Analytical-Mind

Since my first post on this topic, a few people asked me why I thought communities were a new way to organize and what complexity there was in applying communities to a business setting (i.e. for-profit organizations). I have defined what is a community in a business context and some of the rules they follow. Below are some of the recurring questions and their associated answer.

In a business context, what is a community?

In a business context, communities are similar to functional departments with some fundamental distinctions. In traditional setting, members of a functional department or of a project team work together to achieve a goal. With some exceptions, team members share nothing but their common goal and a common boss. By comparison, in addition to sharing a common goal members within a community also share common values and culture and they operate within agreed upon self-defined norms. I provided a few examples here.

Why are communities in the context of business different from other communities?

Communities that come together to carry out a goal are common but communities that aim to generate revenue to autonomously support themselves are no frequent. In traditional for-profit organizations, shareholders through board members select the management team for the organization. The management team (President, CEO, COO, etc.) become accountable to the board for their performance and as such almost always use a top-down (command-and-control) approach.

By contrast, communities rely on a bottom-up approach to decide their goals and those are seldom oriented toward profit.

Aren’t communities completely disorganized and as such, couldn’t work in a business context?

Communities could be disorganized but they wouldn’t be effective. Communities typically set up rules that will allow them to work efficiently. What may seem like disorganized entities within traditional organizations may actually bring better results.

In certain situation, a larger community may ask sub-communities to run within certain guideline and as such, would cut disorganization.

Why use communities as organizational structure?

Because communities are living cells, they are components of a living organism and are able to adapt to their environment.

A community can be born, live and die. A community arises when 2 people come together around a common goal, and decide to form a community.

A community dies when less than 2 people deploy energy to sustain it.

What rules govern a community?

I already provided an answer in this post but typically, communities work by the rules defined by their members. Some rules are implicit while others are explicit and clearly adapted to the needs of the community. The community may decide to create a space for expression and revision of its rules.

In his blog (English translation by google) Tremeur talked about the notion of rules and how they are relevant to the functioning of communities.

How can someone join a community?

Individuals can join a community by expressing their interest in the community, ensuring they are motivated by the goals the community has set, and by adhering to the rules of that community. Further information on this topic can be found in this post.

Can a community expel a member?

According to the rules under which it operates, the community may choose to expel one of its members. It is important to establish that the decision to evacuate a member is serious and can not be done without the approval of the majority (or unanimity) of group members.

An individual is part of a community if he is active in this community. Being active in the community means to actively and positively contribute to achieving the goals set by the community by working with other members of this community. If an individual is not active in a community, it is not part of that community (even if his name appears in the list of members).

How many communities can an individual belong to?

People can belong to as many communities as they wish. Individuals alone are responsible for setting their limit.

What is the largest number of members in a community?

There is no set limit.

If the number of members is jeopardizing the operational effectiveness of the community (9 members in a team would be a reasonable number), then it is likely that the community will divide itself into 2 communities, each pursuing different sub-objectives.

What is the role of leader of the community?

A leader is appointed only if the community decides to appoint one, and its role is defined by the community. Typically,

• the leader ensures the respect of the common rules that the community has given itself;
• the leader ensures that the community is visible and transparent;
• the leader is the one who will link with other communities.

Who chooses the leader of a community?

Unlike traditional businesses where leaders (managers) are selected or appointed by their supervisor, the leader of a community is chosen democratically by the members of the community. Similar to the concept of holacracy, the leader emerges from the group because of its expertise and its commitment to advancing the community towards achieving the goals it has set.

Are all communities are connected?

Maybe, maybe not.

The link between 2 communities may be at least 2 kinds:

• members belonging to more than 1 community;
• a need expressed by a community for the services provided by another.

A community that needs support or resources from another community therefore becomes automatically linked to another community.

Can a community exist independently?

If it apart from other communities, the answer is “yes”: For example, communities of practice are primarily in service to their members, and this is enough.

Is that all communities have financial goals?

