The 4 Phases of Community

EMILIE MOGENSEN attended STEVE MACADAM's module as part of The Inner MBA, and she is deeply inspired by his way of building authentic communities. Steve is an MBA from Harvard, a Baker Scholar, and currently an independent director for Louisiana-Pacific Corporation and Valvoline Inc. In part 2 of the series, they explore the 4 phases of building authentic communities.

- EMILIE MOGENSEN

"The next Buddha may take the form of a community - a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living."

-Thich Nhat Hanh

We are exploring Steve Macadam’s model on how to build authentic communities. The model is simple and based on 4 phases:

Phase 1, the pseudo community

Phase 2, the chaos community

Phase 3, the emptying phase

Phase 4, the authentic community

Phase 1, the pseudo community, is artificial, not real. Steve explains that this phase is often where most companies and organizations are stuck for long periods and some people seem to be okay there. But the bottom line is that the community can thrive much better, and some people break away from those communities that don’t offer space for authenticity.

This leads us to Phase 2, the chaos community, where a lot of people leave and some stay back, and often insist rather strongly on maintaining things “as they have always been.” We see this a lot in the world today, where the “great resignation” is a hardcore reality for many companies. People are simply no longer willing to put their jobs and positions above their personal well-being. I believe this is an unavoidable result of decades, even centuries, of the individual trying to fit in at any cost.