Is your community a mac or a pc? Vol. 3 of 3

Leadership programs are a great place to use the “Describe your community as if it was a person” exercise.   Most local leadership programs are run by a chamber of commerce, and most tend to try to balance the class based on the demographics of the community.

In my presentations to chamber leadership groups I use the exercise often, and have learned a lot over the years.  For example, several years ago I would randomly break out the main group into subgroups and then have them report their “person.”  Each group almost always saw their community in the same way.  Then I divided the main group based on gender.  Consequently, the way men saw their community and the way women saw their community had more variation.

A few years ago I took what I thought was a risk an broke out the groups into four subgroups: white males, non-white males, white females and non-white females.  It was fascinating to see that now there was significant variation in the way the subgroups described their “person.”  You can imagine the rich discussion that followed.