Embracing the Messiness
This blog is the transcript of a video I did for my friends at Openly Connected. You can find a larger document about the 10 Keys to a Connected Community. The video can be viewed HERE.
Embracing the Messiness is one of the 10 Keys to a Connected Community because it allows us to meet everyone where they are, and to build from there to achieve collective goals.
When we say Embrace the Messiness related to community building, we mean all of it.
This can feel really counterintuitive because we are generally socialized to hide the messiness, to deny it, and should it come to light, act as though we have everything under control.
But that is not how communities (and in fact I would even say people in general) work, because life happens and because we all bring different perspectives, different opinions and different expectations into our work together.
You may have heard of the forest fire metaphor. It comes from chaos theory and it suggests that forest fires, which on the face of them are uncontrolled destruction, are actually critical to future health and growth of the planet. Forest fires reset the ecosystem, putting nitrogen into otherwise depleted soil, creating fertile conditions for new growth.
Now I imagine that if you asked the individual trees or the small creatures that burrow under their roots, they would likely not be immediately ready to applaud the forest fire.
Because they would be busy trying to figure out how to survive and how to adapt to changing conditions. In essence, embracing the messiness.
And so it is in communities.
The messiness can stop us in our tracks or it can propel us forward to a new reality, to new growth.
In communities, messiness is never as obvious as a forest fire. It is what emerges from complex situations and relationships. It requires us to change directions, to think differently and to be open to new solutions.
I once supported a group of residents who were working with the City to change the governance of their housing from social housing run by the City to co-op housing in which a tenant Board would have oversight. As plans progressed and residents were given a more fulsome role in making decisions about their housing, things got messy.
Not because anyone had bad intentions. In fact, everyone involved was hopeful and doing their best.
But because the expectations had shifted, and because residents were trying on new power roles. And that fundamentally changed the relationships they had with their landlord, with local organizations and with each other. And things got messy!!
Some people left, just walked away. Some people stayed and tried to hold onto power in any way they could: by intentionally excluding others, by hoarding information and knowledge and by refusing to share power.
And then a surprising thing happened. As the group began to implode from the force of those attempting to maintain power, leadership emerged from really unexpected places. Folks who had been quiet, really more attendees than participants began to share ideas, began to name the dysfunction and suggest new ways of doing things.
Like the forest fire, what looked like destruction had made way for new growth.
Embracing the messiness allowed us to support that new growth, to build on it so that it was able to flourish. We were able to connect new leaders to mentors and to build skills and capacities that allowed the group to maintain their governance role and strengthen their impact.
In our work in communities, there will always be messiness and some of it will feel like a forest fire, but if you take a moment and look for the benefit behind the chaos, you will see that the messiness is actually worthwhile, creating the conditions that will propel the community forward.