'We're Trying to Change World History.'

"Our existing institutions are totally irrelevant to complex, systematic, highly diverse problems, which are all we have now," says Hock. The alternative to these top-down institutions is what he calls the "chaordic organization," a marriage of chaos and order. The result is a highly adaptive organization whose members work toward the same overall goal. (See The Trillion-Dollar Vision of Dee Hock, October:November 1996.)

After three years of hammering out the initiative's purpose, principles, and design, the URI now consists of self-organizing cooperation circles, which include seven or more people who represent at least three spiritual expressions. Although each circle agrees to abide by the URI's 21 guiding principles -- such as no proselytizing fellow URI members -- the circles are self-governing entities. The members decide which issues to act on, how to support the circle financially, and how to make decisions. If a circle chooses to, it can team with other circles and form a multicircle around one of the URI's core themes: conflict resolution, social justice, and the environment. The circles aren't building blocks, Hock says -- that's the old metaphor. Rather, the circles are part of a living system. "It's exactly what your body did when its cells divided and multiplied and organized themselves into organs," he says. "And the next thing you know, you have a human being."

Currently, there are more than 100 circles around the world, in places such as Quezon City, the Philippines; Woodstock, South Africa; and Johnson City, Tennessee. In Israel, there is a multi-circle made up of five smaller circles. Many early circles consist of interfaith groups that had been eager to be part of a larger network.

The URI has been around for 7 years, but no one knows what it will look like a year from now -- or 50 years from now. That's the beauty of a chaordic organization, says Hock. "It's a living, breathing, adaptive thing, and living things are never finished. They keep learning and struggling. The more they grow, the more questions you'll be puzzling over."

Swing is already wrestling with such questions. "How do we keep the authority from rising to the top in the future?" he asks. "What happens if someone goes on a power trip? What happens to our integrity if some politician comes along and wants to give us money? How do we find a collective voice? And who gets that voice? I don't know, but we'll find the answers as we go along."

In the meantime, the bishop mentions the URI in his daily prayer.

Letting go of an organization and allowing it to organize itself requires a leap of faith. Who better than the bishop to make that leap? "He has a totally clear and absolute sense of direction," says Hock. "The goal is to end religious violence. You can't get any clearer than that. But he is totally open to how he gets there."

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer. Learn more about the United Religions Initiative on the Web (www.united-religions.org), or contact William Edwin Swing by email (bishop@diocal.org).

Sidebar: What's Fast

How do you unite parties as different and as disharmonious as the world's religions and spiritual expressions? That's an ongoing challenge for William Edwin Swing, founder of the United Religions Initiative (URI). Here are some of his answers.

New ideas come from new sources. Swing couldn't count on religious leaders alone to solve a problem that had plagued organized religions for hundreds, even thousands, of years. He had to be entrepreneurial and had to look elsewhere to find a fresh perspective on collaboration and on organizational design. He got that perspective from a business-school professor and from a former banker, both of whom were tackling similar challenges with other highly complex global organizations.

Appreciate what others hold sacred. Debating who's right or who's wrong about creation, about the nature of God, or about salvation isn't the least bit constructive. But exploring what's meaningful to someone is. Through dialogue that is based on "appreciative inquiry," people of different faiths can focus on understanding the positive aspects of one another's faith. That leads to mutual respect, which makes collaboration possible.

Amateurs attract experts. Swing believes in the value of experimentation, even if it means failing. When he started the URI, he didn't know much about creating a global organization. But once he started trying, people who knew a lot more than he did came forward to help. His inexperience worked like a magnet, he says. Experts like to practice their expertise -- so let them.