We speak of communities of practice, and some organisations will have a group or communities dedicated to people related themes such as diversity, LBGTQ+ or faith and yet we rarely think about community as the backbone of the organism.
Yes, there will potentially be share of mind dedicated to the culture and yet even that can become hijacked by the corporate committee approach or the branding approach.
So what is a community and why does it matter in organisations? Let’s look to the etymology of the word ‘community’ or ‘communitatus’ in Latin. We find ‘com’ – a prefix meaning together, ‘munis’ taken to mean the changes or exchanges that link, and ‘tatus’ a suffix suggesting diminutive, small, intimate or local.
We might translate this as a ‘small’ group of people (togetherness) linked through exchanges (communication). As we track the word in its various uses through centuries, other factors emerge such as common interests, equality, living together, shared purpose and even unity of will.
What is clear about community is that it invokes a sense of togetherness, a bond that unites and provides a network within which people can thrive. They thrive because within the community they feel secure and free enough to share without fear of being rejected.
The increased focus on psychological safety within organisations gives us a clue that maybe we are subtly moving toward a higher iteration of community within our workplaces. For centuries we have had the backbone of paternalism which, at best, has provided safety but without liberty and at worst has created communities where control and conformity have been the norm. We are not out of these woods yet.
If we place community at the centre of our cultural focus, we will be seeking to create greater connectedness and the formation of social networks that empower, enable and uplift those within – not simply for task completion or political positioning or career advancement but because it creates health, well-being and harmony.
And here we might consider how we achieve this culture. The building of social capital might be a useful lens through which to explore this, defined by Harvard University Political Scientist Robert D. Putnam as “the collective value of all social networks (who people know) and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other (norms of reciprocity).”
Margaret Heffernan speaks of social capital as a culture of helpfulness, candour, openness. And, whilst another jargonistic term isn’t always helpful, the tenets of social capital are: fostering greater care, kindness, helpfulness, reciprocity, connectivity, safety and security to be open and free.
Whilst some may argue that the notion of community might feel more like a social club than a business, we might ask ourselves why they must be mutually exclusive. Some of us will have had the good fortune to work within an organisation where we have truly touched into this higher sense of community and it is motivating, energising, joyful and sustaining. Who doesn’t want that in their place of work?