Several years ago I explored the nature of authority through a series of interviews with a range of people including Royal Navy officers, infantry soldiers, teachers, doctors, nurses and even my grandparents. I asked, ‘What gives you the confidence and the right to assert your authority? 
Why should others follow you? Why do you submit to the authority of others?’ Despite their huge range of characters, backgrounds and contexts, everyone was singing from the same hymn sheet. I quickly became aware that I was speaking to different parts of the same group consciousness. They each carried the same inner map and navigated using their inner compass. I could sense it physically in their foreheads just behind their eyes. I realised at once that this is similar to other social animals like bees in a beehive, wildebeest in migration, a shoal of fish or flock of birds. The inner map and compass enables us to align and coordinate our behaviour. Initially I found it depressing to hear the same problems and challenges facing all the different people different situations. However, therein lies the solution: because we carry this common map, it can be upgraded like installing the latest software update. We can all quickly realign and consciously evolve our civilization. The purpose of the New Magna Carta is to make this inner map and compass explicit and to recommend the next upgrade. It asks and answers many questions including:
- Who are we?
- What is our shared story of who we are, where we’ve come from and where we are going?
- What is the meaning of life?
- Who should be a member of our group and who should not?
- How can we boost our morale and self-confidence?
- What do we know?
- What is sacred?
- What do we value?
- What is true and false?
- What is right and wrong?
- What is good and bad?
- How do we get the best out of people?
- What is the foundation of authority?
- How do we make judgements?
- How can we best lead and organise ourselves?
- Who is in charge?
- How do we deal with the dark side of human nature?
- How do we deal with disagreement and dissent?
- What is working well?
- What can be improved?
- What are our opportunities, risks and threats?
- What is emerging?
The New Magna Carta aims to clarify our inner map and encourage us to fine tune our inner compass by applying these questions to our civilization.