sociometric analysis

[Adam Blatner]

(About 7 paragraphs about systems analysis):
        Hi, All. Happy New Year. 
              I thought I'd throw out something that interests some of you. A friend was talking about the ASGPP and said that she or he was bothered by "the political rivalries,cliques and all that" --- and I found this analysis inadequate.
       I've heard this analysis before, and maybe it's so, but it occurs to me that maybe this is a culturally conserved perception of a group whose dynamics are unsatisfying and obscure. What I mean, and why I'm motivated to share this with you, is that I suspect there may be all sorts of other reasons groups or organizations can have problems without there being any clear political rivalries or much in the way of the power or negative power of cliques.
         First, I don't perceive clear political rivalries or cliques of any significant power. I don't think that's what is going on. Instead, here are some further comments (if you wish to read further):

             Would grouptalk be considered a clique? How do we know when we're "in" or not? 
    I confess my possible naivete---and I'm getting a bit better as I think about all this, but still am not entirely sure--- in thinking that so far I have a different analysis of the ASGPP group dynamics. (Also, I suspect from many different conversations that what I will say may apply equally to the national societies for different countries, for the drama therapists, and for many if not most organizations in general!)
    Second, the key point is to recognize that there may be many sources of disorganization, dystfunction, or perceived dysfunction. Here are some thoughts:

1. A discrepancy between conscious or unconscious expectation and what is then experienced. One category for this is the desire for feeling recognized and included. They're keeping me out because they're a clique. Very age 14 or so. What about the possibility that I might be able to gain entry rather easily just by participating, by daring to participate?  Oh, no, they'd exclude me. Cop out  I suspect this happens far more than folks realize. As I say, some of this may be unconscious.

2. Similarly, what is desired and what can be reasonably delivered: "They should..." assumes that they could, that the job can be done. Just because someone runs for office in situations when most folks are thinking "Whoa, I wouldn't want that job!" doesn't mean that they (Obama?) knows how ahead of time to guarantee fix it! Sometimes taking more responsibility means simply "I'm willing to step up to the plate and do what I can."  Well, there's a lot of parental transference here: We all know (or believed at one point) that mum and dad could make it all better. If things were not all better, well, that proves that they don't love us, because if they did, well, they'd make it all better now, wouldn't they? The awareness that they can not, they don't know how, they don't have the resources, or that it's bigger than any single person---well that's inconceivable. At what age does it get to be not only conceivable, but the default way to think? For some, never, alas. I suggest that this also applies to the way folks think about group, organizational, and national politics.

3. Marginal competence. I think that many roles are complex, consisting of a goodly number of sub-roles and sometimes sub-sub-roles. In marriage, parenting, managing, and even as a student taking many different subjects, there is a range of competence: We're good at some things, medium at many, poor at some, and everyone has a different profile. We're often unaware of what we're not so good at, or at least some of the things, and so pretend to be good at everything. Sometimes we can coast along doing what we're good at and it works, but then a situation comes up where we're not good and we don't know it and we fail to delegate or get help or consultation and mess it up. Whose fault is that? Obviously, the other guy's fault, or "them"---because since we meant well, that should cover our own incompetence (or in cases where high competence was needed, our merely okay-ness, or marginal competence). 

     (I wonder how many therapists ever had the courage to say to a client, "Maybe the reason you're suffering in this role is that you don't really have the skills, talent, stamina or other what-it-takes to fulfill this role.") 

4. Applied to organizations, what if our leaders have this same (really quite normal) distribution of role skills. What do we do when we find our leader, our pioneer, our elder, our ideal, has faults? Do we see Moreno, for example, as having feet of clay? That metaphor implies the entire edifice of his good ideas is based on his weaknesses, and as they are exposed, so falls the edifice. Or what if we grant (using a different metaphor) that many if not most heroes were heroic or genius or really pretty good in some ways and in other ways may exhibit character flaws, inconsistencies, what we see now as hypocrisy (How could Thomas Jefferson have kept slaves?!), etc.?

5. My base-line expectation is that folks who "should" know or know how or be perfect are just doin' the best they can. Stepping up to the plate and offering leadership is admirable. The problem, though, is how transparent the system is so that higher ups can get feedback from the lower-downs? 

  I suspect that a major role for contemporary managers is that of building up feedback systems in which subordinates are not afraid to speak up and be heard. This kind of communication is needed. Also needed is the ability for leaders or managers not to feel torn up / down by criticisms---because a significant number of criticisms are insufficiently specific, mis-diagnosed, lack diplomacy or tact, impugn motivations, and are in other ways not-optimally constructive---if not outright destructive. So a leader has to build that into her system, too, not just in terms of resiliency, but communications among the various leaders giving support. (Think of what a clinic staff needs to do to avoid burn-out.)

6. Part of system dysfunction is lack of warm recognition up and down the status ladder. Lots of people in many systems are still fixated in their surly adolescent role and don't feel the moral obligation to thank others explicitly and clearly for what good is being done. This is the art of tact. (I'm appalled to discover that this is painfully true among elders, people who "should know better." Apparently caught up in their own feelings of victimhood and reacting to their own unconscious feelings of limited power, it's easy to blame or displace on secretaries and other intermediaries. Many people at all ages don't know the political realities of whom to complain to in order to get the best response---and also how to complain or seek redress or adjustment. Political art is not taught much or respected much in our culture.)

7. Perhaps most prevalent and subtly influential: Group cohesion and group morale overlap a lot, and group morale overlaps also with morale in other fields---family, personal finances, the numbers of people coming to your workshops, if they fill at all; how's life, how are other people in your life dealing with the economic downturns? How busy are you just trying to make a living? 
     As things get tough, people pull in a bit. What's the pay-off in over-extending yourself? Less surplus energy is given over to helping the needs of the larger groups. Less money for charity, less participation in professional organizations. A 3% decline is felt, at least unconsciously, and it tends to lead to further reciprocated withdrawl. If you don't want to play, then I won't either. 

      I don't question that, speaking of the USA, that the present (and soon-to-be-replaced) national political administration has been for many people a profound source of demoralization. Many people in the fields of psychology tend to be liberal, and this group has been targeted and denigrated. The hope of a renewal is there. It may be that the new administration may exhibit leadership and policies that again redound to an overall lift in morale and participation. We should not underestimate such general flows of psychic energy.

   -   -   -
And on and on. Your comments could add to this. To summarize, the simplistic diagnoses are prevalent and profoundly misleading, feeding residual teen-aged complexes of "them" and us, images of what the school faculty, parents, society, and others are doing to make life more complex than it needs to be. The truth is that they are doing all they can to improve things, but in fact they cannot do much more, or go much faster, because 82% of them haven't a clue how to improve things; and of the other 18%, half or more have what seem to be bright ideas that are in fact quite misleading or flat wrong; and those who will turn out to be right are going to have to spend five to twenty years in persistently making their case, consolidating their evidence, being heard, selling themselves, and not sabotaging their own efforts by being too obviously foolish in other ways (such as having a forbidden sexual escapade).  Thus does progress happen, as far as I can tell from my study of a variety of types of history.

Warmly, Adam
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