Leading by Doing Less

As I reported two blogs ago (A Chip Off the Old Block), I'm immersed in constructing a 12,000-gal cistern for Sandhill these days, and we're entering a crucial phase where I'm trying to complete construction of the walls (14 courses of concrete blocks high) before it gets dark Monday.

There are two steps remaining, each of which takes a day: a) grouting courses 8-14; and b) surface bonding both the interior and exterior of the block walls. Once both of these are done, the cistern is safe against cave-ins and the excavation can be backfilled. I'll be departing for a two-week junket to VA & NC early Tuesday morning (during while I'll set down my persona as cementitious maestro and assume my other identity as process consultant/community networker) and I dare not place the project on pause for a fortnight unless its proof against cave-ins.

The grouting is slated for today and that's relatively straight forward. The crew has already been through this for courses 1-7 and they know the drill. Also, if we get some showers today (there's a 40% chance by this afternoon) it won't cause a problem. Grout is pretty soupy anyway and won't be appreciably affected by water tempering contributed by Mother Nature—unless we get a frog drowner.

The bigger worry is tomorrow. Surface bonding will take all day and can't be done in the rain. Unfortunately, Weather Underground says there's a whopping 60% chance of thunderbumpers at dawn Tuesday, with chances for rain gradually diminishing to 20% over the course of the day. Not good. But maybe we'll squeak by.

As the honcho of this project, the biggest difference for me from when I did a cistern for Ma'ikwe three years ago, is that my back can't take the heavy lifting as well, and my right knee is still somewhat gimpy from overextending it in Sept 2012. I still have all the knowledge needed to honcho; I just can't do as much of the work.

It used to be that I'd never ask someone to do things I wouldn't do myself, and I could basically teach construction by the monkey-see-monkey-do technique. With some things (for example, electrical wiring or wood carving) I can still do that. But when it comes to heavy construction I need to give way to stronger backs and more limber bodies. I don't like it, but it's silly to pretend otherwise. Now when someone on the crew offers to do more of the lifting, I accept.

I'm still tired at the end of the day, but I can get out of bed the day after when I don't indulge in sure-I-can-lift-that-bag-of-cement macho stupidity.

To be clear, I am still the one who:
o  Lays out the sequence of steps for the work.
o  Anticipates what equipment we'll need beforehand (so we can find ours, borrow a neighbor's, or buy one).
o  Determines acceptable quality standards for each phase—it's trickier than you think!
o  Explains why we do things the way we do. Occasionally a new person has an innovation that improves our work (its accuracy or efficiency) but mostly I'm explaining why the new idea is not going to work well.
o  Thinks ahead to how large the crew needs to be each day so the scheduler knows how many people to secure and for how long.
o  Orders the exotic materials that cannot be procured locally.
o  Manages what we can do in the rain, and what needs to be halted.

So it's not as if I've suddenly been put out to pasture. I just can't do everything any more, and am (reluctantly) learning to accept that, as well as embracing different ways of leading.

I tell you, this getting older stuff is not for sissies.

When Founders Founder

I was recently approached by a facilitation friend, asking what advice I could give a community founder who was struggling with the question of their best role after 20+ years in the saddle. These were the conditions he was struggling with:

—Mission drift: a gradual degradation of the cohesion that characterized the original group, which included a strong sense of friendship and vision.
—A lack of understanding among newer members about the need to be creating cooperative culture, in contrast with the mainstream's competitive culture.
—How much participation is still needed from him in order to have "balanced" meetings?
—On the one hand, he sometimes is the only one holding the big picture; on the other, he's tired of having that role, and wishes the younger generation would step up more fully (with more awareness).
—Feeling lonely. Down to a shrinking pool of founders remaining, one founder recently left and another struggles with a drinking problem.
—It's hard for him to see promising young people come and not stay.

In ways, starting an intentional community is a lot like parenting. If you succeed (and why would anybody start a community they hoped would fail?), the community's future is trying to figure out how to make it work without you. Sometimes that happens sooner, sometimes later, but it always happens if the community lasts.

If you step back a bit and look at the trajectory of parenting, you're more or less preparing for your kids to do without you from the moment they're born. Sure, this unfolds over a couple of decades, but that's your future from from the outset. On the one hand, you want to pass along to them the lessons you've found to be profound over the course of your life; on the other, it's unwise to expect that your progeny will find all of your lessons profound, or even sound.

To some extent, they'll want to make their own choices and part of growing up is differentiating from one's parents. The same happens in communities. For better or worse, the newer people will be different and they will make different choices. Will they be better choices? Maybe, maybe not. But their day is inexorably coming—you may as well prepare for it, rather than lament its arrival.

Here are thoughts about the specific questions posed above:

1. CohesionOften, the experience of start-up itself is uniquely bonding for those present for the pioneer phase of a new community. It can be a crazy, exhilarating period (when there's no end of things you're doing for the first time) and participants forge a precious connection through having gone through it together. Further, it's something that can never be repeated for that group. Later arrivals can never be founders.

The trick here is building genuine connection between pioneers and settlers that does not depend on the settlers venerating the pioneers, being clones of the people they are replacing, or agreeing without reservation with the priorities and policies of the group when they arrive. New people will not feel welcomed by regular reminders of the good old pioneering days, or having their qualities compared  (often unfavorably) with those of the dearly departed.

Further, it is on the pioneers to take the lead in extending the welcome. Don't make the settlers beat down the door. This means taking the time to genuinely get to know them, their interests, their strengths, and their preferences.

