Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Dealing with self interest VS what's best for everybody

[Monty Berman (mberman]

Debbie,
        I like the approach you describe regarding opening up members' 
self-interest. It seems to me that it would greatly help identifying, 
honoring, and then moving past self-interest that interferes with the 
group moving ahead. And it also seems to retain and honor the posssibility 
of finding the pearl that often lies within anyone's self-interest.
        My question to you has to do with having the time for the 
procedure you outline. Our meetings are jam-packed and we seem to be 
needing to make decisions then and there; we're at a crucial building 
period and have been general meetings every week during Jan and Feb,plus 
many other mtgs and events. So, to stop and take the time to do what makes 
sense to me to do seems hard to build into the way we're operating. Of 
course, as I say this, I think: Well, this is the challenge to sit down 
and figure out. In any event, I'm interested in hearing how your time 
scheduling allos for what you suggest.

Monty Berman, First Residents Group, EcoVillage at Ithaca

On Tue, 5 Mar 1996 DebFlint [at] aol.com wrote:

> In response to Rob Sandelin's query about self-interest:
> 
> Coming from the world of community organizing, we take self-interest
> seriously, as it is what drives people to act.  We certainly try to draw out
> enlightened self-interest, but we find that if our relationships with
> community leaders are solid, and we understand their self-interest, we all
> can usually find a way to weave them together. 
> 
> Our methods for discovering individual self-interest (and then weaving them
> all together) include setting aside time at each meeting for people to:
> 1.  do a round of short, reflective responses to a particular, related
> question -- but one that draws out their STORY as a person.
> 2.  pair off randomly and do Individual Meetings for 10-15 minutes -- again,
> maybe in response to a related question.
> 
> We also look for opportunities to get people to share their stories as they
> relate to the issues we're organizing about.  People feel heard and notice
> the remarkable connections among each other.  Those relational connections
> are what allows people to form a collective strategy, and to compromise when
> necessary.
> 
> Hope that's helpful.
> 
> Debbie McL.
>