11.02.09
growing community
“There is a tension between our need to be separate and our need to belong. We fear that we will have to give up self in order to be part of a community, that we will lose our identity to the group. This can and does happen, and the reverse is also a danger. We know that our desire to be ourselves and the urgency we feel to protect self can keep us from finding the connectedness and community for which we hunger, and which will offer us a certain kind of transcendence. The tension between the need to be ourselves and the need to belong is inevitable. Our task is not to find resolution, but ti be ourselves and experience community in the midst of the tension…
“In the west we have largely lost this ability. We have disorders of personality, and disorders of community. We have obsessions and compulsions, loneliness and addiction; we have something we call “co-dependence†and a loss of a sense of healthy boundaries. We have an inability to truly give of self.. We are highly individualistic, often depressed, and we identify leadership as primarily an individual phenomenon. We protect and act on our need to be individuals more than we protect and act on our need for community.
“Practicing partnerships helps us find some balance between our need to be ourselves and our need to belong. .. it.. encourages collaboration. Partnership requires that we use our gifts, skills and energies.. and that we honor the diversity of gifts and skills that others bring to the activity of leadership. Practicing partnerships fosters development of community, and the presence of community makes this practice of leadership possible. Partnerships and community are linked. Spirit works among us to foster a sense of connectedness. Our spirituality is developed, in part, by the practice of partnership and in the experience of community. In this way, leadership, spirit and community are interwoven… (183-184)
But how do we foster community? What can we do to cultivate it? How do we help our workgroups and organizations move toward the community we need and want?
1) Work. The first way in which community is built is as real work is done. It evolves as crisis and challenges are faced. A workgroup that has to respond to the challenge of starting a new organization, or turning around an old one, or that has to deal with the unexpected loss of a colleague, or that goes the the trauma of downsizing.. often finds that a sense of interconnectedness has been fostered. Community is sometimes forged on the anvil of hardship… But crises and challenges are not the only way.. Individuals who share power and work independently toward accomplishing a common goal can over time be transformed from a workgroup into a community. A vision that is great enough, a mission that is compelling, and a set of shared values that are inclusive call individuals into community.
2) Play. A second way to nurture community is through play. I [fostered] a team development process among a group of eight top executives of a large company. In hindsight, the most important community building event seems to have been the play in the conference center’s game room. They laughed, told stories, played darts and shuffleboard and closed the game room at two. None of them did this to build community – they were simply ready to relax and blow off steam. But as they told their stories the next morning, it was clear that a sense of connection had developed.
3) Aesthetic Competency. The notion that there is a connection between leadership development and art, and between community development and art, finally came through to me when I participated in a conference designed to engage people in reflection on the connection between leadership and spirit. This conference had more movement, music, poetry and storytelling than the previous two. Part of the power of aesthetic experience is that it engages our whole self and use of all our energies while at the same time building connection. “Constructing something that has never been built before requires the two great engines of human creativity: analysis and artistry. The first works by formulas; it depends on generating and coordinating parts. The second works by perception and composition; it strives intuitively for original wholes.â€
4) Pay Attention… to being and doing. First, know yourself and your shadow. Second, claim your personal power. Tell the truth without blame or judgment. Be yourself and encourage others to be true. As for doing,
* honor diversity
* honor conflict
* engage in respectful dialogue
* speak for self
* listen deeply
5) Structure and Systems impact community, either fostering or limiting it. Structural frames are filters. They filter in formal roles and relationships, develop policies and procedures. Used wisely they create possibilities and improve efficiency. Misused, they stifle spirit and discourage community. What’s filtered out, especially if overused, is a focus on people, the importance of spirit or awareness of impact on leadership practices. How to know if systems and structures are fostering community?
* how inclusively is information shared?
* do structures and systems encourage sharing of power?
* do structures and systems foster interdependence and community activity as much as encourage individual initiative?
* do structures and systems encourage organizational learning?
* is the organization moving toward or away from understanding leadership as a shared process?
* do structures and systems leave room for spirit?
6) Celebrate. Ritual and celebration nurtures community. Just as baking powder leavens food, so celebration leavens organized life. Celebration lightens work and summons spirit. They foster connection, help us remember purpose and reconnect to core values, and offer a way to honor shared accomplishment. To encourage partnership, celebration must pay attention to what is celebrated: team effort and collaborative action, attainment of shared goals are primary reasons to celebrate.
Rituals are employed more to help us negotiate transitions, particularly as means of saying hello or goodbye. Rituals work through the symbolic frame, and so are most useful when emotional and spiritual agendas are at the fore. They use a non-rational lens; but that lens is at the center of organizational culture. Cultures are ultimately propelled more by rituals, ceremonies, heroes and myths than by rules, policies, and authority.
7) Tell Stories. Stories are a powerful medium for creating and making meaning. Because leadership means, in part, making sense of the variety of often complex and ambiguous experiences, stories can help us. Stories communicate deeply held individual and organizational values. Listening to the stories.. is like reading the maps that guide our thoughts and behaviors.
Stories reinforce culture. One important task is telling stories about our history. We learn from the mistakes of the past and better understand the present and where we want to go in the future. Stories promote the weaving together of leadership, spirit, and community, generating new energy and vitality.
Summation and edit by myself. Excerpted from Russ S Moxley: Leadership and Spirit. Jossey-Bass, 2000.
