We have all been indoctrinated by Simon Sinek's videos on YouTube.
Start with why he says. It's not what you do, it's why you do it.
And when I go "deep-Freud" on myself, when I pause and listen to my own deep motivation - it is 'the why' that resonates.
I want to believe. I am not ‘first rational, feeling second’. When it comes to purpose I am ‘feeling first’.
This post
Before we start. This is a #-series about the fundamentals of community. My 'why' for writing the series - is that I want to see more community happen throughout the world. I do it because I believe that community is good for people. Does this resonate with you? 🙂 Then read on and join the discussion 💬
Main idea in the post. All communities, need a purpose to to come alive. The Purpose is the campfire around which we all can sit. The Purpose is the glue and key to energy in the community. If we believe in the same thing, we can work together to achieve this thing.
What we will cover in the post:
🧠 the deep psychological origins of purpose/of why
☠️ why people are so good at spotting violations of purpose
👩❤️💋👩 purpose manifesting as contribution in online communities
🔧 how to practically reinforce purpose in communities
🤔 But do ALL communities come with purpose?
🧠 Psychological origins
Purpose just seems hardwired into us
We seem hardwired for why. We seek it and when we find it, it motivates us beyond anything else.
Purpose has an almost poetic nature…
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" ― Martin Luther King
"Find a purpose to serve, not a lifestyle to live ― Criss Jami
"If you have a strong purpose in life, you don't have to be pushed. Your passion will drive you there ― Roy T. Bennett
"Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it ― Buddha
… but maybe this fixation with purpose is just very practical - the first logical purpose in early tribes was common survival
Tribes mean collective action and individual autonomy in one social unit. Without a common purpose in the tribe - holding us together with all our quirks and faults - the tribe falls apart. Purpose then is the key survival mechanism for the tribe.
Survival: This is the most basic level of purpose, common to all living things on this planet. It means the effort to meet basic physical needs for food, shelter, or to protect one’s survival in the face of others who threaten it. This level of purpose is common in very poor countries, or countries at war, or with brutally oppressive regimes, or for members of certain castes or ethnic groups who are oppressed by the majority. - Steve Taylor, PhD
When things get tough - you need to work with your friends. This has been part of our DNA since beginning of time.
☠️ Why people are so good at spotting violations of purpose
It seems we humans can almost smell if behaviour is off-purpose. In his book Tribe, Sebastian Junger talks about two behaviours in American Indian and other tribes. Free-riding and Non-servant kings (my naming). Both behaviours were severely punished:
Free-riding. Living of the tribe and not contributing, not pulling your weight, not sharing food
Non-servant kings. Trying to be a king hoarding goods and power, not serving the tribes interests first.
Both behaviours are against the purpose of the tribe (common survival). And arguably, this is why we get irritated even today at people when we feel that they don't contribute. Or when people act as leaders - not to serve - but to enrich themselves. (I don't know about you but I personally get irritated at both 😬)
👩❤️💋👩 If PURPOSE manifests as contribution in online communities - what is an ok contribution?
If the tribe is a unit where I shall contribute to belong, what is an accepted contribution needs to be shown to me as a member:
If I enter the kitchen at a party, should I help out or should I stand on the sidelines with my glass of wine and just chat?
People want clarity:
by Example 👉 "everybody else jumps in and grabs a task, then I should probably pick one too..." 🤔
by Instruction/Poke 👉 "hey Niklas, want to cut some salad?" 💭Me: “…nice, a clear instruction”
It is the host of the party - or the moderator in the online community - that has to show me (if I haven't already figured it out)
Ideally, all individuals in a community find a role to play working towards the purpose. And - important 👋 - a collective effort need not be made up of spectacular deeds by all individuals. It's the togetherness that is the superpower and different accepted levels of contribution. For example, kids will be really happy given a small task and gradually grow more skilled helping out in the home. And sometimes work towards a purpose is just showing up showing you support and your common belief.
A functioning community has several layers of work towards the common purpose
Is a common identity, belief or practise enough to build community 🤔 ?
In a resent very well written post Sarah Drinkwater opens like this:
“Community’s a funny old word. I spent most of the 2010s hiring people for roles with the word “community” in the title, and used to ask, at every interview, how candidates would define it. At best estimate, I’ve done over two hundred interviews and never heard the same definition twice.
