Re: Tragedy of the commons | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Robert Heinich (robertenocommons.org) | |
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 05:55:27 -0700 (PDT) |
John, Would you post a copy of this agreement? -Robert Heinich Eno Commons Cohousing Neighborhood www.enocommons.org Durham, NCwhere tonight we are having a wedding invitation party for one of former neighbors
----- Original Message ----- From: "John Beutler" <jabeutler [at] comcast.net> To: "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>; "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 7:10 PM Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Tragedy of the commons
At Liberty Village we have something called a "Mandate" that a team gets from the larger community which is designed to empower them to get the job done. It's typically a fairly structured one-page document that tries toset limits and define a purpose. I can't say it's a cure-all, but it helps.Cheers JABNo, but simply exercising leadership in a cohousing situation isn't enough: That role needs some level of authority to make decisions stick, or you'll end up with teams that make decisions that are repeatedly vetoed by the community. That's the difference between exercising leadership and actually being an easy-to-overthrow dictator in my mind: Having authority while in the position, and using it well knowing that you can be removed if you don't use your authority wisely. If every little decision needs to be vetted by a complete community consensus, it's beyond just inefficient: it's maddeningly frustrating, and it burns people out. If you don't like the word dictator, then call it something else--but delegate real authority to that person or team, and make sure that a single community member can't join a team and sabotage it and/or harm its efficiency. I've seen that happen in a community, and I think we've all heard stories on the list of similar community issues. Burn-out is an oft-mentioned problem in cohousingparticipation, and I think lack of real authority of teams is a root cause.Tim -- Tim Mensch Currently at Wild Sage (Boulder, CO): http://www.wildsagecohousing.org Founding member of Tumblerock, a Boulder, CO area community in its forming stages: http://tumblerock.org _________________________________________________________________ Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/John Beutler Liberty Village, MD jabeutler [at] comcast.net http://www.libertyvillage.com/ _________________________________________________________________ Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
- Re: Tragedy of the commons, (continued)
- Re: Tragedy of the commons Sharon Villines, September 28 2007
- Re: Tragedy of the commons Lyle Scheer, September 28 2007
- Re: Tragedy of the commons Tim Mensch, September 28 2007
- Re: Tragedy of the commons John Beutler, September 28 2007
- Re: Tragedy of the commons Robert Heinich, September 29 2007
- Re: Tragedy of the commons Sharon Villines, September 28 2007
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