[00:00:00] Welcome to Elements of Community Podcast about discovering and exploring the Elements of Community. I am Lucas Root. And each week we talk with a community leader about what makes their communiy thrive and bring value to both the leaders and the members join me as we unpack the magic of the Elements of Community.
[00:00:40] I can’t tell you how excited I am about these three episodes, they’ve just gone live in the last three weeks. And now I have the opportunity to be able to share some of the amazing things that we talked about.
[00:00:53] So the first one, actually, let me go over all three again. So the most distant one Peter Laughter and I. We talked about the community of quakers and how the community of Quakers can give us an opportunity to learn what community might look like and how it might look differently if we didn’t focus on hierarchy and we uncovered some very cool ideas in that conversation. So definitely go take a look at that. We also looked at some alternate versions of leadership and some different ways to look at what leadership is and what it can mean. And I’m going to cover some of that in a moment because it’s really exciting. So Peter Laughter.
[00:01:33] And then, Mitchell Levy. So Mitchell Levy is the global credibility expert, and we had a great time talking about a couple of different big pieces of what leadership can mean in the context of credibility and how that affects and impacts the way that you interact with the committee. And again, amazing episode, spend some time listening to that.
[00:01:56] And then we followed up with Isis Indriya, which she has an absolutely extraordinary community. It’s not the sort of community that I was expecting to talk about when I kicked this whole thing off. And that’s part of what makes it so exciting is because it’s an opportunity for me to look at like with Peter and the Quaker community. It’s an opportunity for me to look at the way that communities can come together and how that transforms my understanding of community in a general sense. So amazing episode with Isis. Also, we uncovered some really deep ideas. And some very, very specialized ways to look at the way our religious community utilizes the five elements and how that fits together.
[00:02:44] And in a way that I was actually looking forward to and turned out to work. In a way we kind of had an opportunity to and succeeded in proving the model, because one of the things that I was wondering is whether or not this was gonna fit with a very strong core religious community. And talking through that with Peter and the Quaker community and with Isis, it really, I mean, we gave it a really good chance, right.
[00:03:16] To break the model, to prove that the elements of community don’t fit. And we discovered, in fact, not only do they fit, but they give us a much more deep understanding of the way that religious community fits together. So let me dive into some of the really exciting points that we got to go through.
[00:03:34] So with Mitchell, we came up with this idea that communities in a general sense, have a guiding central focus. Now we knew about that from the perspective of the common purpose. But in diving deeper with that. And with Mitchell, he said, it’s not just the common purpose. We have this thing called a CPOP the community point of possibility, which I had been talking about a tagline when I first kicked this off.
[00:04:02] But I think I’m going to keep using this the CPOP the community point of possibility. And this is like the guiding central star, the focus of the community, it is in a way, the purpose, but it’s a bigger version of the purpose. And I’m looking forward to coming together with Mitchell and building that out in a more complete fashion so that we can bring more understanding to that facet of a community that guiding central star.
[00:04:28] We talked about leadership and Mitchell pointed out that in order for you to be an effective leader, anyone not you, anyone in order for you to be effective leader, you have to have credibility. And I love the idea that credibility is a core component of effective leadership. In talking about this, we had a chance to go through some of the elements of credibility.
[00:04:53] Now, Mitchell calls this skills or pillars. But in the elements of credibility, it talks about a couple that are really important here, vulnerability and coachability. So in a community being vulnerable is not necessarily about showcasing your weaknesses, but rather it’s about being upfront and honest when something happens that everybody needs to know about whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, right?
[00:05:22] Sometimes even good things are not necessarily widely communicated and being upfront and honest about that is the vulnerability perspective, right? This is what’s going on. This is where we need the community members to be showing up. It could again be or it could be something that maybe the leader could have improved on or done better.
[00:05:42] And that idea, the vulnerability and the coachability, you know, the leader becoming better over time, the community becoming better alongside the leader. Those aspects of credibility are really important to keep in mind in terms of the community and the leadership.
[00:05:59] And then we had an opportunity to talk about community engagement and Mitchell pointed out in the way that he’s building his community, that the project, the common project requires an actual in-person commitment, which is something that I think I’ve been thinking about.
