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Community: Not Too Tight, Not Too Loose

Written by Taylere Markewich, PhD and Neil Jacobs, CPsychol, AFBPsS

Tibetan-Buddhism promotes a mindset of “not too tight, not too loose” for living one’s life.¹ That is, not to be so rigid in engaging the world that you cut yourself off from surrounding people and events, but not so loose that you embrace every experience without discernment and attention to real threats in the environment. Instead, the goal is to find a balanced approach through cultivating self-awareness, taking wise action, and navigating the world effectively to foster connection and community with others. This concept of a balance mindset can be applied to understanding the ways people struggle to construct effective communities while also preserving opportunities for individual growth and freedom.

Historically in the United States, community building has struggled to find the balance between “not too tight, not too loose.” The 1960s and 70s saw the rise of communes, or intentional communities as they are better known today. They were formed for a range of specific purposes, including sexual freedom, avoiding the draft into the Vietnam War, or living outside other societal norms. People were responsible to one another in supporting day-to-day activities, including raising children. Yet these communities commonly failed over time. Mainly due to a lack of leadership but also because of people prioritizing their individual interests over establishing processes for living together effectively. Pursuing personal freedom while resisting structured leadership or processes led to a nebulous social experience for many. Some were left feeling unmoored, traumatized, and/or unable to sustain relationships.² This experience of openness without order can be termed a “too loose” approach to community building.

Following the popularity of intentional communities came the rise of gated communities in the 80s, stemming from what some termed a “fortress mentality”. Gated communities are housing developments defined by surrounding walls, literal gates, and 24/7 security. They gained popularity due to increasing politicized fears that crime, violence, and social degradation were spreading from cities into the suburbs, risking safety and quality of life. While these fears were unsubstantiated, the consequences of the fortress mentality were substantial. Those residing in gated communities were fortified in their sense of the world being unsafe and reported feeling less of a sense of community with their neighbors than those living outside of gated communities. Those outside lost economic opportunities and access to public spaces.³ The gated approach to community building can be considered “too tight” due to the resulting increase in isolation and decreased opportunities for community involvement.

The struggle to find the “just right” sense of community continues today. The “too tight” solutions are exemplified in the residential developments such as the California Forever project in Solano County⁴, or City Campus in San Francisco,⁵ whose tag line is “life belonging, emotional resonance, and safety.” These community solutions create borders between neighbors without any solution for sustaining connection with outsiders. Included in the “too loose” category are for-profit community centers focused on solving the isolation epidemic by creating environments where people can gather and focus on their self-development and wellness practices.⁶ These services fall short on how to connect one’s sense of growth with the collective interests of the group or outside communities.

Businesses are also struggling to find the balance of attending to individual and collective interest, especially when it comes to constructing a hybrid workplace, which has proven to be challenging on many levels. Attempting to sustain teamwork while also providing individuals the freedom to work remotely has been unsuccessful and has inhibited costs efficiencies, productivity, and employee loyalty and well-being. For example, employees given remote work flexibility tend to be more productive than their in-office colleagues. At the same time, these same individuals tend to struggle more with feelings of anger and stress than their non-remote coworkers. Also, employees’ engagement levels and quitting risks are dependent on the degree their preferences align (or do not align) with the hybrid policy of the company they work for.⁷ Lastly, coordinating with colleagues in a hybrid workplace have increased costs and decreased experiences of impactful collaboration across business, known as “the coordination tax”.⁸ Connecting people in this new era of the workplace requires a “not too tight, not too loose” solution, as it seems that fostering a collective community of dispersed workers does not happen organically over time via processes of trial and error.⁹

The same can be said for leaders and their professional development. Today, many business leaders are under the pressures of “performing” for today and “transforming” organizations for tomorrow. To address this need, numerous businesses invest in leadership development programs to increase the capabilities of senior managers.¹⁰ Yet many individuals struggle to connect what they learn in their development training to their day-to-day activities as a leader. Additionally, companies do not take enough action to ensure that the new skills and capabilities are aligned with the values and reward systems within their organizations. As a result, leaders can be somewhat apprehensive to try new behaviors for fear of acting counter to the culture of their work climate.¹¹

In a critique of the City Campus project one person noted that you do not build communities by putting up walls or focusing solely on individual needs, but instead, “You build communities by creating conditions that foster them.”¹² So how are these conditions created? From the examples described in this post, we can conclude a balanced approach is needed to foster individual growth but also provide guidance on how to leverage self-understanding to navigate and contribute to the surrounding larger community, with wise discernment.

The Collective is a group learning program that has been designed with this understanding in mind. The Collective helps participants cultivate self-awareness through reflection, professional guidance, and peer interactions, and fortifies participants’ capacity to navigate and thrive wisely in professional, personal, and local communities alike. That is, cultivate and utilize a “not too tight, not too loose” mindset in their professional and interpersonal pursuits. If you want to learn and thrive as a leader in your community with like-minded professionals, email info@thecollectivesessions.com to receive a FAQ brochure about The Collective and to register for a free information session about our upcoming program.

Come Together: The Importance of Social Connectedness in Executive Coaching

by Neil Jacobs & Taylere M. Markewich

A changing world for leadership and coaching

Executive coaching has been a growing field since the 1980s¹ becoming a $14.1 billion industry in 2024². During this time, the demands and expectations on leaders have changed, in step with the evolution of society. Today’s executives are held accountable for creating organizational vision, driving innovation, shaping organizational culture, making best use of the latest technology, and engaging internal and external stakeholders. Just delivering doesn’t cut it anymore. The how of leadership often matters as much as the what.

Furthermore, modern day leaders face novel challenges and operate in a complex, ambiguous environment, stretching their capabilities and decision-making. These three headwinds are good examples of this: return to office/hybrid working³, the end of cheap capital⁴ and, of course, AI⁵.

In that same vein, as leaders and practitioners in the field of executive coaching and leadership development, we are continually thinking about what’s next. We regularly ask ourselves the question, “How do our offerings need to change to ensure they meet our clients’ shifting demands and challenges?”

Evolving executive coaching

With that question in mind, over the last year we’ve been exploring what’s next in executive coaching. Through a combination of research, consultation, and experimentation, we have been making sense of:

• Executives’ jobs-to-be-done⁶
• Their barriers to success
• The future for leaders and leadership
• Leaders’ motivations for coaching
• The value leaders derive from current coaching experiences
• What leaders are missing

Jobs-to-be-done, in the context of leadership, is a fundamental evaluation of the tasks leaders are trying to accomplish, the goals or objectives they are trying to achieve, and the problems they are trying to resolve. There are three main types of jobs-to-be-done, functional (the tangible outcomes), social (how leaders want to be perceived), and emotional (how leaders want to feel). Using an appreciative inquiry methodology to better understand executives’ drivers, we determined their functional, social, and emotional jobs-to-be-done.