Community is one of those soft, fuzzy words that many people do not fully understand and even find alienating. It is a word that gets used loosely, its meaning confused and distorted. So, what is meant by community?
In business, we talk about communities of practice and communities of interest – self-organized networks of people with a common agenda, cause, or interest, who collaborate by sharing ideas, information, and other resources.Community and culture are often confused. They are not the same.
Organizational culture is the attitudes, customs, rituals, values, and beliefs shared by the members of an organization that govern their behavior.
Every organization has a culture, good or bad, no matter what, but that does not make it a community.
We also talk about virtual communities that consist of participants in online discussion forums such as LinkedIn groups discussing topics of mutual concern.
These are all communities, but they are not necessarily communities in the full sense of the word.
So what is a community?
At a basic level, a community can be defined like this:
A community is a group of people who share something in common.
The full concept of community, however, has several dimensions of meaning. Each aspect needs to be in place for a community to be considered what I would call a real community.
A real community is a group of people who:
- Share something in common
A company or organization can be thought of as a community. People who work for the same organization have the organization and the success of that organization in common. If you work for IBM for example, you can be said to be part of the IBM community.
A community could be where you live (your local community), a religion (Christian community); a culture (British community); a place (London community); a profession (the scientific community), or, more broadly – the international community, the business community or financial community.
- Care about what they have in common
Just because a person shares something in common with someone else does not mean they care about it. To be part of a real community, you need to care about what it is you have in common.
- Care about each other
To be in a real community, not only do you need to care about the community, but you also need to care about and respect each other. You need to be loyal to one another and build healthy relationships.
Not many communities genuinely have this characteristic.
The London coffeehouses of the 17th and 18th centuries were small communities, but I doubt whether the people who frequented them cared that much for each other.
In business, a community of practice meets the interaction criteria, but people don’t necessarily care for each other.
A social club might be an excellent example; however, of a community that does care.
- Interact regularly
You can share something in common that you care about, and you can care about each other, but if you don’t frequently interact with each other, you are not in a real community.
The scientific community or a local community are examples where not everybody in those communities interacts.
- Are passionate about a common purpose
To be in a real community, you need to be doing something together that is worth doing and makes belonging to that community matter. You need to be passionate about the purpose. (The community needs to have a purpose.)
- Have shared core values
Although not everyone’s values will ever be the same, nor is it a good thing that they are the same, it helps if many of the communities’ core values are shared.
- Care about the community as a whole
Although someone may be part of, say, a local community in that they live in a particular locale, if they do not care about that community or do not interact in any way with their neighbors, they cannot be said to be part of that community.
You need to take an active social role in building and sustaining the community to which you belong.
Being in Community
We also talk about being in community and having a sense of community or community spirit. This is what it means to be in a genuine community — a feeling of belonging, of togetherness.Community is much more than belonging to something.
It’s about doing something together that makes belonging matter.
You can be a member of a community in that you share some things in common but fail to be in community because you just do not care.
We can’t build a community
We can’t build a community. Communities are complex systems. We should view them as ecosystems.
They grow, they evolve, and they cannot be designed and constructed like a building.
We can create the conditions in which communities can thrive and flourish. We can nurture them, but we cannot build them.
You can't make someone love you.
You can't force respect.
You can't mandate care.
And you can't build community.
Please be careful with talk of building community.
Community is a consequence of many contextual relationships intertwining over time, more like a meadow than legos.
Communityship is a practice where community members take responsibility for that community's growth and development.
They nurture positive relationships between themselves and other members of the community.
Furthermore, they help develop positive relationships between other members.
An organization is a community
Henry Mintzberg, the well-known author on business and management and Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, in an article in Harvard Business Review: Rebuilding Companies as Communities, makes the point that:
We are not cogs in an organizational machine but human beings – social animals – living and working in a social world. It is an insightful point and a mindset that has tremendous potential for changing the nature of the world of work.An enterprise is a community of human beings, not a collection of human resources.
What is a real community?
So revising my earlier definition:
A community results from a web of complex and interdependent relationships that form over time among individuals who share common interests, values, and aspirations.
Community members care deeply about one another and work closely together towards a common purpose.
A community is a complex system that emerges over time through the development and intertwining of many positive human relationships.
Things Todo
- Reflect: Think about how you could contribute to creating the conditions for community in your organization.
Resources
- Harvard Business Review: The 3 Things Employees Really Want: Career, Community, Cause
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