Bringing the Personal into Personnel

As a group process consultant who works principally with intentional communities, I am aware that the skill set needed to facilitate community meetings is significantly different than what's asked of facilitators in the wider culture. So much so, in fact, that the field is legend with stories of "name" facilitators who are successful in the corporate world and find themselves in over their heads when attempting to ply their craft in community settings.

Why? In broad strokes, the model for how we work in the wider world is restricted to the rational plane (what's your best thinking?). In community, however, that's not good enough. To be sure, thought still counts, but so does a smörgåsbord of other ways of knowing: emotional, intuitive, kinesthetic, and spiritual. While groups may be uneven in their capacity to work well in these other languages, you can count on intentional communities expecting that openings be made for more exotic ways of knowing—ways that are rarely given a seat at the table in corporate settings or, for that matter, in the world of righteous nonprofits (ones doing real work as change agents).

One of the themes of this blog is that intentional communities operate at the cutting edge of social sustainability, by which I mean developing working models of how to reach decisions in a sustainable way. (While what gets decided also matters, I'm shining the light expressly on how in this blog.) 

o  To accomplish this the group needs to operate inclusively, which necessarily means working sure-footedly with multiple modes of information exchange and being able to bridge nimbly among them. Insisting that everyone translates their input into the rational mode as a pre-condition to getting people's attention just doesn't cut it. There are simply too many people for whom rational articulation (in front of a group, no less) is not their long suit.

o  Savvy communities know that when you create an opening for people to share their input or concerns on a topic, that you need to do more than simply collect concepts—you need to know what that input means to the speaker. How close to the bone is that input being held, and how does that relate to group values (as distinct from personal preferences)? Healthy groups learn how to ride the tiger of passionate statements without turning meetings into theatrical performances, or recapitulations of the British House of Commons.

o  When crafting proposals it's important that architects are able to show their work—what they've done to balance the input that's been collected. Simply handing down decisions from management may work in corporate boardrooms, but it won't work in community. People need to see how their contribution has been duly considered.

o  Community facilitators need to be able to do more than track what people are saying; they need to be able to read when there's a "disturbance in the Force," requiring a facile shift in focus from content to energy (and then back again once the riffles have been calmed).

o  While there are limits on who can live together cooperatively (not everyone has the communication skills that it takes, or has done the necessary personal work to unlearn competitive conditioning), you can tell a lot about a group's maturity by observing how it works with outliers—members with unusual speaking styles or uncommon ways of putting information together. Has the group worked to bridge to those folks, or written them off? In turn, has the challenging individual worked to better understand others and reach toward them? When the stretching happens in both directions there is often a place of meeting in the middle. When only one side is doing the work, it is difficult to sustain. There is considerable skill in knowing which relationships are salvageable and which are not.

• • •

Laying this out illuminates an important gulf that must be bridged when trying to bring the lessons of community living into the wider culture. It is far more than just memorizing formats and structures. In order to achieve the quality of consideration that I've outlined above, facilitators need to bring groups that are purposefully reaching toward more cooperative dynamics along gently. It's a sea change and people will need their sea legs to be able stand tall in heavy waves.

The good news is that a small number of effective facilitators can bring a group around fairly quickly. The bad news is that most groups have never experienced truly effective facilitation and they don't understand what to look for or why it's worth investing in training.

In FIC we recently lost a staff member who had the qualifications for the job but who didn't feel the culture of the organization was a good fit. They didn't have the experience that the way they approached their job was respected by peers and it is too much effort to be heard. While it's sad when this happens, it's also a good sign that people are paying attention to the organizational culture and weighing it seriously. I consider it a good thing that we take personnel decisions personally.

The Challenge of Hybrid Governance

On a number of occasions throughout my career as a process consultant, I've encountered situations where there are two impulses regarding governance that run in opposite directions in the same group. In general, there is a sense that the community should self-govern via cooperative principles (often this means consensus in some form). On the other there is a sense that there are important matters that are best managed by a hierarchy comprised of a subset of the community.

This generally incarnates in one of three forms:

a) Development Partners
It is common among larger scale projects (such as cohousing) for there to be a group of early adopters who form a development partnership who are at risk financially by serving as loan guarantors (pledging their assets to back the loans). Often this group selects a management team that is authorized to make large scale, short-fused decisions during development.

