We’ve covered Why and Who you should reject and eject in the previous two posts. Now we’ll talk about the difficult job of how to do it.

In the case of culling, the general rule here is respectfully, kindly and keeping the rest of the community informed about why the person is removed.  In the case of rejecting a potential member, again, respectfully and explaining why.

Those are the general rules. Here are some specific tools you can use to ensure you get and keep the right members, and lose and reject the wrong ones.

1. Use your Mission/Worldview/Creed/Ideology/Purpose/Values
2. Have Rules and use them consistently and fairly
3. Approve Membership
4. Use a ‘Cultural Sieve’
5. Have a Like-get-Like Strategy
6. Accountability. Self-Policing. Transparency
7. Charge a Fee.
8. Have Courage and Be Kind…and don’t let it get you down.

In this post I’ll talk about the first. In the next two posts, I’ll cover the rest.

1.  Use your Mission/Worldview/Creed/Ideology/Purpose…whatever you call your founding idea and values.

During the very early days the founder of Ebay, Pierre Omidyar, wrote over a weekend what amounted to be the community’s ideology. Its origin was frustration. He found himself sucked into refereeing disputes between buyers and sellers that took valuable time away from building the site. He wrote what he believed the ebay community should value, implicitly who belonged and who didn’t, how to behave and what constituted infringement.

‘eBay is a community that encourages open and honest communication among all its members. Our community is guided by five fundamental values:

* We believe people are basically good.

* We believe everyone has something to contribute.

* We believe that an honest, open environment can bring out the best in people.

* We recognize and respect everyone as a unique individual.

* We encourage you to treat others the way you want to be treated.

eBay is firmly committed to these principles. And we believe that community members should also honor them—whether buying, selling, or chatting with eBay friends.’

Note he describes ebay as a community, not a marketplace , and he articulates several of the classic norms of community behavior, including reciprocity.

Ebay’s business model only works if there’s a republic of trust (at least before the advent of PayPal). The buyer has to trust that the seller’s item is as advertised, and that it will be shipped. The seller has to trust that they’ll get payed.

Interestingly, social trust is used by most sociologists as the key measure of social capital in any neighborhood or society (social capital is a concept that is used to measure the number and quality of social connections and interactions within any society or network).

It was therefore critical to elevate trust as the social currency of the community. The truly brilliant innovation (that removed Pierre’s need for direct involvement in disputes) is that he ‘operationalized’ the ideology by creating one of the first and most effective reputation engines. Members could rate each other according to how much they trusted each other after each transaction. You could attract more transactions as you improved your trust-based status.

In effect, he put a value on good citizenship.

Several of the eBay-ers I interviewed even viewed their rating within the eBay community as a badge of rectitude within the larger culture. There’s no reason not to. It mirrors Judeo-Christian doctrine…but with a metric attached!

The purpose of a purpose

One of the benefits of having a coherent vision, values, and code of behavior is that it is a template that allows fast decision making about who to reject and eject (among other things). Do they buy into the goals of the group? Do they share the same values? Did they infringe the contracted standards of behavior?

Not only does it make for faster decision-making, it makes for buy-in by the rest of the community to your decision. You can point to the ideology and say “they weren’t living it”. And you can use it to have a less subjective conversation with the person you’re rejecting or ejecting: “this is the contract we all live by. You broke it here, here and here”.

Using the Purpose as a measure for membership

This is exactly what Cheryl, who runs the Queens County Parents Autism Coalition, Inc. Meetup Group used to cull passengers and flakes from her group.

This, plus a retelling of the moving story of why she started the group became standard against which compliance would be assessed.

For Cheryl, flakes and passengers were a big issue. Passivity wasn’t just an annoyance. It couldn’t be tolerated for the reasons mentioned in an earlier post in this series: it undermined the purpose of the group because value was only generated by the degree to which members shared knowledge and practical help. And in particular, it eroded the morale and energy of those valuable members who did share information and help.

Cheryl sent out an email that essentially blew the whistle:

”Major changes are coming to QCPAC where some members will stay, some will leave, and most will be removed. These changes are necessary in order to align members with the mission of QCPAC. Up until now we have only had a handful of contributors. QCPAC is a community not just a resource. We cannot display “autism awareness and support” proudly if we don’t walk the walk.”

She had two meetings (on a weeknight and weekend to ensure everyone could come) and solicited input to a proposed a ‘terms of use’ for membership. “It’s like a contract a guess. It says what we’re going to do and what we expect them to do in response and they have to sign it. And if they don’t’ we have to remove them.”

Cheryl and her team modified the mission of the group to be more explicit about the fact that it was a community, and that it was dependent on the contributions and passion of its members for it to work: ‘Members of this community are immensely dedicated, passionate, and involved as one community in the vision that their child deserves a place in this world. We welcome new members who will be just as dedicated and involved’

There were three basic expectations or rules. Even the most vociferous objectors in the meetings (who, interestingly, were the ones who contributed the least) had to admit they were fair:

• Attendance. Members had to show up. The basic minimum was six events a year (not unreasonable given that Cheryl organized an average of four per month)

• Participation. Members had to post on the boards at least once a week. The boards were a key source of facts and practical help. If you didn’t share your knowledge and support, then the group couldn’t fulfill its mission.

• Membership Fees. The people who administer the non-profit are volunteers. No-one receives a salary. But basic costs needed to be covered so the group charges an annual fee of $40.

Some said they couldn’t comply and would return when they could. One woman said that she was offended that she was being treated this way, to which Cheryl responded by saying that she was offended at the way she had been treated all these years:

“We’re just like you. If anyone should be offended it should be us. We’re mothers like you, we don’t get paid. We’ve been doing this for 3 years. We want this organization to move forward, and we can’t do that if everybody’s not on the same page.”

Cheryl’s speech with which she kicked of each meeting is worth reading in full. For an amateur organizer, I think she handled the situation in a very professional way. I’ve reprinted it with her permission at the end of this post.

All of this happened a few months ago, so Cheryl is still assessing whether it worked. But so far she is pleased. The membership numbers are more or less the same, but the population of the group is now more engaged.

The restatement of the Vision and values crystallized to members and non-members alike the benefits and costs of membership. It articulated the expectations of behavior and essentially asked you if you were up for them. It was clear about who should belong, and who shouldn’t. It suggested that if you’re not comfortable with the ‘price’ of membership, then start or find a group where you might be.

In the next post we’ll take a look at Rules and Approving Membership.