Applying Lessons from Peter Block's Book, "Community": Coercion and Resistance

This continues my previous post based on work I am doing at Randolph School to apply Peter Block's Community to the independent school context.

Block's ideas map reasonably well onto the independent school space, with one or two exceptions. He nails it when he describes organizations are inherently paternalistic and hierarchical, focused on control and outcome more than possibilities and relationships. This creates a coercive dynamic between leaders and those being led, wherein the leaders drive toward a pre-determined outcome (or at least outcomes within certain boundaries such as mission). We know that humans resist coercion most of all, especially when it comes disguised in the language of collaboration, so it is no surprise that leaders trying to effect change often voice frustration over resistance by others being changed.

Yet, pure openness to any possibility may be good for community-building, but it fits poorly with the reason most organizations are founded in the first place. A progressive or Montessori school is usually founded with that philosophical and pedagogical focus in mind. Few leaders of such institutions would want to change the school's basic DNA, so the trick is to have openness, within boundaries, but to be clear about where the boundaries are so that those joining the conversation can opt in or out (it is the opting that deconstructs the coercive part).

That is why Block puts such an emphasis on the invitation that leaders give to others they are asking to join the conversation. It is the honesty or lack thereof in the invitation that creates or averts the coercion and the resistance.