Group Dynamics Salon
Group Dynamics: The Promise and Shadows of Groups
Group Dynamics: The Promise and Shadows of Groups
What inspired you to explore this? What shadows have you seen arise in various flatter structures? How have you noticed structures addressing issues? Which conversations are we in and how does structure clarify that for you? We are talking about moving from hierarchical groups to less hierarchical groups. What have you learned in your exploration of the edges of practice and structure of less hierarchical groups? Notes What structures can bring us into alignment with ourselves? – Q asked by Brandon, but what is the advantage of alignment of self. People think there will be chaos if we don’t have a leader, but that’s just a pattern of thought, it’s not a reality. The folks most needing to move forward are not moving forward because they are waiting to be told what to do. When “presenting” doesn’t matter anymore there are a lot more ways to show up. Sociocracy uses “Rounds” so that no one person dominates a discussion.
Group Dynamics: Being Leaderful in a Flattening World
Group Dynamics: Being Leaderful in a Flattening World Recap
Bio
Leilani got her Masters in Org Dev and now works as a Senior consult for Ariel Group when she isn’t speaking about her book about Antartica or working on her own projects. Today she is talking about what leadership looks like in participatory systems and facilitating groups for better dynamics. As we transition more toward peer groups and guiding/nurturing, rather than hierarchy control, what does leadership even mean?
Outline
Leilani Unfolding Story
Today it can be hard to imagine, but I started in the pyramids of hierarchical control – partnered with the military
Started at Lockheed working on high performance teams – describe
after 2 years, canceled. Disregard for timing and buy-in…
Don’t leave people wide open. Process…
who is ready?
Screw that. Part of my healing from that was to jump into Playback theater. Where I realized that we don’t need a director! We don’t need traditional leaders. We can be self directed, even in groups, using shared patterns.
That started unlocking my Creativity
everyone is creative
releasing those blocks we have.
We don’t have to know it all.
In one area of my current work, with Ariel Group, I facilitate processes for helping people to have their authentic self showing up, present.
Presence
authenticity
Recently, I released the Leadership Vitality Checkups
Let’s look specifically at creativity…
Elements 1, 2, and 3
This is what we need to measure.
This is an era that is egalitarian. Step forward in the present, as your authentic self, to release the creativity that is yours and only yours.
Interview Questions
Brandon Dube, who also presented about Group Dynamics in this Salon, talked about the promise of groups (and their shadows). What do you believe the promise of groups is for you?
And what do you want to bring into the world with the work you do with groups?
Is there any instance, from your perspective, in which hierarchy is an advantage? And what can someone who has excelled in hierarchy bring into the less hierarchical groups we talk about in this Salon?
We have been friends for well over a decade, you have a piece in the Thrivability Sketch. How do you see your work and life in relation to Thrivability these days?
I am really curious about your Leadership Vitality Checkups. You presented today specifically around creativity, is there anything more you want to share about this new tool you have developed?
I admire how embodied your work is, can you say more about your experience of groups and their sense of embodiment.
Notes
“Not only is it possible, it’s happening.” – L
If you don’t feel you have a purpose [within a group] you won’t feel you have something to do.
We are not bringing our best selves, we are bringing our wounded selves. – about how to go deep without “bringing the pain” (mp quote of L)
Human beings given a challenge will step up.
“This is not an intellectual exercise” (DEI work)
Creating a shared language. (both Thrivability and the Leadership Vitality Checkup help us see that which has been invisible)
Group Dynamics: Group Psychology Creating Productivity in Teams
Group Dynamics: Group Psychology Creating Productivity in Teams Recap
Benjamin Ellis has been described as ‘a Swiss Army Knife for startups’. He is a director and co-founder of SocialOptic, launching Milestone Planner shortly afterwards, followed by a series of other Software as a Service solutions, which are focused on using data science, combined with applied psychology to improve organizational effectiveness.
Outline
In studying the psychology of groups – we could reach a place of understanding and yet still be without ways to operationalize that understanding. We are here for what to do.
And we assume most of you have experience with the problems that these methods address: interpersonal conflict, power games, failed project plans and missed timelines, for example.
We talk about it as getting the “Plan on the page”
Create a shared Artifact that is a tangible for the group to discuss
Sorts out a bunch of issues in one go (tools agnostic)
Negotiating shared ways of working – navigate understanding of who and how we do what – throwing many people together to help people work across different org/group culture patterns.
From identity to opinions – who said it shifts to what
That abstraction mutes the issues of taking it personally
Shifting from verbal to visual
Eliminates ops for miscommunication by having an artifact
Surfaces misunderstandings by shift from verbal to visual
Sensing change
Group process and planning. Noticing the change isn’t the issue, clarity of drift – habituation and normalization. Negotiate the sense of it having changed. Journal and benchmark. Plan can act as a benchmark, but it lives and breathes through journaling. The narrative helps us connect with people in their lived experience.
Subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and objective things. How do you negotiate to have a compatible subjective – artifact supports that.
Decision Rights and Power – Including something on roles in artifact – negotiate power in the group – decision rights. Transparent …
Creating APIs – define the limit to which you can look in. What are the boundaries between individuals? How you plan.
MP focuses on outcomes and commitments. Avoid telling and teaching. Plan on the page helps us move beyond mechanistic control focus. Focus on commitments to each other.
Accountability? Impact rather than “liking” each other
Interview Questions for Benjamin:
Why does this matter to you or what is your inspiration story?
You talk about plan on a page, what are the drawbacks to this approach?
Emergent plans?
Journaling sounds like so much more work, is it really worth that extra time?
