Book Review: 13 Ways to Kill your Community
“Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” This quote by Helen Keller gives so much insight into the human person. So often today, people can feel helpless, isolated, or unwanted. Technology and polarization exemplify many individual qualities and what makes people different, and these factors are only becoming more normalized in our daily lives creating a constant white noise of society. With all this noise, it is difficult to remember what bonds hold us together; these bonds are what creates a community. 13 Ways to Kill Your Community is a book by Doug Griffiths, MBA. Below is an excerpt from his company website giving some brief background information about Griffith and his extensive community-building history.
Doug Griffiths has helped improve over 500 communities across North America. After retiring from politics in 2015, he founded 13 Ways, a company dedicated to helping communities grow and thrive through speaking, consulting, rebranding as part of an overall community growth strategy. In his best-selling book, 13 Ways to Kill Your Community, Doug weaves data, personal experience, and anecdotes with humor to explain the common challenges communities face around North America and to understand their paths to success. You can check out the full website here.
Griffiths goes into great detail about what actions and mindsets can make or break a community. From cities to small towns, everyone typically encounters the same few issues. Without spoiling the contents of the book, I have some thoughts and comments that the content has been prompting me to think about.
You decide your success and failure. Now, I know at first glance this statement seems to leave out many different considerations and factors, and I have personal privileges that many people simply don’t have, but the more I ponder this statement the more I agree with it. This statement goes hand-in-hand with mindset - something I am continuing to appreciate more and more every day. So many people get bogged down with negativity or deflecting responsibility that they forget to ask - what can I do to fix this? Griffiths recalls story after story of people who complain about the toils and problems of their community but offer no possible solutions; people who refuse to work together and deny any personal responsibility. Given, it is hard to fix problems; if it were easy, there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place. But, what good does complaining do? If actions speak louder than words then your actions are saying you don’t want to solve the problem.
So what can we do? Answered simply - make an effort! If you choose to always try your best, what is left stopping you from succeeding? We have to be willing to acknowledge the problems of our community; ones that we may even be a part of. We need to work together to create positive solutions and understand progress does not just happen overnight. We need to be compassionate and hold each other accountable. These all sound like obvious, grand-gesture solutions that people should be doing - so why aren’t we? Take the time, dedication, and effort to make these changes day by day. Track your progress; make small choices that can build into habits, and slowly but surely we can begin to build stronger communities.
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Written by Noah Polipnick