Community: The Structure of Belonging

Citation

Dizon Deo, C. (2008), "Community: The Structure of Belonging", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 21 No. 6, pp. 789-793. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810810915790

Putting the citizens back in the center of community

With the 2008 Presidential Election fast approaching and the campaigns at its peak, this is one of the few times in America's political system when citizens feel that they are in control. They have the power and right to choose who they want in the White House next year. People are interested in this election. More young people showed up in the polls during the primaries than anytime before. Scores of people have temporarily put a halt in their career and hopped on the campaign to support a candidate that they think should be the next President of the United States. Reading Community: The Structure of Belonging, I could not help but find a timely and relevant connection between the message of the book and the 2008 Presidential Election. The discussion, whether it is in the media, the dinner table or the water coolers, is “Who will be the next leader to take our country forward?

Community: The Structure of Belonging is the latest book by Peter Block (2008), the author of Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, The Empowered Manager, and The Answer to How Is Yes. The book is organized into two parts:

1. 1.

   The Fabric of Community.

2. 2.

   The Alchemy of Belonging.

The first part – Chapters 1 through 7, presents the ideas and insights surrounding community from various experts in the field. The second part – Chapters 8 through 15, details what it would entail in building the community – putting practice behind the theories.

Part I starts with the review of the major influences of communal transformation. Block provides a brief summary of John McKnight's insights on gifts, associational life, and power. He also reviews Werner Erhard's insights on the power of language, context and possibility and Robert Putnam's insights on social capital and the well‐being of community. He further sets the groundwork by reviewing Christopher Alexander's insights on aliveness, wholeness, and unfolding and Peter Koestenbaum's on paradox, freedom, and accountability. Part I sets the stage on designing for the experience of community. Chapter 2 highlights the importance of shifting the context of community and provides a precursor in reviewing the “stuck community”, which is the main topic of Chapter 3. According to Block, a “stuck” community is one which markets fear and fault, romanticizes leadership, marginalizes possibility, devalues associational life, and reinforces self interest and isolation. Moving from the stuck community and on to restoration by producing new energy and wholeness is the subject of the next chapter. This is enabled by taking back the community's projection, the topic of Chapter 5, which is the act of attributing qualities to others that we deny within ourselves. The chapter that I think holds great importance is 6: What It Means to Be a Citizen, which is defined as “one who is willing to be accountable for and committed to the well‐being of the whole” (p. 63). Transforming community, the subject of Chapter 7, examines how people “gather and the context to which the gathering takes place” (p. 73).

Part II starts of with a chapter on how a communal transformation requires a different kind of leader, one that “creates conditions where context shifts” (p. 85). The proceeding chapters explicate the importance of small groups and of asking the right questions. Block continues with the discussion on the six types of conversations that creates accountability and a hospitable community, which are: invitation, possibility, ownership, dissent, commitment, and gifts. He concludes with the design elements for structuring hospitality and a physical space that support community and finally with a discussion about the future – to end the unnecessary suffering of the community.

There are several themes that resonated to me and those are his concepts on problem solving in the current context and shifting to gifts and possibilities, transforming community at the local level – through citizenship and not leadership, and changing the way we gather through the physical structure and conversation. Block takes a good amount of time setting the baseline – what our current community is like. Block terms our current community as a “stuck community” because our culture believes that “defining, analyzing, and studying problems is [are] the way to make a better world” (p. 33). He argues that this context is wrong because it “does not have the power to bring something new into the world” (p. 33). For example, during interviews we are often asked, “How good are your problem‐solving skills?”, because as Block says, it is valued. It is valued because at its very essence, – “the way we see the world” (p. 56) – problem solving provides solutions – answers and knowledge. And who holds knowledge? We pay “experts” to provide us the solutions and answers to our problems. Another aspect that contributes to being “stuck” is the type of questions we ask and according to Block, “questions that are designed to change other people are the wrong questions” (p. 105) because talking about the “changes needed in others destroy relatedness, and it is in this way that work against belonging and community” (p. 105).

If problem solving does not make a better world, what does? Block encourages focusing on gifts because “what we focus on, we strengthen” (p. 141). If we focus on fear and weakness, we strengthen those as well. The examples he provided on how our community markets fear and retribution are obvious yet illuminating. What do we see in the news? It is mostly the problems in our community: crime, poverty, war, and even celebrity gossips. In contrast, how much airtime does a success story get? Even when we hear a success story, a big portion is concentrated on the suffering before the success. Block uses an example of when a reporter interviews a person who just suffered a loss and asks them, “What are you feeling?” Or which do you see and hear more, Federal Agencies involved in a scandal or a Federal Agency that met the needs of its stakeholders? But the blame is not on the reporter and not on the media. “Media takes its cue from citizens and makes its living from retribution” (p. 46). Block believes that rather than blaming the media, it is “more useful to see that the media is a reflection of who we, as citizens, have become” (p. 46). The question is then – who have we become? What does a citizen mean?

