Introducing the Omni-Win Project
This ambitious project isn't something I can do alone. Join me in creating an Omni-Win future.
Our democracy is having a hard time, and there’s pretty much an international consensus that things aren’t working. Our global system is ineffective and divisive.
Why isn’t the system working?
People don’t believe that this system represents their voices because it doesn’t. We’re not making an effort to include everyone’s voices. Decisions aren’t collaborative, even when it comes to really important things. There’s no consensus on how to integrate things from our past, how to deal with current issues, or how to handle the long-term stuff coming down the pipe.
We have rivalrous win-lose systems, paradigms, and thinking that ensure we’re constantly in a divisive world. It seems to be getting worse. We’re not just organizing ourselves geographically, but by us and them, right and wrong, good and bad.
This rivalry has prevented diversity from being the boon that it can be. Instead, it’s a source of challenge and frustration. We desperately need to evolve our democracy and develop a political culture that understands our interconnectedness and aims to meet everyone’s needs.
We need to ensure that everyone has a voice in the decisions that affect their lives. In other words, we need an omni-win political culture and democracy.
I recently decided to dedicate my life, or at least for the foreseeable future, to supporting this evolution of democracy. This summer, I’m launching a new podcast: The “Omni-Win Project.”
So, who am I to say that I can change the world through this project? Good question.
Who I am
My name is Duncan Autrey. I was born in Southern California, grew up in Colorado, lived most of my adult life abroad, and now I live in the Bay Area of California. I call myself a conflict transformation catalyst. I’m trying to accelerate the process of us transforming our relationship with conflict.
I’ve been thinking about this stuff since childhood. I went to college in Switzerland and Washington, DC, and my major was in International Relations and Intercultural Communication. After a stint with the Peace Corps, I became a mediator.
While I love this role, one question has always plagued my mind:
“How can we expand this to a much wider population?”
We can resolve conflict for up to 1,000 people, so why can’t we resolve it for more? That’s the only way peace is going to happen. What will it take for us to get 100,000 or 100 million or eight billion people into a coherent conversation?
I wasn’t sure how to do that, and I hadn’t seen anyone do it yet, but I had a realization: Conflict is a fractal. It’s self-similar at all scales, and it looks the same between two people, ten people, two political parties, or two countries. If conflict is a fractal, we can resolve it like a fractal.
Side note: I took that idea to grad school as a World Peace Fellow. I went to Argentina to study International Peace, Conflict, and Security. They wouldn’t let me write a thesis about conflict as a fractal. Instead, I studied mining conflicts and the intersection between multinational companies, communities, and government.
Curating a mediation network
Over the years, I’ve developed a global network of folks from Colombia to Indonesia, from Ireland to Turkey. Working with Mediators Beyond Borders really added to my connections, and I also became part of the Democracy, Politics, and Conflict Engagement Initiative called DPACE.
In this time, I also started a podcast called Fractal Friends. We had a good five-year run, and while there weren’t many listeners, I loved doing it.
After being in conflict transformation for over a decade, dealing with people whose conflicts were already a huge problem was a major frustration for me. I committed to the idea of going upstream from conflict. How can I help people recognize that they don’t have to get into the situation in the first place?
All of this peaked at the end of 2020 when the United States was in a political crisis.
My heart, profession, and skillsets were going in different directions.
It was time for a hard reset on my personal, professional journey. I asked myself, “What is the intersection point of my passion, my profession, and my purpose?”
Part of my purpose is to make conflict exciting. It’s an opportunity to thrive and a natural product of being diverse people. It doesn’t have to be as bad as we think it is.
I want people to think, “Oh, wow, we have different opinions. What a cool opportunity for us to learn about each other.”
I have a passion for figuring out how to help democracy. Let’s get the transformative tools together so we don’t keep having these crappy conversations. We have amazing tools already, and I need to amplify that. Many questions arose as I thought about how to combine my skills and hopes.
How can I tell people that we have the capacity for transforming conflict?
What do I do with this global network of people I know?
What do I do with my excitement for podcasting?
Bringing it all together, I’ve found a sustainable cause to excite me for the long haul:
The Omni-Win Project
It took me most of 2021 to get everything together, but here we are. It’s a new podcast, and it will develop into a community and movement.
Why am I doing this? People agree things aren’t working, but there seems to be little movement towards changing. We have everything we need: Skills, technology, attention, and desire.
Maybe people don’t know all these tools exist, they don’t believe it, or they don’t think that it would be better. Perhaps people are just stuck in the status quo.
I want to speak to the amazing people looking at philosophy, fundamental skills, legislation, and dealing with the emotional, personal experience of this.
Why isn’t it coming together?
Maybe they don’t see themselves as part of a bigger movement, know about each other, or have many chances to talk to each other.
This is where the Omni-Win Project comes in. My strategy is to elevate the existence of conflict transformation tools, the community, and all the clever ideas.
In the podcast, I’m interviewing people from these different fields. They’ll be in conversation with each other, and I’ll ask them questions to discover their strengths and challenges. Then we can work out how to fill in the gaps. I’m also going to explore what it will take for the United States to have a better election season in 2024.
The Omni-Win Project podcast will be launching this summer. In the future, I’ll be creating cool training courses with these amazing experts and building a community. There will be plenty of opportunities if you want to get involved.
I know this is a crazy impossible project. I don’t know if I’m going to pull this off, but I’m excited to learn as I go along. This first phase will be talking to people about their views on the issues and challenges, and I’ll adapt as it evolves.
This isn’t something I can do alone: We get to do this together. We are standing on the shoulders of many who came before, and we can collectively build the future we want. It really is up to all of us.
I think this is possible because I know I’m not alone. Who are the people that can make this new future possible? Why do I have so much optimism about this? You’ll find out later this week. Stay tuned!
If you prefer to watch your content, here’s a video on this essay:
You can find more information about the work I do in conflict transformation on my website: http://www.omni-win.com
You can schedule a call with me here: https://calendly.com/duncanautrey
Don’t forget to check out the rest of my posts as I discuss how we can work together to ensure we all win.
If you’d like to see more of these weekly round-up posts, subscribe to Omni-Win Visions here on Substack:
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