No. Basically, communities set their own goals.

As a commercial enterprise, some communities have financial goals to make sure growth and sustainability of the organization.

By contrast, other communities will be directly or indirectly serving communities with financial goals but will not themselves financial targets.

Other communities are communities of interest and have no link with strict financial targets.

I tried dog sledding for the first time today and I must say it was an amazing experience. From the moment we got off the bus until the time we got back to the dog center, the guides were dedicated to making this a really great afternoon for all of us.

This post is not about promoting the tour operator [drop me an email if you would like more information about the dog sledding tours] but about an interesting analogy that I thought about once the tour was over. I apologize ahead of time as I do not mean to discriminate the dogs by comparing them to humans .

As a consulting organization we are often asked to help companies with their adoption of the Agile project management methods. One of the first paradigm we have to deal with is team self-management and for many reasons, seeing these dogs in action triggered the following thoughts:

• each of these dog had a specific role to play and each dog knew what was expected of them;
• without collaboration the 5 dogs would not be able to pull the weight of the sled and its riders;
• every time the sled came to a complete stop, the dogs knew to get some rest and eat snow (i.e. drink);
• after a few minutes, they knew it was time to get going so they all started barking – I was told it was a sign they were happy to start pulling again;
• one of the dog was responsible to notify the others when it was time to start pulling again;
• at the end of the ride, the dogs seemed happy to have accomplished their duty and expected nothing more than a biscuit and to be petted.

Humans are obviously much more evolved and cohesive team dynamics is certainly more difficult to achieve but the results of collaboration and self-managed team can be as impressive as these dogs pulling our sled.

I could pretend this is a fictitious situation and try to come up with a good story to demonstrate my point but this time, I don’t need to.

So this is a real story that happened to Maria [a fictitious name] a friend of mine. Maria joined a small (less than 100 employees) but well known company in Montreal. She was bringing a great deal of experience and specific expertise to the organization and as such negotiated what she believed to be a fair compensation (salary, bonus, vacation, medical plan, etc.). Although it took some back and forth, both Maria and her employer were happy they had reached an agreement. She joined the company 3 weeks after accepting the offer.

Within the first week, Maria quickly noticed that she was joining a tightly knit team. Most of her teammates had been working together for years and had gone through some challenging projects which led them to gel. People were nice to Maria but she sensed something was interfering.

A few weeks passed and Maria was quickly learning the basics of her job. She rapidly got up to speed but still had to learn the specifics of the new industry. She truly enjoyed her work even taking home some assignments so she could learn as quickly as possible.

Maria had gone out for lunch the a local restaurant with a colleague when she heard something that completely shocked her. The conversation went like this.

• “You might not know this but everyone on the team knows how much you are making” said Tina.
• “How is this possible?” asked Maria in a state of shock.
• “You know Peter, the senior analyst on our team?” asked Tina.
• “Yes, of course I know him. He’s really funny!” said Maria who’s brain was trying to make connections.
• “I don’t know how Peter found out but he knows that you are making more than everyone on the team and he told us all. We even know that you have a 15% bonus which is unusual for our level.” added Tina.

Maria has always been very polite so she moved on to another topic she told me but she still couldn’t make peace with what she had heard. Her productivity dropped radically on that afternoon as she was trying to figure out ho to deal with such an un-easy situation.

Yesterday when Maria called me I wondered how I would have reacted? Here’s how she decided to handle the situation.

She debated how she could deal with such a situation and in the end she decided to do nothing. Maria thought she could confront Peter to find out how he got the information or she could try to deny the details. Either ways, she felt this would cause more harm than good. She simply decided to show through her actions and contribution that she was worth every penny.

She also decided that if any of her colleague would complain about her salary, she would ask them to go see their manager and discuss their salary. She thought people shouldn’t be upset at her if she had negotiated her salary well.

I thought that was a clever approach – capitalize on your own ability, skills and expertise and use your performance to justify your compensation instead of trying to talk people into believing your value.