GROUPS. A Paramedic Approach
Using key dimensions—resources, uncertainty, and boundaries—we can quickly check if a group has a chance to succeed.
Group resources are its composition, trust, and communication. Composition is who the members are and what their competencies are. Trust is whether they trust one another, trust in each other’s good intent, and trust in each other’s competencies. Communication is whether people understand one another. Can people easily communicate if something unexpected comes up?
Boundaries are of three kinds. First, the size—how many people are in the group? Second, the group boundary. Do group members clearly understand who is in and who is out? If people do not understand boundaries, you cannot expect collective effort, particularly critical in hard times. Third, a super important boundary is the group’s goal or, in our terminology, its endpoint. If there is no endpoint, there is no reason for a group’s existence, and it affects its dynamics. Is it clear what the group wants to achieve as a group?
Next, how certain are you in any of these six characteristics?
The last is adequacy. All the characteristics must be adequate for the endpoint. {ADEQUACY}
You won’t do much if you have two and a half people. If people are incompetent for the task, you cannot achieve much. If they cannot communicate, no collective effort is possible. If there is no trust in good intent, the atmosphere of suspicion will suffocate people, and if people do not trust each other’s competencies, there will be no respect. People will spend a lot of effort controlling each other.
Review the characteristics to evaluate what you have.
In addition to this framework, your emotional responses might greatly help. If you start feeling that you are living the same day again and again, that you hear too much gossip and sense the heavy atmosphere, when you are unwilling to go to work, it shows that the group is not functional. Think what you hate most, and use cognitive skills to understand why you hate certain things.
{GAUGING EMOTIONS, GROUP’S GOAL MIX, COMMUNICATION PRINCIPLES, GROUND RULES, THE DICHOTOMY, ENDPOINT TIERS}