Art of Conversation
Healthy communities are built through conversations. What would happen if we had more of them, getting to know each other better? Let’s work on it.
Community. Neighbors. Together. More than me. More than you. Us. We. Let’s examine what happens when we walk over time with FAITH in one another.
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Willingness impacts ability. The more willing a person is to pursue a given goal, the more they will press into developing the abilities necessary to accomplish that goal. If you don’t want to, you usually won’t if you have the authority to decide. Some level of willingness gives that goal a chance.
But there can be another influence on how willingness engages with other people: confidence. A lack of confidence in what can emerge from a relationship can impact how you feel about engaging in the possibilities. Whether marriage or working for the good of a community, if confidence in one another is lacking, “WE” doesn’t happen. Willingness and confidence are dancing, and there tends to be a switch in which one leads the dance.
Gallup research has noted that the American people's confidence in themselves is around 55%.[i] That means that 45% lack confidence in “us.” That explains why it can be challenging to find people willing to come together and find a way to solve our shared problems.
Confidence can be developed. Sometimes, the seed of building confidence is the presence of a need. If the need is significant enough, we might do the work necessary to figure out how to work together.[ii] I think you would agree that our communities have tremendous needs to address together.[iii] How do we solve the “WE” part of the equation?
Let’s examine what happens when we walk together over time with FAITH in one another – Flexibility, Accessibility, Individuality, Teachability, and Humility.
Flexibility
Do you temporarily adjust to the people and world around you?
Flexibility isn’t about changing who you are or what matters to you. I’m not asking you to be malleable over the anvil of people’s preferences to make them happy. Adjusting for the moment is often about respect. Behavior and vocal volume that fit the fair are not fitting for a funeral home. We have ethnic, geographic, and even economic cultural differences. Showing flexibility can lead to access because it makes people feel you are worthy of trust.
A rigid, unbending, non-negotiable, and iced-over person is probably only surrounded by people who are just like them or are being paid by them. The people being paid wish they had other options. Some of this inflexibility can be from the build-up of cynicism over the years. Flexibility is lost because of all the scarring and shield-building from the hits taken. I choose to be flexible with such a person in order to reach them. A crack in the hard shell might give me access to help heal scars and help remove shields.
One of the flexibility factors is personality. Not everyone will have the same capacity to flex. However, being a flexible person is much like having a flexible body; the more you stretch, the more flexible you become. It is also true that your joints have boundaries, barring some abnormal physiology. Flexing until you break isn’t the goal here unless there is an immense need.
Flexibility helps with the navigation of living and working in the community. Sometimes, people can’t gain access because they are unwilling to adjust their attitudes and withhold opinions well enough to get in the door and stay at the table for a little while. Flexibility allows for access.
Accessibility
Can people get to you?
That question can be understood in several ways. One issue of access is your schedule. If you are too busy to connect outside of your work and organization, you are too busy. Isolated is the opposite of accessible and can indicate negative pride. People who do not interact with the surrounding world believe they know more than they do. Their influence is much less than what they think it to be.
Another point of access is to your personhood. Do people really get you or a shell, like mentioned above? Some people are open books and might overshare, allowing too much access and causing much embarrassment. Others are like tightly sealed pickle jars that no one can open. Some need to talk less and listen more. Others need to listen less and talk more.[iv] Time allows the access of physical presence to transition into the access of ideas and beliefs.
You have to be accessible to gain access to your neighbors' lives. Schedule a weekly time to enter the world around you and for them to enter your world. Make yourself available for people to get to know you and for you to get to know them. If you are an introvert, start with one person over coffee or with a group of people where you can hide a little easier until you are comfortable. Extroverts, make sure you are listening.
Individuality
Are you so absorbed into the WE that who you are has become indiscernible?
Sometimes, all the effort to accomplish the work of community impact and development can lead to a loss of the individuals doing that work. We talk so much about those we serve and how WE can accomplish the necessary goals that the people doing that work are absorbed into the borg. I don’t know YOU, and you don’t know ME. What is crazy about that is that the strengths of the individual people and organizations are what make us powerful.
