Working Outliers, Part II

This is installment two of a four-part series on outliers started Aug 25.

All cooperative groups struggle with how to work constructively with members who position themselves on the outer edge, and I want to explore some of the nuances that come into play with this dynamic. In groups that make decisions by majority rule outlier dynamics are often sidestepped simply through the convenience of voting. In consensus-based groups, however, the culture is obliged to work with all elements, and that means the edges as well as the center.

I. Considered as a Singular Occurrence
II. Considered as a Pattern Based on Temperament or Style
III. Considered as a Pattern Based on Values
IV. Considered as a Strategy

• • •

Considered as a Pattern Based on Temperament or Style

One of the things that's invited into the room with a commitment to diversity is... diversity. In addition to different viewpoints (the focus of my next blog) this includes different ways of communicating and different ways of being in the world. Sometimes people have unusual ways of organizing information; sometimes they have styles that are more provocative or adversarial than collegial or compassionate.

Some of this is family of origin differences (think in terms of what constitutes normal discourse around the dining room table growing up—there can be enormous breadth in what's considered "normal").

These differences can result in tension independently of what might arise from disagreements about how the group should respond to the issue under consideration.

Here is a sampler of outlier personalities that showcase aspects of this dynamic. Please understand that there are myriad ways that outliers present and that this is only a taste. Also note that each of these personalities has both more evolved (read constructive or insightful) versions and less evolved (read disruptive or contentious) versions.

o The Devil's Advocate
This person typically takes the other side whenever there’s momentum building in one direction. Often, the Devil’s Advocate may voice a viewpoint they don’t personally hold. The good side of this is that the group will not inadvertently steamroll to a premature conclusion, overlooking pitfalls in a popular position. The downside is that it is often experienced as sand in the gears, and may be slowing the group down to no purpose. When a person has this label, it can be difficult to distinguish between a legitimate concern and a knee-jerk attraction to championing for the unpopular view. There can be tension directed toward the Devil’s Advocate because it will be perceived that they have an ego need to get attention when their viewpoint isn't helpful.

o The Bully
This person tends to be loud and aggressive. They have a tendency to talk over others, to talk out of turn, and to talk fast. They have learned that they can get others to drop out of the conversation or acquiesce to their views because they don’t have the stomach or will to object to their bluster and force of personality. Sometimes the intimidation is reinforced by size in addition to or instead of decibel level. Sometimes it's based on a reputation for punishing behavior afterwards, directed at those who cross swords with the Bully in a meeting. However it's packaged, the key dynamic is that others in the group reliably experience unpleasant and undesirable consequences as a direct result of disagreeing with this person, causing them to hesitate to disagree in the future. While "Bully" is a pejorative label, the good side of this is a fearlessness to state what's on their mind. You never have to guess where the Bully stands; you can count on them telling you.

o The Placater
This person is a conflict avoider, and will tend to give up on their viewpoint to mollify someone passion about a different view. It can be more important (at least in the moment) for this person to not be the focus of a distressed person’s attention than to get their ideas on the table. They may or may not be reconciled to this. However, if they are irritated by it, they are unlikely to state that either in the moment or directly to the person they have been placating. It's easy to see how the Placater pairs with the Bully to create a dysfunctional system. The positive side is that there is a conciliatory element, a mindfulness of where others' triggers lie, and a dedication to finding was of expressing ideas and opinions that are least provocative.

o The Victim
This person’s pattern is to portray themselves as the underdog or downtrodden who is being taken advantage of. There is generally the perception that the Victim attempts to manipulate the group’s sympathies to bolster support for their position (rather than attempting to gain agreement through strength of argument). This pattern is the obverse of the Bully: where the Bully attempts to prevail through strength, the Victim attempts to control through sympathy for weakness. Both are a perversion of fair play. On the plus side, the Victim can offer the group sensitivity to people or opinions who may otherwise be neglected or misunderstood. The Victim, for example, may be voicing concerns or fears that are carried by more people than just themselves.

o The Woo Woo Practitioner
This person tends to have a New Age spin on everything, inviting a look at the deeper meaning or context of events. In the less mature version, they will tend to offer up their interpretations whenever they are inspired, with little regard to the group’s openness to hearing it. In the more mature version, the insights may be quite helpful to the group. Either way, this is generally about recognition of energy, interpretation of what it means, and/or advocacy about how this can be enhanced and better utilized to the group's advantage.

In addition to personality patterns (such as the five examples showcased above), a person can be perceived as an outlier for other reasons:

o A style of expression that is hard to understand. This may be a language issue (perhaps English is a new language to this person; perhaps they have poor language skills in general).

o A way of organizing and presenting information that hard to track. This person may approach topics circuitously and the group gets lost and/or frustrated following the bread crumbs en route to their point. (There are people who generally have straight thinking about a topic, yet that's habitually not what they voice; somehow they've developed the maddening habit of failing to disclose linking steps in what they disclose, making it nearly impossible for the group to understand how they got to their conclusion. What's worse, the speaker often thinks they've been perfectly clear and doesn't get why everyone else is so mystified.)

o Most groups emphasize rational discourse as the preferred medium of information exchange. If a person is oriented more toward emotional, intuitive, or kinesthetic knowing and sharing, this can be tough and may lead to considerable distortion and discouragement. The next thing you know, they're an outlier.

—How it looks to the individual
In many cases, the roots of challenging patterns go back a long way—perhaps to childhood—and the behaviors associated with it tend to be almost automatic. It is a grooved and highly familiar role that can be interwoven with the person's self identity and hard to break out of, even if the person wants to and is making a good effort. Even though this pattern may be problematic—and known by the person that others experience them this way—they have probably learned to cope by becoming fairly armored against critical comments about their style. In a sense, this is a diversity issue: how much does the group effectively (though perhaps unconsciously) demand that people conform to behavior norms as a precondition of being listened to?

