by Peter Block
The efforts to transform our communities will be ignited at some point into a movement and a larger commitment to create this world that works for all. It will likely occur when there is some event to bring together our efforts to (1) construct an alternative economy, (2) bring the faith community out of the buildings and into the neighborhoods, (3) stem the tide of privatization and return to giving priority to the common good, and finally (4) declare—and really mean it—that businesses have a much larger purpose than profit.
The second reason to end with the stories of collaborative care and a private medical practice is that the way they function demonstrates the shift in context that this book describes. They operate as if every player in the setting is a cocreator of outcomes. That each patient and patient’s family are enough. That they have it within their means to produce health, and that the professional service provider exists to support health, not capitalize on disease.
Also, the way Paul and Dotty (Dr. Shaffer) have constructed their practice has been produced from the thinking that is embodied in the six conversations outlined in the second half of this book. To invent collaborative care, Paul had to choose possibility over problem solving. He had to create space for dissent and the expression of concerns from all parties. He had to broaden the question of commitment to include both the professionals and the patient and family.
Similarly, Dotty created a space that is inviting and welcoming. She creates the possibility that the patient is truly at the center of the conversation. One example of this is in the decision to make the waiting time of the patient as important as the operational efficiency of the doctor. She also demands commitment on the part of the patient. That the patient pays an annual fee to be part of the practice asks for a unique level of commitment. It says that both parties are invested in the fortunes of the practice as well as the fortunes of the patient. To avoid this being elitist, there are ample mechanisms for people with fewer economic resources to be members.
Final point: Community and belonging are a combination of context and initiating a transforming conversation. Shifting our thinking about both the context and the conversation can occur in an instant. In both cases, it is a simple choice. Bringing changes in context and conversation into the world is more complicated. I hope that this book contributes in a small way to moving your efforts forward.
IN SUMMARY
The Social Architecture of Building Community
Building community and belonging in a dominant culture that is based on individualism, competition, and autonomy is difficult work. This section is an attempt to make this easier. It is a quick summary and reference guide to the book. You are welcome to copy and use it at will. First comes the context and main ideas. Next is a summary of the questions. Finally there is a quick look at designing the physical space. Each of these elements is critical.
The core idea is that without a shift in trust, social capital, belonging, relatedness—call it what you wish—our capacity to solve problems, organize work effectively, or end the suffering around us is greatly diminished. Our efforts to discover and implement new programs, pilots, and social innovations will make little difference in a context of scarcity and wide relational disparities. This is true regardless of loving and charitable instincts.
A shift in social capital occurs when we decide that the real transformation is having citizens—strangers up to now—sitting in circles, learning to trust each other, and deciding how to make a place better. To support you in this effort, I have extracted a string of sentences that I think capture its essence, in hopes that some of them will inspire your work to create a world of your own choosing.
Overall Premise
Build social capital by converting the isolation within our communities into connectedness and caring for the whole.
Shift our conversations from the problems of community to the possibility of community.
Bring together people not used to being together into conversations they are not used to having.
Commit to creating a future distinct from the past. One that cares for common good.
Operating Guidelines
Social capital is created one room at a time, the one we are in at the moment.
It is formed out of the questions “Whom do we want in the room?” and “What is the new conversation that we want to occur?”
The key to a new future is to focus on gifts, on associational life, and on the insight that all transformation occurs through language.
Each step has to embody a quality of aliveness, and strategy evolves in an organic way.
The essence of creating an alternative future comes from citizen-to-citizen engagement that constantly focuses on the well-being of the whole.
We have all the capacity, expertise, and financial resources that an alternative future requires.
The small group is the unit of transformation and the container for the experience of belonging.
The Context for a Restorative Community
The existing community context is one that markets fear, assigns fault, and worships self-interest.
This context supports the belief that the future will be improved with new laws, more oversight, and stronger leadership.
The new context, the context that restores community, is one of possibility, generosity, and gifts, rather than one of fear, mistakes, and more problem solving.
Communities are human systems given form by conversations that build relatedness.
The conversations that build relatedness most often occur through associational life, where citizens are unpaid and show up by choice, rather than in large systems where professionals are paid and show up by contractual agreement.
