At a recent meeting, half a dozen of us were setting plans for an upcoming community meeting. We wanted to set the stage for a dialogue in which participants attending the meeting could speak freely and openly about potentially contentious issues.

We became embroiled in a discussion about the difference between a person attending the meeting on behalf of their organization and the person who comes to the meeting without representing anyone except their desire to contribute to a better community.

I was fascinated by the indignation expressed as to why we would consider the Agency representative less valued than the resident. What button was pushed here? I’m not sure to this day but the conversation stayed with me.

I and a few others felt that having a person attending who didn’t represent any group or agency was preferred over the agency representative. It was not that we would exclude or didn’t want the Agency representative to attend. It was more a case of viewing them as not motivated in the same way as the citizen coming to voice their points of view.

I think those at our planning meeting that were indignant about our viewpoint believed that we were insulting the character of the agency representatives. “How can you say my presence and voice is less valid than someone”?

Some of you know how much I’m learning from Peter Block’s book, Community – the structure of belonging. I think in this quote, Peter Block unpacks this issue very acutely.

The conversations that build relatedness most often occur through associational life, where citizens show up by choice, and rarely in the context of system life, where citizens show up out of obligation.

I highly  recommend Peter Block’s book for anyone who is interested in community restoration and development. His lens is helping me wade through my associational and system life.

Most of all his book has helped realize the limitation to constant efforts to problem solve the building of community. Put another way, the futility of constant efforts to improve relationships between organizations.

There is need for problem solving and relationship building but restoring our fragmented community needs to be the starting point. I’m sure that across the country, countless organizations are mired in collaboration (negotiations) efforts in the name of building community.

What’s your take on focusing on our fragmented community rather than improving our organizational relationships

Brent Uncategorized peterblock community restoration