By Nick Beadleston Executive Director @ Commonplace
"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success."
- Edward Everett Hale
"For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.”
― Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Communities are built on culture. Culture is built on agreements. These agreements can be implicit, taking the form of norms, customs, and behaviors. Or a grand marketeer Seth Godin puts it, “People like us do things like this.” Other times these agreements are explicit, like written laws, codes, and contracts. Regardless of the shape they take, resilient, unifying agreements include and afford for a multiplicity of voices at their inception. They are agreements of, for, and by the community.
As you read this, we are working to create a Commonplace Community Agreement. We view this forthcoming document not just as some stale conduct policy stapled to the last page of our leases. No, this agreement will make the implicit culture of Commonplace explicit. It will empower our members, our Commonplacers, to better building the kind of culture in the kind of space we all wish to inhabit. Because of course ultimate adjacency and authority for creating culture rests with an organization’s members, not the organization itself. (A fact many tend—for convenience or expediency's sake—to forget.)
But, to be done right, these things take time. In our case, this document has been months in the making. And that’s perfectly fine. Important work must be allowed to unfold at whatever pace it requires. Here is a quick rundown of what’s been done so far, where we’re at now, and where we see this all-important work going.
The Work So Far
In December 2022, we held our first Commonplacer Breakfast. (You can read about it in our previous blog On the Importance of Waffles.) Commonplace Board President, Principle at Parallel Solutions, and seasoned facilitator Megan Motil led the room though a series of contemplative exercises around the values they expect to see in our space. Meanwhile Commonplace staff cooked waffles and kept the coffee coming. (Important, introspective work demands tasty carbs and strong caffeine.)
As the conversations unfolded, most Commonplacers appeared aligned on a few core concepts. These included a desire for:
Cooperative decision-making about space, uses, and design rather than topdown or directive decision-making about space, uses, and design.
Openness and tolerance for change rather than rigidity or intolerance to change.
Inclusive membership rather than selective membership, with a desired shared for mission-alignment to be considered.
Feeling of connection rather than separateness.
Welcoming rather than exclusive.
Community or systems-focused mission rather than an inwardly, organizationally, or building/space-focused mission.
While all salient, this last point was made emphatically and has become a frequent refrain by Commonplace staff and board. (It’s also easier said than done, as we’re continually learning.)
During the breakfast session, Commonplacers also wrestled with seemingly opposing values. Among them were the need for:
Informal management system with flexible/fluid roles and responsibilities and an organized management system with defined roles and responsibilities. A desire for a defined decision-making process with clear roles was shared.
Collaborative work and solitary work.
Design that nurtures individual focus and productivity and informal actions and flexibility.
Affordable and upscale member amenities, with a recognition that this is interconnected with a desire for community inclusivity.
The passion, wisdom, and honesty of our members really shone through during that first session. And those important conversations helped set the table for our second Commonplacer Breakfast in during which things really began to take shape.
Where We’re At Today
We recently got the band back together for another round of waffles and culture-building during our 2023 Q1 Commonplacer Breakfast. Megan was good enough to facilitate once more. She again took the group through a series of important exercises which sparked even deeper conversation. The result was our first draft of a Commonplace Community Agreement. While admittedly verbose in its current form, the document does it’s best to capture what was said and what was heard in the moment. It lays out the following expectation and commitments for both those inhabiting the space and those working in the service of it.
[DRAFT] Commonplace Community Agreement [DRAFT]
We agree/commit to:
- Making the implicit explicit, including having signs to share expectations related to which spaces and zones are intended to foster boisterous and loud conversational uses or quiet uses. This includes creating and explicitly stating “norms” for shared space, including the kitchen, the Grand Staircase, co-working and “hot desk” open space, phone booths, conference rooms, etc.
- Creating and using passive ways to gather and share feedback with and from each other regarding the space (uses, preferences, needs), such as notes on whiteboards.
- Creating and expecting warm and welcoming interactions with each other, while also acknowledging that warm can be a simple glance and smile and does not need to be a conversation.
- Assuming everyone in the space has good intentions.
- Asking for what we need and sharing our ideas and listening and seeking to understanding when others are sharing their needs and ideas, so that people feel trusted and safe with each other and in the Commonplace space.
- Respecting each other’s needs and boundaries. Using signs on dedicated desks to indicate our openness and availability for spontaneous interaction, or our need for focused, uninterrupted working.
- Cultivating a shared sense if “inclusive exclusivity” by taking responsibility and holding a sense of obligation for the space and each other, as members.
- Having and using guest passes to create a more inclusive space.
- Welcoming guests while maintaining and encouraging our other Community Agreement norms.
- Participating in group events that are fun and where we are coming to teach and learn.
- Participating in group activities (e.g., kitchen white board, typewriter), and consistently attending breakfast and happy hour gatherings planned by staff; these are the places and spaces where we connect and socialize.
As of this blog’s publishing, our draft community agreement is posted in our physical space and has been shared digitally. Commonplacers are taking time to read and digest the document and to propose edits, additions, and alterations. Already, what’s emerging is a cleaner, clearer agreement which gets at the heart of what’s needed. It’s still a work in progress—as all good work is—but what’s starting to take shape is truly exciting!
Where We See This Work Going
Our draft community agreement is currently being circulated among our members. They are, with a critical eye, helping shape it into a guiding document.
We’re also looking at other similar documents which can help inform this work. These include agreements from the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, McGill University, University of Toronto, Alternate Roots, and our own local Northwest Food Coalition.
We’re particularly inspired by concise agreements which appear simple on the surface but still contain deep wisdom. Take the Zingerman's Training Compact. This 31-word, well-tested document has become a corners stones of their multi-million dollar training business that serves students from around the world.
Their simple compact states:
Trainees agree to:
- Take responsibility for the effectiveness of their own training.
Trainers agree to:
- Document clear performance expectations.
- Provide the training resources.
- Recognize performance.
- Reward performance.
So okay, we may not boil down our own Commonplace Community Agreement down that far. But ultimately, we expect we’ll end up with a similarly concise document; something which sums up the essential commitments of members, staff, board, and supporters. Something which identifies and empowers our members as the real drivers of culture within our space. (As opposed to our staff or our board, who’s real role is to support member-created and led culture, not to design and disseminate it.)
We’re incredibly excited to see and to share the final(ish) agreement draft in the coming weeks. And we say “ish” because a true agreement is not a static thing. Ours will change and grow overtime because our members will change and grow. But regardless of the shape it takes, we know our Commonplace Community Agreement will be a living tool which will help us confidently say “Commonpalcers like us do things like this!”