—How it looks to the group
For each of the patterns above there is a system response. Often there is danger of pigeonholing, and a story arises in the group that responsibility (blame?) for what's not working lies solely with the individual. Groups tend to be oblivious to the ways in which they don't allow the individual to get out of the box into which the outlier has been consigned. If you have a group where most members are comfortable with a deliberate pace where people rarely raise their voices, how much are they willing to stretch to welcome a passionate Italian who talks double speed and peppers every statement with exclamation points and hand waving?

How much can the majority ask the outlier to move toward the middle; how much can the outlier ask the group to stretch the circle to include them? it's a dance.

Working Outliers, Part I

All cooperative groups struggle with how to work constructively with members who position themselves on the outer edge, and I want to explore some of the nuances that come into play with this dynamic. In groups that make decisions by majority rule, outlier dynamics are often sidestepped simply through the convenience of voting, in consensus-based groups however, the culture is obliged to work with all elements, and that means the edges as well as the center.

In my next four blog entries I'll examine outlier dynamics through the following sequence:

I. Considered as a Singular Occurrence
II. Considered as a Pattern Based on Temperament or Style
III. Considered as a Pattern Based on Values
IV. Considered as a Strategy

• • •

Considered as a Singular Occurrence
Before we look at the more complex dynamics of patterned behavior (the "professional" outlier), let's start with what's going on in an isolated incident, where there is little or no history of the person on the edge having been in that position previously.

—How it looks to the individual
As a rule, the outlier is well aware that they're holding an unpopular position, and it's likely that no small amount of soul searching has gone into the decision of whether or not they'll reveal their position. For most people—especially those unused to being in that position—it's lonely and uncomfortable out there. If the person decides that the stakes aren't high enough (that is, they don't care that much about the outcome of the consideration) they may prefer to not speak and let the issue go, to avoid awkwardness.

While there are people for whom it's no big deal to be an outlier (Ayn's Rand fictional character Howard Roark in The Fountainhead is a poster child for this kind of rock solid self confidence, that operates independently of public opinion), there aren't many for whom that's true.

If they decide to voice their views it's not unusual for their statements to be accompanied by a level of shrillness, which may be no more than an expression of their discomfort with being an outlier, rather than a measure of the strength of their convictions or an indication of reactivity to what others have said. It can be very tricky accurately reading the meaning of distress in an outlier's presentation of their views.

—How it looks to the group
On the one hand, it's a hassle to have outliers. Working with divergent views takes time and doesn't always end happily. Occasionally it can be downright exhausting.

On the other hand, it's a decided advantage for the group to have other perspectives in play. When considered thoughtfully this almost always leads to a stronger ultimate decision.

If the outlier is rarely in that position and is generally perceived to be someone with significant social capital (by which I mean someone who is viewed as giving more than they are taking), the group tends to be more graceful in laboring with that person and their viewpoint.

While I'll discuss in future entries how the dynamics are altered if the person is an outlier in a patterned way, the basic strategy for working with a person holding an edge position is as follows:

a. Make sure the person feels their position has been heard (which includes an accurate naming of their emotional response if that's significant), as well as their rationale.

b. If possible, establish explicitly how the roots of the outlier's position are linked to group values (as opposed to being just an expression of personal preferences). This is important for legitimizing that the outlier's views deserve to be taken seriously.

c. If the outlier appears to be digging in their heels, remind that person that their right to be heard is paired with the responsibility to hear and work constructively with the viewpoints of others, and we need to see how they are making an honest effort to do so.

If you are facilitating attempts to find a bridge between the outlier's position and that of others, there can be delicacy around how much to cajole, how much to tread softly, how much to jawbone, and how much to just listen. Sometimes it can be significantly helpful to spend time one-on-one with the outlier (either before the meeting if you know their position ahead of time, or during a break) in order to help them stay centered and to make it clear to them that you will be their ally in getting heard.

Your number one job in this dynamic is to contradict isolation and to maintain a constructive atmosphere. If you fail to establish this bridge, it can be the very devil to get the outlier to be wiling to consider moving from their position, and the meeting atmosphere can devolve into a tug-of-war. At its worst, confusion of this kind can lead to the outlier conflating objections to their views with disapproval of them as a person or with non-acceptance of them as a group member. If possible, it's best to clear that up from the get-go.

The Bicoastal Zigzag

It's with no small amount of irony that I reflect on the juxtaposition of my growing focus on sustainability [see my recent blog series from July 28 through Aug 12] and the goofiness of the travel schedule for my current road trip. It's embarrassing.

Right now I'm in Charlottesville VA after completing the first segment of a seven-week odyssey where I'll only be home for two brief stretches. Here's the sequence of my peregrinations:

Leg One—East Coast
o Aug 17-18 Shannon Farm (Afton VA) for FIC meetings
o Aug 19-21 Twin Oaks (Louisa VA) for the Twin Oaks Communities Conference

Leg Two—West Coast
o Aug 25-28 Yulupa (Santa Rosa CA) for facilitation training
o Aug 29-Sep 4 Las Vegas NV visiting my kids

Leg Three—East Coast
o Sept 8-11 Shannon Farm (Afton VA) for facilitation training
o Sept 13-14 home for 40 hours!

Leg Four—Third Coast
o Sept 16-18 Kalamazoo MI for process workshops with the Peace Center
o Sept 19 home for 16 hours!

Leg Five—West Coast
o Sept 23-25 Westminster Woods (Occidental CA) for FIC's Art of Community Gathering
o Sept 26-28 Frog Song (Cotati CA) for the FIC fall organizational meetings
o Oct 4 home for the sorghum harvest!

