The Angry Hamburger and the Space of Opportunity – Part Two

by Lee Griffiths

Just under a year ago now, I was sat on holiday reflecting on life’s journey, where it had led me and how the current change in language could have shifted and shaped that journey. Those thoughts led to the blog, The Angry Hamburger and the Language of Change –> LINK HERE <–

I’m now sat looking at skies which are a little greyer, on Boon Wurrung Country in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia, where I’ve been pondering for the last few days about my previous blog and the feeling that there was more to consider, and maybe even much more than can be covered in this additional blog.

In the last blog I explored two very different systems of leadership and what happens when they try to meet. For those new to the Angry Hamburger, the name was given to the systems leadership model by a community workshop participant who was looking at a diagram of the model on a PowerPoint (I’m pleased to say PowerPoint has long gone) before my time with the Jeder Institute. It describes the tension between the vertical leadership of governments, organisations and institutions and the horizontal leadership found within communities.

The top bun represents the vertical world of policy, funding, formal authority, accountability and decision-making flowing from the top down. The bottom bun represents community leadership, where relationships, local knowledge, informal networks, care and action move in many directions and are, as I described in the last blog, a little more wibbly wobbly.

The point was not that one form of leadership is good and the other bad. Both hold knowledge, resources and possibility, but they operate differently and often move at different speeds. Yet governments and organisations increasingly talk about community-led change, place-based approaches and population-level outcomes. For change to be genuinely community-led, these systems must meet without horizontal leadership being absorbed into or managed by the vertical systems above it.

Between the two buns sits the space of opportunity, or what a participant in a workshop in Wagga Wagga named the “possibility patty”. This is where vertical and horizontal leadership meet, power is negotiated, relationships are built and different forms of knowledge influence what happens next. Often we see government and agencies reaching down into community, with the occasional reach up from community.

Wagga Wagga, Participatory Community Building Workshop

The previous blog focused on language as one way of holding that space. Professional language around place-based work, systems change and community-led development may work for funders and decision makers in the top bun, while potentially leaving people whose lives and communities are being discussed struggling to find themselves in the conversation. Language can open the space, but it can also close it before relationships form.

But changing the language is not enough. We could remove every piece of jargon and still hold the same authority, expect community to enter institutionally controlled spaces and fail to build the relationships needed to share power. The space of opportunity is also about creating the conditions for people to connect around what they care about, recognise the gifts already present and act together. Community-led change begins with conversation, care, connection and the relationships that allow action to emerge from the bottom bun. We need to be comfortable leaning into emergence.

Go to the people

Community development cannot be done from behind a desk, yet too much of it still begins from the institutional centre. Community engagement is one part of the wider community development practice and can shape priorities, relationships and action. A meeting is scheduled, a survey is published or a program is designed, and people are invited to come to us. When they do not, we may call them disengaged or hard to reach, without asking: hard to reach from where?

Communities of geography, identity, interest, culture and shared experience gather differently. There is no single place called “the community”. We are intersectional beings. Expecting people to enter our buildings, follow our timetables and answer our questions is not neutral. Going to the people asks where trusted community life already exists.

This is where mapping bumping places, check out the work of Jim Diers, becomes useful. These are everyday spaces where people cross paths and build trust: libraries, school gates, cafés, parks, bus stops, online groups or the bench outside the shops. Mapping them means noticing who gathers there and when they gather. This gives us an opportunity to go to the people.

Mapping of bumping places at an Asset Based Community Development Workshop

We also need to think carefully about how we enter these spaces. We can leave the office and still carry the top bun with us through branded banners, clipboards, predetermined questions, fixed outcomes, deadlines and lanyards hanging around our necks. A lanyard may seem harmless, but for some people it can signal authority, surveillance, case management, bureaucracy or previous experiences of being assessed, judged or managed.

That does not mean nobody should wear one, but we should notice what these symbols communicate. Going to the people is not consultation in another location. It means listening and developing relationships with humility, while allowing what we hear to shape what happens next.

As Dr Antonia Darder said at the International Association for Community Development (IACD) World Community Development Conference in Glasgow earlier this year:

Listening is not revolutionary if it is only used to collect information for a decision already made. It becomes meaningful when what we hear can change our understanding or direction. This requires us to listen generatively, listening to understand rather than simply listening to respond. Otto Scharmer’s Theory U reminds us:

Be open and honest

Being open and honest matters in formal processes and in bottom-up work alongside community. It means being clear about who we are, why we are present, and what we can and cannot offer.Being open and honest matters in formal processes and in bottom-up work alongside community. It means being clear about who we are, why we are present, and what we can and cannot offer.

When institutions reach down into community seeking participation, people need to know what has been decided, what remains open, what they can influence and who will make the final decision. If information cannot be shared, say so, and don’t forget the why. Oh and remember sharing with community there is no update is an update.

