realisedevelopment.net

Just another WordPress site

32 (Tentative) Beliefs About Community Development

by

  1. Development occurs when people change their habits, patterns, attitudes and perhaps most importantly behaviours.
  2. Community development is a function of the number of individuals who are changing their habits, patterns, attitudes and perhaps most importantly behaviours.
  3. Sometimes there is lots of individual development but no community development – we have a steady state.  For example if the number of people that break an addiction are matched by the number of people that take up that addiction we have lots of individual development but no community development.
  4. We only get community development when individuals’ personal development is in some way aligned.  This alignment is a process of finding common cause.  Negotiation of self interest is critical in developing community.
  5. The ‘direction’ of both personal and community development may be progressive, regressive or neutral.  Sometimes it can be hard to tell.
  6. Personal development is always in pursuit of ‘self interest’, which may, or may not, be ‘rightly understood’.
  7. Long term self interest is frequently sacrificed on the alter of short term self interest: ‘live only for today for tomorrow may never come’.
  8. People change their habits, patterns, attitudes and behaviours all of the time in relation to changes in their environment – development in this case is driven externally.  The locus of control is external and the individual is essentially manipulated by their environment.
  9. This externally driven change is the paradigm on which most personal development, community development and public policy is based – it is the world of nudging, nannying, infrastructure and service development in order to achieve behaviours specified and desired by ‘The Anointed’.  It usually makes communities less enterprising.
  10. Many of us are happy to work with an external locus of control, because it let’s us off the hook.  In this context my progress depends on others.  ‘I’ am more or less out of the equation
  11. While it is tempting to nudge, nanny and legislate to encourage ‘development’ it is a temptation that should be yielded to rarely.  It is in many cases, counter-productive.
  12. Instead, perhaps we should choose to provoke reflection and the analysis of self interest.
  13. People can also choose to change their habits, patterns, attitudes and behaviours because they recognise that such a change is in their self interest – development in this case is driven internally.  The locus of control in this case is internal and it provides the individual with a sense of agency and power over their own lives.  People with a primarily internal locus of control are usually experienced as ‘enterprising’.
  14. Self interest is not selfishness.  Self interest is about ‘self amongst others’.  Pursuing self interest is about pursuing what matters personally in the context of a community.  It demands compassion, empathy and values if it is not to be merely personal greed and selfishness.  Selfishness is self interest wrongly understood.
  15. In order to achieve community development we must increase the number of people for whom an internal locus of control drives their personal development and help them to support each other in common cause.
  16. Community development is accelerated when individuals learn to associate, collaborate and co-operate in pursuit of mutual self interest.
  17. When people change their habits, patterns, attitudes and behaviours we call this Learning.
  18. Learning is at the heart of Personal and Community Development.
  19. All real learning is driven by self interest.
  20. If the rate of learning is greater than the rate of change in the environment then progress becomes possible.
  21. If the rate of learning is less than the rate of change in the environment then regression is inevitable.
  22. Learning depends on both the acquisition of  existing knowledge and the generation of insights and the creation of new knowledge through reflection and enquiry.  Most of our communities and their education systems value the acquisition of knowledge over the processes of reflection and enquiry.
  23. ‘The community’, or more accurately our peer group, shapes what types of learning are acceptable.   This is an important aspect of community culture.
  24. Swapping one peer group for another can be a powerful catalyst for personal development.
  25. Building peer groups that have primarily an internal locus of control can be helpful.  These peer groups are ‘community’.
  26. In some communities it is OK to be aspirational and believe in the power of progress and change.  These are communities with an internal locus of control – they believe they can shape their own futures.
  27. In some communities such positive attitudes are, more or less, discouraged as they challenge the dominant belief that things are the way they are because of other people.  These communities prefer to blame others, including The Anointed for their circumstances.  This is one reason why so many communities see ‘The Council’ as outsiders.  It is ‘their’ fault.  It is the fault of other communities.  It is the fault of the Government. Or Europe.
  28. Development always happens in all communities – but its focus is often on the maintenance of the status quo in a changing environment rather than the pursuit of progress.
  29. Community developers often avoid tricky conversations about self interest by convening individuals around a ‘common good’ such as a project to refurbish a playground for example.  This results in the establishment of a local group of the anointed and further reinforces the external locus of control.
  30. Much of what is called community development work these days is NOT community development.  It appropriates the tools and processes of community development in order to pursue the objectives of the state.
  31. Much of what passes for ’empowerment’ is actually those with power nagging those without power to ‘pull their (metaphorical) socks up’.  We can create the conditions in which individuals and communities build their own power.  But we cannot easily give them ours.
  32. Community development depends on the personal development of both self interest, rightly understood, and the power to pursue it

I am sure that there is more.  Much more.