The people who join later are typically not in this partnership (and are therefore less at risk). Thus, the partners comprise a subset of the community and often feel compelled to protect their exposure by keeping the power closely held and in the hands of a few trusted individuals so that the group can respond to surprises and late-breaking news with alacrity.

In general, this is a temporary phase that exists only until the community is built and the units are sold, at which point the development partners are able to pay off the loans, and dissolve. Sometimes circumstances (such as the sub-prime mortgage debacle of 2008) lead to development taking far longer than imagined with the result that the development partnership persists for far longer than anticipated. In consequence, there may be two governments operating simultaneously: the community and the partnership.

b) Owners as Distinct form Renters
Many communities (though by no means all) allow renters to live in the community, not just owners. When this occurs the community needs to make a decision about whether renters are welcome as full members, or are they second-class citizens with limited rights. There are examples of both. If renters are embraced as community members, then it is often with the proviso that they cannot block proposals with long-term financial consequences; otherwise they can participate in community decisions with full privileges.

Where the group determines that it wants a larger barrier, it generally plays out in one of two ways: i) renters are invited to participate in community decision-making strictly as observers (where they there are openings to add their voice, but their agreement is not necessary to make binding decisions); or ii) there develops a parallel government: one that is only open to HOA members (owners) and one open to all community members (including renters).

c) Spiritual as Distinct form Secular
In the case where a group has alignment with a spiritual path as a primary screen for membership, it may be compelling to consider the spiritual life as something separate from the secular life. When this happens (some spiritual groups operate this way and others do not), there can also develop two governments: i) a group (or even a single inspirational leader) that oversees spiritual matters (such as how we will deepen our spiritual practice); and ii) a community governing body that has authority over secular matters (such as how we will build our housing and the degree to which we are committed to ecological practices).

• • •

In all cases delineated above, when there are two governing bodies it generally happens that they do not operate the same way. That is, there may be restrictions on the opportunities for input from community members in the governance structure that is not about the community. There may be a hierarchy in this governance structure that is expressly rejected in the community's structure.

It is hard enough to do one governance structure well. Operating two well is a higher bar still, and all the more so when they are not particularly congruent.

I am focusing on this not because there is a right and wrong to it. Rather, I want to illuminate that it can be highly delicate navigating the difference in cultures when two separate governance structures attempt to play in the same sandbox.

Here are four of the pitfalls:

o  Confusion about domain
As clear as the separation may be in the minds of the creators, reality has an annoying habit of muddying the waters—crafting situations that were not anticipated that beg the question of which body should handle which aspect of an issue. (If there were a single governance structure, the question of domain would be moot.)

Suppose you're a cohousing group that is contemplating an expansion of the common house that will include two aspects: 1) an ADA-compliant apartment expressly to provide end-of-life accommodations for members who desire to age in place as long as possible; and 2) a short-term living apartment that can enhance options for accommodating visiting family members or short-term visitors.

Given that the community will be borrowing money to finance the construction of this addition (read increased HOA fees) how much say should renters have in the design and approval of this proposal? It gets messy. If the proposal is handled strictly as an HOA matter then renters may not be consulted. If it's discussed at the community level (where renters have a say) then it's another kettle of fish.

On the one hand, it can be argued that this is a capital improvement and therefore clearly in the domain of the owners. On the other, it can be argued that the changes will demonstrably impact how the common house is viewed and used, which is the hub of community social life—therefore it's a community issue. Ugh.

o  Confusion about voice
If your group has two governance structures and the community has a core value of inclusivity (which is highly common), then there is a baseline commitment to protecting an opportunity for every member to have a chance for their input on community matters be taken into account. In situations where a member is not among the management group of the other governance structure (say, they are a renter and have no voice in HOA meetings; are a member but not part of the development partnership; or are a devotee but not part of the spiritual hierarchy) it can be hard to feel fully welcome in one governance setting, and disenfranchised in the other.

Making this even more nuanced, it does not have to be all or nothing (by which I mean either a fully enfranchised stakeholder or gagged). It's possible to genuinely reach out and listen to members who are not authorized to make decisions, making a good faith effort to work with their input even when you're not obliged to. When done effectively, this can go a long ways toward diffusing tension. It does not promise that everyone will get their way; only that everyone's views will be taken into account and an effort will be made to show how that was done.

o  Confusion about standards of transparency and feedback
In cooperative culture there is a high value placed on sharing information broadly. Not in the sense of exposé or gossip, but in the sense of letting everyone know what's going on and where there are opportunities for input on a given topic. If the community standard is high in this regard and it is markedly different in the culture of the other governance structure, there is sure to be tension. (Why am I being kept in the dark? Why aren't the leaders more interested in my views?)