We also need to be honest with ourselves, with those within the system and with community about the language used to describe participation. Do not call something co-design if it is not co-design. If an organisation has already defined the problem, determined the options, fixed the budget and timeframe and retained every significant decision, people may be informing, consulting or advising, but they are not jointly designing the outcome. Consultation is not wrong, but the language should not promise shared power while authority remains within the top bun.

If people’s voices cannot influence anything, why ask for their time, knowledge and stories? This is what we at the Jeder Institute think of as non-sultation: an organisation can claim engagement while offering little or no possibility of influence. Repeated non-sultation creates mistrust and apathy, which surely plays a significant role in declining civic trust. What systems call disengagement may simply be learned experience.

Openness and honesty are equally important when working alongside community. That work does not make power disappear. Practitioners may still bring funding, networks, status or influence, so we need to name what we can and cannot offer. Are we supporting community-led action, or steering it towards organisational priorities? Nor should professionals call something community-led when they still shape its direction, pace and conditions.

We know from our daily lives that openness and honesty are foundations of strong relationships. Rev. Jennifer Bailey said:

This speaks directly to the Angry Hamburger. Governments and organisations often seek population-level change through short funding cycles, predetermined outputs and pressure for immediate results.

If social change happens at the speed of relationships, time spent building trust is not a delay before the real work begins. It is the work. As Darder said in Glasgow:

The word defend matters because relationship building is often the first thing removed when projects are under pressure.

Creating opportunities for relationship, participation and action

Creating a variety of opportunities for participation cannot simply mean offering the same questions through a meeting, workshop, survey and online form. People hold different kinds of knowledge and may want different levels and ways of involvement. Some may want to share an experience; others may want to shape questions, develop ideas, decide or act. Some may contribute best through a one-to-one conversation, creative activity, walk or gathering hosted by someone they trust. This requires us to have a wide variety of tools, processes and, importantly, practices in our toolbelt, and to share and learn about their application together with community.

The deeper question is how power is shared. The space of opportunity should not simply provide information to the top bun and become an extractive process. It can connect people around shared concerns, dreams, gifts and abilities, creating conditions for community-led change to emerge through care and local motivation.

This is where ABCD Learning Conversations (have a look at the work of Mike Green and Henry Moore), have an important role. Learning Conversations are grounded in discovering care, because once we discover care we uncover what people care enough about to act on. Through these conversations we listen for people’s concerns, what they do not want to happen; their dreams, what they want to create; and their skills and abilities, what they have to give.

The framework links discovering care with meaningful action and more connections. It is not a neat sequence and nor is community development. Care may motivate action, action may create connections, and those relationships may create further possibilities, which could be endless and, importantly, are not predefined.

This is not about interviewing people for a report, but listening for the energy already present: people’s concerns, dreams, skills and abilities, and who else might share them. When these connect, individual concern or hope can move towards collective action.

Action may begin with another conversation, an introduction or a shared idea. Our role is not always to turn this immediately into a project or program. Sometimes it is to connect, encourage, remove barriers, offer resources when invited and then get out of the way.The Asset-Based Community Development Institute names this clearly in its values as “leading by stepping back”.

ABCD Institute Values

Art of Hosting and Harvesting practices can help people connect, think and act together. Circle practice can slow conversation and make space for different voices. Consent decision making asks whether a proposal is good enough and safe enough to try while taking reasoned objections seriously. Shared principles can guide communication, disagreement, information sharing and accountability

These practices do not automatically remove hierarchy. The decision-making method must match the power genuinely available. There is little value in using consent to decide the colour of the chairs if every consequential decision has already been made elsewhere.

Darder said in Glasgow:

This captures something essential about the space of opportunity. Community is not an object to be transformed by professionals. The work is about learning and working together while remaining honest about the different forms of power, authority, knowledge and responsibility each person brings.

Holding the space of opportunity

Darder also said:

This helps us think about what the possibility patty needs to hold. It is not simply the gap between government and community, or a place where the top bun reaches down to consult the bottom bun or the community reach up. It is a space where people can encounter one another differently, examine what is happening together, challenge assumptions and develop a shared understanding before moving into action. It can also be a space where institutions bring resources without assuming control, communities are supported without being managed, and action emerges from below.

The Angry Hamburger will always contain tension because vertical systems and horizontal community life operate differently, although, of course, we all sit within both. The opportunity is to help them meet differently through relationships, honesty, shared power and meaningful participation.

Community-led change does not need to wait for an institutional process. It begins wherever people connect around what they care about, recognise what they have to contribute and find others with whom they can act. Institutions may become part of that story by listening, connecting, resourcing or removing barriers, but they do not have to be its starting point or owner.

So much of what Darder said in her keynote resonates:

This is what becomes possible when the space of opportunity is held well. People do not simply respond to plans shaped elsewhere. They can imagine what they want to create, connect their ideas and abilities, and begin acting together. Institutions can support that movement without absorbing it, while still bringing the responsibilities, resources and authority they hold.

The possibility patty is not something added after the rest of the hamburger has been made. It is co-created through conversation, relationships, honesty, care, connection and the power we are genuinely willing to share.