I fully agree. In Sarah’s words community is ‘an elastic phrase’. She continues a bit into the post:
The best communities tend to bring together people around a shared identity, practice or belief (eg: playing football, time spent volunteering is important to me, I love to review restaurants, I’m Jewish)
But how does this relate to PURPOSE you might ask? 👉 I am nerding here, going a bit deeper into things because many talk about communities when they really mean audience. Also, purpose is one of the most uniting words out there - common purpose often means putting differences aside to create something together… So, this is why I think this discussion is needed. 🙂
👉Identity. Is it enough to for example be born a Jew and hence be part of the Jewish community?
👉Belief. Is it enough to believe the world is flat, to believe in saving animals, or in a certain religion to be part of the same community?
👉Practise. Is it enough to face the same challenge and need to develop mastery, like e.g getting diagnosed with diabetes T1 and having to run this as a daily challenge? Or being an athlete?
I see these factors as strong augmenters…
When 🏔 IDENTITY is closely tied to a common PURPOSE and people CONTRIBUTE, you get insane strong communities. The Jewish community and other similar communities have shown this
🧪 identity X purpose X contribution = very alive and resilient communities
When we ⛩BELIEVE in the same thing, we can find PURPOSE in the community and we can CONTRIBUTE. Religious communities, value driven initiatives, world view driven communities - they all have this powerful augmenter.
🧪 common belief X purpose X contribution = very alive and resilient communities
When we share the same 🚣🏻♀️PRACTISE, we can easily find PURPOSE in the community (make the practise easier for us all) and we can CONTRIBUTE (share knowledge, help others, inspire). The daily grind of the practise as athlete, or as chronically ill or by developing in your occupation/expertise - they all form a strong glue combined with purpose and contribution.
🧪 daily practise X purpose X contribution = very alive and resilient communities.
In summary: Purpose and contribution and these augmenters form potent formulas together
🔧 How how to practically reinforce purpose in communities?
What are features and activities you can use hosting a community?
A website for the community 👉 This will tell not-yet-members what to expect inside as their contribution
A personal greeting message pop-up 👉 This will tell the new member what behaviours are expected in the community
A personal greeting message in the messenger of the community 👉 friendly reach-out telling the new member what is expected. And a way to contact one/several hosts in community
Polls / Forum threads poking answers as contributions. (A personal favourite, these really work wonders getting people started 🙂). Remember: asking for help is one of the most social acts out there. When people are asked to help out and they come forward, friendships are starting to budge
A social feed with potential for members to go 🍌bananas with visual content (post videos, links, picture galleries). Once people see others posting, they will post themselves. Remember - writing on cave walls, telling stories is something we have done for thousands of years 🔥
Commenting threads with likes, comments and emojis. When you think about it - emojis has altered language. A quick 👍, 🙂 or a 🏄 - can make people's day and move the community forward. And that is the power of the collective. Small actions that are visible. Every 👍is work, a contribution to the community purpose
Hosts acting in a caring and fun way, leading by example. Just like party hosts, moderators are a rare bread. They make people feel at ease and step out of the way to let the members shine. Good hosts are not people that hold long speeches, they intro others
Rituals. Use a special name for your members (such as haaartlanders on our haaartland community). Or a welcoming ritual where people get introduced to the community. It says - “this is another awesome person joining our cause 🏔)
Activities/Meetups - Document them, talk about them 📣. These can be physical hangouts, or online hangout on Meet or other platforms (note: choose a safe platform to take care of your members)
Repeat, repeat, repeat 🔁- what is old to you, might be new to them. Repeat purpose by example, poke, discussion about it. This never stops.
Listen, listen, listen 👂🏽- reach out to members and ask Why are you here? What do you believe? How could we improve our work towards purpose?
Put your community why at the entry point of the community 🚪- Example: ‘Finally a community for young people with Type 1 diabetes’ (why: there isn’t a community for young people with T1, we believe it is important, we created one, join us).
🤔 But do all communities have a purpose?
I believe they do. Even highly commercial ones like product communities. And ones that are based on fans (where fans might appear to be very passive members) are built on purpose
Example 1 highly commercial - Salesforce
Salesforce use communities themselves to serve its own ecosystem of resellers, partners, integrators. And they even have an own product suite for community.