Block defines a citizen as “one who produces the future, someone who does not wait, beg, or dream for the future” (p. 63). Our society romanticizes leadership. In the upcoming 2008 election, we try to determine which of the candidates to elect as the President who will solve our problems. We believe in this notion that since the last President did not solve our problems, let us pick a new one who will. The election has become a type of transaction where the candidates are marketed. What tops the headline as much as the issues (and sometimes more so) are commentaries such as that one candidate dresses well and looks neat or whether another candidate showed enough emotions. According to Block, “when we think of citizens as just voters, we reduce them to being consumers of elected officials and leaders” (p. 64). He insists that this “provider‐consumer transaction is the breeding ground for entitlement, and it is unfriendly to our definition of citizen and the power inherent in that definition” (p. 64). I think Block's position is valid. With so many things available within our reach and with so much option to choose from, we can or rather we demand and expect perfection and exceptional service. Against this backdrop, Block proposes that we need to shift back from being just a consumer to being a citizen and this “shift toward citizenship is to take the stance that we are the creators of our world as well as the products of it” (p. 67). He provides an example of the Phoenix Place, a story about a counseling center called “Women of Worth.” The center follows the philosophy that the effective methods of healing come from ways that people in such programs experience a sense of belonging. Instead of patients, they use the term members and instead of being told what to do by the center's director and staff, the members were asked what they wanted to do. The center's strategy was to “treat members as if they had the capacity to design and structure a good portion of their own time” (p. 49). Transforming a community involves actions that are “local, customized, unfolding, and emergent” (p. 74). Learning occurs through peer‐to‐peer interaction, not when we sit back and wait for our chosen leaders to either tell us how to get where we need to get to or expect them to take us there.

How do we know where to go and how do we get there together? Block says we have to change the design and structure of our gatherings and the context in which such gatherings take place. The power lies in small groups. According to Block, the ideal seating for a small group is a circle of chairs as close together as possible with no table which forces people to lean into one another (p. 75). I have some reservation in this statement: For instance, there are times when the physical closeness would actually limit the conversation because it becomes a barrier or a distraction when it creates discomfort with certain individuals in the group. But Block shares what I think is a bold idea – something that is not practiced, which is that when in a group gathering, if a person is to leave early, ask him/her to leave in public instead of leaving unnoticed. A person leaving will have to announce to the group that he or she is leaving and where he or she is going. However, the responsibility does not solely rest on the person leaving; the larger group plays a part as well. Upon declaration of someone's exit, the group staying behind would have to share what that person has given to the group and to ask what is the person taking with him or her. This is followed by a “thank you for coming.” Another bold idea is to remove the chair. This action represents a physical and tangible absence representing the person – to illustrate that there is a void when someone from the group leaves. Block acknowledges that all this would take time, but he also encourages depth over speed.

There were several items in the book that begged questioning. For instance, there were ideas introduced that were not discussed thoroughly or ideas that hinted a bias that I thought could either have been left out or expanded because as is, they provided little value and in some cases invalidated Block's prior assertions. These ideas are related to what I would say as the need to define what a “community” means. According to Block, “stuck” community “glorifies the ‘system’ life…private sector and corporate mindset” (p. 43) and “act as if what is good for business is good for the country.” I felt that such statements suggest a separation between private and public life – as if a community solely exists in non‐corporate life. I am not arguing against the clear distinction between the two but rather suggest that our society has become so interdependent that “communities” exists everywhere: private or public. Therefore, if we view a corporation as another form of community and we strive for what is good for it – then we would also be touching on what is good for the “bigger” community.

Block also discusses several steps to restoration justice which begins with:

1. 1.

   The offender admits to the crime.

2. 2.

   The offender and the victim and their families talk of the cost and damage the crime has caused to all their lives.

3. 3.

   The offender then apologizes and promises not to do it again and agrees to some form of restitution for the damage caused. Here is the tricky part of this section.

4. 4.

   The victim and his family decides whether to forgive the offender and accept the restitution.

If they decide to forgive, then the representatives of the community have a voice in deciding whether to allow the offender to go free and rejoin the community. If the victim and his family decide not to forgive, the offender goes through the regular criminal justice process. I understand the magnitude of change this would offer, and the positive outcome of it – from the community being involved and bringing back some control and voice; yet I wonder:

• •

  For which type of crime is this system going to work.

• •

  How do you define community – the city they live in, the county, the neighborhood, or the state? Was the crime solely against the person and his present community? What if the offender moves to a new “community”? Should the new community have a say? And would a multiple offender have the same privilege for this process? How many times is valid? I feel that in addition to the need to define what the “community” involvement entails, presenting this idea at this minimal level trivializes the nature of crime and the justice system because at a certain point, it is no longer just a matter of the sense of belonging – it is a matter of living.

Lastly, it is worth acknowledging the structure and the design of the book in addition to reviewing its contents. Block uses various techniques that complemented the key message of the book. For starters, he begins by setting up the context with his introduction that is suitably entitled “Welcome” enforcing a “hospitable” environment. Then he begins with the same language that calls for accountability, with which the “…book is written to support those who care for the well‐being of their community” (p. xi). With this statement, he has called upon the reader as a citizen partaking in the message he is delivering. Additionally, Block disclaimed that the book presents a “path toward creating a future different from what we now have” (p. xiii) but if the reader thinks the community is good enough where it is, then read no more because the book will not make sense. This disclaimer basically sets the context that an open mind towards a different future and possibility and suspension from analyzing, problem solving and cynicism are prerequisites. Block also uses the technique of repetition. All throughout the book, the same terminology pops up: gifts, accountability, invitation, restoration, and questions, among others that support the theme of belonging and communal transformation. Another structural difference in this book is the intermission of a “mid term review” where he pauses between Chapter 10 and 11 for a review of what has already been discussed. In a way, this pause serves as a conversation check within a “small group” (readers) ensuring that the readers are in the same path before moving forward – again reinforcing a sense of belonging. He also created a section called “Book at a Glance” which provides a quick summary and reference guide. This section serves as a good refresher because although this book is a quick read; it has a lot of interrelated concepts. And lastly, Block included a section called “Role Models and Resources” which is wisely done because the book ended with you wanting to hear more examples of real‐life communities created with the principles discussed in the book. This section satisfies that need.

Overall, Community: The Structure of Belonging, is not a “how to book” – it does not tell us how to build a community step by step. It does, however, provide a good set of ingredients on how to start the process. But the rest is up to us, the citizens. If we suspend our beliefs long enough we will discover that we as a community need to shift our context in order to see the possibility of a future.