More on community

Interested in reading more about community, go to www.genuinecontactway.com/blog/community-is-it-a-person-place-or-thing and read what my colleague Becky Arrington says about community: Is it a person, place or thing?
Whatever it is, there has to be connections between its different parts, just like a spider web. What creates those connections would be interesting to discuss. One of the Nobel laurates of 2005 said that we have looked so much at the different parts, taking apart things as much as we can. Now it is time to look at the relationships between the parts to understand what the parts really are. Applying this on community, it would be interesting to look at the glue that keeps the different parts of a community together. Becky discusses the importance of shared values. Do people in a community always have shared values? Maybe some but they do not necessarily share all values they have. There is another thing that might also be part of the glue and that is purpose. Purpose answers the question why people come together and create a community in the first place. It might be to sustain common values.
What are your thoughts on this topic and your own experiences with different communities? Discuss it here or on the GenuineContactWay blog.

Happy New Year 2012!
I wish all children in the world a great year with joy, happiness and abundance in a supportive community.
Creating community is about action so to create a wonderful year for all children, please visit Unicef and buy an Inspired Gift.

Creating community – a highway to vision

A community is a web of relationships, blending together in unplanned and unknown ways. Since many communities are connected through the internet, the threads of relationship are invisible so sometimes one might think, there are no connections. But if the right question comes up, there is quickly a lot of movement among the members, an allocation of resources, a mobilization of energy to work with that question. In between there could be silence for long times.

So how can this invisible web be a highway to achieve a vision? First, information spreads quickly in ways that are almost impossible to follow or and definitely impossible to control. Second, the mobilization for a topic that is of interest to the community, is almost immediate. Does this happen in every community. No, of course not. Some things have to be in place for this to happen.

The community needs a culture where listening, trusting and allowing each other space to take leadership and do things are invited. Other things that support community creation are common purpose and a shared vision. The agreement for openness where leadership can just emerge and take care of what needs to be done, does not have to be in written but more as a work approach. It might be helpful having some rules about the responsibility and accountability that follows this leadership. You can certainly use the principles and law in Open Space Technology together with some givens decided by the senior leaders or the CEO. Givens are the outer frames of what is allowed and asked for in the organization. They can certainly be discussed from time to time but they are a safety net so people will know when they are outside of the organizational boarders and where their energy would be wasted.

Trust is not complementary, you have to earn it. The best way to earn trust is to start trusting others. If you are interested in this theme, you are highly recommended to read The 8th Habit by Stephen R Covey, a very interesting book about leadership. Trust is really instead of many control systems, especially those that are put in to allow managers to control the behaviours and actions of people. It is interesting that some managers still think they can control people, even now when people living now exist in a very different era than the industrial and thus have different values and norms.

Do you feel that creating community in an organization is difficult? It does not need to be. There are easy tools to use, such as Open Space Technology, Whole Person Process Facilitation, Appreciative Inquiry and World Café. You can also use the Medicine Wheel Tool© to assure the readiness of the organization and to measure your success. You just do as when you are cooking, use the recipe to find out what is the flavor of this special cake and then go forward and make it with the things you have at home. And remember to make the cake together. The others will help you get where you want to be, so much faster. Cooking together is a great way of creating community. Help me with the cooking in the Genuine Contact Way!

Merry Christmas!

Eiwor