There is a particular power dynamic that tends to operate when external professionals arrive in a community or an organisation. The institutional actor arrives with credentials, resources and an implicit authority conferred by their professional status. The community, accustomed to positioning itself as a recipient of expertise, tends to defer. The professional is invited in, their approach is adopted and the community adapts itself to the programme design rather than the other way around.

The practice of auditioning outside actors is a deliberate disruption of this dynamic. It insists that communities working collectively in their own space have the right and the responsibility to evaluate external professionals before allowing them into their shared lives, just as a theatre director auditions actors before casting them in a production that carries the company’s name. The community is not a passive venue for external expertise. It is an active, self-determining entity with the right to decide whose presence serves its own vision.

The community’s right to audition

The act of auditioning is, in itself, a significant assertion of community sovereignty. It communicates to the external professional that their institutional status does not automatically confer an invitation, that their credentials are necessary but not sufficient and that their willingness to work within the community’s own framework is a condition of their involvement rather than an optional nicety.

This assertion can be uncomfortable for professionals who are accustomed to being the ones who establish the terms of engagement. But for communities that have been consistently positioned as the objects of professional intervention, it is a critical act of reclaiming agency. The community that auditions its outsiders is a community that has recognised itself as the producer of its own future, and that understands the admission of external actors as a decision to be made rather than a fate to be accepted.

What the audition tests for

The questions that a community asks of a potential outside actor in an audition process are not primarily about their technical qualifications or professional track record. Those can be assessed through references and credentials. The audition tests for something more specific and more critical: the quality of the outsider’s relationship to the community’s own agency.

A useful outsider must be able to demonstrate four things. First, that they are genuinely willing to serve while stepping back: to offer their skills in support of the community’s vision rather than to direct the community toward their own professional framework. Second, that they understand the importance of reducing rather than creating institutional dependency. Third, that they are able to accept the limits of their professional remit, to do what they do well and to step back when the work moves beyond their competence or their appropriate role. Fourth, that they can act as a courageous sidekick rather than a hero: supporting the community’s leadership rather than substituting for it.

The sidekick as the appropriate role

The metaphor of the courageous sidekick is worth dwelling on, because it captures something important about the quality of relationship that the most effective outside actors develop with the communities they serve. The sidekick is not passive or peripheral. They bring real skills, real courage and real commitment to the shared work. But they understand that the story is not primarily about them. The hero of the community’s narrative is the community itself, and the sidekick’s role is to support that heroism rather than to occupy its space.

This requires a particular kind of professional identity: one that finds satisfaction in the success of others rather than in personal visibility, that is comfortable in a supporting role and that understands the stepping back of visible leadership as a form of contribution rather than a form of marginalisation.

Auditioning as an ongoing practice

The audition is not a one-off gatekeeping exercise conducted before the professional’s involvement begins. It is an ongoing practice of evaluating whether the outside actor’s presence continues to serve the community’s self-determined direction. Communities that audit their outsiders regularly, asking periodically whether each external relationship is building or eroding their capacity for self-directed action, are communities that maintain their sovereignty over the long term rather than gradually ceding it to the institutional gravity that well-resourced external actors inevitably exert.

Questions for reflection

If your group were to interview an outside professional or expert before allowing them to consult with you, what direct questions would you ask to test their genuine humility and their commitment to supporting your agency?

How can you support an external ally in learning the art of serving while stepping back, helping them find satisfaction in the community’s success rather than in their own professional visibility?

Think of an external professional currently working with your community or organisation. If you were to audition them today, would they pass the four tests described above?

What would it mean for your community group or organisation to make the regular audit of external relationships an explicit part of its governance practice?

Inspired by: Russell, C. and McKnight, J. (2022) The connected community: discovering the health, wealth, and power of neighborhoods. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.