Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing Axioms - from Power Struggles After Move-In

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

I would also add that we did not have what I would call "power struggles"
after move-in because our people were so involved in the development
process.

We did have to draw new lines in the sand about what the "facilities team"
could do as opposed to what the "design team" did.

Because of the pressures of deadlines and the added complexities of working
with the developer and the contractor and all the consultants, there was no
time for the Design Team to take every decision through the group as well.
They meet weekly, were very active on email in between, published good notes
of their meetings, and held open team meetings. Mostly they just forged
ahead, checking in frequently.

Thus the Design Team got into the habit of making a lot of decisions that
after move-in, we had to handle differently. The Design Team also stayed
"formed" a bit longer than some people thought appropriate -- some believing
we had to pry them apart so the Facilities Team could function -- but I
think it was a natural result of having so much invested in the process and
being too burned out to communicate fully with the group, not a power
struggle in the sense that they thought it should be that way and no one
else had a right to the control.

They wanted to complete the design process, and to some extent "get it over
with." As we have learned, that takes years so that objective was just not
possible.

I must also say that I am very conflict tolerant. What others would consider
a power struggle I might consider a sorting out. A conflict for me is when
two sides are ignoring each other, throwing hand-grenades, and letting the
air out of each others tires (adults don't slash). There are many others in
our group who see conflict as the expression of an opposite opinion and they
might have seen the process as a power struggle and have felt
disenfranchised because they are more conflict averse.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org




_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l