But perhaps there is enough here already to suggest a basis for radical and empowering approaches to community  and personal development.

  • What do you think?

Key Note for Voluntary Action Leeds AGM

by

16th November 2010 Wheeler Hall, Leeds Cathedral

  • Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today.  It is a very real privilege.
  • Let us get a little perspective on the last decade or so…real growth in the sector and the budgets that it has at its disposal…but have we made the impact on social justice in the city that would hope for in the course of such relatively plentiful times?
  • For a decade or more we have pursued a dumb strategy, taking Govt money to do Govt work in our communities.
  • We have let politicians in Whitehall and increasingly their celebrity friends do our research and development, come up with new schemes and programmes, which they have paid us to ‘roll out’ in our communities
  • Now we need a smart strategy…one that does not trap us in the hands of the economy and politicians; but that puts us at the heart of our communities and their development.
  • Now is the time to start listening, responding to and facilitating the people who we are here to serve (NB this is not civil servants and ministers but people in our communities, especially the marginalised)
  • We have in recent years lost ground in our communities as we have pursued the dumb strategy – but it is ground that we can and will make-up.  We are uniquely placed to respond.
  • We must no longer look at the economy as the only thing that matters.  Economy, culture, society cannot be separated out.  Making GDP ‘king’ is daft! Other forms of wealth matter too.
  • Mark Prisk Secretary of State for Trade and Industry may have shown some interest in the role of the third sector in contributing to the work of the Local Enterprise Partnerships and the Regional Growth Fund.   We should not turn our back on this opportunity, but we must recognise that this is more about increasing the tax base for the Treasury than it is about growing local, vibrant and most importantly sustainable communities.  We must be careful not to keep pursuing a dumb strategy.
  • And a word on big society.  Again there are opportunities and risks.  Risks in getting drawn into a London centric debate about using volunteers to deliver front line services.  Risks in developing initiatives that maybe under-capitalised, under specified and deliver more political impact than social justice.
  • There is another big society.  One in which local people come together to support themselves in pursuing their own agendas for change and progress.  More ‘Our Society’ than ‘Big Society’…
  • The role of community organisers in the city?  Well, I love what the people behind Leeds Community Organising are trying to do, but are we in danger of that project being swamped by Mr Cameron’s army of Community Organiser?  If delivered on a per capita basis we would have about 60 in Leeds.  If paid this would require a budget of well over £1m a year.
  • So who is driving ‘development in our city’?  It is still the money men and women.  The bankers, the insurers, and the investors, supported by the planners and the architects
  • Physical regeneration matters, but it is expensive, elitist (investment goes to where the ROI is greatest in the short term ie commerce) and slow.  Main beneficiaries are builders, developers, architects and investors.  They tend to suck money out of our community and return it to shareholders elsewhere.
  • Eastgate, Trinity, The Arena on the large scale. But on a smaller scale too I see asset transfer and similar projects channel love, energy, wisdom, experience and millions of pounds into re-casting concrete, bricks, stone and steel in a city already full of under-used infrastructure.
  • Now of course physical regeneration matters….but …
  • Psychological regeneration matters more.  How do we engage 700 000 Leeds residents in making progress in their own lives?   Regeneration between the ears can be fast, relatively cheap and egalitarian – for every pound that is spent on physical infrastructure how about a penny being put into community development and facilitation?  Contributions from Trinity, Eastgate and Arena would be roughly £12.5m over next 5 years.  Add that to philanthropic sources and we have a serious budget – even in times of austerity.  The question is can we, a coalition between public, private and third sector generate a return on investment in the long term.  Real cultural change.
  • How do we help people to plan and organise in pursuit of what really matters to them?
  • Time to put social justice right at the heart of our work….
  • Time to get to work