Note that I'll be at Shannon Farm twice and in Sonoma County CA twice in this sequence, but only after going to the other place in between. Oog! There's a ton of train miles embedded in this itinerary, and also about 5000 driving miles (to schlep books to each of the conferences in VA and CA). When I originally put my fall travel together, I had hoped to do the CA facilitation training right in front of the Art of Community event, but the scheduling didn't work out for the training participants (resulting in my doing a lot more training—of the Amtrak variety).

As I race around the continent advocating for the principles of social sustainability, it's reasonable to question whether my delivery is exemplifying the principles of environmental sustainability. While the dollars work out (that is, the cost of my travel is more than covered by the income earned and travel subsidies I'll receive), am I really doing all that I can (and should) to make each gallon of fuel count?

It's hard to say. I feel better when I travel by train (which is a relatively efficient way to move people long distances), and on each leg of my journeys by automobile we'll be using a van that gets close to 40 mpg, and doing our best to fill the vehicle with people and goods. At what point though, does it make sense to travel less, to start working with purpose toward the coming time when it won't be possible to travel more? Is it enough to wait until I'm priced out? In pursuit of one good, am I undercutting another?

This is a tough apple-to-oranges question and as I contemplate the answer, my mind zigzags almost as much as my itinerary.

Shouldering On

As a rule, I like to think I can shoulder the weight of life's responsibilities as well as the next person, but lately my right shoulder has been letting me down.

My body has always worked pretty dependably (knock on wood). Sure, I've been occasionally downed by pneumonia or a dislocation here or there, but I rarely get sick, have never broken a bone, and am generally used to having my body able to do what I ask of it. As a 61-year-old, I realize that I've been dealt better cards than most.

Nonetheless, at some point last month I woke up one morning with a sore right shoulder, where it was awkward raising my arm above my head or lifting items away from my body. This debilitation wasn't associated with any memorable trauma and I didn't think much about it—until I devoted myself to a period of intense construction on Ma'ikwe's cistern. During the nine-day stretch of July 14-22, I worked on the cistern seven days, placing hundreds of concrete blocks, pouring myriad buckets of grout, and surface bonding 1000 square feet of block wall. The heavy repetitive work was exactly what my shoulder didn't need. Ufda. After the last day, I couldn't lift my right arm above my head if my life depended on it.

The good news is that I'm steadily recovering now that I'm no longer pushing a trowel or schlepping bags of Portland cement. Two weeks ago I couldn't even sleep on my right side; now I can (at least for a little).

It's fascinating to observe how the aging process intersects with the healing process. Increasingly, when I do some non-regular thing—especially something requiring physical dexterity, strength, or stamina—I find myself pausing to wonder if I may be doing that thing for the last time. I have, for example, given up ice skating and roller skating (as I reached the point where the joy was overshadowed by my distaste for recovering from falls).

This is not an all-at-once process, where my sure-I'll-try-anything-once attitude suddenly switched to just say no. I've reached the point of no return at different ages for different things. For example, I recall making the decision in my early 30s that I was no longer willing to squirm through the crawl space under the house to thaw frozen water pipes. On the other end, I doubt I'll ever sky dive or run a marathon.

Still, I like working with my body and am not casual about letting something go. Each transition is a choice point, carefully considered.

I still fell large trees with a chain saw, and I still do masonry work (in fact, I've done both in the last 30 days). I'm fervently hoping I haven't taken my last wilderness canoe trip but who knows (my last venture into Canadian waters was in 2006, before my son started having kids, and I'm pretty sure I'll be too old for it by the time my grandkids (Taivyn & Connor) are big enough to think it's cool to paddle all day for week with Grandpa. How long will I be walking the three miles over to Dancing Rabbit to see Ma'ikwe? I've been thinking about building a passive house as a new FIC office (to replace our funky 1970s-era house trailer)—do I have it in me to honcho that project? I stopped jogging about 15 years ago, yet I still do yoga most days when I'm home.

A few weeks ago I was canning barbecue sauce. Around midnight—after being in the kitchen for 14 hours—I realized I wasn't going to have enough pint mason jars to run the second five-gallon batch through the hot water bath, and I was just too tired to think about hoisting myself into the attic and single-handedly retrieving more jars. Instead, I turned off the burners and let it sit until the next day. Five years ago, I would have gotten the jars and soldiered on.

These days I'm rubbing my shoulder and thinking about it.

Honesty Isn't Always the Best Policy

How many times have you witnessed one person reaming out another and then justifying their rant with the tag line, "At least I'm being honest"?

I want to object to such moments, when a person chooses to wield the truth as a weapon. While I think honesty is generally the best policy, I don't think it's the Prime Directive.

Ma'ikwe and I were discussing this over the weekend and were excited to discover that we both had thinking about this. What follows is a commingling of our reflections.

The most interesting case is honesty in connection with things that aren't going well. (I'm not talking about hiding joy—though that happens, too.) I want to touch on five flavors of honesty in conjunction with distress, not all of which are delicious or nutritious.

1. Honesty with Oneself
Once you become aware of distress, are you willing to look openly at how you're contributing to what's not working? Even if your contributions were inadvertent, what culpability do you have in why the dynamic went south? What part can you own; what part can you do something about; how is it in your interest (or in the interest of the ongoing relationships involved) to engage with others about what's been difficult, or to change your behavior?

These are the kinds of questions that a person being honest with oneself asks. At a deeper level, you can examine not only what your patterns and preferences are, but whether or not they serve you. You have the opportunity to consider whether it's a good idea for you to work on how you've been responding to situations in a patterned way.

