Another example of the shadow conversation for Invitation is about what we can do on our own. We need to be careful about isolation and protectiveness as ways of limiting our resources and the possibilities of scale. Underutilized abundance exists in every community. Engaging it is a worthy conversation.
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One of the theme of Radical Transitions that resonates with people that we share the model with is the realization that their process is stuck in what we refer to as a shadow conversation—conversations that can’t build community. Last night I was talking with someone whose group is bogged down trying to build consensus for a new logo and tagline that will be used to market a district. What to do about it? We propose:
The reality is that we don’t need to agree on everything for any of us to take action in the direction of our dreams. There are many small acts and invitations that do not require permission, support, or even interest from the whole.
Could that work for your group?
When a community is vital, 5 kinds of connections occur. People know each other, look out for each other, connect each other, barter with each other, and engage each other.
Not sure if Ed Morrison’s taken a look at this blog or the wiki, but he’s another practitioner who’s work can be described by AIM. These are comments from a post on my blog. From Jack Ricchiuto:
What is it, Ed, that distinguishes other regions and leaders who are further ahead in green policies and structures? Are they more knowledgeable about green, are they more connected to the green professionals in the community, do they have more of a personal passion for things green? Or something else? I ask because you have a perspective on other regions that many others don’t have here in this region. Most importantly, when I happen to have the attention of a policy maker here, or someone in their first circle, what can I say or ask that can shift consciousness?
Ed Morrison replies:
Jack, thanks for the question. As usual, you have provoked me to think.I would characterize the difference in regions as “the capacity to act”. Regions that are moving ahead with renewal have found the capacity to act. The capacity to act emerges from a widely shared responsibility to act and a an equally shared commitment to collaborate.
We’re all familiar with the “incapacity to act”. Organizations, communities, regions get stuck. Issues never seem to get resolved. Plans, often elaborate, get made but implementation fails. Action rarely follows. Worse still, we lose track of our priorities, and no one is quite able to explain why plans “sit on the shelf”.
The incapacity to act is characterized by several patterns. They include denial (we don’t have a problem), procrastination (this issue is not so important), suppression (the problem exists, but people are not able to share in finding solutions), complacency (leaders recognize the problem, but nobody believes it will change, so nothing is done), confusion (leaders are unable to pick among many competing priorities), blame (we tried our best, but someone else undercut our efforts)…
What questions are you asking that provoke transitions?
Everyone talks about building community. What’s interesting is what does and doesn’t build community. Our experience is that we build community any time we engage each other in conversations about dreams, small acts, gifts, and invitations (see the Intentional Model for more details). We prevent community any time we engage each other in shadow conversations about grievances, consensus, deficiencies, and blame.
In this sense, building community happens in the process of how things happen. So does the building of a new business, school, program, or event build community? It depends on the kinds of conversations we have in the process.
From these four observations:
1/ Until a community learns how to have new conversations together, it will act in fragmented ways
2/ Fragmentation is the source of most issues we call “problems” in a community
3/ New conversations do not depend on politics or economics, but rather on the willingness of people to have new conversations
4/ Conversations that create a new future together are conversations about our dreams, small acts, our gifts, and invitations
Questions emerge:
What are the old conversations in this community that have been unproductive or fragmenting for the community?
Why do you think these conversations have lacked power?
Who else’s dreams and gifts in the community have also not been engaged by these conversations?
Where is your community at discussing these questions?
On his blog, Jack Ricchiuto writes:
Voting is at best a surrogate for direct engagement in one’s community. When I vote for a specific public action, like giving money to a school system, I am not taking a direct part in that action. I am voting to have someone else do that for me, holding someone else accountable for the choices I and a majority of my neighbors make. They are a surrogate to my engagement. I am not going to a school of my choice and giving my money to a teacher, custodian, or coach for a specific project that I have passion about. The surrogates who execute the intentions of a majority of my neighbors mediate a task I never personally engage in…
If you choose not to engage in community, do it intentionally, but don’t misconstrue casting a vote for an idea as taking action. It’s not.
One of the reasons why we’re featuring “recipes” in the book is that many communities need a jump start in creativity. It’s not that they lack the ability to be creative. It’s that their individual and collective capacity for creativity has been hidden beneath a problem orientation to everything and everyone.
Each recipe suggests new combinations of gifts, assets, and opportunities. Like combining a local company work team, a group of seniors, a small flock of grade schoolers, a master gardener, and a vacant property the city is willing to sell for a dollar.
Recipes are essential for reminding people of their innate neurophysiological capacity to make random and new connections that lead to social innovations.
One of the ways we experience and build community is on the web where the dynamics change when geography is no longer a constraint to the footprints of our communities.
The “Thinking The Box” blog raises interesting and important questions about the role and dynamics of trust in the practice of digital community. It speaks to the truth that trust is always the basis of any dimension and possibility of community. When trust exists, dreaming and small acts together that engage gifts becomes possible.
A number of questions regarding trust in the digital age:
- In the new world of internet communication how do people build trust?
- If I am in email communication with you how do you come to build a collaborative relationship with me?
- If you are a blogger, how do your readers come to a position on being able to act on or respond to your comments?
- There seems to be great promotion about how all in the economy eventually will be handled digitally. Will things move faster when there is some physical interface…?
Visit Dennis’ blog for the full list.
Our journey leading up to An Intentional Model (AIM) began about 5 years ago when G and I met at a planning meeting for a local gathering on building community across professional sectors. Since then we’ve heard countless stories off line and on, and this year had the amazing good fortune to discover Peter Block’s work called “A Small Group” on which our model is based.
What we think is most compelling is that it describes how communities have always been built since the beginning of time. In this sense, the model doesn’t propose a model that requires validation or the test of time and experience because it’s already thrived for the past 50,000 years.
People invite each other to dream in ways that engages their gifts in small acts. The biggest truths are often the simplest.
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