This should be interesting. Thessy (pronounced Tessie) is creating a start-from-scratch community based not just on proximity, but shared values. Somewhere between a commune and a New York City co-op, Thessy is planning a ‘co-housing’ community where membership is predicated on alignment with a set of value enshrined in a Manifesto. A key element of this is engagement with your neighbors beyond a nod on the way to the trash chute (this is radical for New York City).

Utopian Communities

This is not without precedent. There were several start-from-scratch communities in nineteenth century America built around progressive ideals. Known as the Utopian Movement, they were social experiments, many with the mission to counter the social disintegration that their members believed accompanied industrialization

Arguably neighborhoods like Brooklyn’s infamous Park Slope, packed with champagne socialists and Militant Mothers (a friend of mine was hissed at in a playground for bottle-feeding her baby) are also places where people share proximity and pretty explicit progressive values.

But this is going to be much more. It’s going to be an “intentional community”: a term used to describe the Utopian Movement and their modern equivalents, with a bit of commune thrown in. Each apartment will be self-contained but their will be shared spaces such as kitchens.

The degree of interaction will be much higher than the dreadful Park Slope where arguing over a sausage’s degree of organic-ness in the Park Slope Food Coop constitutes community!

Purpose/Vision

Interaction is mandated in Thessy’s Manifesto. Residents will share their skills by giving lectures about their passions and interests in shared spaces. There will be voting, bartering with an alternative community currency, and “engaging with the community in the common spaces for cooking & meals, music, painting, play, gardening and yoga”.

And residents will be selected not just on the basis of their robust tax return, but their robust values:

“Eco, sustainable, green, multi-cultural, ‘ yes we can’ attitude, living with kids & elderly, learning/teaching/sharing as a core value, participatory, efficient use of resources, mind & body fitness, gay/bi/trans/hetero, political activism, secular, individual freedom, consensus process to arrive at decisions, techno-hippy, intelligent, fun, warm, loving, edgy, unique.

Not: scared, timid, rigid, righteous, pretentious”

(By the way, I don’t know why New Yorkers tolerate the humiliating ordeal of sharing their personal financial details with their neighbors to be granted permission to buy an expensive apartment and then see those same neighbors every day knowing that they know how much you do or don’t earn. Bizarre).

Thessy is starting off with the two most important glue ingredients:

Number One. She’s laying the bedrock of a tight and stable community by writing a Manifesto that is explicit about the values to be shared. Values are the foundation of a robust community because they’re things we use to define ourselves as individuals, and by extension, the community. It’s a profound identification that’s hard to dismantle.

Number Two: She’s predisposing the community to have elevated levels of interaction by making it a condition of membership. The increased frequency of people rubbing together, around shared interests, needs and support, and especially values leads to the formation of sticky things like partnerships and friendships.

In other words, she’s starting with the two key ingredients of Social Glue: Purpose/Vision and Rubbing People Together.

So we have an interesting opportunity to see the birthing and growth of something approaching a Utopian community in a city not known for its love of intimacy and ideals. All Thessy has now is the Manifesto. It’s a pretty good one, and being explicit about the mission, shared values and expectations of members’ behavior, is a recipe for a pretty tight community.

Actually she has more. She is pulling together fifteen people to help refine the Manifesto, and recruit like-minded members “based on values, interests and fit”. And she has the confidence borne of seeing it work before. She part of her life in a squat-like community in Dusseldorf characterized not by dingy mattresses and meth, but fiscal responsibility, liberal values, an artistic environment and skill-sharing.

A social experiment

Stand by for more on how Thessy takes this from Manifesto to bricks and mortar; from idealism to reality with all the attendant obstacles and triumphs that this ambitious attempt at glue-creation will encounter.

I’m especially interested in a key principle she is employing. She hopes that the values she articulates in the Manifesto will attract those who align with them, and repel those who don’t. She does not plan to enforce these values. She’s prepared to see how the community evolves from this solid, values-based start. From what I have observed of community, lack of enforcement of values can lead to abuse and/or dilution of those values, which can alienate members for whom they are important.