2. Culture Change
A lot of people get it that they are not thriving in competitive culture, and yearn for more community (belonging, neighborliness, safety). Being accurate about what they need, however, does not necessarily guarantee that they'll have the skills to live well in a cooperative environment, or even that they'll understand the need to do personal work to undo decades of deep conditioning to respond competitively when challenged.

There are different things that can help with this. First, you can screen for it when assessing prospective members. Second, you can discuss moments when people respond well under pressure (reinforcing what you want) and you can debrief moments that don't go so well (gently pointing out how a more curious, open response would work better).

3. Leadership Transition
It is not easy knowing when your voice is no longer needed in a group (partly because it's hard to trust that someone else will contribute what you'd say). Yet you still need to let go. You've essentially only got two options in this regard: a) purposefully stepping back (through delegating, replacing yourself as manager, resigning responsibilities, going fishing on meeting day… ); or b) exiting the group, either by walking out or being carried out in a pine box.

It's not unusual for leaders to think that prospective replacements aren't as talented as they are. While that may or may not be accurate, you need to be thinking about how to address that so that you're not stuck in the role, or worse, irreplaceable. Get other opinions about the capacity of those who might take your place. Try to quantify the qualities you want from a person filling a leadership role and then actively work to develop them in the prospective pool. You might set up a mentor/apprentice program. You have to be willing to slow down enough to train and explain—even when it's faster to do it yourself.

The goal here, I think, is not to find people who will carry on your tradition as you would; it's that they be inspired but what you (and other founders) have accomplished to carry forward as they feel called.

4. Holding the Big Picture
This is an aspect of leadership, but not all leaders—or all founders—have the ability to do this. One of the benefits of occasionally engaging in strategic planning is to find out who has a feel for the wider, long-term perspective; who can be relied upon to insert it appropriately in group conversations.

Caution: Don't confuse big picture with your picture. Others can be thinking every bit as strategically as you yet come up with different conclusions or different perspectives. Are you allowing for that?

5. Peers
This is a tough one. No one wants to be alone, or feel isolated in their experience or their understanding. As you age, you're not going to retroactively manifest more founders, yet it's possible  to find others who share essential elements of your reality and perspective. Find those. Perhaps peers at other communities, or among local nonprofits. Perhaps others in the community of a similar age who have a background elsewhere that is similar enough to understand the moccasins you're walking in.

6. Membership Retention
My answer here parallels what I wrote under Leadership Transition. Often (though by no means always) new members with leadership potential get discouraged by a perceived lack of openness among existing leadership to share power and then move on. To be sure, it can be delicate sorting out how much the newer folks are impatient, and how much the older members are resistant to sharing; how much the newer folks need to learn, and how much the older members are unwilling to let go of being needed.

Also, as I said under Cohesion, it's primarily the responsibility of the longer-term members to welcome the new folks and integrate them into the community. More weeds grow in less cultivated gardens, and the fruit is smaller come harvest.

Community Leadership and Lessons from the Hive

In order for honeybees to survive cold winters, the workers surround the queen in a ball, conserving heat by dense packing. When the bees on the outside of the ball get cold, they rotate positions with those on the inside, so that all can survive. Although operating on a different time scale, healthy communities are rather like healthy hives.

If you conceive of a community as a living organism there is a core of committed individuals that collectively comprise the heart, and I want to write about the relationship of the heart to the whole, and what it takes to maintain a vibrant heart.

In a healthy beehive there is exactly one queen at the center. If there are ever two they will fight until one dies or is driven out. If a hive loses its queen it will try to make a new one (by feeding larva royal jelly); if the larva are too advanced to make this adjustment, the hive will die—unless the apiarist is able to requeen it in time.

Communities, however, are more nuanced on the matter of leadership. To be sure, some have a single charismatic and inspirational leader, a la the beehive. While there is definitely trickiness in such groups to pulling off leadership succession without loss of vitality or dynamism—partly because strong queens tend to suppress the development of queen-like qualities among worker bees—it can be done if the reigning queen has sufficient awareness of the need to groom a successor, and there is enough quality material to work with among the disciples.

While the charismatic leader model is historically the most stable and long-lived in the sweep of the Communities Movement—think Oneida (John Humphrey Noyes), the Shakers (Anna Lee), and even Kerista (Jud Jerome)—most groups listed in FIC's Communities Directory today make decisions collectively, depending on the group's wisdom, rather than on the wisdom of any single individual. This model (which is almost the exact opposite of the charismatic leader model) relates to the beehive in that there is a cadre of members who hold the leadership center, and in a healthy group the composition of the cadre rotates over time.

Further, it is the responsibility of those in the heart to judiciously invite the outer bees into the center, rather than expecting them to fight their way in, or to wait until the inner bees die off. Thus, a healthy heart will not only pump a steady supply of nourishing blood to the entire corpus of the group, it will offer a permeable membrane such that there is a clear pathway by which newbies (new bees) are able to become the heart.

Like with a hive, in a healthy community every bee need not be highly skilled, fully integrated into the group's culture, or equally capable of leadership—they just need enough members with those qualities to establish a strong enough flywheel that the rest of the hive is pulled along. The leadership cadre, or heart of the group, needs to consistently articulate the community's common values and be walking their talk—incorporating those values into their everyday lives. The core sets a tone. If the note sounded is clear and melodious, harmony ensues, creativity flourishes, and joy abounds. Friction leads to compassion and resolution; rather than brittleness and divisiveness. Newer folks will respond to the positive modeling like, well, a bee to nectar.

The key here is that in a healthy hive the core bees take the initiative in welcoming the outer bees into the opportunity to serve in the core—not to be drones (or clones), but to make their own choices about what frequency to buzz at and what flowers to frequent in service to the hive. 

In community, it behooves us to be all we can bee.