Nowhere is this two-way flow of information more precious than when it comes to feedback and evaluation. At its best, cooperative groups have two things going in this regard: 

i) Members know how to appreciate leaders and at the same time how to sensitively call them to task when they're coloring outside the lines (perceived to be exceeding their authority or acting preemptively without consulting the group).

ii) Leaders know how to regularly make themselves available to members to hear how they're doing. The main challenge here is to be open to receiving critical feedback without getting defensive; to be genuinely interested in how you, as a leader, are being perceived. 

Now let's dig a little deeper to illuminate the complexity of a member criticizing a leader. The member offering the criticism may not be privy to information that places the leader's actions (the thing being criticized) in a substantially different context, and it may not be appropriate (because of the sensitivity of the information) to share that with the member. In such a situation, the temptation may be to dismiss the feedback as ill-founded, or to assert that there is hidden information that negates the feedback which cannot be shared, but either of those responses will land poorly and is likely to degrade trust between the member and the leader. The wise leader will be able to see how important it is to have a clear channel of communication with members and the importance of knowing how they are perceived even if the member is misinformed—because the irritation is real, even if the foundation upon which it is based is shaky.

o  Confusion about leadership and leadership succession
Many cooperative groups neglect to define what they want from their leaders: the qualities they want to engender and those they to move away from (perhaps because they arise from the competitive culture that the group is expressly trying to be an alternative to). Lacking clarity about what's wanted, it's easy to see how the ambiguity can bite you in the butt, because members may be operating from personal standards that are not explicit and are potentially inconsistent.

Let me give you a single example. Suppose everyone thinks that leaders ought to be respectful of members—which is a fairly mom and apple pie kind of statement. (Who, after all, would advocate that leaders be disrespectful?) But it's actually a trap unless the group discusses what it means to be respectful. For some it means never raising one's voice, or breaking into another's comment mid-sentence. For others it means speaking authentically, with passion when that's present. What's respectful to one may be the very opposite to another, and the leader is caught in the middle.

But let's suppose your group has discussed what it wants from its leaders. When you have two governance structures and the cultures are different, this can easily mean that the leadership style favored in one governance structure is different than the one favored in the other. Think of what a nightmare this can be when a person simultaneously serves in a leadership capacity in both governance structures!

For cooperative groups, I suggest looking at my blog of Sept 27, 2011, 20 Qualities of Effective Cooperative Leaders. You can note, as you go over my suggestions, how more hierarchic structures may cultivate different forms of leadership. I'm not saying you can't do it; I'm only pointing out the ways that it can be tricky to navigate such that both forms can coexist and be effective.

In addition to what is wanted from leaders, there may be divergence (in the two governance structures) about the best model for leadership succession. In cooperative culture, it behooves groups to develop the leadership capacity of all members and to have a wide pool to choose from when selecting someone to fill a leadership role. In general, it makes sense to regularly rotate people in leadership so that people can get "on the job" training (there is an important difference between watching others lead and doing it yourself). Healthy cooperative groups are constantly investing in developing the leadership capacity of their members. While there are likely to always be some who have a better feel for leadership than others and it's not required that everyone lead, you definitely want a large pool.

In the other governance structure, there may be a tendency to keep quality individuals in leadership roles as long as possible, with minimum turnover. This definitely cuts down on fools tax (the mistakes that newbies make as they learn leadercraft) and can provide stability over time (you know what you're going to get, and the continued investment in that leader means, hopefully, that they get better over time). That said, there may also be vulnerability (what will we do if the leader gets hit by a truck?) and you are at risk of losing members who do not respond well to the leader's style (because there are no short-term prospects of a different leader).

In my experience when you have someone in a leadership role for a long time, the key questions are how open they are to hearing critical feedback about their performance (see the previous point); how open are they to new ideas that are not their own; and how open are they the developing the leadership capacity of others—preparing for the day when they'll step down (or be carried out).