This is clearly an interesting social experiment and I can’t wait to see what transpires.

At the heart of every successful organization is a clear purpose. It’s the thing that the founder starts with. It’s what successful organizations use for big and small decisions alike, often for decades afterwards.

Religion or corporation, online support network or cupcake enthusiast group, all communities do better when they…their leaders, their members, their potential recruits and the world at large…are very clear about:

• What the organization is here to do
• The beliefs and values it executes against
• And therefore, what is expected of its membership.

Without one, the community is rudderless. It may potter along, but it won’t be truly great.

I like this quote from a famous business book. Even in the world of commerce a Purpose, Ideology, Mission/Vision, call it what you will, is considered vital to an organization’s success:

“Like the fundamental ideal of a great nation, church, school, or any other enduring institution, core ideology in a visionary company is a set of basic precepts that plant a fixed stake in the ground: ‘This is who we are; this is what we stand for; this is what we’re all about.’ …core ideology is so fundamental to the institution that it changes seldom, if ever.” (Jim Collins & Jerry Porras, Built To Last)

So who consumes a Purpose? Why do they need or want it? And therefore, what goes into one? And when you have one, what do you do with it? And…what does one look like?

They can take many forms; some of them are very familiar. It may be a book: the Bible, the Koran or The Little Red Book. Or a speech: MLK’s “I have a Dream”. Or a Declaration of Independence. Or Constitution.

All of these have a vision of the how the world should be. They’re crystal clear about the values of the community, and are explicit about expected behavior. They’re used as a lodestone for making decisions that affect the fortunes of the community. They’re a statement of why you should join, commit and take action.

Most importantly, they define the community to itself and to others, whether it’s a nation, a religion, a movement or a political party.

Of course most Purposes or Ideologies are not famous, not as poetic or define things like countries. They can often be found on About pages or coffee mugs. They’re often statements about the group’s goals, what they stand for and who should join. But if they’re good, and they’re used, then they’ll do the exact same things that the intimidating famous ones do.

Let’s talk first about the consumers of a Purpose, and why they need or want one. That’ll help define what goes into one, and what you do with it.

By the way, I’m using the term ‘Purpose’ as a catch-all for Ideology, Belief System, Mission and so on. Each of these may have slight differences, but really they serve similar enough needs and are used in similar enough ways.

The Consumers of a Purpose.
There are at least four:

1. The Membership.
Arguably these are the most important consumers of an ideology.

If it’s well conceived, the benefit is Commitment. And with commitment comes the associated benefits of conviction, energy, involvement, motivation to recruit others, and willingness to take action.

2. The Leadership.
The key benefit for the leadership is clarity. Making fast and effective decisions obviously improves the efficiency of the organization, especially large and complex ones.

There’s a drag on decision-making when it has to be prefaced by yet another debate about the organization’s role and values. When they’re universally known and embraced, then decisions about strategy, next steps, who belongs and who doesn’t happen fast and with buy-in.

3. Potential Members
Potential recruits need to know why they’re joining and what’s expected of them if they do. They need to be able to say things like “those values are mine. I’ll feel at home there”, and “I love what this community is out to create. I want to join”.

If a prospect knows what they are getting into and is clear whether they identify with the community, or not, then they’ll join and stay. And you’ll spend less time dealing with the members who really shouldn’t be there, the ones who can make the community and themselves less happy and effective

4. The world at large.
If the community is begins to have an impact, it means it’s rubbing up against the world at large. Beyond recruits, those outside of the community need to understand what you’re about. They could be potential partners or sponsors. They might the media. Or government agencies.

The benefits are dependent on who’s engaging with your group, but they can include clarity about compatibility, whether commercially, politically or in terms of goals if it’s an organization with whom you’re entering into an alliance. Or ease of communication if it’s media who need sound-bite definitions.

Can you think of other consumers of your organization’s Purpose? How does your organization use one? Comment or go to the community site and post on the blog.