Community Building for Wicked Problems

​Check out our latest overview of community building as a new methodology to tackle wicked social and economic problems.​ Click on the cover to get the pdf.

3 Mental Models of "Systems Thinking"

A One-Page Introduction to Socio-Cultural Systems Thinking & Methodology 

3 Mental Models Used to Design & Operate Organizations:

The Mechanistic Model (circa 1860 to circa 1930)

Organizations are machines and serve the will of the boss.

Parts must be maximized for efficiency and output and, when they malfunction, are simply replaceable. People as part of the organization, are simply mindless parts who must do the task given them.

Famous quote: “Why is it every time I ask for a pair of hands, they come with a brain attached?” –Henry Ford

The Biological Model (circa 1930 to current)

Organizations are really like organisms (much of corporate language today reflects this thinking) and the brain is integrated into the organism rather than sitting outside it like a machine.

The “brain” decides but the “parts” can only provide valuable feedback. The “whole” (leadership) has a choice but the “parts” (workers) do not.

Primary goal of biological organization is to grow and survive.

Common language: “Who’s the brains of your firm?” “What arm of the company do you work for?” “Don’t ask me, I’m just the hired hand.”

Sloan’s Divisional Structure dominates biologically focused organizations. Biological models create paternalistic cultures.

The Socio-Cultural Model (currently emerging paradigm of thought)

People are not simply mindless parts but instead display choice of both the ends they pursue and the means with which they pursue those ends.

Socio-cultural systems appreciate that people do not deposit their minds at the company doorstep, making all organizations made up of people multi-minded.

Primary goals of social systems are development and effective integration & differentiation.

Appreciates all five of the dimensions of social systems: power – the ability to choose; beauty – the sense of wonder and excitement; knowledge – the desire to learn and develop; values – the ability to utilize conflict to create win/win; and wealth – the ability to effectively acquire and distribute resources.

Socio-cultural system design and thinking requires a very distinct set of methodologies and operating principles than either mechanical or biological models. A few key distinctions:

You cannot predict-and-prepare for the future, but you can create it.

Synthesis – understanding the containing environment and why people do what they do, is a precursor to any type of analysis.

Understanding the interacting set of problems you face is a critical step in dissolving them.

Utilizing “blank sheet design” – what you’d have if you could have what you wanted – creates the space to begin iterating towards what you want, rather than away from what you don’t.

Failure is viewed not as an undesirable deviation but as critical to learning and iterating towards a preferred future. Failure is OK, not learning is not OK.

See: Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity by Jamshid Gharajedaghi.

Readings & Links that Shape Our Value Set

The Awesomeness Manifesto 

Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness (2004)

M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum (1987)

Authors on Community Building

Dr. M. Scott Peck. The Different Drum. Group process with four psychological stages that typify group cohesion: "pseudo-community", "Chaos", "Emptiness" and "Community" Putnam, Robert D. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Simon & Schuster, New York). a community's well-being is dependent on the quality of relationships among the citizens of that community. He refers to this as social capital. Social capital creates a sense of belonging thus enhancing the overall health of a community. Putnam goes on to identify and examine the decline of social capital in America.

McCook, Kathleen de la Peña. A Place at the Table: Participating in Community Building. Chicago: American Library Association, 2000.

Brain, David, "Placemaking and Community Building," Presentation at the University of Miami School of Architecture (Coral Gables, Fl: March 2004).

Block, Peter (2008) Community: The Structure of Belonging (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Francisco). Email: pbi@att.net

McKnight, John. The Careless Society: Community and Its Counterfeits. New York: BasicBooks, 1995.

• Bugental, J.F.T. The Search for Authenticity.
• Bunker, Barbara Benedict, and Billie T. Alban. Large Group Interventions: Engaging the Whole System for Rapid Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.
• Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Bollingen Series, vol. XII. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.
• Maurer, Rick. Beyond the Wall of Resistance: Unconventional Strategies That Build Support for Change. Austin, Texas: Bard Press, 1996.

The Abundant Community

by John McKnight and Peter Block

There is a growing movement of people with a different vision for their local communities. They know that real satisfaction and the good life are not provided by organizations, institutions, or systems. No number of great CEO’s, central offices, or long range plans produce what a community can produce. People are discovering a new possibility for their lives. They have a calling. They are called. And together they call upon themselves.

This possibility is idealistic, and yet it is an ideal within our grasp. It is a possibility that is both idealistic and realistic. Our culture leads us to believe that a satisfying life can be purchased. It tells us that in the place where we live, we don't have the resources to create a good life. This book reminds us that a neighborhood that can raise a child, provide security, sustain our health, secure our income, and care for our vulnerable people is within the power of our community.

This book gives voice to our ideal of a beloved community. It reminds us of our power to create a hope-filled life. It assures us that when we join together with our neighbors we are the architects of the future where we want to live.