Sometimes this work is done alone; sometimes with the help of others (either on an informal basis with friends or partners, or with professional counselors). When attempting this alone, there is always a question of how clearly you can see yourself and what might still be masked or distorted, which is why it's often useful to get reflections from others as well.

The personal work you do of this kind may or may not be shared.

2. Disclosing About Your Part in What's Hard
This can follow from the former. After reflecting on a dynamic that didn't go well, you may be willing to own some (or even all) of what didn't work about a difficult exchange, and then choose to share that analysis with the other people involved. While you may be hoping that this will be the start of a quid pro quo (where they own their part in return), that's outside of your control.

So long as you don't slip across the line and start delivering unsolicited analysis of what parts they were responsible for, this kind of offering almost always is conciliatory and helps deescalate tension. Of course, if the other party thinks you're going too easy on yourself they may not to be very impressed (your gift may come across as more of an olive twig than a branch). Still, this kind of reaching out rarely fans the flames, so long as it's given without strings and authentically.

3. Sharing Hard Feelings
Moving up the ladder, another kind of honesty is letting the other players in a difficult dynamic know your feelings when you're in distress. While this may not be pleasant, if done cleanly it can be helpful (both because it gets hard stuff off your chest, and because it offers insight or clarity to others about your reaction, helping them understand the context of your response).

What do I mean be "cleanly"? There's a world of difference between these two statements about the same sequence of events:

Version A: "I'm furious with you for leaving the car windows down when you parked the car yesterday, allowing last night's rain to soak the seats. Now I have to drive to a job interview on a wet seat. Ugh!"

Version B: "You fucking asshole, the car seats are soaked this morning because you were an airhead about rolling up the windows when you parked yesterday. Now I have to sit in your stupidity and look like I wet my pants at my job interview!"

This is an important distinction. If you can separate the expression of hard feelings from hard judgment (dumping, blaming, attacking, etc), it has a much better chance of being heard constructively. While I'm not guaranteeing a happy landing here, I fully support this kind of honesty.

Now let's cross to the dark side.

4. Attacking with Hard Feelings
Essentially, this is Version B, and the kind of thing I was referring to in the opening line of this essay. While it's honest in the sense that the speaker truly feels that way in the heat of the moment, it's also indulgent and not likely to be helpful. In particular, it can be damaging to relationship, and that concerns me a great deal.

Some people have been reinforced in their use of bluster and attacking behavior because it sometimes works in getting people to back down and give them what they want (in the same way that a three-year-old will keep throwing tantrums if it results in an ice cream cone). Mostly though, it's a pain in the ass and is more something that needs to be survived than will be looked forward to.

Still, there is nuance here that I want to probe more deeply. Occasionally a person may be consumed with fury or fear and it literally may not be possible for them to get past that unless there is an opportunity to express it. Even though they know it is ugly and hurtful, once that particular demon is in their head the only way they know to expel it is through giving it voice. (journaling or walking the labyrinth just won't cut it). In this dynamic, the possessed person is not thinking about relationship; they're just trying to not drown in their distress.

I have a lot of sympathy for people who wrestle with this demon, and I think it's helpful that they have outlets for exorcism. That said, I think it typically works much better if this venting happen in a structured environment, expressly established for that purpose. Lots of things can work, including:
o going on a long walk and screaming in the wind
o taking time with a partner or close friend who will just listen until all the poison comes out, and then start exploring constrictive responses
o co-counseling
o therapy

In my view, this kind of honesty is dangerous when brandished in a moment of rage or anguish, and I urge people to be conscious of this risk when embracing a culture that condones its expression. While it's important (even essential) to have ways to express emotions pertinent to what's happening—and I recognize that in the midst of their eruption it can be damn hard to disentangle feelings from judgment—we can commit to helping one another in that effort, all the while being compassionate with those who fall short.

If the choice is between no expression of feelings or their coming out raw and full of venom, then I think the latter is better, because you don't have to guess what's going on and it's easier to correct for exaggeration than to accurately divine the meaning of what's not expressed. Still, you have to clean up a mess and repair damage to relationship, and that can be expensive. Best, in my view, is to do what you can to encourage the previous kind of honesty (I statements) while deflecting the attacks (you statements).

5. Disclosing With Intent to Harm
There is yet another kind of honesty that is also malignant. This is when a person makes the conscious choice—not in a moment of active distress—to disclose accurate information that is calculated to cause harm. (To be sure, people also use misinformation to cause harm, but I'm narrowing my focus here to accurate information being harnessed for nefarious ends.)

This could be the indiscreet sharing of private information—either by making public a private thing about the person you want to hurt, or by making known to the person you want to hurt new information that is embarrassing or dismaying. (During a group check-in, saying "How is it for you that your husband's cheating with the woman next door every time you're out of town?")

This could be sharing information callously or disrespectfully. ("I hear that ancient cat of yours finally got hit by a car. Now you don't have to worry about it escaping the house any more, and you'll save a bundle on kitty litter.")

While the perpetrator may try to hide behind "But it's true" and act innocent, they aren't. In this instance the person has made the chilling choice to present information in such a way as to make life more difficult for others, purposefully misusing honesty to inflict punishment. This perversion is hard to forgive and causes great damage to relationship.

• • •

While I think honesty of the first three kinds can be promotional of healthy relationships, I think honesty of the last two kinds undermines it.

Honesty can be usefully thought of in dynamic tension with discretion. When looked at through the lens of what is most helpful to building healthy relationship, it isn't always the right choice to act on honesty at the expense of discretion. Sometimes, discretion is the better choice. Thus, one way to view the art of relationship is learning discernment about where to place yourself on the honesty/discretion spectrum in any given situation. Being consistently diligent about this analysis is a great way to have a healthy relationship with honesty.

