Trouble in Paradise: How do we create meaningful workplace communities?

A guide and practical steps to getting started

“We’re having the wrong debate. The debate isn’t hybrid or remote. The debate is actually as humans, how do we work best and what gives us a sense of meaning and feeling a connection, that in a particularly creative industry is what makes us thrive. And I think that’s where we’re failing”

Nishma Patel Robb, President WACL 

In last week's post we posed the question: what if we’re focused on the wrong thing, and in the call of ‘back to the office’ that is rife across industry, we are missing a fundamental breakdown in trust between leaders and teams. We proffered a solution for leaders everywhere: how do you create a new contract with your internal community to drive cultural change? 

These conversations often arise in times of trouble: redundancies, mergers, post pandemic working. But what if we saw the current shift, the current ‘messiness’ as a positive? A time to reinvent what has been a working culture that has been entrenched for almost 100 years? 

”I think it will take us a good 5-10 years to get to a point where we’re able to start to name it. I think until then, we’re in this period of messiness, which doesn’t need to feel uncomfortable, it can feel joyous, a motivation, not a punishment”

Nishma Patel Robb, President WACL

So, let’s get straight to it. How do we go about creating thriving, self-sustaining internal communities? 

Today’s post will be focused on helping you co-create a new Community Contract with your teams: 

Whether you’re a leader, or in the leadership team, or you’re a team member wanting to propose a new approach, this one's for you. 

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Before we begin, let’s make sure we are all on the same page when we are talking about community. Official definitions of Community read as follows: 

But we’d go further: 

It’s important to start here, because it can be implied that an internal team of working colleagues is naturally a community. But, unless they feel this sense of connection, belonging, and affinity for the outcomes of others in the business, there is work to be done to build them as a community, hence why cultural challenges occur. 

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Step 1: Community Challenges 

As we talked about last week, in times of uncertainty, people double down on what feels familiar, and within their control. Hence ‘back to the office’ in the face of numerous cultural challenges that are likely occurring for reasons that have limited connection with office presence. 

So, we need to begin with getting real with what’s actually going wrong. The more honest and transparent this process between leadership and teams, the better. 

Let’s start by interrogating a number of areas to get to the facts of the situation, rather than perceived ‘truths’. 

What are the elements that are visibly causing issues, and where are there less visible factors that need to be surfaced? Where are there glimmers of opportunity that could be heightened, that greater collaboration could bring to life?

Start with the points of tension in the organisation. Is it working hours? Location? Teams overlapping in remit? Too many meetings? Particular leader and team relationships? Not enough thinking time? Mental Health Issues? This is the time to surface them all, in the name of co-designing a better working culture together. We’ve also worked with organisations post pandemic who find it hard to have any kind of conflict, which in turn isn’t healthy.

“Disagreeing is a part of being in any community group. A healthy community can handle disagreement, meaning different stakeholders, different parts of a community can see an issue differently, and pursue slightly different priorities even”

Zack McCune, Director Global Brand, Wikimedia

This may immediately spark Tangible Systems that you know aren’t working. The reality is that post-covid working was thrust on many of us, and the time to design systems that really work for the organisation and its goals was lacking. (The decision of ‘do we use Teams, Zoom, or Google’ doesn’t really count). We’ve had time for behaviours to bed in now, to understand what can be removed as well as what can be added and systems need to be designed with humans in mind. These systems might be how you share ideas, or meet new teams, or understand what others do for example (rather than just ‘we hate Slack’...although, we all do). 

It’s important to also look at the areas of hope and opportunity, as well as the doom and gloom. Where have positives already emerged from post pandemic ways of working, things you want to retain and grow? 

Where are opportunities being missed that greater collaboration could heighten? 

Write them all down as a team, and then dig into all the underlying factors that might be affecting them (internal and external, in your control and out of your control). 

When you’ve investigated the various issues, there’s every possibility that human interaction is a key factor. However, we don’t believe this means ‘back to the office’ is the answer. It’s about designing moments & methods of human interaction (IRL and digitally), and thinking about what they need to achieve. 

“Gallup runs a global workplace survey. The biggest predictor is when someone has a friend at work. Reminding ourselves of the humanity of workplace cultures and trying to foster these links is really important - but the way we did it in the past we need to think about being different.”

Bruce Daisley, Author and Workplace Expert

Step 2: Value Exchange

Value exchange between company and teams can now be based on numerous different elements, far beyond the traditional time for money relationship of organisation and individual.