Evaluations in Cooperative Groups

Over the weekend, I sat in on selected sessions of Dancing Rabbit's annual retreat (see my previous blog, Stepping Back to Look Farther Ahead for more on that). Deep into Day Three we were 60 minutes into a conversation about paid staff evaluations and the protocol for firing people doing substandard work. After lining out the desired elements of a thorough job evaluation and spending some time dwelling on all the ways that things can go south (to make sure the Human Resources Committee has the chops it needs to handle whatever wonkiness comes up), community founder Tony Sirna sighed and reflected: "I'm not sure. Maybe we need all this structure, but it feels awfully corporate."

The subtext of Tony's lament was that Dancing Rabbit (or any intentional community for that matter) was purposefully created to be different than corporate culture. Hearing the anguish in his reflection, it got me thinking about the heart of evaluation...

• • •

As a process consultant I've worked with perhaps 100 cooperative groups over a 25-year career—mostly intentional communities, with a smattering of nonprofits, schools, and church groups sprinkled in. I discovered that the vast majority of these did not have a rigorous evaluation process. In fact, most had none. Those that did do any evaluating mostly did so in response to a problem, where a beleaguered manager or team is being called on the carpet. (And after a few experiences like that, it's easy to see why no one is eager to do it more.)

My sense is that groups avoid evaluations mainly because it feels too judgmental or too onerous. If there's not a problem, why bother? If there is a problem, nobody wants a witch hunt, yet there's considerable nervousness about how to avoid it becoming one if the group actually talks about the real issues. Not having confidence that they can do it well, they don't do it all. I'm not saying that's good thinking; I'm only making the case that it's understandable.

To their credit, folks at DR are past the point where they need to be convinced to do evaluations. Now they're struggling with the more advanced issues of how to do them fairly, how to do them efficiently, how to do them deeply enough to surface the problems, and how to be constructive—all of which are not easy.

They want to make sure they're identifying and addressing problems in job performance before they get worse. Note that if problems go unaddressed that several bad things can happen, not just work not getting done or done poorly:

o It undercuts morale among other workers (why should they bother to be more diligent if slacker or martinet behavior is deemed acceptable?).

o Co-workers who might be inclined to bring up issues directly with the person who is performing poorly will be more hesitant to do so, because the message being conveyed by the culture is that you're on your own. This is especially true of subordinates with critical feedback for managers. Lacking clear institutional support for keeping feedback channels open, in most cases they will naturally constrict. (If you don't regularly dredge waterway channels, they tend to clog with undissolved sediments; with feedback channels they can clog with unresolved sentiments.)

o On a larger scale, it tends to erode the cooperative culture you intended in the first place. Problems fester, trust weakens, and before you know it you're back in the adversarial dynamics you were expressly trying to leave behind. Yuck.

OK, so where is the sweet spot? How can you have a robust tool, while avoiding robotic implementation? Nobody wants regular evaluations to transform HR into the performance police, nor do you want the life squeezed out of it under the press of interminable questionnaires and a endless gauntlet of backroom interviews to ascertain if someone has sufficient facility with gender-neutral third-person pronouns. Bureaucratic fatigue can kill the process just as effectively as a few poorly wrangled shootouts at the I'm-OK-you're-not-OK Corral.

I think there are three main objectives in developing an effective evaluation process: a) minimal impediments to surfacing critical feedback; b) maximal safety for all stakeholders; and c) dedication to creating and maintaining a constructive container in which information is exchanged.

Let's walk through these one at a time.

A. Minimal Impediments
The work here is understanding what it takes to put people at ease around naming hard things. In some cases the hurdles to jump are related to the person whose behavior is being called into question. If there's a history of such exchanges going poorly in the past, or there's otherwise low trust between the speaker and the listener, it's going to be harder.

It could be family of origin issues. If a person was raised in a household where it was considered rude and axiomatically disrespectful to speak critically of another, that conditioning is likely to affect the person's comfort level in naming issues as an adult.

In addition, people are going to be more hesitant to speak up if they feel they're exposing themselves in the process, which brings to safety...

B. Maximal Safety
Safety can be a tricky thing. While almost everyone is in favor of people having it, what does it mean? While structure (clarity about sanctioned ways to go about expressing concerns) helps some folks relax, it's constricting for others (limiting options). For some, safety equates to giving or getting feedback in a small group; for others it's the opposite (safety in numbers). Some need an ally present; others need no extraneous witnesses. Some want good minutes (and don't trust that they can take notes themselves in such moments) or even an audio recording, the better to capture agreements and commitments.