My Summer of Sustainability, Part VI

This is my sixth and final entry in a six-part series on sustainability.

Sometimes all roads seem to point in one direction. This summer I've been having that experience with the concept of sustainability: assessing where we are now, what will be possible in 30 years, and how do we get from here to there.

The basic premise I'm working with is that humans are rapidly exhausting our supply of accessible resources, such that something has to give. That is, it is not even remotely possible that we can continue for another generation the materialistic lifestyle we're become accustomed to in the US—unless we're willing to forcibly deny the equitable distribution of what's left and to tolerate massive suffering elsewhere in service to the status quo. Rather than continuing the charade that underlies the bumper sticker "How did our oil get under their sand?", I've started looking at two questions: a) How to create a vibrant, satisfying lifestyle that uses only 10% of the resources that the average American is currently consuming; and b) How to peacefully navigate the social challenges that such a massive shift will require.

These questions affect me both on the personal level (how will I live, and what am I called to do to help society to a softer landing in the decades ahead) and on the professional level (what role should FIC play in education and preparation; what is my role as a process consultant to better prepare groups to handle what's coming).

When thinking about sustainability, I like the metaphor of a three-legged stool: there's a ecological leg, a social leg, and an economic leg—and you won't have a very stable piece of furniture unless you have three stout legs. I am interested in what it takes to develop strong legs, and also the integration of the whole, so that the stool will be a tool.

As this is a big, all-encompassing topic, I'm going to tackle it in a six-part series, roughly in the order in which I've been bumping into this conversation over the past two months. Here's the outline:

I. Proposal to build a working model of sustainability
II. The Transition to a Sustainable and Just World by Ted Trainer
III. Sustainability and Cohousing
IV. EDE Course at Dancing Rabbit in 2012
V. Increasing sustainability offerings on campus
VI. Transition Towns

• • •

Transition Towns

The articulation of this concept is fairly fresh—only about six years old. Like the name itself, what's happening under its banner is in transition. It's main premise is that there are two large challenges coming down the road that contemporary society is not particularly ready for: peak oil (psst! we're running out) and climate change (the ice cap is melting, and CO₂ levels are spiraling dangerously upward).

The concept of transition towns arose out of the work of a Brit named Rob Hopkins, who in 2005 was a permaculture educator at Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland. His class developed a transition plan that was adopted that year by the local town as the Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan.

Returning to England the next year, he took his thinking out of the classroom and established a prototype transition town in Totnes, a resort town of about 25,000 near Plymouth where he was working on his doctorate.

Based on the enthusiastic response to his work, Hopkins wrote The Transition Handbook in 2008. The subtitle is From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience. In an effort to expand into the US, in December 2008 the Transition Town leadership offered a 4-day train-the-trainers workshop in this country and 21 people participated. These are the folks now authorized to help transition towns get set up in the US.

At the moment there are 95 official Transition Towns in the US and 384 worldwide, and the movement is growing.

Understanding that this must be developed at the grass roots level (what else could local resiliency be based on?) the Transition US group has been careful to not be too directive, and to allow plenty of room for local shaping by each group. While laudable in one sense, this diffusion has also resulted in foggy guidance, leaving groups groping for the skills needed to succeed, or even ways to learn what others are doing and learning.

It's one thing to not dictate; it's another to not lead.

This is not an easy movement to connect with. Figuring that intentional communities in general—and FIC in particular—have expertise in collaborative processes and bringing disparate parties to the table together, we have on multiple occasions (including with two of the original 21 trained TT facilitators) offered to help develop the capacity to do the hard work. To date, however, not a single invitation has been answered.

I suspect there is no one in authority to accept our invitation, and our offers have gone unaddressed by default. (Of course another possibility is that no one in a position to accept understands its worth.) At one meeting with a local TT organizer, I was politely told that I might "better devote my time focusing in the Midwest, where people were not so advanced in group dynamics and might better use my help; out here on the West Coast we don't need that kind of assistance." Yikes! If only that were true.

It's one thing to encourage local resilience; it's another to encourage local resistance.

In my view, one of the most exciting aspects of the transition town blueprint is that it calls for all the stakeholders in a local area to sit down together and make common cause. The heavy lifting here is bringing together segments of the population who don't typically talk with one another, getting everyone to see the need to set aside petty squabbles to build together a workable future. We're talking about business people working it out with environmentalists; elected officials meeting with teachers; clergy getting together with local bar owners.

Even with a common goal—the ongoing viability of the local area—there will be wide disagreement about what that looks like or the best way to get there. As a culture, we are not used to managing these kinds of conversations well, and as far as I can tell most of the transition towns in the US have not yet gotten past preaching to the choir—where the people attending meetings are equally green when it comes to environmental values and political savvy. The real work will not begin until the disparate stakeholders are in the same room together.

I worry about the challenge ahead. While I think the transition town movement is a good initiative, I think the organizers are naive about what it will take to succeed. It's sobering, for example, to realize how much steady work I get trying to help cooperative groups untangle gridlock—and my client base is almost wholly comprised of groups with an explicit commitment to both diversity and cooperation. If I'm seeing that much curdle among the cream of the cooperative crop, how are we going to prevent the milk from souring when we don't have enough electricity to power our refrigerators?

Optimist that I am, I remain hopeful that the intentional communities movement will ultimately find a reasonable intersection with the TT initiatives, and that we can move together. In the tough times ahead, we'll need all the allies we can find in the effort to walk our sustainable talk.

My Summer of Sustainability, Part V

This is my fifth entry in a six-part blog series on sustainability.

Sometimes all roads seem to point in one direction. This summer I've been having that experience with the concept of sustainability: assessing where we are now, what will be possible in 30 years, and how do we get from here to there.

