Cohousing-L Mailing List: Maslow's Pyramid for Cohousing Communities

[Ed Sutton (ed440]

Sharon-

Thank you for your response.
The image I had in mind was of a cohousing community as a kind of organism 
seeking to discern meaningful and effective community behavior, not as a 
collection of individuals each seeking their own peak experiences.

Imagine a cohousing community in which it is said in business meetings 
“Everybody knows we don’t take those bylaws seriously, we follow the agreements 
we’ve made over the years.”
Ask where are those agreements and, well, you could search the minutes of the 
last 20 years, but opps, a bunch of years got lost when we moved to the new web 
site. And there was a time when a committee tried to rewrite the bylaws, but 
the community didn’t reach concensus, and those documents got lost….

Does this communicate what I mean by a community that has not successfully 
established the first levels of Maslow’s hierarchy?
A community with a vision statement that calls for us to be a shining example 
to the world, but which cannot decide how many cars a household may park in a 
packed parking lot, etc.
It’s great when folks can agree to love and respect everyone. 
But is failing to pick up your trash a sign of respect, or disrespect?
The person who leaves the trash effectively establishes the community standard, 
and if the community does nothing, in effect it consents.
And people come to resent it.

Ed
[Community unnamed lest the author be considered a troublemaker]



> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2023 18:53:58 -0400
> From: Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
> To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Cc: Ed Sutton <ed440 [at] me.com>
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 236, Issue 8
> Message-ID: <13601EF8-91B2-422B-9CED-60D7CF24854F [at] sharonvillines.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;     charset=utf-8
> 
>> On Sep 12, 2023, at 6:29 PM, Ed Sutton via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
>> cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
>> Lately I?ve been thinking about Maslow?s Pyramid of values, and how it might 
>> apply to cohousing culture.
>> One does not reach the higher value levels by omitting lower, basic values.
> 
> This is a very interesting way to look at behavior in cohousing. I hadn?t 
> thought about Maslow for a long time. I think most of us assume that all our 
> lower values are met and don?t need attention. Maybe this is just not true. 
> 
> For those not familiar with or who have forgotten, Maslow suggested that our 
> ability to resolve one need depends on first meeting another need. The top 
> needs can?t be fulfilled until the lower needs are met.
> 
> 1. Physiological Needs ? to have biological requirements for survival met, 
> e.g., air, water, food, shelter, warmth, sleep.
> 2. Safety Needs ?  to experience order, predictability, and control in our 
> lives.
> 3. Love and Belongingness Needs ? to have emotional needs met -- 
> interpersonal relationships, affiliating, connectedness, and being part of a 
> group.
> 4. Esteem Needs ?to feel self-worth, accomplishment, and respect.
> 5. Self-Actualization Needs ? the realization of a person?s potential, 
> self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth, and peak experiences.
> 
> These are usually presented in a triangle with the first level, Physiological 
> Needs, being the widest layer. It supports all the needs above it. The top 
> need, self-actualization, depends on having all the other needs met.
> 
> One thing I often do with children is respond at the love level with a hug or 
> the praise level with compliments when what the child really needs is lunch 
> or a sweater. A person who is having problems with income to meet family 
> demands isn?t likely to respond to a special opportunity for personal growth 
> or peak experience either. 
> 
> We are in a discussion about front doors ? the theory is that front doors 
> should have windows so you are "open to the world? and welcoming. But some 
> people are feeling unsafe with a front door of glass. Others want some 
> consistency in the look of things ?not a different kind of door on every 
> unit. (All our doors are in a row in one building.) Design and aesthetics are 
> esteem and self-actualization needs that may not be compensating for the 
> safety needs of others.
> 
>> In co-housing it seems the claim of ?higher value? can overrule the need for 
>> basic rules of order in process and responsibility.
> 
> This may be the reason that cohousing appeals to or is only started by 
> middle-class households. You have to have already developed your ability to 
> meet your own needs to a great extent before you have the time and financial 
> means to participate in forming a community or be able to buy into one. And 
> then you need to have the time to contribute the work required to maintain 
> the community in addition to still meeting your other needs.
> 
> But in reality, the accomplishment of physiological needs is only temporary 
> or superficial. They need to be fulfilled every day.
> 
> An analysis of behavior in cohousing using Maslow?s hierarchy would be an 
> interesting PhD thesis. We all raise the same issues so there must be a 
> common cohousing theme.
> 
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2023 20:06:14 -0400
> From: Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
> To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Consequences ?
> Message-ID: <89216325-1742-4681-B4DD-BDA6EFFEA088 [at] sharonvillines.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;     charset=utf-8
> 
>> On Sep 9, 2023, at 11:00 AM, Ted Rau <ted [at] sociocracyforall.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I think there are two different cases here. One I'll call noise. The other
>> is recurring behavior.
> 
> I think this is an interesting distinction. When is it just noise or too much 
> noise, and when is it a specific behavior that is violating community 
> agreements ? governance and policy issues. Like the dishes sitting around, is 
> it noise or is it purposeful disrespect? Or disagreement?
> 
> We probably try to solve a lot of noise issues by making rules that just make 
> more noise because then the ?enforcement? of the rules is added to the noise. 
> 
> On the issue of consequences, I have come as full circle on consequences as I 
> have on workshare. In workshare, I have come to value most highly the work 
> that can?t be measured in hours. Assuming responsibility and developing plans 
> or programs are vital to everyone. They up the quality of life. This is the 
> kind of work that is not quantifiable. 
> 
> The demand that hours be recorded is not effective when you are asking for 
> commitment and self-organization. It is disincentivizing.
> 
> I think consequences do the same thing to behavior. I?ve given up on the idea 
> that a policy is not a policy unless it has consequences. A policy is a 
> community agreement about how everyone expects things to be done and why. 
> 
> But a policy can only apply to predictable circumstances. Not everything is 
> predictable. 
> 
> So what we really need is not consequences but an agreement about how to ask 
> or request an exception, or completely review the policy. With a process for 
> handling unexpected situations, there is flexibility and no one needs to 
> violate the policy.
> 
> If people are violating policies, the policies need to be reviewed. Policies 
> establish a social order but that order has to fit everyone, one way or 
> another.
> 
> Years ago Paul Hawken wrote a wonderful little book on starting a business, 
> ?Growing a Business." It accompanied a PBS series on innovative ?new age" 
> businesses. I had never understood what a business plan was or could do 
> before I read this book. Hawken said that the business plan is an exercise in 
> figuring out how to grow a business. You have to address all the components 
> and then you have a plan. But just as you have the whole thing figured out, 
> it is time to reevaluate based on new information. It grows and things 
> change. Revise and keep going. The book was published in 1988, Growing a 
> Business. It is still in print. https://amzn.to/3rp9cVg
> 
> I think policies are the same way. They help a group develop a context, a 
> social order, but then they have to grow with circumstances. If the only 
> alternative to a policy is punishment, what kind of social order is being 
> grown?
> 
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> End of Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 236, Issue 11
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