[00:06:15] And in fact probably have touched on from time to time, but I haven’t really put the line in the sand on that yet. So it was great to go into the idea that project requires in person.
[00:06:27] Now I’m jumping back to and we’ve sort of touched on this already, but Peter and I had an amazing discussion.
[00:06:38] Again, Peter, the Quaker community. We had an amazing discussion about how in the Quaker community, the expectation is that every single member could be the leader in the moment, every single one. And they talk about this from a bunch of different perspectives, but what’s really important here is that leadership has to be fluid, it’s a mantle that can be passed in real time from one person to another. In order to serve the community the best in that moment. So it’s not necessarily a single person who is the community leader, it’s a person who’s being a leader right now in this moment, in this situation for this purpose.
[00:07:20] And as this moment passes, someone else may step up and take over as leader because they’re better suited for that. And I think that’s a great way to think about leadership and that it can, and in fact, must be fluid, in order for us to best serve the community because me, myself, I may not always be the best person to be speaking to the community.
[00:07:45] And in fact, that’s the reason why I have guests is because their perspective helps us understand how this fits better with the community. That’s a very personal, very real example of me and you, right.
[00:08:00] We also talked about this really interesting idea, and I’m still on the fence about this. It’s a really interesting idea that community can have a tight connection or a loose connection.
[00:08:11] And we went down this road of like a neighborhood community where he himself you know, he lives in a neighborhood and he knows some of his neighbors, but they all have this community that they have a purpose, a goal for the neighborhood, the community. And in that, you know, they want to live good lives and more or less be left alone and they want their neighborhood to be safe.
[00:08:34] And that’s sort of the purpose of this relatively loose, not tightly bound community. And then he started talking about people who might be a leader of that community. And in the context of that particular community, we spent some time talking about the stoop sitters, the people who sit on the stoops in the neighborhood and make friends and build relationships, sending, engage with the community.
[00:08:57] And it’s a fascinating approach to one, somebody who is actively trying to engage in a community that isn’t necessarily tightly engaged and how the common project and the common purpose evolve in that community and how it sits in that community sitting being the stoop sitters, sitting, being the community of the neighborhood.
[00:09:19] It’s a fascinating conversation and I really enjoyed relistening to it so that I could put these notes out to you. And I probably will be listening to it again, the way that we went into that, it just drives so many thoughts from it.
[00:09:37] And then finally last, but very much not least Isis. We had a beautiful discussion about how prayer is common language.
[00:09:48] It’s unique to the community that you’re a member of. It’s unique to the group that you’re in. And it very beautifully illustrates how common language fits in with a group. You know, when you first joined that religious community. Maybe you stumble along. You have to stop and listen a lot. You’re not very fluid in speaking the prayer that is appropriate necessary even to be a member of the community, but people allow you to come in that common heart, the bilateral engagement gets through the fact that you’re not there on the common language yet because you’re working towards it. You’re learning, you’re getting better, but prayer is itself a common language.
[00:10:28] Now, going to the temple to pray or having prayer rituals. Those are both common language and a common project, which I really enjoyed. I really enjoyed seeing that, having my mind open up to it, really getting into the notion that a ritual that I’m going to the temple to pray, is a common project.
[00:10:57] And going down that road and understanding and having that conversation with Isis. Absolutely spend some time listening to that. We had a beautiful conversation that the common language, as it relates to a religious community and the common project as it relates to religious community.
[00:11:13] We did some really cool things, open my mind a lot, and I’m looking forward to relistening to that yet again as well. So I can’t wait to hear what you all have to say, and I’m really glad that you let me come in and share all of this. This has been quite a ride. I can’t believe we’re eight episodes in already, and I can’t wait to get to more. Thank you.
[00:11:38] Thank you for joining us this week on Elements of Community. Make sure to visit our website, ElementsOfCommunity.us. Where you can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or via RSS. So you’ll never miss a show. If you found value in this show, we’d appreciate a rating on iTunes. Or if you’d simply tell a friend about the show that would help us out too.
[00:12:04] If you like the show, you might want to check out our EOC inner circle, where we deep dive with each guest on the inner workings of their community. We cover things like community model, profitability and engagement strategies. You can join the inner circle at ElementsOfCommunity.us/inner circle. Be sure to tune in next week for our next episode.