The future hinges on the accountability that citizens choose and their willingness to connect with each other around promises they make to each other.
Citizens have the capacity to own and exercise power rather than defer or delegate it to others.
The Inversion of Cause and Accountability
We reclaim our citizenship when we invert what is cause and what is effect.
Citizens create leaders, children create parents, and the audience creates the performance. This inversion may not be the whole truth, but it is useful.
The inversion creates conditions in which we can shift from a place of fear and fault to one of gifts, generosity, and commitment.
We shift from a bet on law and oversight to one on social capital and chosen accountability, from retributive to restorative justice, from the corporation and systems as central to associational life as central.
We shift from a focus on leaders to a focus on citizens, from a focus on problems to one of possibility.
Leadership and Transformation
Leadership that engages citizens is a capacity that exists in all human beings. It is infinitely and universally available.
Transformation occurs when leaders focus on the structure of how we gather and the context in which the gatherings take place.
Leadership is convening and held to three tasks:
Shift the context within which people gather.
Name the debate through powerful questions.
Listen rather than advocate, defend, or provide answers.
The Power of the Small Group
Each gathering needs to become an example of the future we want to create.
The small group is the unit of transformation.
Large-scale transformation occurs when enough small groups shift in harmony toward the larger change.
Small groups have the most leverage when they meet as part of a larger gathering.
The small group produces power when diversity of thinking and dissent are given space, commitments are made without barter, and the gifts of each person and our community are acknowledged and valued.
Questions Are More Transforming Than Answers
The skill is getting the questions right.
The traditional conversations that seek to explain, study, analyze, define tools
, and express the desire to change others are interesting but not powerful.
Questions open the door to the future and are more powerful than answers in that they demand engagement. Engagement in the right questions is what creates accountability.
How we frame the questions is decisive. They need to be ambiguous, personal, and stressful.
Introduce the questions by defining the distinction the question addresses— namely, what is different and unique about this conversation.
We need to inoculate people against advice and help. Advice is replaced by curiosity.
The Invitation
Invite people who are not used to being together.
The elements of a powerful invitation:
Name the possibility about which we are convening.
Specify what is required of each citizen should they choose to attend.
Make the invitation as personal as possible.
Be clear that a refusal carries no cost.
The Questions
The five conversations for structuring belonging are possibility, ownership, dissent, commitment, and gifts.
Since all the conversations lead to the others, sequence is not that critical.
Create conversations in ascending order of difficulty, with possibility generally an early conversation and gifts typically one of the more difficult.
There are three elements of a question:
The distinction that underlies the question
An admonition against advice and help and in favor of curiosity
The question itself, stated precisely
The Possibility Conversation
The distinction is between possibility and problem solving. Possibility is a future beyond reach.
The possibility conversation works on us and evolves from a discussion of personal crossroads. It takes the form of a declaration, best made publicly.
The Questions
What are the crossroads you are faced with at this point in time?
What declaration of possibility can you make that has the power to transform the community and inspire you?
The Ownership Conversation
It asks citizens to act as if they are creating what exists in the world.
The distinction is between ownership and blame. Ownership is the decision to acknowledge our guilt.
The Questions
For an event or project:
How valuable an experience (or project or community) do you plan for this to be?
How much risk are you willing to take?
How participative do you plan to be?
To what extent are you invested in the well-being of the whole?
The all-purpose ownership question:
What have I done to contribute to the very thing I complain about or want to change?
The questions that can complete our story and remove its limiting quality:
What is the story about this community or organization that you hear yourself most often telling? The one you are wedded to and maybe even take your identity from?
What are the payoffs you receive from holding on to this story?
What is your attachment to this story costing you?
The Dissent Conversation
The dissent conversation creates an opening for commitment.
When dissent is expressed, just listen. Don’t solve it, defend against it, or explain anything.
The primary distinction is between dissent and lip service.
A second distinction is between dissent and denial, rebellion, or resignation.
The Questions
What doubts and reservations do you have?
What is the no, or refusal, that you keep postponing?
What have you said yes to that you no longer really mean?
What is a commitment or decision that you have changed your mind about?