Yorkshire Musician’s Social Media Surgery

by

This was yet another event pulled together by John Popham and inspired by the social media surgery format.
It was a great example of a peer to peer support mechanism with everyone getting something from the event.  The Round Foundry who provided the room, got to showcase their wonderfully flexible building and to prove once again how great they are as people.  Social media bods got richly entertained by musicians.  Musicians learned a bit from social media bods. Event sponsors  http://get-ctrl.com get to raise awareness for their service,  local business Out of the Woods get to sell a few platters of wonderful canapés and it seems that everyone is a winner.
No evaluation forms, no sign in sheets, no evidence of GVA created, jobs retained or any of the usual nonsense to be sent to a funder for rubber stamping to release funds.
No event management teams handing out name badges and ticking  lists.
No pop up banners reminding everyone how great we are in providing this service and ramming an expensive, publicly funded brand down their necks.
Just a great experience shared by people who might not otherwise have met, networks built and strengthened, opportunities uncovered, smiles on faces, tunes in hearts and I suspect some really talented people who now have ideas about how to get their music heard and perhaps some more revenue too.  We have known for a long time that conviviality matters.  But mainstream business support rarely manages to achieve it.
No ‘gurus’ or accredited advisers either!  There is a debate about the future of business support in which I advocate for a greater emphasis on peer to peer networks and problem based learning as more cost effective ways to support enterprise than a model based on professional business advisers and brokerage.  And the main criticism of what I am advocating is that ‘we can’t assure the quality of the advice given’.  Well apart from not being entirely true (we use an informal peer review to check out the quality of our work in social media surgeries) it also shows a lack of faith in the ability of lay people to help other lay people make progress.  Information is offered on a caveat emptor, or ‘you might want to think about…’ basis, and people are advised to talk with more than one surgeon to get a different perspective.  In short, people are taught how to get value from ‘would be’ helpers.
And when we look at advisory regimes that are fully quality assured, supervised and regulated – like the finance industry – are we really supposed to think that this is a model that provides guarantees of quality?
Let’s just open every single event with a reminder from Buddha – “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

Wrong Thinking in Big Society?

by

It is an easy mistake to make.  The argument for it goes something like this…

If we want to make Big Society work we have to get more citizens ‘connected‘ to ‘place’ and ‘people’.  We have to encourage civic pride and a culture of helping for the common good.  We need to get more of us running libraries, volunteering and generally being good eggs.  We need more people to be more selfless.

But I think this is wrong thinking.

The primary challenge is not about connecting us to ‘people’ and ‘place’.  This maybe necessary but is certainly not sufficient, and if done without the right pre-conditions will only result in rustling up the usual overburdened suspects and urging them to ‘do more’.

The challenge is to tackle apathy and hopelessness. To help people who currently see themselves as ‘victims of a broken society’ to become active architects of a better one.

To connect more of us to our own sense of self: our own sense of potential, aspiration, vision and possibility.  Armed with a sense of agency and purpose in relation to our own lives then association, mutuality and cooperation, all of those factors that lead to the emergence of community will surely follow, as we realise that our own progress is tied up with the progress of our neighbours.

It is when we have given up on ourselves that we also give up on our communities.

How does this wrong thinking manifest itself in practice?

Well, for example, when we ask ‘communities’ what they need. Almost inevitably they will agree on a lowest common denominator project that makes a little difference to a lot of people but ducks the real issues that really blights lives.  So we get a community group lobbying for a new playground instead of tackling the real challenges that they face – like how to put breakfast on the table every morning, or how to get their children to study at school, or how to escape from violence.  These things are just too painful and personal to talk about in group meetings with well-meaning strangers.

We have to recognise that communities appear when large numbers of individuals are working on what really, REALLY matters to them, working collectively in pursuit of their own self-interest, rightly understood.

When we get the balance right between looking after yourself and looking after your neighbour.

Listening: A response to danger?

by

“We truly listen if we sense ourselves to be in danger.

Imagine, for example, that there is a murderer at large and we are alone in bed in the middle of the night and there is a noise downstairs. At times like these, we stop moving, our entire body, inside and out becomes very still until nothing is left but a heartbeat. Even our breathing becomes inaudible. Our concentration is focused totally on the sound. Animals, sensing danger, stop in their tracks and literally prick up their ears to listen….

We need to listen as if our lives depend on it.”
(from “Matsumoto News: A Newsletter by Karen Hagberg; March 1990)

  • Who are you listening to?
  • What are you listening for?
  • Who is not being heard?