RSS feedSome recent experience with a local community group I’m involved with, got me thinking about the politics of small shared interest groups, and whether anyone had done any research on the sociology or topology (for want of a better word) of community organisations.
Typically such organisations are founded on one basic principle: to facilitate the involvement of local people within a particular hobby or interest, when it is impossible for most individuals to finance or manage such a hobby on their own. Through the formation of a community group, the members may more easily participate in, and supposedly enjoy the shared interest.
Indeed there are some groups which contain like minded people, who just happen to have the same interest, such as making day trips to the country for example. However I’d argue that their raison detre is still to visit the country, and it is just that those who do not get along with the majority of the group, wouldn’t enjoy participating, making it look like the primary focus is the people. It is not, the focus is still day trips to the country.
So, assuming the point of all community groups is the facilitation of services, for whatever this interest may be, then there seems to be two distinct types of groups.
The most common, as in the case of the day trips to the country example, is where facilitation will not succeed unless particular types of people are involved. Sporting teams are a good example, as are BASE jumping and paintball. These interests force the members of the group together with a shared character trait, whether it be age, fitness, race, religion, philosophy, outlook etc. In a way, these groups self select people who will get along. If they don’t get along in such a confined environment, the group just won’t work, and like natural selection, the exceptions will leave the group before any real conflict can occur.
The other less common type of community group, is where the characteristic make up of the members is not self selecting. In this case, we find a vast range of people, with a common interest, who are required to work together for the good of the group, but may still work as individuals to varying degrees. In these cases, the common interest is facilitated for the individual, not the group (as in a sporting team), even though it is the group which manages the organisation. Such groups include community radio and television, time shared resources (lodges, communal buildings etc.) and more so in the past, computer groups.
Some groups, such as those interested in the dramatic arts for example, tend to fall into either type, depending on their particular focus.
So, due to the intense variety in the character of the members, are these types of groups doomed to fail? Not necessarily, as they do exist, and many for long periods of time. However, if my personal experience is anything to go by (36 combined years across 4 such groups), at least 80% of the time, there is some fairly intense form of political conflict. Again, from my experience, people with forceful, opinionated and more often than not black and white (one extreme or the other) personalities tend to gravitate to such groups, because they have more chance of not being refused membership. Once in the door, these people tend to move fairly quickly towards committee membership, where their real personalities start to come into play, and the membership ends up struggling to maintain both financial and political stability. With many groups, this is a continual exercise, yet they still search for a quick solution to the political problem. They typically fail to recognise that politics go hand in hand with such groups, and time spent fighting against this, is time wasted.
The other problem, and this is the same for both types of community groups, is that the primary organisers are rotated on membership appointed committees, and in most cases the committee members have no management, organisational or accountability experience. Most people with such professional experience involved with community groups, do not get involved with the committee, because the extension from their day job tends to lower their actual interest in the group. Subsequently, they either leave, or do not get involved in the politics. For the group facilitation type of community group however (sporting groups etc.), although they are faced with the same lack of experience, the close relationship of the members means that in most cases they can easily work through any issues which may arise.
With individualist groups, it is also important that they maintain some form of middle ground, both politically, culturally and operationally, as the primary premise for their existence, is the facilitation of services for a diversity of individuals. If this fails, and the balance tips in any one direction, again the politics kick in, and the group will either cease to exist, or spend most of their time fighting. As many members subconsciously realise that the group revolves around individuality, and they may not be accepted elsewhere, many of them fight hard politically to maintain the haven which they have found accepting of them.
So, in summary, individualist groups facilitate services for the group on an individual level, their members are typically a vast range of differing personalities, they are accepting of fairly eccentric characteristics, they tend to be strong minded, and in some more extreme cases, take advantage of this for their own perceived betterment.
Like I said at the beginning, this was triggered by an incident at a local group I’m involved with, where an academic psychologist joined the group, and while they seemed to have the best interests of the group in mind, they continually used their semi-professional understanding of the behaviour of people, to promote their own ascension through to the committee and a position of power. Unfortunately for them, the nature of the membership of the group (variety), which ironically facilitated their entry, did not conform to standard population behaviour, for the reasons I mentioned above, and it wasn’t long before they were recognised for what they were. This caused the group to descend again into political conflict. Fate accompli.
So I went looking for research into the politics of community groups, and surprisingly couldn’t find very much on the web. Certainly nothing that went beyond the already exhaustive studies into the nirvana that is community councils, co-intelligence and social networks for online communities, neither of which work for this type of group.
Are these types of groups destined to pop up and drop away, as political conflict is part of their social make up? Is there a magic formula for management of such groups, to prevent such conflict occurring? Are there tactics which can be employed to help identify problematic individuals or to make the politics more digestible, or is the fact that they cater for problematic individuals a key premise for such a group’s existence?
This seems like a nice research project for our friend the academic psychologist, however somehow I doubt that their limited understanding of the variety of human behaviour, especially in such chaotic group dynamics, would produce any compelling results.
More significantly, what repercussions will this have for online community groups and social networks? Do the same principles apply?
If you know of any research in this area, I’d love to hear about it. Drop me an email.