Without trying to lay out all the ways in which people have varying preferences regarding safety, there are three main points I want to make: a) do not assume that greater structure will be universally translated into increased safety; b) do assume that people will have a wide variety of preferences about safety (in fact, the same individual will want different things in different circumstances) and that the group is well served by creating the widest possible menu of choices to select from; and c) the things that will make the greatest difference in people feeling safe are:
—confidence that they will be accurately heard and understood;
—confidence that they will not be run over by Person B's aggression when Person B is expressing distress;
—belief that their input will be taken seriously.

C. Constructive Container
This has a couple of components. First, it may make sense to have the delivery of the feedback facilitated, both to make sure that it was heard accurately, and that there is the spaciousness and capacity to process any significant emotional responses before moving onto problem solving.

While the point of the feedback is to be constructive—not punishing—some people automatically equate the expression of strong feelings directed their way with being punished, and it can be excruciating to open yourself to hearing it. Unfortunately, if the triggered person doesn't feel heard around their emotional experience, they often don't trust that the recipient is taking them seriously.

In my experience, feedback has a much better chance of landing constructively if it is given directly (don't sugarcoat it); is behavior specific (give clear examples); avoids interpretation of the why the person acted as they did (no amateur psychoanalysis); and there is a clear statement of specific, measurable corrective behaviors that would be seen as responsive (give the person a way to make it better, and show that they care).

It can further help if you can: be specific about how much time you're willing to give the person to effect changes; delineate the potential consequences of persistent non-compliance; and make clear the ways in which the inappropriate behavior is seen as out of bounds based on job descriptions or group agreements (rather than on personal distaste).

• • •

The good side of a thorough process (which resulted in the structural overlay being discussed at DR that was dismaying for Tony) is that it defines what the group means by its commitment to due process. Players will know the sequence that will be followed, and the potential consequences of coloring outside the lines. As mind-numbing as it can be to do the work of laying all this out in the abstract, not having this spelled out ahead of need is an absolute bitch. If you delay developing protocol until you're in the midst of a problem, it's almost a guarantee that it will be viewed as a lynch mob by the person sitting in the cross hairs.

Having a known and established process for handling critical evaluation does not, fortunately, mean that you need to use the entire orchestra every time you want to hear some music. While fear of lawsuits may require corporate HR departments to conduct all evaluations by the book, cooperative HR committees can be more flexible. If they've successfully established that they can deliver on safety and constructiveness, then the HR folks can be much more informal in checking for concerns, and the full going-down-the-checklist-of-all-questions evaluation process need only be trotted out at need, or for a 50,000-mile checkup.

Think of it like going to the dentist. If you don't have any decay, the check up proceeds fairly smoothly and quickly—you're plaque gets scraped, your teeth get polished, and you're out of there. If however, there's a cavity, then everything slows down and the examination proceeds more deliberately. I'm proposing that HR does most of its evaluation work in that vein.

The nuance here is how often do you need to be offering evaluation opportunities in order to catch problems soon enough, versus the danger of suffering evaluation fatigue, where responses become wooden and are viewed more as a bureaucratic nuisance than a personnel life ring. For my suggestion to work (where HR did most of its work through informal checking until and unless they discovered a problem), you'd need people on HR who have been selected for the qualities of sensitivity to nuance (able to pick up clues about discomfort from people who are reluctant or unable to articulate their concerns without help), discretion (such that people feel it's safe to surface concerns), and the ability to work energetically (reading accurately what's happening in a given moment, not freaking out in the presence of serious distress, and having good instincts about how to proceed constructively when the shit hits the fan).

If you got that kind of savvy HR group, I don't think a comprehensive evaluation process need be invoked that often.

• • •

Finally, I don't want to leave the topic of evaluations without naming an added bonus. Many cooperative groups are weak when it comes to appreciation (not because they think it's a bad idea; rather because it's often the people who take initiative who deserve it and you can't reasonably count on those folks to toot their own horn). In the process of doing evaluations it's as much an opportunity to celebrate what's working well as it is for mid-course corrections.

While I appreciate that most of us don't go to the dentist if we're looking for an ice cream sundae, think about how much easier it will be for people to keep their heart rate down when HR comes calling if such a visit is just as apt to lead to gold stars as cold stares. As Frank Cicela sagely pointed at the DR meeting on this topic yesterday, it will tend to work much better if you offer Rabbits a carrot rather than a stick.