It might be growth outcomes (I want to be part of a fast growing company), or purpose (I want to make a difference), being motivated by the specific work (This is the most creative place I have worked), or simply facilitating a life outside work (This pays for my travel). Traditional benefits schemes miss some of this nuance, and it’s why some of the ‘add-on’ solutions of mental health schemes don’t work, because often it’s something you need to remove that delivers on this value exchange, rather than add. 

“I think there needs to be much more thoughtful work done around understanding individuals, not just preferences, but codes of working individually and together. And more done on what’s the expected output? And what are the drivers for success in that output. Because I think far too often we are still applying the same rules to everyone.”

Nishma Patel Robb, President WACL

Ultimately, everyone needs to have bought into the ‘why’ they are at the organisation, and what that organisation is trying to achieve. So there are some table stakes elements that an organisation needs to define when redesigning its culture, e.g. The Company Purpose, Values. But these can feel quite disconnected to the day to day of teams, and this connection is only reducing over time. 

We propose defining a set of Community Goals for teams. Purpose is great, but organisations need to be more grounded and practical when defining the value exchange. Is it making a difference? Is it making the process of work as pleasurable as possible? Is it simply the joy of the craft? Is it living a set of values? 

The focus of the value exchange is therefore designing a set of behaviours, the give and take between Organisation and community, to deliver against these community goals. By focusing on the behaviours and then rewarding those behaviours, the outcomes will follow. 

An example might be ‘Outstanding Creativity’ as a community goal. To facilitate this, the organisation might need to focus on removing, rather than adding to people’s already cluttered working lives. Bruce Daisley has launched a campaign focused on Presence. His argument? Rather than focusing on whether we are in the office or not, the answer to greater connection and work cohesion lies in looking at our calendars. 

Inspired by the writing of Zeynep Ton, Bruce believes in introducing ‘Slack in the System’ to enable us to feel more present at work; and he’s introduced 6 methods to review your workplace calendars and working processes to deliver this.

In this case therefore, we can see how the value exchange works: we want our teams to be more creative, but creativity requires having the time to think. The organisation needs to set up the systems to allow for that time and demonstrate that creativity is rewarded vs. simply hours worked; and teams need to take the opportunity to push their creativity and think outside their day to day role. Everyone has a part to play. 

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Step 3: Community Mapping

All of this might be a simple exercise if internal teams were one homogenous community. However, the reality is that workplaces are naturally made up of numerous micro communities, whether that’s driven by practice, of wisdom, of advocacy, peer communities, or entirely random definitions. 

Effective community building isn’t focused on one ‘cult’ that everyone follows. It’s about leaning into that messiness of micro-communities, and facilitating numerous connections between them to establish a sense of belonging and agency. 

Nishma Patel Robb is a particular believer in this way of working: 

“One of the good things that we've done this year is actually create more sub groups and sub communities, but respecting and appreciating that they have their own identities and cultures as well. And I think the failings have always been when I've tried to control. So misguided control is when it all falls apart. So for example, putting in a set of like, “we will behave like this”, or “this is what we have to do”. It's just people rail against it, it doesn't feel natural, and all of a sudden, all the reasons why I think you start to align to be part of something fall away.”

Communication around the process of community building is also crucial. Nishma describes this process of community building at WACL and the potential negative impact if people don’t understand why they are / aren’t part of a community. Listening as well as acting is key. 

So, how do you start with something that could potentially be complex? 

The first step is looking at the different variables that drive the creation of micro-communities in order to prioritise which to focus on. Teams are so often structured and thought about by capability alone, and yet they can organically form or be manufactured around identity, passions, practice, level of experience and other variables. The exercise is to understand how these communities currently intersect; and where there are gaps in this intersection that need to be facilitated. 

Who are the power brokers within these communities? Which can be engaged as problem solvers that work alongside the leadership of the organisation and help to knit the others together?

In some organisations they have begun to use internal community managers to aid this process. Thinking has moved on from seeing community building as having a big summer party and Christmas celebration, to how does this work happen all year to connect smaller groups into networks and make them all feel like they have a voice and belong. 

“I saw a few organisations have introduced the role of community manager. I was really intrigued by that. And I was like, Well, what does that person do? My first instinct was to think, is that getting everyone together and making work feel like a community? And I chatted to one woman? And she said, Oh, no, the first thing you want to do with a community is enable micro communities. And that might be everyone at the organisation who loves running, or the parents, or dog owners, or the people from different identity groups. And she said, If you've got someone who you identify with, that's your access point. Feeling like your identity is reflected in the organisation really intrigued me because it was a micro step that I wouldn't have guessed”

Bruce Daisley, Author and Workplace Expert

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Step 4: Support Structure

You’ve identified your community challenges; your value exchange; and who the essential communities are in your organisation and how they intersect. 

