Cultural Tensions In Communities
Different group dynamics within a community
Cliques and subcultures can form within a community. This can be a good thing, as members like to participate in the community when they have friends there, too.
The leaders of these smaller groups also play a crucial role in keeping members happy and active. Developers shared that when section leaders are good, the team members under them are more likely to stay in the community.
Differing needs and motivations of members
Culture can be manifested in the way a community meets members’ needs. Undelusional views members as having different needs, similar to Maslow’s popular hierarchy of needs pyramid:
- Vision (Inspiration)
- Resources (Support)
- Significance (Esteem)
- Appreciation (Belonging)
- Financial/ Skills (Survival)
- Physical/ Intimacy (Biological)
The types of needs people have can also influence the community’s culture. However, focusing on needs might foster a culture where some members keep taking without giving. That kind of culture, says Vincent from A Good Space, a co-operative for changemakers, would destroy the community.
As such, it’s important to encourage members to contribute, too. In fact, developers who practice Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) focus on people’s strengths and how these can be used for the community’s good. They espouse a bottom-up approach, allowing community members to “drive the development process themselves by identifying and mobilising existing, but often unrecognised, assets”.
Instead of seeing themselves as meeting members’ needs, they simply help members discover and activate their strengths. They might be motivated to participate because doing so meets their own intangible needs.
Angie from ArtsWok Collaborative, which facilitates end-of-life conversations, shares an example: “One of our volunteers is a young lady whose mother passed away. That was a motivation for her to volunteer as she didn’t have the chance to converse well with her mother.”
As such, volunteerism could begin by matching people’s skills and needs. In time, though, volunteers could have other reasons to stay. They may have built friendships in the community. They may have also found that the act of volunteering meets their need to feel appreciated and significant. They may also share the founder’s vision.
In other words, you can improve culture fit through the effective matching of needs and strengths. Doing so can also help you foster a culture of participation, ownership, and trust.
Developing and implementing norms
According to Global Cognition, a cognition and education research group, cultural norms are the standards of a group of people—a set of shared expectations and rules that guide their behaviour. In communities, norms are reinforced by leaders and members.
For instance, in Repair Kopitiam, a learning community, members are expected to use inclusive language to encourage knowledge- and skills-sharing. But there will always be a naysayer—that one person who’d act like they know better than everybody else and puts people down by telling them they don’t know how to do repairs.
It’s the community leaders’ job to stop such language and explain why such behaviour is undesirable, says Atiqa, one of the group’s leaders.
It’s important to communicate these norms at the outset. After all, it’s unfair to expect people to uphold standards they’re not even aware of. So upon joining a community, members should understand the roles, duties, obligations, and benefits they can expect.
Failure to communicate expectations can make people leave the group eventually. “[Members] may feel that their needs are not served as rules of engagement are not set. Nobody communicates expectations and this is one of the common reasons why people leave. When we participate without knowing the expectations of us, then we will start to leave,” shares Vincent.
Lex of co-working space Mutual Works adds that it’s important for members to understand the reasoning behind the norms. “Once a common understanding of what an action means is being set, you can better establish desired norms,” he says.
The influence of the leaders
As a community leader, you might underestimate the influence you have on your community’s culture. Or if you’re a member, you might not be aware just how much you’re contributing to the culture, too.
Community leaders inspire people through their actions. This isn’t necessarily the founder or restricted to the core group. Members can inspire and motivate the community, too—and in that sense, they’re acting as leaders who influence the culture.
It’s important to distinguish between communities and communes, says Ranga of Beyond Social Services, a charity for underprivileged youths. In communes, a charismatic leader calls the shots in a place that is rules-based. Once the leader is gone, some communes dissolve or experience a major cultural shift.
This means community leaders shouldn’t form the culture on the basis of their persona. Cultures can be tied to founders’ visions, but not to the founders themselves. As Ruth of South Central Community Family Service Center points out: “We [leaders] are guests, and the real hosts are the people who live here. Real leadership is when we do not know everything.”
So take some time to assess how you’re influencing your community’s culture.
Encouraging members to lead
Burnout is a common experience among community leaders. One person cannot drive the community’s culture alone—culture, after all, is shared.
One step towards encouraging members to take the lead is to identify the right people to support you.
“Are there ‘bright sparks’ within the community to gather people, and are they able to gather resources and get residents within the community?” asks Ethan.
Atiqa shared a time when the developers of Repair Kopitiam realised no one else was initiating weekly events. They reached the point of burnout and feared the community might be dissolved.
“But we realised a lot of people want it to happen. We realised the reason that no one steps up is because the culture, the hype is going down. There is no stepping up because [they are] expecting a leader to step up. Maybe because the leader is not instilling the motivation for people to come up. We realised that there is something wrong with the leadership. But now, under the new leadership, [the culture] motivates the people,” she shares.
If members aren’t taking ownership, try to evaluate your leadership style and the culture that it fosters. If it’s not a question of leadership, there may be members shooting down others’ ideas and potential contributions. You need to investigate the root causes of this culture in order to change it.
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