Community thinker Jono Bacon, wrote an article for Harvard Business Review January 2020 - When Community Becomes Your Competitive Advantage. He mentioned Salesforce as prime example for a highly valuable community:
While you might think its $140 billion valuation is due purely to its innovation of software delivered on demand through the cloud, it has also created a community of nearly 2 million members who support each other, organize events, produce content, and are a critical part of its global operations. This community is an international network of minds, talent, and time, all supporting the success of Salesforce. The company’s annual “Dreamforce” conference, which attracts nearly 200,000 acolytes to San Francisco each year, represents a mecca for its ecosystem to convene, build relationships, and advance its corporate agenda.
The company perspective 👉Communities spread valuable info. Community improves user experience in product. Communities allow the company to collaborate with people who are key to companies business processes. These important people might be customers, partners or employees.
Still, the purpose is a common 👩❤️💋👩 one
As a customer I am working with the product. I want this to be as smooth as possible. If I am mastering the ecosystem I might even build a career out of it. I can engage with other people similar to me and get emotional support as well as practical support. I can feedback on product. There is a win-win balance here ☯️
If Salesforce would alter the value balance - for example by
trying make me pay,
alter rights to content,
block me from contact with other members
even alter central UX in community, then
i might consider leaving. And Salesforce would loose a committed individual working passionately for free.
I don’t know how they formulate their community purpose, but it could be something like this: "Together we build Salesforce into the most exiting space for enterprise change"
Example 2 highly commercial - AeroPress (coffemaker)
👉 First of all h/t to the authors of GetTogether book (one of my favourite books on community building 🙏) for sharing this story:
AeroPress is not just a good coffemaker, it’s a community 🔥
Very early on their website, they invite you to join to experience the fun:
So how did the community start?
(quoted from aeropress.com, my bolding)
Coffee industry leaders Tim Wendelboe and Tim Varney liked how the AeroPress empowers users to control the brewing process. In 2008 they decided to hold a lighthearted competition to see who could brew the best cup of coffee using an AeroPress. Starting with only three competitors, they named their event the World AeroPress Championship. Fans in other countries decided to organize national championships and the national winners would then compete in the World Championships. Over the years the W.A.C. circuit has grown to include dozens of countries. National competitions were held in 65 different countries in 2019, culminating in the 12th annual World AeroPress Championship in London.
Notice something?
Personally, I got highly commercial intent browsing their site, fresh images of coffee, the promise of innovation - but what tipped me into buying mode was the community, the way they seem to do business and how people get engaged. Purpose.
Finally, example ‘communities of fans’
Fan-based communities can appear as passive as simple worship of an artist.
But in my book, fans are really members of a community, enabling the artist to create and the larger phenomenon around the artist to happen. A dedicated fan is active and helps out
Examples:
🏴 English soccer fans - their whole life is built around the team. They will even go on vacation with their team shirt on, wearing it as a tuxedo at dinner. But the social gatherings around the game are - arguably - the thing that make people stick around. The purpose is the team winning - but the fans feel they contribute by traveling long distance to matches, meeting up in pubs before and after games, singing the songs, cheering at the players.
🦸🏾♀️Beyonce - with her Beehives (name for fans) she has the support of an army of fans. They call her the QueenBee, they play her music to death and even roast other similar artists as copycats of the original, even go after perceived enemies of Beyonce…😬But they will also spread her content on social, come to concerts and meetups, buy the merch and the music. And one can be certain that they feel very much apart of bringing more of Beyonce to the world. They are part of a movement.
Final thoughts
Purpose is deeply human. It makes communities into the nice powerhouses they can be. Purpose has to be authentic. People both need to know how to contribute to the purpose. Start and return to purpose, this will keep your community on track 🙏
more to come in the # community fundamentals series…
culture and rituals ⛩
moderation hacks 👮🏿♀️
matrix - what platform to choose 🧪
emerging business models 💰
mega trend - passion economy 👨🏽🎨
mega trend - remote work/companies as communities 🚀
mega trend - health care through community 🏥
mega trend - product communities 📦
community unbundling capitalism + questioning the city 🔮
AND whatever you tell me to discuss 🙂- we create this together 🙏
Remember: my purpose with this series is to create more togetherness through community. If you share this purpose, raise your hand 👋and we discuss 🙂
👉Like this 🙂? then…