree.

During the discussion it was pretty obvious how easily people feel misunderstood and offended by each other. Even though the "soft shoe shuffle" was quite chaotic as the discussed topic wasn't clear to everyone, it was very interesting to learn this way to reconcile two conflicting parties and to advance the decision making process.

You can download the presentation slides from Myrna Lewis here.
Find detailed information on Deep Democracy at www.deep-democracy.net.