The next important step is the support structure you need to put in place, both to get those communities up and running, but also to ensure they can become self-sustaining. Community management can be a time consuming exercise; and the most successful communities are those that interact independently of a central organising function. That can feel hard in the workplace setting (back to that trust we’ve been talking about), but it’s crucial to ensure success. 

We identified autonomy as a crucial driver of successful workplace culture in last weeks’ piece, but that autonomy only exists when boundaries and trust are in place and decision making can happen further from the centre. So the question is what needs to happen to enable the value exchange you’ve defined to happen? 

Time and Space: 

The time and space it takes to co-create these types of systems, but also to free up people’s working lives to implement them, and to bed in change is often under-represented by organisations. As Bruce Daisley said, actively designing ‘slack in the system’ is crucial for success. 

In the process of design, there need to be forums for change that allow for communities to be problem solvers, not just have a new ‘Community Contract’ handed to them: 

“The second thing is to involve the community in the evolution in change and in resolving challenges. So when, to Lizzie's point, whenever we're faced with a challenge, and we're not really sure what to do, we lean on our purpose. But we also ask our community to tell us what they think, you know, what's their perspective? How would they get through this? Are there any other ways that we should be thinking about doing it?

And I think the more that you can involve people in the process of change, the less they feel like they're a victim of it and more an agent of it. And I think that's really key to successful change. But also to community building, in general, is to give people a voice and an active role in its evolution.”

Alex Hirst, co-founder Hoxby 

The question of what can you remove, rather than ‘what can we add’ is often a good place to start. If you’ve provided new schemes that are supposed to be motivating, but people are not freed up to be able to act on them or appreciate them, positive changes can actually be received negatively. 

“In trying to build a cohesive culture, I think probably one of the first things you need to do is think about, how can you gift time back to my agency people? How can you take things out of their calendar. If they are going to have coffee with someone, if they are going to have these interactions, it's very difficult to do it when your calendar is back to back meetings.

I saw someone yesterday and they said my day, all day, every day is back to back meetings. And it's no wonder there is not as much cohesiveness because you just don't get the chance to build interactions and connections. We need to think holistically about the whole experience of work. Rather than just make simple diagnoses. It's like, how can you make work intensity lower. And that allows us to build some of these things.”

Bruce Daisley, Author and Workplace Expert

Guide and Enable: 

Decentralised models vs. centralised models of decision making are portrayed with an either / or lens. The reality is that to move to a more decentralised model, there is a stage of very clearly directing, inspiring and guiding that happens from the centre until the decentralisation fully kicks in. Just deciding that decisions will take place at a lower, or more distant level from the centre is not enough. 

“I learned from my own lessons. It’s almost like you swing the other way. From command and control to completely hands off”

Nishma Patel Robb, President WACL

We worked with a not for profit organisation in the US who were a professional organisation for marketers. They wanted to move to a more decentralised model, recognising that the health and the success of their community, and particularly their opportunity to scale, lay in enabling members to interact independently of them. Different events formats had been developed, online and off, to facilitate this.

However, they quickly learned that whilst giving these events a platform to take place was one aspect of their role, at the start they also had a role of curating content, giving guides as to how to run good events, providing clarity as to what their role was at the centre, vs. the expert roles of the community. Decentralising power can take a lot more work up front than you realise. 

The other aspect here is that if you want to have moments of interaction for your community that exist digitally as well as IRL, you need to have truly designed these systems, and have gone through a transformation process to embed them in an organisation. 

“I think digital first is a complete mindset shift for so many people, including Alex and I, you know, we have corporate backgrounds. And I think, starting to think of your digital spaces as your go to communications spaces can be transformative, because it means that you're fundamentally more inclusive to people who aren't, wherever the office might be, or a gathering might be.

But also, it's a digital way of working in the digital age, and it can create incredible communities. And it's funny because often when we talk about it, people say well, yeah, but that's not so good for culture. Whereas I think what's really interesting about us is we started hopefully with this in mind, so we quickly realised we needed to be digital first, and therefore slack became our office.”

Lizzie Penny, Co-Founder Hoxby 

Identifying ambassadors of change is fundamental. 

“One of the most important things is to find those ambassadors of change in your teams. That’s not a hierarchy thing, it is a personality and character driven moment”

Nishma Patel Robb, President WACL 

Recognition & Reward: 

If the value exchange is a set of behaviours geared to a particular set of outcomes, the focus needs to be on rewarding those behaviours to drive those outcomes. 

