In the book Building Unity, Paul Werder defines community as “The process of two or more people accepting and transcending their differences, so they can communicate effectively for their common good.”

He describes learning Scott Peck’s model of group maturation which follows these steps (see also the Wikipedia article):

1. pseudocommunity - where people pretend to get along perfectly and cover up differences by acting like they don’t exist.
2. chaos - when pseudocommunity breaks down and people realize they can’t ignore their differences and conflict starts happening in an unproductive way.
3. emptiness - when people learn to empty themselves of their ego-resistance that is getting in the way of community. They give up in some way some part of themselves that is not conducive to community-building (i.e. stubbornness, being right).
4. true community - when people are in real empathy with each other, and there is a sense of mutual respect, acceptance, and working together.

These stages can also be seen in relationships - you meet, you fall in love, but eventually all your “stuff” comes out and you have to deal with it before you can create true acceptance and a real bond.

I’ve also read a study that compared the satisfaction levels among clients who had been in therapy for a period of time. They found that clients reported more satisfaction in cases where some incident had come up that had to be worked through between the client and the therapist themselves.

Successfully working through conflict creates trust and fosters a deeper level of interaction.

Unfortunately, most groups and organizations don’t get past stage 1 pseudocommunity. 

We have a cultural preference (or a cultural problem) of not engaging in any conflict, and it gets in the way of building real relationships with each other.

I’ve noticed that in business, it’s often seen as “not professional” to deal openly with conflict - there is an unspoken ideal that all business be conducted with calmness and any conflict be smoothed over immediately. Consequently, most business is conducted at stage 1, and never gets to the stage of true community.

Many people do not have the skills to enter stage 3 and 4 - or even the awareness that it exists.

Emptying-out is a spiritual process. It goes against our American rugged individualist psyche, which is very ego-centric.

We also just plain don’t have discussions about this sort of thing. Could you imagine how different Congress would be if both Republicans and Democrats had the goal of creating community rather than winning their position? What if your Senator sat down with himself and thought about emptying-out his ego-attachments that were getting in the way of communicating together for the common good?

My prescription: be more willing to engage with each other authentically, and examine your ego-attachments that are at play.

Let’s all create more community. Let’s deal directly with our differences. Let’s look at our stuff. Let’s start creating a culture where we can relate at level 4 much more often.

It’s easy to point at our culture and criticize it (hey, I just did that!), but it comes down to each of us anyway. We could all get better at stages 3 and 4. And the heart of stages 3 and 4 is learning to take responsibility for ourselves and what we truly want.

I recognize in myself a great deal of resistance to community. A lot of it, surprisingly, is a dislike of Stage 1 pseudocommunity. I can’t stand not dealing with things, and I’ve been in the situation where I’m in a group and it goes into stage 2 and then people quickly gloss things over and get us back to stage 1. Most people feel safer and more comfortable there; I often feel uncomfortable and strained.

My ego-emptying right now is to recognize that for some people, conflict has to happen at a calmer pace and tone or they really can’t do it. And that doesn’t mean they don’t want to discuss anything, it just means they get a lot more adrenaline with flat-out conflict. So I need to be mindful of different constitutions and not assume people are superficial and out to judge me when really they just want to take a breath and check in with themselves.

Another emptying-out I am working on is just my abject fear of being rejected and my automatic suppression of my authentic self. It’s subtle and most people wouldn’t even know it was happening, because I tend to be pretty open, but I notice it is still there.

What about you? Do you recognize barriers to community in yourself? What is your experience with building true community?