Working with people in groups
Thursday, December 20th, 2007Do you prefer to work with people one-on-one, or in groups?
When I interview people to get their stories of what they want at work, usually it’s easier to start one-on-one. But sometimes groups are the best way.
Six months ago, I led a group in making a new holiday. It was at a potluck dinner, for fun.
I started by going around the table and asking people, “What’s a great experience you’ve had making something happen with other people?” Then I asked, “In one or two words, what’s a theme of why it was a great experience?”
One person runs an art program for adults in a rehab program. Her theme was “creative art.”
Another person had a great holiday get-together with people he hadn’t seen in a long time. His theme was “communicating with people you don’t usually communicate with.”
A third person is involved with a bicycling and environmental organization. His theme was “organized chaos.”
And so on. There were six of us. Then we chose a theme for our holiday that everyone liked.
What should we do to celebrate?
With our themes, we decided to make greeting cards. That would get us communicating with people you don’t normally communicate with. It would have creative art. But… organized chaos? How could we have that? It was tough.
Maybe I asked, “What does organized chaos mean?” to get an idea for what he wanted from it. Maybe he answered and gave us a clue in the direction of making life difficult in unpredictable ways. Regardless, we all looked at each other blankly for a good minute, wondering if this would work, assuming we might not be compatible. But then…
Someone suggested we could fold the greeting cards into envelopes which were too small. That would be organized chaos.
Did that get in the way of anyone else’s values, their themes for a great experience? Nope.
So we did it.
We got all these themes which might normally be considered as not going together — creative art, communicating with people you don’t normally communicate with, organized chaos, and three other values – into something we made together. And we had a great time doing it.
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