The basic premise I'm working with is that humans are rapidly exhausting our supply of accessible resources, such that something has to give. That is, it is not even remotely possible that we can continue for another generation the materialistic lifestyle we're become accustomed to in the US—unless we're willing to forcibly deny the equitable distribution of what's left and to tolerate massive suffering elsewhere in service to the status quo. Rather than continuing the charade that underlies the bumper sticker "How did our oil get under their sand?", I've started looking at two questions: a) How to create a vibrant, satisfying lifestyle that uses only 10% of the resources that the average American is currently consuming; and b) How to peacefully navigate the social challenges that such a massive shift will require.

These questions affect me both on the personal level (how will I live, and what am I called to do to help society to a softer landing in the decades ahead) and on the professional level (what role should FIC play in education and preparation; what is my role as a process consultant to better prepare groups to handle what's coming).

When thinking about sustainability, I like the metaphor of a three-legged stool: there's a ecological leg, a social leg, and an economic leg—and you won't have a very stable piece of furniture unless you have three stout legs. I am interested in what it takes to develop strong legs, and also the integration of the whole, so that the stool will be a tool.

As this is a big, all-encompassing topic, I'm going to tackle it in a six-part series, roughly in the order in which I've been bumping into this conversation over the past two months. Here's the outline:

I. Proposal to build a working model of sustainability
II. The Transition to a Sustainable and Just World by Ted Trainer
III. Sustainability and Cohousing
IV. EDE Course at Dancing Rabbit in 2012
V. Increasing sustainability offerings on campus
VI. Transition Towns

• • •

Increasing Sustainability Offerings on Campus

It's my sense that societal awareness of ecological issues and the impact of lifestyle choices on the environment—which has been steadily gaining ground for decades—has mushroomed to the point where interest in sustainability is manifesting in many places. In fact, it is a hallmark of a growing movement that this happens.

No longer confined to the Green fringe, the seeds of sustainability have recently been finding fertile soil on university campuses. As almost anyone's definition of sustainability embraces community as a key component of the social aspects, this growing interest is naturally something that the FIC is keenly interested in following.

When the FIC's Oversight Committee meets Aug 17-18 in Virginia (for two days of mid-course corrections, midway between our semi-annual Board meetings), a major initiative will be discussing the Fellowship's response to this burgeoning interest on campus. What is our best role? In addition to cheerleader, should we suggest curricula; can we supply adjunct faculty; how about ideas for field trips?

One of the tricky parts here is making sure of the invitation before blessing others with "our wisdom." There is no advice so little regarded as that which was never asked for.

There will be at least two parts to the Oversight Committee's consideration: a) What do we think the FIC—and by extension, intentional communities—can bring to the party; and b) What is the best way to test the waters for potential collaborations? In the end, just like with communities themselves, it will boil down to relationships and points of entree. We will be looking for the connections we already have to explore for potential partnerships. We will be looking for the intersection of our interests and theirs.

Here's an example of what I mean. This topic first appeared on FIC's radar as a result of a conversation between long-time FIC Board member Harvey Baker and Don Janzen, who is a former director of the Communal Studies Association (CSA). It came out that Don knew of a fresh program at Oberlin focused on sustainability and this piqued Harvey's interest as an Oberlin alumnus. When Oversight discussed this briefly on a recent conference call (long enough to agree to set it aside for the Aug 17-18 face-to-face meeting, where there would be adequate breathing room for a thorough and thoughtful discussion), mention of this appeared in the conference call minutes. Communities magazine Editor Chris Roth read the minutes and informed us that he personally knows David Orr, who is heading up the sustainability initiative through Oberlin's Environmental Studies Department. It happens that Chris' parents retired to Oberlin and David has been a dinner guest when Chris was visiting. He offered to either be a go-between or to set up a conversation. Bingo!

In my experience, this is far and away to best way to proceed. While the response to FIC's suggestions will ultimately have to rest on their own merits (and our ability to build a solid bridge between what we're excited to offer and what people like David Orr are excited to receive), the chance for a serious consideration tends to rest far more on the strength of one's connections. All too often, cold calls tend to result in cold responses. Chris, happily, is willing to supply us with exactly the kind of "warm" introduction we covet.

What's more, we probably have other connections like this that we don't even know about yet—both because we have only a foggy notion of the academic linkages within our circle, and because we are only now starting to collect information about which campuses have sustainability programs.

There are four main pathways to academia:

o Places where FIC folks went to college, and still have ties. Harvey's continuing connections with Oberlin is a good example.

o Colleges and universities where friends have become professors, administrators, or trustees.

o Professors we have met through our work in the Fellowship, perhaps through bumping into one another at conferences, or in supplying resources for students to use in classes focused on community living. Our connections with the CSA are a rich vein in this regard.

o Connections established with professors who teach courses touching on community living and have set up field trips to visit our communities.

While this won't provide us a personal inroad to all the campuses out there where sustainability is being explored, it'll get us started and it will be enough to experiment with what our role might be. And that will be enough of a plan for now. It's fundamentally flawed to map out a partnership very far in advance of your would-be partner having arrived at the same table for the first time. Either this will be something we do together, or it won't have legs.

In the interest of symmetry, it's appealing to proceed with a sustainability initiative that itself has a decent chance of being sustainable. Kinda obvious when you think about it.

My Summer of Sustainability, Part IV

This is my fourth entry in a six-part blog series on sustainability.

Sometimes all roads seem to point in one direction. This summer I've been having that experience with the concept of sustainability: assessing where we are now, what will be possible in 30 years, and how do we get from here to there.