Your uniqueness is needed. Think of WE as a giant jigsaw puzzle. Every piece is different, and every piece is necessary for the completeness of the whole. Without you and what you bring, something is missing. Do you know what you have to offer specifically?
One of my first go-to’s here is Clifton Strengths. I recommend the simple version, where you get your top five of thirty-four strength indicators. I have mentioned this tool multiple times in these blogs because I constantly use it in coaching and counseling for individuals, couples, families, teams, and communities.
Don’t lose YOU. WE needs YOU. (grammar intended)
Teachability
Are you willing to learn from anyone?
“I know all I need to know, at least more than all of you do.” It may not be said, but it is lived. This person comes across as always right…in their own eyes. If they listen, usually briefly, it is to debate, not learn. They always have the answers or an agenda. Chances are, this person isn’t reading this blog, but if you are, consider a shift. Here’s a challenge: Do you know someone who is the unteachable know-it-all? Can you be flexible and seek to gain access to the deeper person that is there?
The teachable person is curious, asks questions, and listens intently to learn. Being teachable doesn’t mean I come to complete agreement with you. It means I am willing to learn about you and the whys behind your beliefs. Mónica Guzmán, in her book I Never Thought of It That Way, suggests, “When you want to discover why someone believes something that confounds you, discover how they came to believe it. When you want to know what their problem is, try to know what their concerns are.”[v]
Put yourself in the position to have more conversations with people with whom you disagree, with the aim of learning, not convincing. I find that the more different a person is from me, the more I am stimulated to learn. Get past the fear and the pride and step into the conversational library of humanity.
Humility
How do you see yourself in the light of a world of people around you?
Pride can have a reasonable measure that is tempered by humility. You can be proud of your or your team’s work because it is good, important, and successful. Pride turns to the negative when it is devoid of humility and all about one’s self. If my pride in the success is all based on the fact that it is mine, humility is absent. Humility celebrates the good for the good that it is, not just because of who accomplished it.
There is also an unhealthy state of self at the opposite end of the continuum from pride that goes beyond humility to self-deprecation. A person who constantly tears down themselves, believing they have nothing to offer, is unhealthy and needs help. A person constantly tearing others down and never building up is not helpful and needs help. The difference is that a person who lacks humility doesn’t see the need for help. An unhealthily humble person may not believe they are worthy of help.
Humility is at the core of the other four characteristics described above. A study of CEOs by The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership notes that “effective humble leaders are constantly self-aware and use this self-awareness to make adjustments to fit their audience and situation. They remain true to themselves and maintain their own ‘voice,’ while speaking differently to different audiences.”[vi]
When we bump into a humble person, we know it. Humility has a presence that can be convicting and contagious to those who desire to walk humbly. The humble person is never the weakest person in the room but is often the most powerful.
Faith doesn’t have all the answers, nor does it assume all the answers. Faith knows enough to trust despite the unknown and unexplained. That’s why we discuss this FAITH in one another from the perspective of a walk “over time.”
These principles apply to every WE dynamic of your life: marriage, family, neighborhood, work, municipality, faith community, state, nation, and world. How you do WE can change your world.
Action Points
[i] https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/355553/americans-trust-themselves.aspx
[ii] https://www.charitytracker.com/en/blog/crisis-convergence-and-concentration
[iii] https://www.charitytracker.com/en/blog/blog/power-of-together
[iv] https://www.charitytracker.com/en/blog/art-of-conversation
[v] Mónica Guzmán, I Never Thought of It That Way. Dallas, TX: Bella Books, 2022.
[vi] Merwyn A. Hayes and Michael D. Comer, Start with Humility. Westfield, IN: The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, 2010.
Do you desire to strengthen your CharityTracker or OasisInsight network to new levels of collaboration and impact? Reach out to Chuck today to schedule your conversation: chuck@simonsolutions.com.
Dr. Chuck Coward serves as Community Impact Specialist for Simon Solutions, Inc. Chuck has invested over 35 years in fostering human and community development from a variety of places and roles, including as a pastor, non-profit Executive Director, Director of Development, businessman, consultant, university professor, The Struggle Coach, and the founder of Entrusted Foundation. Serving to make people and communities stronger is his great passion. Chuck is the proud husband to Anita, dad to four, and granddaddy to eight.
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