Parker Palmer discusses how community is a gift that stems from contemplation and developing an individual capacity for connectedness. True community involves suffering as possibilities in others are realized and requires creating "pockets of possibility" within larger organizations. It assumes people are resourceful and leaders facilitate rather than force traditional leadership roles. M. Scott Peck describes the stages of community as pseudocommunity, chaos, emptiness, and finally community, where a soft quietness descends and emotions range from joy to sadness.

1. HUMOV1003 Community
and Bush Environments
Seminar seven
Stages of community

2. Parker Palmer on C.
• We were created in and for a complex ecology of
community
• Community is a gift - not a product
• First you must create a capacity for connectedness as
an individual.
• Community stems from contemplation - deepest forms
of contemplation arise out of failure, suffering, loss.
• Community is “That place where the person you least
want to live with, always lives” and “When they move
away, someone else rises to take their place” !!!!

3. Parker Palmer on C.
• Community often suffers the romantic image of the
“Garden of Eden”
• Community is about creating “pockets of possibility”
within larger organisations.
• Leadership within community requires authority - and
you can’t take it … it is given.
• Community assumes people are resourceful -
leaders/facilitators call upon that resourcefulness and
resist being pushed/drawn/forced into traditional
leadership (power) roles.
• Community is about suffering … which happens while
you wait for the possibilities in others to become reality

4. Community concepts
Community is essentially about being a part of a group where:
People can be themselves without fear of being judged or
condemned by others
People are committed to work together and although conflicts
occur they are resolved without big dramas.
Forgiveness runs freely.
People’s strengths are respected and utilised for the good of
the group. People’s weaknesses are shared, understood, and
accepted.
You feel safe to try (and possibly fail) new things.
People are welcome to participate in the group - it is not just a
little club for people who feel the same way.

5. Peck’s stages of community
Pseudocommunity
Chaos
Emptiness
Community

6. Pseudocommunity
• People may pretend to be vulnerable - but it is all
unreal
• There is no such thing as instant community
• Conflict avoidance is the key feature of this stage
• Minimisation, lack of acknowledgment, or ignoring of
individual differences.
• Key is not to offend, annoy or irritate anyone - and
when people make you feel that way: ignore it,
pretend your not bothered, and change the subject
(good hostess behaviour)

7. Chaos
• Usually well intentioned but misguided attempts to heal or
convert …. “everything would be much better if only you were
more like me!”
• People resist change which gets the H&C working even harder.
• Individual differences are no longer ignored, they are “out”, but
the group attempts to obliterate them.
• Unconstructive, noisy, uncreative … not a lot of fun.
• Leader often gets a good serve too !
• Tempting to escape into “organisation” - it is a solution to the
chaos problem but it will not lead to “true community”.
• Fighting is far better than pretending you are not divided. It is
painful …. But it is a beginning.

8. Emptiness
• Not an attractive solution to chaos
• People empty themselves of barriers to communication - feelings,
assumptions, ideas, motives - self protection mechanisms that we
have been developing very successfully for years.
• Expectations and Preconceptions
• Prejudices (conscious and subconscious.)
• Ideology
• The need to heal, convert, fix, or solve (motive is often
questionable)
• Need to control
• Once people start to empty themselves …. They become receptive
to others and ….. They can enter the last stage ….

9. Community
• Soft quietness descends
• Where to from here depends on task? - may be to
simply experience C and benefit from the healing?
• Always community building first - problem solving
second
• May slip back into chaos - need to work back through
stages.
• Emotions range from: joyful, loving, to sadness & grief
• Energy level is almost supernatural (sometimes
sexual?)- things going on in a spiritual level

10. Community is “That place where
the person you least want to live
with, always lives” and “When
they move away, someone else
rises to take their place” !!!!

11. Model of group development
The most well known is Tuckman and
Jensen’s (1977) model of:
Forming
Storming
Norming
Performing
Mourning/adjourning
11

12. 1st Stage of Group
Development
Forming is characterised by the
discomforts, concerns, feelings,
and doubts members experience in
a new group

13. 2nd Stage of Group Development
Storming participants begin to
meet the needs of the group, to
question authority, and to feel more
comfortable about themselves and
their relationships

14. 3rd Stage of Group
Development
Norming involves members
addressing appropriate and
necessary standards of behaviour
though which a greater sense of
order prevails

15. 4th Stage of Group Development
Performing finds the group
concentrating on tasks at hand with
mutual support and interaction
among group members evident as
well

16. 5th Stage of Group
Development
Adjourning provides closure of the
task, including the imminent end of
relationships

17. Effective VS Ineffective Groups
Goals
Communication
Leadership
Participation
Decision making
Conflict
Problem solving adequacy

18. Effective
Groups
• Individual goals
matched with group
goals
• Goals are
cooperatively
structured
Ineffective
Groups
Goals
• Imposed
• Competitively
structured

19. Communication
• Two way
• Open
• One way
• Ideas only
• Feelings
suppressed
or ignored
Effective
Groups
Ineffective
Groups

20. Leadership
• Shared
• Based on
ability and
information
• Based on
authority
• Obedience
to authority
the rule
Ineffective
Groups
Effective
Groups

21. Participation
• Equal emphasis for
all members
• Emphasis on
achieving goals and
group maintenance
• unequal
• High authority
members dominate
Effective
Groups
Ineffective
Groups

22. Decision Making
• Match situation
• Consensus
sought for
important
decisions
• Made by
highest
authority
• Little group
discussion or
involvement
Ineffective
Groups
Effective
Groups

23. Conflict
• Seen in positive
light
• Used to
increase quality
of decisions
• Ignored
• Denied
• Avoided
• Suppressed
Effective
Groups
Ineffective
Groups

24. Problem Solving Adequacy
• High
• Work together
• Low
• Not solved as
a group
Ineffective
Groups
Effective
Groups