The basic premise I'm working with is that humans are rapidly exhausting our supply of accessible resources, such that something has to give. That is, it is not even remotely possible that we can continue for another generation the materialistic lifestyle we're become accustomed to in the US—unless we're willing to forcibly deny the equitable distribution of what's left and to tolerate massive suffering elsewhere in service to the status quo. Rather than continuing the charade that underlies the bumper sticker "How did our oil get under their sand?", I've started looking at two questions: a) How to create a vibrant, satisfying lifestyle that uses only 10% of the resources that the average American is currently consuming; and b) How to peacefully navigate the social challenges that such a massive shift will require.

These questions affect me both on the personal level (how will I live, and what am I called to do to help society to a softer landing in the decades ahead) and on the professional level (what role should FIC play in education and preparation; what is my role as a process consultant to better prepare groups to handle what's coming).

When thinking about sustainability, I like the metaphor of a three-legged stool: there's a ecological leg, a social leg, and an economic leg—and you won't have a very stable piece of furniture unless you have three stout legs. I am interested in what it takes to develop strong legs, and also the integration of the whole, so that the stool will be a tool.

As this is a big, all-encompassing topic, I'm going to tackle it in a six-part series, roughly in the order in which I've been bumping into this conversation over the past two months. Here's the outline:

I. Proposal to build a working model of sustainability
II. The Transition to a Sustainable and Just World by Ted Trainer
III. Sustainability and Cohousing
IV. EDE Course at Dancing Rabbit in 2012
V. Increasing sustainability offerings on campus
VI. Transition Towns

• • •

EDE Course at Dancing Rabbit in 2012

My wife, Ma'ikwe, was part of a four-person team that taught the full Ecovillage Design Education curriculum for the first time in the United States. She, Zaida Amaral, Rich Ruster, and Robert Griffin did this in Albuquerque in 2007-08. Sadly, no else has done it since. Many have taught portions of the curriculum but the whole shebang has only been offered in the US the one time… so far.

Next summer, Ma'ikwe plans to deliver this four-course meal for a second time—at her home, Dancing Rabbit, June 30-Aug 5. The deadline to submit applications to be a part of the faculty for this course closed yesterday, and it was satisfying that so many who live in the tri-communities (Dancing Rabbit, Sandhill Farm, and Red Earth Farms—who all share the same zip code) put their hat in the ring. As the lead teacher (or GEESE, standing for Global Ecovillage Educators for a Sustainable Earth), Ma'ikwe will be making the call on who's selected for which roles and then submitting an application to GEN (Global Ecovillage Netwrok) in Sept, hoping to get the course fully authorized.

As GEN has conceived of it, the curriculum is divided into four major components, all of which interrelate: worldview, ecological, social, and economic. Among the most important choices that Ma'ikwe faces will be selecting the coordinators for each of the four dimensions. These people, in turn, will be responsible for choosing the specific topics to be taught in their area and by whom. The aim in each case will be to achieve a breadth of perspectives and a balance of voices and genders.

Even though we're only at the beginning stages, and the 37 days of total immersion are more than 10 months off, it's exciting to commit to a program that builds directly on Dancing Rabbit's intent to be a model of sustainability. All three of the tri-communities have an explicit outreach element in their mission, and this course will be our strongest effort yet to go beyond witnessing to teach the theory and inspiration of sustainability, based on what we're doing.

The beauty of offering this course in the tri-communities is that for many of the teaching points we'll be able to simultaneously offer the thinking and a practical demonstration—in some cases, with examples of how to apply the same principle with variations. We'll also be able to discuss many of the tough choices we've had to face over the years, balancing quality of life, reliance on technologies we cannot maintain fully ourselves, and the desire to minimize resource use.

For all those selected to be part of the delivery team, we'll be getting paid doing work that's both close to our hearts and close to home. How much better can it get?

If this goes well, Ma'ikwe hopes to offer this course on an annual basis. The question will not be whether we have a good enough venue, or a good enough faculty—it's be whether we have enough students. On the plus side, Dancing Rabbit is a prime attraction for people hungry for examples of communities pushing the envelope of resource-conscious self-sufficiency. In addition, most of the faculty will be local and $20/hour in salary goes a long way in northeast Missouri, where the cost of living is quite low.

On the challenging side, it's not easy for people to carve out 37 days. If you have the time by virtue of being a student, or a recent graduate who hasn't located regular employment, then you're less likely to have the financial reserves to be able to afford the course. If you have the time because you're retired, it's daunting to face the prospect of living in a tent smack in the middle of a hot and humid Missouri summer (you may have noticed that my state is a near homophone for "misery"—it's in summer that this occurs to me most frequently).

While Rutledge has become something of a destination for people seeking examples of sustainable rural living, it's not on the way to anywhere, and people don't tend to just wander in. You have to go there on purpose, and the EDE course will be a test of how many will find enough purpose to make the trek next summer. If this purpose pleases you, you can get more information by contacting Ma'ikwe: maikwe@solspace.net.

My Summer of Sustainability, Part III

Sometimes all roads seem to point in one direction. This summer I've been having that experience with the concept of sustainability: assessing where we are now, what will be possible in 30 years, and how do we get from here to there.

The basic premise I'm working with is that humans are rapidly exhausting our supply of accessible resources, such that something has to give. That is, it is not even remotely possible that we can continue for another generation the materialistic lifestyle we're become accustomed to in the US—unless we're willing to forcibly deny the equitable distribution of what's left and to tolerate massive suffering elsewhere in service to the status quo. Rather than continuing the charade that underlies the bumper sticker "How did our oil get under their sand?", I've started looking at two questions: a) How to create a vibrant, satisfying lifestyle that uses only 10% of the resources that the average American is currently consuming; and b) How to peacefully navigate the social challenges that such a massive shift will require.

