Here’s to letting go - closing a successful CoP
So here we are – for what may have been years your community has been growing and thriving, and many members have come gone and stayed. You’ve achieved great and wonderful things together, and you have a genuine pride on what you’ve all achieved together. Now however things have begun to slow down. There are fewer challenges to overcome. Attendance has dropped. No one is unhappy, but fewer people are active in the group. I’ve written before how this is a natural part of the lifecycle of a community of practice, and referred to Emily Webber’s lifecycle of a community (I’ve finally found it again on the internet!), and how we as leaders should consider this level of maturity within our communities to be an achievement.
Still though – this is can be a difficult time for a leader. You’re not going to feel like you’re sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, watching and smiling as the grandchildren play in the yard – it sucks. Despite everything I write here, on the few occasions I’ve been in this position, its felt like I’m slowly failing and then that I’ve failed. That if I was trying harder, or if I hadn’t run out of talent and tricks, the community would still be thriving and it’s my fault that it isn’t.
Emotional trauma aside, I can usually suppress any feelings of failure for long enough to realise that we’ve reached the transformation stage and the needs of the community have moved on. That its time for a new challenge. That new challenge may take a completely different or a somewhat familiar form – its unlikely that you will do such a spectacularly good job that every member of the community’s needs will be completely met at the same time. It tends to be that attendance dwindles steadily until there are few members left who don’t want it to end. Who those people are might surprise you as they might not be the most long term members, the most invested and active members, or even the newest most recent members – whoever they are there will be small number of people without necessarily any trend or profile that will not want it to end. As leaders it would be wrong for us to abandon these members, and they often present the opportunity for renewal and rebirth. As a now much smaller group you have the opportunity to pivot to the area of commonality that you all are passionate about, which may or may not be similar or different to the community that came before. Perhaps your community of medical professionals has reached its end, but those who remain have a need for a more bespoke paediatric carers community. Perhaps your community of farmers evolves into a community focussed specifically around arable farming or sheep shearing or rewilding. Those that remain from the end of the community often form the nexus of the new one, and (although now always) those who remain become even more invested in what comes next than they were in the original one.
Once a decision has been made, a clean break is often necessary. It will usually come as no surprise to the silent members who remain on the distribution list/email invite but don’t attend any more that the community is coming to an end, but it is important to be clear that it is at an end. Contacting all members and celebrating that success has meant that the community no longer is adding the value it once needed to doesn’t have to be a sad message, or could even be done as a ‘one more for the road’ session to celebrate everything that has been achieved together. Be clear that your new fledgling community is in its infancy and anyone would be welcome to join if they wished, and make sure that everyone moves on with a sense of accomplishment rather than loss.
A note of caution here – it would be wrong to expect your new community to make progress in the same way, behave and grow in the same way, or to respond to the same stimuli and approaches as the one you were part of before. Every community is different, and a responsible leader needs to be aware and accommodating of this. Old tricks can end up feeling like old tricks, and a new community can quickly feel like its becoming stale if you’re just doing the same things you always were. We all need to be continually learning new things and new ways to engage and interact with each other, and remembering that what worked once before may not necessarily work again this time may be the difference between success and failure for the fledgling new community.
I was recently asked why all my posts have pictures of trees in them – the very simple answer is because I like trees. Aside from the fact that they suck carbon from the air, produce delicious life giving oxygen, and make one of the worlds most calming and relaxing sounds, they are so beautiful to look at. I am never happier than when I’m in a forest. I bring this up because in this case they also provide a convenient and timely metaphor for new community growth. Whilst its comparatively easy to cut down a tree, its surprisingly difficult to kill one off. Left unbothered an oak tree may live for over a thousand years, and throughout produce food home and life to countless other species or animal fungus and plants. You can cut all the branches off a tree, set it on fire – you can even cut it down to a stump – and if you leave it a year or so and come back it will be growing back again. A different size and shape, but it will be growing again into something beautiful. We should think the same about our communities. The end of one does not mean the end of everything, and what comes next can be just as valuable and as exciting as what came before.
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 :)