“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” 

Desmund Tutu

Longing for connection is part of our human experience; we are wired to connect. As I left the high-tech corporate world a mentor recommended that I reach out to a friend of his to explore my interest in community. I was particularly curious about learning that arises in conversations and exploring further what I had learned from Etienne Wenger’s community of practice model. What drew me in me was both my love of learning something I hadn’t yet seen thanks to someone else’s presence in my life and my own longing for connection and belonging.

What this friend said to me that day caught me by surprise, planted a seed and I’ve been curious about it ever since. During the previous year, I facilitated a community of practice bringing together team members from across the organization I worked for to share experiences and knowledge and to learn from each other. I wanted to do more of this with other organizations; I wanted to bring people together and create spaces for learning together and community. With this intention in mind, I sat in the coffee shop hoping to hear some sage advice to support my efforts forward. 

What Stephen shared that day was his perspective that it isn’t possible to create community in a work setting. How is it not possible? He went on to describe the temporal nature of community in organizations and how it doesn’t build trust and true belonging. We live in a transient world where people are joining and leaving communities every day and commitment to communities waning. Many of us have experienced spending years of starting your day with a morning check-in with your teammate or classmate and one day they leave and your daily connection and morning ritual is gone. Knowing that these connections are temporal, I notice people hesitating to step in fully, the neighbor who moves in, doesn’t meet or connect with the neighbors, or the teammate that fulfills their job responsibilities without ever sharing a meal with a colleague. Oh my, what did this mean and how was I going to move ahead?

My own experiences to date pretty much mirrored much of what Stephen shared. I had changed schools, moved towns, lived in and outside the US, left jobs, leaving and losing communities I had built and invested in. I also stayed in a school community when everyone I started with left. I was a member of a community that got divided as the founding leaders decided to go their separate ways. I committed to an organization as it merged into another. Relationships ended and years of holiday rituals and connections were suddenly gone. Friends have moved. Colleagues have been asked to leave. I lost a partner when health challenges arose. I have welcomed new community members; some have fully stepped in, while others have stepped in with reservations. And after some time, I also noticed myself entering new communities with both trepidation and longing. I found it all a bit heartbreaking.  

The following years I put my desire for community development to the side and found myself on a learning journey. I took my visual and instructional design skills and had the pleasure of consulting to an incredible network of thought leaders and master practitioners in the field of facilitative leadership, conflict resolution, dialogue, rites of passage and creating learning environments in education, corporate, political, and non-profit settings. I was SO grateful for all that I was able to absorb during those years and the willingness of these amazing individuals to mentor me in their work as I supported them.

I finally found my way back to community years later. This time designing an online space for an educational community to meet outside their courses and to connect and support each other. Thanks to the previous years I had some good clues on how to proceed. In addition, a seed was planted in me during my conversation with Stephen. I’ve been holding the tension of two realities, our need for connection and belonging and the transient and complex world we live in. How do we create deep meaningful connections and community that honors and supports us in these transient settings and world? I don’t have it all figured out and I have learned a few things so far:

• Community is about people, not organizations, legal structures, interests, and missions. Community is about connection, relating, caring, support, working together, and companionship along our lives journeys. Don’t confuse the structure, space, and domain with the purpose of community; community is for us. If we don’t show up in the community space, there is no community. Community spaces and structures simply give us access to each other and give us the capacity to do many incredible things we can’t do on our own.
• Together we are a community. And within that community you have individual connections.  Over time these connections form your own circle of community, they aren’t a community in and of themselves they are your community.
• Give people the space to grow, develop and change.  Community needs a domain, a focus. Clarity of focus helps people find their place in the community to share their gifts and choose to engage. Community must welcome change and evolution.  Over time your role will shift and evolve. Community spaces themselves must shift and evolve and be redefined. Be willing to expand and grow your community.   
• It is important to acknowledge membership shifts in each community. People come and go. Both new and existing members bring value. Support transitions as people enter leave and shift their roles in communities. You never really leave a community you simply step into a different role; you are always connected.  
• We belong to multiple communities, and you don’t have to choose between them. At different times different communities will take on more of a priority. Your role, needs and gifts you have to share and receive in each are different. One of your gifts is your connection and bridge you bring to all of your other communities.
• Community is worth it regardless of the heartbreak and challenges.  We need each other. We are not supposed to do this all on our own. We thrive when we are connected to a thriving community.

Some how these lessons seem so simple. Having learned these tidbits I find myself more engaged, more willing to participate, and more connected. Although it’s not easy, it’s surely worth it and I am grateful. If we can build community within a transient world I feel hopeful that we can regain trust and our sense of belonging. There is a lot of work still to be done and I look forward to what is ahead, creating space for community and learning in my life.