What forgiveness are you withholding?
What resentment do you hold that no one knows about?
The Commitment Conversation
The commitment conversation is a promise with no expectation of return.
Commitment is distinguished from barter.
The enemy of commitment is lip service, not dissent or opposition.
The commitments that count the most are ones made to peers, other citizens.
We have to explicitly provide support for citizens to declare that there is no promise they are willing to make at this time.
Refusal to promise does not cost us our membership or seat at the table. We only lose our seat when we do not honor our word.
Commitment embraces two kinds of promises:
• Promises about my behavior and actions with others
• Promises about results and outcomes that occur in the world
To pass and make no commitment carries no cost or loss of membership.
The Questions
What promises am I willing to make?
What measures have meaning to me?
What price am I willing to pay?
What is the cost to others for me to keep my commitments, or to fail in my commitments?
What is the promise I’m willing to make that constitutes a risk or major shift for me?
What is the promise I am postponing?
What is the promise or commitment I am unwilling to make?
The Gifts Conversation
The leadership and citizen task is to bring the gifts of those on the margin into the center.
The distinction is between gifts and deficiencies or needs.
We are not defined by deficiencies or what is missing. We are defined by our gifts and what is present.
We choose our destiny when we have the courage to acknowledge our own gifts and choose to bring them into the world. It is the conversion of fate into destiny.
A gift is not a gift until it is offered.
The Questions
What is the gift you currently hold in exile?
What is it about you that no one knows about?
What are you grateful for that has gone unspoken?
What is the positive feedback you receive that still surprises you?
What is the gift you have that you do not fully acknowledge?
What gift have you received from another in this room?
What has someone in your small group done today that has touched you or moved you or been of value to you?
or
In what way did a particular person engage you in a way that had meaning?
What have others in this room done, in this gathering, that has touched you?
The Heart of the Six Conversations
The heart of the conversations emerging from all of these questions is to create a sense of belonging with others and also a sense of accountability for oneself and care for the commons. Here is a summary of the core questions associated with each conversation:
What is the choice you made by being here? (Invitation)
How much risk do you plan to take, and how participative do you plan to be in this gathering or project? (Ownership)
What are the crossroads you/we are at that are appropriate to the purpose of the gathering? (Possibilities)
What declarations are you prepared to make about the possibilities for the future? (Possibilities)
To what extent do you see yourself as cause of the problem you are trying to fix? (Ownership)
What is the story you hold about this community or this issue, and what are the payoffs and costs of this story? (Ownership)
What are your doubts and reservations? (Dissent)
What is the yes you no longer mean? (Dissent)
What promises are you willing to make to your peers? (Commitment)
What gifts have you received from each other? (Gifts)
The important thing about these questions for the possibility, ownership, dissent, commitment, and gifts conversations is that they name the agenda that creates space for an alternative future. The power is in the asking, not in the answers.
; Space That Supports Belonging
Physical space is more decisive in creating community than we realize.
Most meeting spaces are designed for control, negotiation, and persuasion.
We always have a choice about how we rearrange and occupy whatever room we are handed.
Community is built when we sit in circles, when there are windows and the walls have signs of life, when every voice can be equally heard and amplified, when we all are on one level—and the chairs have wheels and swivel.
When we have an opportunity to design new space, we need the following:
Reception areas that tell us we are in the right place and are welcome
Hallways wide enough for intimate seating and casual contact
Eating spaces that refresh us and encourage relatedness
Rooms designed with nature, art, conviviality, and citizen-to-citizen interaction in mind
Large community spaces that have the qualities of communal intimacy
The design process itself needs to be an example of the future we are intending to create.
Authentic citizen and employee engagement is as important as good design expertise.
Role Models and Resources
We all need examples of where community is being created. Many of the people and institutions that I am familiar with were listed in the original edition of this book. Rather than including the list in this printing, I have chosen to place it on the Abundant Community website (abundantcommunity.com). There you will find citizens who are bringing the structures of belonging into their communities. This is simply a small personal listing of what actually are tens of thousands of people who build community, not just because it is their job but because of who they are. Please go to the Abundant Community website to see these many examples. And continue to build your own network of local people changing the world.