Behold the Meta-CoP - communities of community builders
I would hope that by now you’ve picked up that I think that leadership is important when it comes to successful communities of practice. And I hope that you’ve also noticed that I consider it to be ‘proper work’, because its hard work to do well. It requires time, energy, blood sweat and tears, passion, enthusiasm, tolerance and, occasionally, a car big enough to dispose of a body. I don’t think its wrong to call out that, whilst someone might be having fun doing it, they aren’t JUST having fun – it takes it out of you when you have an emotional investment in what you do.
Burnout is a real risk for community leaders, as is languishing – the feeling of just not being able to do your best work. I am certainly not an expert in either subject and because it’s a serious thing I’m not going to try to blag giving any meaningful advice on either – if you’re feeling either of those feelings I would encourage you to check out the links for some guidance, take good care of yourself and please talk to someone who can support you. Instead, what I’m going to concentrate on is one of the coping strategies I use myself and encourage others to try to slow the process of becoming run down, and to build a support network to keep you going.
I am very lucky that on a number of occasions in my career I’ve joined a company where a new role has been created to build and support communities of practice, and I’ve been able to shape it in the way I think works best. I haven’t always got it right, and on a couple of occasions I’ve definitely got it wrong, but I don’t take for granted how lucky I’ve been to have had these opportunities. There is however a downside to being the only one doing your role and the only one experiencing what you are – it is inherently a lonely and isolated position to be in. We understand that one of the key benefits we get from communities of practice is that we bring people together who have similar but different problems and experiences, where they build a support network as they can empathise and understand what the others in the group are going through. This is much harder when you are quite literally the only one who’s doing it. In situations like this where I’ve joined a new company I’ve often sought out the safe familiar ground and joined a group of software testers (in my heart I’ll always think of myself as a software tester, even though its been many years since I would be able to consider myself a good one). Even so, whilst I will have some role and experiential empathy with them it’s not the same – I am not one of them, because I am not there to be a tester. I am there to help build communities.
That then is what I go and do – I build a community
Around any organisation, there are always small groups of people meeting informally or otherwise on a variety of different topics that matter to them. This is human nature, that we seek out others who are similar to us in terms of belief value or practices. And as groups of people will naturally default to some degree of social hierarchy, more often than not these groups will also have leaders who like you are facing challenges of being part of their respective community, but with different demands on them to the other members. These are the people I try to seek out, and I invite them join a community of community leaders – usually it ends up being called the Meta-CoP – where we find each other as likeminded individuals who are practicing the same skills, facing the same problems, and we find that we can all learn from each other.
Doing this has a number of benefits. First and foremost it benefits you and me – we find our tribe, the others who are like us and provide us with the support network we need to be resilient to the demands of our role. Secondly, by practicing and learning together and from each other, the standard of community leadership (and therefore the quality of community) across the organisation increases, meaning that we make the place we work a happier and better place to be. Thirdly, by connecting with other community leaders we build something new – almost without trying, we build a vast and extremely powerful network of knowing and understanding across a much larger group of people than we otherwise would be able to. The power of a community network is that when Jack is struggling with a problem, he knows Diane has faced a similar one and might be able to help him find an answer. Through the Meta-CoP, Dave knows Jack in Engineering is struggling with a problem, and when talking to Steve who works in Marketing they realise that Christine in Steve’s community had that exact problem months ago and was able to solve it, so they put them in touch with each other. This super-charged network effect creates a powerful living breathing body of knowledge and expertise, and often breaks down barriers that most of the members didn’t know existed.
Lastly (obviously there are many other benefits but I’m not going to list them all), doing this has the effect of helping those who are part of groups of people think critically about what they’re doing and how they’re supporting their community. Being around other doing similar tasks helps us self-appraise, recognising the leadership skills that we are unconsciously building and recognising that we are in fact developing ourselves into better leaders, with skills that transfer back into our day jobs and other areas of our lives that help us grow.
An extra bit that I’m going to tag on to the end of this that I thought of after I’d written it – this Meta-CoP doesn’t need to be limited to just the particular organisation you work for. A change of job shouldn’t mean cutting off your entire support network at the same time, so whenever I've changed roles over the years there are leaders and community builders who I keep in touch with, where we still maintain our own community, and we introduce others who we meet to be part of the group so that we all continue to grow together.
Thanks so much for reading, if you’ve enjoyed this post I’d really appreciate it if you could share it - alternatively you could always buy me a coffee :)