Leadership and community justice. What's the connection?!

8 am. The taxi goes past the address I have been given and we have to drive around a few blocks before we get to the office complex I need to be at. It gives me a chance to see the beautiful Copley square in downtown Boston and admire all the wonderful architecture around, in the early morning sunlight..

Its a large room..and people are starting to gather. People who haven't met each other for a couple months are catching up over Coffee, orange juice, bagels and muffins.

I am joining a 1-day session, part of the LeadBoston programme, where people from different walks of life - professionals, leaders, career people, social entrepreneurs, interested individuals ...all come together to discuss and learn about issues of Community Justice. Designed and implemented by the Boston Center for Community Justice (BCCJ), this is a year long programme designed to build socially responsible leaders within the community.

Participants meet for a few hours each week and for a few day long sessions and retreats each year. Several interactions, small projects, site visits and engagements make this a very experiential programme.

As people start collecting in the room, Kenn Elmore is sticking blue tape onto the floor - dividing up the space into 4 blocks and a few external areas. He calls a handful of volunteers together for a briefing on the simulation he is about to lead. I join the others (am volunteering too!) and we gather around Kenn to hear closely what he has to say.

There are around a 100 people in the room by this time ....and Kenn has given us instructions and the simulation is about to begin. The volunteers are divided into Police personnel, Housing Permit personnel - and we also get a Sheriff!

Today, the teenagers who are a part of the InIt programme at BCCJ also join in. The participants (a mix of adults and teenagers) get to choose from 4 ice-cream flavors - chocolate, mint chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. Everyone gets a badge to wear - depending on the group/ ice cream flavor you have chosen to be a part of. Then each group is given a space on the floor...boundaries marked with blue tape, and some start-up resources in a bag for each group.

The simulation called 'Community Build' has simple rules.

• Each group needs to build the 'best community they can' with the available resources
• If they cross the boundaries, Police have the right to check them or put them in jail
• Once they have decided what they would like to build, police would escort them to the housing permits department - to get a permit to build
• Things have a price - money is included in the resource bag
• All groups are encouraged to build creative 3-d models..and not just do some simple stuff..

Groups are given 45 minutes to build their communities.

As the exercise progresses, Police pay more attention to some parts of the room than others. Some groups seem to go to jail more often, some communities build sprawling townships an seem to have no trouble getting housing permits. Whereas some communities seem to just not be able to get any permits - they are always sent back for more information, even though they end up paying money to the authorities...

Some communities figure that there seems to be extra restraints on them - and a group breaks out into a protest march (see people with little green flags!)...with some members of the community picking up direct conflicts with the authorities.

This is as real as it can get. But suffice to say that by the end of 20 minutes or so chaos reigns, there are hot tempers flaring, and there is anger in two communities who are feeling 'marginalized' - while most of the members of the other communities are unmindful of what is happening 5 feet away from them....

When the simulation is called to a close and the people are removed from the spaces an interesting vision emerges. Some communities have built small, temporary buildings, no connections, limited facilities..(see the far side of the image) and are very very angry. The 'favoured' communities (less stressed, chocolate flavor in the front of this image) have created large, sprawling communities with bio tech parks, sushi restaurants, airports, common spaces and several (needless!?) elements.


This leads to a very active debate.

• What caused the difference in how each community was created?
• What is the sense of Community justice? Justice for whom, from what?
  
• Who defines it?
• How did you feel in the 'restrained community'?
  
• In the chocolate community, how did you NOT notice the chaos 4 feet away from you? Or did it not matter?
• What is the role of leadership in such a scenario - what's needed to build bridges between such differences?
• What is the meaning of collaboration? Who's responsibility is it to initiate and build collaborations?
• How do we go beyond the immediate visible differences (of being less or more favored, of color or money or location) and actually build interconnected, interdependent communties...
  
• Which community tends to have far more entrepreneurial instincts, why?
• Feeling marginalized actually makes the community much closer and stronger - why?
• How does all this relate to me in my professional life as a leader?

The discussion lasts all the way till lunch, given how real the issues were and how easily they surfaced through this simulation - its easy to discuss them. Kenn facilitates the dialogue with the ease of an expert. Given his background in dealing with community issues as the Dean of Students at Boston University, he has done this simulation several times. Each time it becomes a real example of life.

Am deeply impacted by the outcome of this simple yet powerful exercise. We were talking about small neighborhoods in Boston who feel disadvantaged compared to some others. But at a larger level, in the discussion it emerges, the 'developed' world is actually sitting in the chocolate sphere - and the developing economies, with limited visible resources, way more population and complex issues of growth and poverty and health to deal with are pressured to find solutions fast, and catch up on global challenges...

In our discussions we draw learning from this exercise into how as a global community we are dealing with issues of environment, climate change, oppression, poverty alleviation...and maybe even terrorism - in the same manner. Some of us are sitting inside chocolate spaces and some of us are sitting inside other ice cream flavors, vanilla and strawberry - and for reasons that could well be arbitrary are dealing with many more issues of marginalization than others are. Why should it be so?

This is how it is. That's why we need to understand what makes the subject of 'Community Justice' relevant for each of us in our leadership roles.

It's inspiring - as well as deeply impacting for most people who attend. While BCCJ is a non-profit and has wide philanthropic support, this programme helps it also generate revenue for its many initiatives, which is really incredible. This programme has found a way to bridge the gap between social responsibility and community participation in a sustainable manner. Way to go!

Todd Fry, the exceptionally committed and passionate Program Director for LeadBoston has grown the programme over the last 4 years into a very active initiative with several companies in the Boston area sponsoring leaders from their organizations to come and do this course. In his immensely engaging style he brings together people and experiences that can create impact and build leadership skills.

I happened to meet Todd at the Development Dialogue 2010 hosted by the Deshpande Foundation in Hubli. What a lucky meeting - gave me a chance to see a community build!

A similar programme has now been adapted in Hubli - called Hubli Champions a part of the DF sandbox initiatives.....its a great way to build a deep sense of social responsibility in our emerging leaders.