group dynamics | circleofpractice

Have you ever been in a group where one person in particular was having a toxic affect on the rest? Maybe that person is dominating the conversational flow, or perhaps radiates some toxic emotion like anger, or is a source of invidious gossip or backbiting.

What do you do? Do you do anything?

If you don’t do anything, then your experience and quite possibly that of everyone else in the group is going to be degraded. If the experience is bad enough, you may find the persons whose company you enjoy most are leaving the group. If you take your concerns to others in the group, then your comments may make their way back to the person in question, but probably not in the way you intended.

A couple of scriptures may help us out here. Proverbs 25:9, Debate your cause with your neighbor himself, and discover not a secret to another, and Matthew 18:15-17, ¹⁵“If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. ¹⁶But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. ¹⁷If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector. (New Living Translation)

This is admittedly a difficult thing to do, to confront the offending person with the things that are bothering you. But in my experience it usually pays big dividends. The trick for me is to write a letter first that tries to describe my issue without giving offense. Then I’ll sleep on it for a night. I may ask someone I trust to read it and give me their impression of the letter and the reaction it might provoke. Then I’ll rewrite it if necessary.

After writing the letter I will share it with the person and ask if we can talk about it afterward. If the person disagrees with me, or thinks I’m the problem, I’ll then ask for a third person in the group to weigh in on the issue. Then lastly if there is still no resolution, I will bring it before the group and ask them to decide. If the group decides against the person, and the person is unwilling to change, then I think you need to resort to ostracism in order to preserve the integrity of the group.

I have described conversations as one person in a group having an idea and everyone else in the group responding to that idea; then the next person in the group having an idea and everyone else in the group responding to that idea, and so on.

You may reply that conversations don’t actually occur in the way I’ve described. For example, in a group of 12 people maybe one person has an idea, and only two have a response. I would argue that everyone in the group has an idea, and everyone has a response. But that some don’t give voice to either.

That brings me to an idea I’ve been wrestling with for years: the talk dancer.

The talk dancer is someone who brings everyone in the group onto the conversational dance floor. He is able to fill an uncomfortable silence with an interesting idea or question that provokes conversation without dominating it; he is able to make those present feel safe enough to participate, and draw ideas or responses from those who are reticent.

For a group to thrive it needs a talk dancer.

I think one of the problems with dividing a group is that if one half does not have a talk dancer, then chances are that the half without a talk dancer will wither and die. And because talk dancers are such stimulating people to be around, everyone wants to be in the talk dancer’s group.

Moreover I think talk dancers are drawn to other talk dancers because they both share a love for good conversation. If the group divides, the talk dancers will probably want to be in the same group. So to add insult to injury, when the group divides one group will likely have all the talk dancers, while the other group has none.

I have not quite figured out how to deal with this dilemma. I’ve thought about having a secret ballot, and have each person in the group nominate the other persons in the group they think are talk dancers, then have the two with the most votes separate to form new groups. Or perhaps rank everyone in the group, and sort the odds into one group and the evens into another. But I’ve never put these ideas to the test.