Learning From the Green Team

Another wonderful experience today: attending a City committee meeting that was open, welcoming, and reaches out to the community. The Nashua Green Team was set up to move the City along as quickly as possible to becoming an environmentally conscious and sustainable community. The committee members, a mix of City employees and citizens, are all highly motivated to be "green" themselves and to encourage others to do so.

Like all City committees, the Green Team wrestles with a shortage of resources–yes, time and money, but most noticeably, people. The team noted the potential of the three attending visitors, insisted that they sit around the table with the committee members and had handouts for them (the committee members get their information via email...it's, well, greener.) They asked themselves frequently during the meeting where they would find a specific resource. The team also puts people on the email list and shares data even if visitors are not committed to being a committee member.

This works so much better than committees where the visitors, including Stakeholders, are relegated to silence on the side of the room, or the meeting handouts are not available for visitors on the internet or in a handout, or the committee members wrestle with completing all the work themselves, or the conversation trails with "Somebody should..." rather than finding a resource to join the community.

As the Cornell Visioning Notebook observes, when people are open, accepting, and expect that they will solve the problem, certain outcomes occur. The Green Team has a wide a variety of community organizations involved and they "tried on" different solutions throughout the meeting. "Maybe the Conservation Commission could lead that." "Maybe we can get the schools to work together to make that happen." "Maybe the newspaper could carry that ball." There was no evidence of the "victim mentality" here, nor did anyone appear to be "protecting turf." Their teamwork has reached a comfort level where one idea, followed by a suggestion, followed by a modification, followed by an "Aha!" leads to a new take or a new initiative.

Another characteristic is that they celebrate their successes. The group has many activities going and they enjoy each milestone they achieve. This has the effect of building a set of community "values" and educating newcomers.

Not to worry, the Green Team can teach us a lot.