This lands squarely for teams in more traditional organization, what do you imagine as the limits of structures this can apply to? Have you used it in nonprofit or emergent groups?
How do you feel this work helps us build a bridge from hierarchy to less-hierarchical
What did you notice about the “flat” org hype and what is a way forward?
Notes
Feedback story = example of LEADS
APIs: What level are we working/communicating at – what are the typical levels?
Shared language and interpersonal friction in groups
Journaling – moving to a meta awareness. And allows for lived experience and conditions.
Group Dynamics: Facilitating Groups
Distributed Governance: Facilitating Groups Recap
Kaliya Young, who in 2005 co-founded the Internet Identity Workshop. Since 2006, she has designed and facilitated over 400 Unconferences for a range of professional communities in both North American and Europe. She is an expert and leader in the fields of user-centric digital identity and personal data.
Outline
Facilitating Unconferences
Why I got into this
Learned/Benefits
Coherence and Productivity without hierarchy
Cynefin Framework
Donut – torus shape – moving from being the center to generating the torus and minding the edges
Holding Space
Tips
Convergence and Divergence activities
Open Space, Unconferences and other participatory processes such as you might find, like Liberating Structures
Documenting Collective Intelligence
Long Haul Communities
Any additional thoughts on engaging with something over so many years (IIW)
Interview Questions
Groups over time?
What has come out of IIW, from your perspective?
How does autonomy or agency show up in the groups you engage with?
Role and dynamics of #s of people. In a group of 3 or 5 or 12 or 25…
Notes
Complex Systems Even experts don’t know.
If you believe a system works because it is simple and you keep pushing on its simplicity you will actually push it over a cliff into the Chaotic.
The world isn’t changing because we are running the same scripts.
Deconstructing some of the social signals for who deserves to be speaking in the room.
What does productivity mean to you? BIGGER QUESTION: What does it mean outside of capitalism?
What is “world cafe”?
QuiQo Chat – A book of Proceedings.
Conclusion Group Dynamics: Synthesis, Self-Facilitating with Gameshifting, Roles, and Closing
Conclusion Group Dynamics: Synthesis, Self-Facilitating with Gameshifting, Roles, and Closing
Our Group Dynamics discussions here all involve, to some degree or another, a shift away from command and control and toward more participatory engagement. Less hierarchy, more flatness, structurally.
There seems to be some fear that if we stop using command and control, things will fall into chaos. People want to be assured that they will know what to do and how. This is basically what “manners” are – protocols for knowing how to engage with others. What can I expect from you and you expect from me. What happens next. We want to fit and flow with others.
I think of Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit where she covers a slew of catastrophic events such as hurricanes and earthquakes.
She reveals the story command and control folks have been feeding all of us about how humans will turn into animals (which is assumed to be brutal and vicious)
Yet it is their control that often lands as brutal and vicious to us humans.
What humans actually do in these situations is self-organize and stone-soup, mutual aid.
We are the ones we have been waiting for, folks. Its us. We each have to stand up where we are.
How are we going to self-organize and self-empower to address the world as it is and shape it towards the more thrivable world our souls yearn for?
Broadly speaking, our practitioners covered some scaffolding patterns, across scales and domains: Loose structures that enable better collaborations and group dynamics.
Shared language or process for getting clear on what is meant
What is the plan on the page, what is leadership and aspects to show up for
Shared practices
How do we move from A to B together, how do we move together from here to there.
Social glue and lubrication
Not sure anyone used this language exactly but everyone was covering it. By social glue I mean what helps us stick together
How can I listen for and understand that you are having a human lived experience of the world – your taking care of your mother, your pet, your kids, etc.
Why do I care about having you in the group.
And by social lubrication, I mean the way that knowing what alive for you helps me forgive you for being a bit rough or late and can assume good intent so we can move forward together.
Shared goal/output
We want to close the Group Dynamics Salon with a few more things: Some group hygiene practices, a mini-presentation on roles, and a game you can play.
Social Glue and Lubrication
About the social glue and lubrication. I want to offer a couple tips on Group Dynamics Hygiene:
Given that people are whole and bring their wounds and we can’t magically solve that with structure or protocols, the ideal situation is people able to show up without bleeding into the group.
It is hard to bring your best self and be creative/productive in an atmosphere of guilt and shame. We bring our best in a place of playfulness.
Some of the groups I am in ask people to clear whatever they need to express before beginning to do group work.
Or another group I was in took the time to do long checkins, which I often found time-consuming, but really made the group quite productive. More than they would be if they skipped it. I got that it mattered. Be human with each other.
Use these or make up your own processes for groups and individuals to be aware of their internal energy, emotions, assumptions, and stories as they enter the group. Find ways to gently remind each other or signal when it feels like external events or past histories seem to be showing up as additional baggage to the experience you are co-creating together.
Gameshifting: Self-facilitating groups
Can we have a board that helps us self-facilitate?
http://emergingleaderlabs.org/gameshi…
Roles
In pitching Group Dynamics, I said we would cover roles. So I will. 🙂
I want to talk about roles from three different angles. What do I mean by roles, where do they come from, and how seeing the group as a system helps it all be a bit let personal. Next, I want to share some basics about typical roles we might find in groups. And how to consciously shift if you find yourself playing a role you don’t want. Maybe it is also helpful to be self-aware of the role you tend to or even need to play. Then, I want to talk about a strategy for upending the stuckness we can feel when we play a role opposite someone else in a group. And lastly, I want to shift from some of the ways we can play roles unconsciously to the ways we can consciously create roles for group clarity.