McKnight and Kretzmann's 1993 guidebook, Building Communities from the Inside Out

John McKnight's 1995 collection of essays in The Careless Society added provocative ideas to the debate on community revitalization and proposed a prescription for generating "authentic citizen communities of care."

Gary Paul Green, titled Mobilizing Communities: Asset Building as a Community Development Strategy (2009).

Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets (1993). By John P. Kretzmann, John L. McKnight

Building the Mercado Central: Asset-Based Development and Community Entrepreneurshipby Geralyn Sheehan (2003). The Mercado Central in Minneapolis, Minnesota — a retail business cooperative and incubator — is the result of the creativity and hard work of members of a Latino immigrant community that joined forces with a faith-based organizing group and a variety of community organizations to build a traditional marketplace in their inner-city neighborhood. [Download Order Form]

Discovering Community Power: A Guide to Mobilizing Local Assets and Your Organization’s Capacity by John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight, with Sarah Dobrowolski and Deborah Puntenney (2005). This guide will help any organization strengthen itself by enhancing connections with the community’s assets, strengthen the community by investing in the community’s assets, and strengthen current and future community-based projects, activities and proposals. [Download PDF]

City-Sponsored Community Building: Savannah’s Grants for Blocks Story by Deborah Puntenney and Henry Moore (1998). This guide tells the story of how the City of Savannah sponsored an enormously successful small grants program called Grants for Blocks, which enabled residents of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) neighborhoods to initiate and implement their own neighborhood improvement projects. It illustrates how the program generated a positive impact in Savannah neighborhoods by providing a simple mechanism for local people to become involved with their neighbors, to develop and improve relationships with the city, to acquire and utilize new skills, and to take an active role in building their own dreams and visions for their community. [Download Order Form]

Community Transformation: Turning Threats into Opportunities by Luther Snow with Uchenna Ukaegbu (2001). This workbook examines how communities have turned threats to their well-being into opportunities through a process of transformation. It tell the stories of eight communities as they broke out of a vicious cycle of disadvantage and despair and moved into a cycle of hope and action that turned their visions into reality. (Order from ACTA) [Download Order Form]

A Guide to Building Sustainable Organizations from the Inside Out: An Organizational Capacity Building Toolbox from the Chicago Foundation for Women by Deborah Puntenney (2000). This workbook describes the Chicago Foundation for Women’s SHOW-21 program (Sustainability of Health Organizations for Women into the 21st Century), an innovative example of how successful capacity building can be undertaken among nonprofit organizations. The workbook illustrates the SHOW-21 model for increasing organizational sustainability and offers a series of activities and tools to other groups interested in this effective approach. [Download PDF]

A Guide to Capacity Inventories: Mobilizing the Community Skills of Local Residents by John P. Kretzmann, John L. McKnight and Geralyn Sheehan, with Mike Green and Deborah Puntenney (1997). This book provides 11 clear examples of capacity inventories developed and used by different communities across the United States as well as practical reasons and valuable tips for conducting and using capacity inventories in your community. These stories represent just a few of the creative ways that community groups around the country are making the asset-based development process work for them. [Download PDF]

A Guide to Creating a Neighborhood Information Exchange: Building Communities by Connecting Local Skills and Knowledge by John P. Kretzmann, John L. McKnight and Deborah Puntenney (1998). This book presents a simple, inexpensive method for discovering untapped local resources that can be shared among community members. It shows how to design and operate a capacity-listing-and-referral service utilizing volunteers, donated space and a minimal budget. This model can be modified and expanded for larger groups with greater resources. [Download PDF]

A Guide to Evaluating Asset-Based Community Development: Lessons, Challenges, and Opportunities by Tom Dewar (1997). This guide is written primarily for community-building practitioners from the point of view of an experienced evaluator, but it should also be useful for funders and others who would like to be helpful to community builders. It provides guidance about how evaluation strategies can actually improve the work of community builders, identifies and clarifies the most important issues and dilemmas in evaluating community-building projects, and suggests 10 important principles for those wishing to implement evaluation strategies which are appropriate for this work. [Download Order Form]

A Guide to Mapping Consumer Expenditures and Mobilizing Consumer Expenditure Capacitiesby John P. Kretzmann, John L. McKnight, and Deborah Puntenney (1996). It presents a model for exploring how individual make choices about the purchase of products and services, and about how much they spend on specific kinds of items. [Download Order Form]

A Guide to Mapping Local Business Assets and Mobilizing Local Business Capacities by John P. Kretzmann, John L. McKnight, and Deborah Puntenney (1996). This workbook outlines a plan for understanding what businesses exist in a community, what kinds of resources they possess, and to what extent they are, or could be, mobilized toward community development efforts. [Download PDF]

