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groups are tricky because we lack shared context, everyone comes from a different place, grew up with different norms and cultural expectations but one thing nearly everyone has in common: you were probably raised in a household with 1 or 2 adults and a few kids
no matter how enlightened or progressive your family, there's inevitably an enormous power difference between adults and children this is the conditioning that basically everyone shows up with when they enter any collaboration
a group will often flow effortlessly well when there's 1 or 2 people holding an extra degree of responsibility (ie playing something like a mum/dad role). their authority can be very subtle and barely felt but subconsciously it provides a huge stabilising force in the group
it's certainly possible to create a thriving group without relying on this hierarchical pattern, I've worked with 100s of them. but they require their members to transcend some of their earliest conditioning around power, authority, agency & conflict. which is a very big ask.
the most painful groups I've had to deal with claim to have no hierarchy or centralised authority, while everyone pretends to not be engaged in a subterranean power struggle between multiple people with competing claims to being the ultimate authority
the most satisfying groups have an abundance of adults fluidly negotiating who will lead in any given moment & domain but that requires a level of maturity in group members, maybe even a rite of passage to comprehensively leave their childhood roles behind
when I take any kind of leadership role in a group, a significant fraction of the members inevitably project their daddy issues onto me, even people well into their 30s & 40s subconsciously demand I play a role in their story of the authoritian dad or the neglectful dad
@RichDecibels Yeah I’ve been thinking of the distinction between non-hierarchical relationships/groups and •anti-hierarchical• relationships/groups. Non-hierarchical being that which welcomes hierarchy that is appropriate and dynamic over time while being critical of assumed hierarchies 1/
@puheenix honest appraisal of what groups seem to be effective eg recently I had an annoying group experience because there were multiple competing implicit hierarchies, and lots of good experiences where there is a gentle, clear & unchallenged hierarchical centre
@AskYatharth this thread kinda hints at it: non hierarchical organisations require everyone to step up to a level of maturity, they can be an extremely fruitful developmental context for "becoming a grown up" also networked information flows frequently far superior to centralised
@RichDecibels hmmm. my most recent and dominant experiences in my life right now of hierarchy are my startup and burning man camp both of which were just people emergently taking on roles where the roles felt very much justified and based on functional action and it felt fluid and fair
@RichDecibels but i can remember a time at a workplace where i resented the person at the top of the hierarchy, because they didn't feel attuned to me, or the group, and their was just mismatch, and politicking, and random sorts of stuff
@RichDecibels re: asking people to grow up: oh god, i finally understand what my south dakota crew was trying to get me to understand. thanks. ppl weren't stepping up that way, they kind of wanted to orient towards the "leaders" who were reluctant about this and wanted more of the broad agency
@RichDecibels the startup and burning man camp started with everyone having lots of broad agency and falling naturally into little context and coordination chains and occupying hierarchical roles. hm. little lessons in this
@AskYatharth frequently accompanied by coercion / domination / might makes right and frequently fails to deliver coordination due to the principal agent problem (ppl at different points in the system have different incentives & information)