Reader

The most radical and uncomfortable conversation is about our gifts. The leadership and citizen task is to bring the gifts of those on the margin into the center. The gifts conversation is the essence of valuing diversity and inclusion. We are not defined by deficiencies or what is missing. We are defined by our gifts and what is present. This is so for individuals and communities. Belonging occurs when we tell others what gift we receive from them, especially in this moment. When this occurs, in the presence of others, community is built. We embrace our own destiny when we have the courage to acknowledge our own gifts and choose to bring them into the world. The questions for the gift conversations are: “What is the gift you still hold in exile, what is it about you that no one knows, what gratitude has gone unexpressed, and what have others in this room done that has touched you?”

The conversation about gifts is what unlocks belonging. Is there someone who is a gift in your life and community that you have not yet told?  Imagine what that would bring forth for them and for the community you share?

Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging(p. 124). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Sometimes we act as if we need to choose between commitment and refusal or dissent. They are friendly to each other, and both important conversations. Saying no is a stance as useful as a promise. Both offer clarity and the authentic basis to move forward, even if there is no place to go at the moment. Lip service is another story. Nothing kills democracy or trans- formation faster than lip service. The future does not die from opposition; it disappears in the face of lip service.

Lip service sabotages commitment. It offers an empty step forward. It comes in the form of “I’ll try.” It is an agreement made standing next to the exit door. Whenever someone says they will try hard, agree to think about it, or do the best they can, it is smart to consider that a no. It may not be a final refusal, but at that moment there is no commitment. We can move forward with refusal; we cannot move forward with maybe. Trying hard is too often a coded refusal. Whether it is a response to feeling coerced, a sense of internal obligation, or just a desire to look good, it is really a way to escape the moment and hijacks commitment.

Wholehearted commitment makes a promise to peers about our contribution to the success of the whole. It is centered in two questions: “What promise am I willing to make?” and “What is the price I am willing to pay for the success of the whole effort?” It is a promise for the sake of a larger purpose, not for the sake of personal return. Commitment comes dressed as a promise.

What does lip service look like in your life? Is there a promise that you no longer mean? Is there a no that you’ve been postponing?

What will it look like to be prepared for lip service in your gathering, and how might you allow that to mature past barter into commitment or dissent?

Commitment usually comes later in the process, after the first four conversations and some of the work on substantive issues has been done.

Commitment is a promise made with no expectation of return. It is the willingness to make a promise independent of either approval or reciprocity from other people. This takes barter out of the conversation. Our promise is not contingent on the actions of others. The economist is replaced by the artist. As long as our promise is dependent on the actions of others, it is not a commitment; it is a deal, a contract. A bargained future is not an alternative future; it is more of the past brought forward.

The declaration of a promise is the form that commitment takes; that is the action that initiates change. It is one thing to set a goal or objective, but something more personal to use the language of promises. Plus, to the extent that a promise is a sacred form of expression, this language anoints the space in the asking.

• What promises am I willing to make?
• What is the cost to others for me to keep my commitments, or to fail in my commitments
• What is the no that I am postponing?

These are good questions to ask with someone you already work with and trust. How might you use these question in your gathering?                 

Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging(p. 124,136-138 ). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

The dissent conversation begins by allowing people the space to say no. It rests on the belief that if we cannot say no, then our yes has no meaning…

The dissent conversation creates an opening for commitment. The questions explicitly ask for doubts and reservations. When they are expressed, we need to just listen. Don’t solve them, defend against them, or explain anything. People’s doubts, cynicism, resignation are theirs alone. Not to be taken on by us. …. Without doubt, our faith has no meaning, no substance; it is purchased at too small a price to give it value.

This sounds simple and true enough, but in a patriarchal world, dissent is considered disloyalty. Or negativism. Or not being a team player. Or not being a good citizen. America, love it or leave it. You are either with us or against us. This is a corruption of hospitality and friendship. Hospitality is the welcoming not only of strangers, but also of the strange ideas and beliefs they bring with them.                                                                                         

A critical task of leadership is to protect space for the expression of people’s doubts. The act of surfacing doubts and dissent does not deflect the communal intention to create something new. What is critical, and hard to live with, is that leaders do not have to respond to each person’s doubts. None of us do. Authentic dissent is complete simply in its expression. When we think we have to answer people’s doubts and defend ourselves, then the space for dissent closes down. When people have doubts, and we attempt to answer them, we are colluding with their reluctance to be accountable for their own future. All we have to do with the doubts of others is get interested in them. We do not have to take them on or let them resonate with our own doubts. We just get interested.*

Who are those you currently plan and live with? How might you remain open or closed to dissent that they are expressing, in an effort to be accountable for their own future?

As you plan for your gathering, how will you leave room for dissenting conversations?

*Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging(p. 124, 132 ). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.                                               

When we convene as a group of strangers, it is most often our stories that maintain our separateness. To take ownership for our personal stories, and “complete” them in the midst of others is to move to a place of neighborly covenant-to co-author a new story as a group.  This is slow and honest work. While it cannot happen overnight, it is helpful to see how fruitful it can be to return to the ownership conversation as relationships deepen.

At some later point, the essential question upon which accountability hinges needs to be asked:                                                           

What have I done to contribute to the very thing I complain about or want to change?

This question, higher risk than most others, requires a great deal of trust. It can be asked only after people are connected to each other. This may be the most transforming question of all. If I do not see my part in causing the past and the present, then there is no possible way I can participate usefully in being a coauthor of the future.

Another ownership conversation is to confront our stories, the stories we talked of earlier that limit the possibility of an alternative future…                                                           

The sequence… goes like this (adapted from Werner Erhard):                                                

What is the story about this community or organization that you hear yourself most often telling? The one that you are wedded to and maybe even take your identity from?

Then ask:

What are the payoffs you receive from holding on to this story?

The payoffs are usually in the neighborhood of being right, being in control, being safe. Or not being wrong, controlled, or at risk.

And finally:

What is your attachment to this story costing you?

The cost, most often, is our sense of aliveness.

These are the questions that allow us to complete our stories. Not forget them, but complete them. The naming of the story to another, in the context we have created, can take the limiting power out of the story. This allows the story to stay in the past and creates an opening for us to move forward.

Block, Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging(p.129-130). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.