A Guide to Mapping and Mobilizing the Associations in Local Neighborhoods by Nicol Turner, John L. McKnight and John P. Kretzmann (1999). This workbook outlines the steps for collecting, organizing and using information about a neighborhood's citizen associations. It also shows how to identify the community-building activities in which the associations are currently involved, and determine the kinds of efforts in which they might want to become involved in the future. [Download PDF]

A Guide to Mapping and Mobilizing the Economic Capacities of Local Residents by John P. Kretzmann, John L. McKnight and Deborah Puntenney (1996). This workbook offers a template for discovering what kinds of skills, abilities and experiences individuals possess that could be translated into economic activity and increased economic stability for a local community. [Download Order Form]

Leading by Stepping Back: A Guide for City Officials on Building Neighborhood Capacity by Henry Moore and Deborah Puntenney (1999). This workbook tells the story of Savannah's experience in developing a citizen-centered city government that allowed it to work productively with local residents to improve troubled neighborhoods and build a stronger community. It illustrates the neighborhood development strategies implemented over time that resulted in a new understanding of residents as co-producers of healthy communities rather than simply consumers of government programs and services. [Download Order Form]

Newspapers and Neighborhoods: Strategies for Achieving Responsible Coverage of Local Communities, edited by John P. Kretzmann, John L. McKnight and Deborah Puntenney (1999). This new volume brings together three articles that explore different aspects of the relationship between local communities and the newspapers that print stories about them. In "A Guide to Developing a Community-Based Strategy for Influencing Local Neighborhood Coverage," Byron White suggests ways that citizens can make a difference in terms of the coverage their neighborhood receives. In "A Case Study of a Neighbourhood Coalition's Program to Influence Newspaper Coverage," Ruth Morris relates the story of how several neighborhoods in metropolitan Toronto organized around the issue of negative media coverage. In "A Research Report on Newspaper Portrayals of Six Neighbourhoods in Metropolitan Toronto" (excerpted from a previously published report), Eva Weinroth, Suzanne F. Jackson and Keith Schloskey present a study of newspaper portrayals of six neighborhoods in metropolitan Toronto. [Download PDF]

The Organization of Hope: A Workbook for Rural Asset-Based Community Development by Luther Snow (2001). This workbook explores these questions: How do you build your rural community from the inside out? How do you find and mobilize the assets of your small town and rural area? It tells inspiring stories of rural communities from across the countryside and covers points for getting started, strategies for turning assets and hope into action and new relationships, and practical examples of appropriate projects and methods to consider in a rural community. [Download Order Form]

UR Here: The Community, the Crises and the Commons

From The Little Village:

by THOMAS DEAN

A lot of people think something is really wrong with our country–indeed our whole world. Last winter and spring, mass protests throughout the Middle East swept long-standing regimes out of power. This past summer, European cities experienced mass protests about the state of economies and jobs. This fall, the Occupy movement has swept from Wall Street to Washington Street here in Iowa City and beyond.

The goal of the occupiers has sometimes been criticized for its vagueness, but the main targets of the anger are elite, powerful institutions that are perceived to take too much and not give enough back, predominantly large corporations and banks. The Occupy and Tea Party movements seem to share some common ground, though the Tea Partiers’ object of rage is the government; the sentiment is similar, though, as they think government takes too much and does not return enough back to the people.

Jay Walljasper thinks a lot of the unrest we’re seeing in the world today may be a crisis of the commons and I think he may be right. Jay is a University of Iowa alumnus and former writer and editor of our own Daily Iowan. He has gone on to success as editorial director and editor ofUtne Reader, editor at large with Odemagazine, freelance writer, book author and speaker. Currently, Jay is focusing his work on the idea of “the commons,” which can be seen, in part, in his work as editor of the website OnTheCommons.organd as a senior fellow with Project for Public Spaces. His latest book is All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons(New Press, 2010). Jay is coming to town to talk with us about the commons on Nov. 8 and 9.

The phrase “the commons” may evoke vague images of fences and pastures in England dredged up from your high school world history class. And that’s partially correct. But Jay’s idea about the commons is much more wide-ranging than that. “The commons” isn’t an idea that’s necessarily conducive to an elevator pitch, but Jay sums it up nicely in the title of his book. Ultimately, the commons is all that we share.

Many of the crises of our times seem focused on problems of private ownership. The big powers own too much private wealth (which is also acquired and kept through dishonest or unfair means) and the little people (the 99%, as the occupiers would claim) own too little. That’s admittedly an oversimplification, but I think it captures a good chunk of the issue. Certainly private wealth–what, frankly, we don’t share with others–is an important part of life. But if you think about it, most of our days–and, indeed, the most important things in life–are really spent with, among and about the things that we share.

Read the whole article at LittleVillageMag.com