These questions affect me both on the personal level (how will I live, and what am I called to do to help society to a softer landing in the decades ahead) and on the professional level (what role should FIC play in education and preparation; what is my role as a process consultant to better prepare groups to handle what's coming).

When thinking about sustainability, I like the metaphor of a three-legged stool: there's a ecological leg, a social leg, and an economic leg—and you won't have a very stable piece of furniture unless you have three stout legs. I am interested in what it takes to develop strong legs, and also the integration of the whole, so that the stool will be a tool.

As this is a big, all-encompassing topic, I'm going to tackle it in a six-part series, roughly in the order in which I've been bumping into this conversation over the past two months. Here's the outline:

I. Proposal to build a working model of sustainability
II. The Transition to a Sustainable and Just World by Ted Trainer
III. Sustainability and Cohousing
IV. EDE Course at Dancing Rabbit in 2012
V. Increasing sustainability offerings on campus
VI. Transition Towns

• • •

Sustainability and Cohousing

Cohousing is a kind of intentional community—one ring among many under the Big Top that is the Intentional Communities Movement, that the FIC strives to represent in an even-handed way. It is a particular design model that features clustered housing, a small footprint, parking on the periphery, housing that faces each other, a central common house that all members have access to, and slightly undersized units (with the idea that the occasional need for larger facilities can be more economically handled by relying on what's held in common).

Like most kinds of intentional community, cohousing groups are resident controlled, and have a strong commitment to both the environment and the quality of life for residents. There are perhaps 140 built cohousing groups in the US today with an additional hundred or so in various stages of development. It's a growing segment of the movement.

Going back to its inception in the late 1990s, the Cohousing Association of the US (Coho/US) has been holding national conferences. Since 2008 these have been annual events, held the weekend nearest the summer solstice (last June it was in DC; next June it will be in San Francisco). For years now their custom has been to offer pre-conference intensives in addition to the regular Friday-Sunday cornucopia of workshops, panels, and keynote addresses.

In 2010 Laura Fitch (from Pioneer Valley in Amherst MA) and Bryan Bowen (from Wild Sage in Boulder CO) put together a pre-conference offering on Sustainability. They proposed to offer this again in 2011, as a two-day workshop, and Ma'ikwe and I explored the possibility of collaborating with them on the delivery.

While the offering was ultimately cancelled (not enough registrations) the four of us sat down together for half a day on the Thursday morning before the conference opened to discuss in depth how we saw the topic of sustainability and its relationship to cohousing. Ross Chapin from Langley WA and Greg Sherwin from Boulder Creek Cohousing joined us as well. We had a stimulating conversation on the roof deck of Eastern Village, a cohousing development straddling the Silver Spring/DC border.

Laura & Bryan are both architects and the previous offering they put together understandably emphasized Green design and construction. While these are deservedly legitimate elements of sustainability, Ma'ikwe and I were advocating that more attention be given to the social and economic aspects, as sustainability is a broad topic.

Happily, Laura & Bryan were fine with this expansion of what could be covered. Even more impressive was that all six of us were willing to accept the analysis that the US population needed to aim for something like a 90% reduction in current resource use over the next generation in order to not exceed the limits of accessible resources (or condemn wide swaths of humanity to a life of misery because we were taking more than our share).

This was a watershed conversation in the context of cohousing, which is the portion of the Communities Movement that is most accessible to the mainstream—because it looks the least different from what people already know and typically asks residents to make the fewest lifestyle changes. While intentional communities as a whole are overwhelmingly progressive and Green in their politics and values, within the Movement cohousing presents as the materialistic end of the intentional communities spectrum.

Thus, when a cohousing project is built such that operational energy costs have been slashed in half (which is not uncommon), it's a good news, bad news situation. The good news is that that represents a terrific savings and an important step in the right direction. The bad news is that isn't nearly enough and we shouldn't be spending too much time patting each other on the back.

To be sure, some cohousing projects are achieving greater savings in resource use than some non-cohousing communities. However, in broad strokes, Ma'ikwe and I believe that there is an important role for intentional communities to lead the way in modeling how to manifest a high-quality life based on only 10% of current US resource consumption and we are not expecting dynamism of this magnitude to come from cohousing—unless that segment is willing to risk its carefully cultivated reputation as a reasonable choice for mainstream Americans.

Happily, there is no need (or benefit) to getting into a pissing contest about who's the most sustainable. We need a multiplicity of approaches, and everyone doing what they can to build a better world. It is important and valuable if cohousing only continues doing what it has already demonstrated great skill at: enticing dissatisfied mainstream folks into trying community living for the first time—it's my sense that the vast majority of people who get their first taste of community living in cohousing would not consider any other option at the outset.

This is a huge benefit. Perhaps it will be the ecovillages that pioneer what it means on a practical level to live on 90% less resources, and somewhere ahead we can establish a viable bridge between the new construction condo associations of cohousing and the strawbale, mud-plastered, and earthen floor adobe abodes of our future.

[Note: I'm not predicting that all future housing will be adobe; I'm only trying to graphically illustrate the distance that remains to be bridged. The lifestyle changes required of us will not be small.]

It does no good to ask anyone to take a larger step than they are ready for. Our job is to build a road from where we are to where we need to be, such that no one is afraid to step forward. The point is not how few the steps are; it's whether all the steps are visible and accessible.

Laura, Bryan, Ma'ikwe and I plan to cook up a robust and comprehensive pre-conference offering on Sustainability at the 2012 conference, based largely on the EDE curriculum created by the Global Ecovillage Network. Amplifying what I mean by that will be the focus of my next blog.

Or you can contact Coho/US now and see if you can register early for the Sustainability course—for all I know, operators may be standing by...