5 People You Want in Your Group
These are the folks that will help your group be its most effective.
After a while, it can seem like talking about groups is a constant stream of negativity. Don’t do this, make sure you’re looking at this other thing, and if you do X you’re a failure.
It’s easy to get caught up in that negativity, but the truth is that the negative is important because the stakes are so high—and they’re getting higher all the time. We all know it.
Designing and maintaining a political activism group that’s effective isn’t easy. But there are some positives. One of them is finding the right people. If you can recognize them and get them, motivate them properly and keep them focused, you can absolutely accomplish your goals. So let’s take a break from the negatives, and talk for a moment about the best people you can find, and what they can do in your group.
I’ve mentioned a few in a past article. I’ll mention a few of these again, but we’ll also look at a few additions. Some might seem contradictory, but it’s all about balance.
Keep in mind that these are not necessarily standalone people. You may get lucky and find one person that is two or even three of these types. Additionally, you don’t need to rush out and find all of them. If your group already takes the time to question itself and ask the hard things before taking action, maybe you don’t need a specific devil’s advocate. If you have a critical thinker, you may not need the good decision maker, because their traits often overlap. The trick is to understand what you need…but also what you already have, and how those traits all interact together.
The Humble Guy
There’s something to be said for someone who is confident in their abilities, and yet humility is a critical personality trait you should be looking for.
I’m not talking about someone with self-esteem issues, trauma they haven’t processed that leaks into how they view themselves, or other issues that lead to them constantly second-guessing their decisions. In fact, humility isn’t defined as “believing you’re worthless or stupid.” It’s defined as freedom from pride or arrogance.
That’s an interesting way of framing it, because when you are humble, you’re free to grow. Free to be taught, free to become better, free to put the mission first. Why? Because things aren’t about you anymore. They’re about what need to be done, and how you can best contribute to making the goal reality. That’s true whether you’re a ground level follower or you’re the one in charge. Show me an arrogant leader who doesn’t listen to his people, and I’ll show you a group that is unhappy and ineffective.
Humble people don’t lack pride—we all slide over into arrogance sometimes. But the humble person understands the effect of excessive pride and can mitigate its effects. That’s someone you want, because their motivation for validation isn’t going to put you or your group in an untenable situation.
The Devil’s Advocate
No one likes to be disagreed with (there’s that pride thing). But one of the most dangerous things in any group, especially one that is involved in political change or activism, is groupthink.
The term was first used in 1972 by social psychologist Irving L. Janis, who began his career in the Army, studying the morale of troops in World War II (building on the work of Kurt Lewin, who coined the phrase group dynamics). Janis spent the next 40 years specializing in areas like persuasion, group dynamics and decision making.
Janis found that peer pressure in groups leads to conformity of ideas and decisions even though the group has not fully analyzed the idea or decision. We’ll talk more about groupthink in political activism in the next issue, but for now let’s focus on the devil’s advocate as someone you want.
They’re annoying sometimes, always bringing up the “what if” scenarios or asking, “Have you thought about…" or even seeming like the obstacle to everything the group wants to do. Here’s the thing: you desperately need that person in your group. They’re often the critical thinker, and they counterbalance the flexible thinker and the idea guy. You don’t need to always let him talk you out of something, but I guarantee they bring something to the table you need, and will open your eyes to unforeseen consequences or other things you need to be aware of when planning goals and actions.
The Devil’s Advocate doesn’t have a problem standing up to you if you’re somehow advocating for an action or stance that is dangerous or out of focus. That’s not a bad thing. That’s a valuable thing.
The Good Decision Maker
This person is a gamer, and I don’t mean they play Call of Duty. They game situations. They’re calculated, they think in terms of chess instead of checkers. They think before acting, they have a goal when they act, and they don’t just react emotionally to things. Sometimes they’re also the devil’s advocate, sometimes not. You won’t see this person flying off at the mouth in a chatroom or saying something that will bite them in a screenshot later.
Not everyone likes this person. They can seem cold, pragmatic, and care less about people’s feelings than others think they should. What they bring to the table, however, is process-driven decision making, which balances out the idealist—something found in great supply in political activism.
The Trainer
We’ve all known someone who is an expert on a subject but they’re ridiculously hard to learn from. Maybe they’re just poor or impatient teachers. Maybe they’re unwilling to train others. Maybe they even are secretly afraid to teach others what they know because they think by doing so they lower their own value to the team. After all, if everyone is as good as you are in your particular niche, where’s your job security?
The truth is that someone who is both excellent in their arena and willing to share that knowledge with others is highly valuable. There is never a down side to more than one person in your group being able to proficiently perform a skill or task. Look for those who are truly interested in sharing their knowledge, and good at doing so.
The Online Quiet Guy
A leader (I use the term loosely) was once explaining to me what his recruiting and vetting process was.
His process focused almost exclusively on social media. Did the applicant post often? Were they posting “the right things?” Were they in the right groups? Did they have their entire profile filled in? Were there pics of the family? In his view, the more info on Facebook that an applicant had, the better.
He was approaching it from the perspective that someone with “nothing to hide” would be an open book on social media. The reality is that you don’t want someone like that. Some of the most effective activists I know don’t even have Facebook. They don’t have Instagram. They don’t spend hours on Twitter. They don’t have a face that’s recognizable on the internet, yet they’re experts in their field and can bring a lot to the table—including the ability to go somewhere and not be recognized.
Don’t overlook people just because they don’t have a huge internet presence. It doesn’t mean they’re hiding something. It might mean they’re just smarter than the average person in your cause.
Putting it all together
Getting the balance right in your group can be difficult and frustrating. You might be looking around and wondering how to go find these people. Or maybe you are looking at the people around you and realizing that they are lost in mission creep and not wanting to do anything to stop it. Maybe your group is already pretty far down the rabbit hole, trying to plan actions you’re not comfortable with. Whatever your situation, only you can decide what risks you’re willing to take, what kind of group you are willing to be part of, what kind of actions you’re willing to involve yourself in.
Types of good people for a group aren’t like Pokemon; you don’t need to catch them all. What you do need is a solid core of people that compliment and balance each other’s traits, welcome discourse—even disagreement—and can focus, together, on a shared, specific, achievable goal.
That is worth the work, because the payout can be extraordinary.
In the next issue we’ll see what groupthink looks like, show some examples of it tearing a group apart from the inside, and talk about how to avoid it. Make sure you subscribe to get The Shepard Scale delivered to your inbox three times a week!