The inverse is often true, e.g. we want you to drive innovation and think more freely, but we don’t like it when the new ideas aren’t working. Or we believe in a flexible organisation, but only those who are working full time in the office receive promotions and project opportunities. 

Actions are more meaningful than words, and defining a way to recognise behaviours set up to change an organisation are essential drivers of change. 

Rituals & Connection: 

All communities have rituals, and work based communities are no different. However, whereas this used to be a case of ‘Free Beer Wednesday’ with Beer Pong in the office bar, people have become more protective of their time, and most working cultures rely a little less on alcohol to fuel them. Once time has been given back, organisations need to focus on what their moments for meaningful connection are. 

It could be one day a week where people don’t have meetings scheduled in their calendar, but they are all in the office and able to catch up. Or more random ‘Crisp Thursday’ events, as in Bruce’s research, where a receptionist decided to develop a weekly moment where people paused to connect (including her dressing up as a Pringles tube one week). 

Actively designing moments of interaction, rather than the much feted ‘watercooler moments’ that the working world is so nostalgic about is something that your teams can feed into and feel like they own; and that can be allowed to develop in a messy, community centric way as the micro-communities take them on as their own. Sometimes this is about planned opportunities for spontaneity and connection, 

“I make an effort every single week, every day, to go somewhere or meet someone that is totally outside of what would be in my bubble”

Nishma Patel Robb, President WACL

Having a mindset of experimentation in all of this is important. There won’t be perfect system design from the beginning, like anything it requires a test and learn approach: 

“[The messiness] is where some of the greatest ideas and innovation come through again. Then the fear is, unfortunately, it gets locked down again. If you can afford to test your own control and comfort of releasing control, I would do it in experiments. In every organisation, every team has pockets of things that you can let go of, and just see what happens without damaging everything else.”

Nishma Patel Robb

Zack McCune refers to these interactions as ‘Minimum Viable Community Events’ and stresses the importance of starting everything small before scaling. 

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Step 5: Visible Changes 

Once we’ve defined our challenges, value exchange, mapped our community, and worked out what support structure is in place to get things started, it’s time to take the first steps. 

What are the visible changes that will show that we’ve gone beyond creating a nice document about our culture, ones that will build momentum? 

In Lizzie and Alex’s view (Hoxby) the first step lies with the leadership team: 

“I think that the the big thing for us is to start with leadership, in terms of training, in terms of mindset, in terms of the right behaviours, because actually, and I use leadership in the broadest possible sense, you know, I'm not just talking about the C suite, I'm talking about anyone who is a leader of that organisation.

And I'd say something else that Alex and I learned fairly early on in this journey is that actually, if you are going to share a stated belief, so for us, our vision has and always will be to create a happier, more fulfilled society through a world of work without bias, you need to say that until you think you're gonna be secretary of state again, you need to live it every day. And you need to make sure that your values and your behaviours, ladder up to that and underpin that”

Lizzie Penny, Co-founder Hoxby

Expectations of leaders in times of change have transformed, and there is power in demonstrating vulnerability and transparency through the process: 

“I think that sense of vulnerability is really important in the storytelling, the relatability of personal experience. It allows people to have permission to share it and open up to say more. And then also make mistakes, because you give people that permission. And then reviewing and rewriting and celebrating progress. Don’t get stuck at chapter one.”

Nishma Patel Robb, President WACL

Using the leadership behaviours we designed in the ‘value exchange’ - what actions should the leadership demonstrate to show that this cultural change is real? What are the first experiments you will take? Who will be involved from across the organisation that we see as our Cultural Ambassadors? 

Define your experiments, communicate your plans, and stick to your goals. Happy Community Building! 

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If you’d like to find out more about how we work with organisations to help transform their cultures, get in touch at caroline@wearelookup.com 

Next week our expert interviews will go live. As a reminder, we have some brilliant experts lined up this month! 

• Zack McCune Director, Global Brand of Wikimedia, the foundation that drives Wikipedia, one of the most community led organisations that exists globally 

• Bruce Daisley, best selling author of ‘The Joy of Work’, ‘Eat Sleep Work Repeat’ and ‘Fortitude’ 

• Lizzie Penny and Alex Hirst, co-founders of Hoxby and best selling authors of ‘WorkStyle’: A Revolution for Wellbeing, Productivity and Society

• Nishma Patel Robb, Founder and CEO of The Glittersphere, and President of WACL

You’ll also receive our LookUP list, giving you the top resources we found this month and giving you the opportunity to dig deeper on the topic. 

And if you haven’t replied or seen your invite to this month's LookUP BookLab on the 5th June, just DM us to get involved! 

Caroline and Matthew