Avoiding Pitfalls and Resolving Disputes to Reach a Common Goal
An interesting couple of days we’ve been having…
I’ve been hearing a lot of people say “We need community now more than ever” a lot the past couple of days, but few people have explained how to build community if you’ve never been a part of a group before (outside of high school, at least).
Anticipating this moment, I wrote at length about the importance of community and community building in 2024.
Today I want to share miscellaneous advice for working towards a common goal with a diverse cast of people with different points of view. Some of this advice may appear contradictory, but the real advice is to somewhere in the middle.
Conflict Resolution Over Cancellation
If you form an active and effective group, it will attract people who you won’t agree with 100% of the time, especially now, when people are horrified at current events and are mobilizing for the first time in their lives. They may not be politically savvy. They may not have the best vocabulary or education. In short, they may say and believe ignorant things due to their limited perspective and experience.
Social media has made it so that a handful of missteps can get someone ostracized. Running someone off their platform may have been an effective tactic during normal, ideal times. But these are not normal, ideal times.
If the person is trying to learn, is showing up, is engaging with the cause, and you feel physically safe around them, I urge you to continue working with them.
You don’t need to disregard their ignorance. You are free to say, “Hey, that was messed up. Let’s talk about it after we’re done with this event.” Not only can you bring someone in as a group to educate them, but there is also a time and a place to do that. This way, an entire campaign or group isn’t derailed over a teachable moment.
Be Wary of Bad Actors
I’ve never discussed bad actors on this platform before because it’s difficult to explain without sounding paranoid. I hope that current events are enough evidence to convince you that there will be bad actors if you try to protect your community against…well, bad people.
If your group is successful at its mission, it will attract the attention of people, groups, and agencies who do not want you to succeed.
Fishing these people out requires a lot of discernment. Because on one hand, you want all hands on deck. You want as many helpful people as possible to protect the most vulnerable in your community. On the other hand, you have my point above, you won’t always agree with people 100% of the time. And you have to work with them regardless to achieve a common goal. So which is it?
There’s a difference between disagreeing with someone’s opinions and approach and someone who’s actively preventing your group from achieving its goal. They’ll typically do this by sowing discord among the group. You’ll notice that after one or two specific people join, the group becomes fractured soon after. Suddenly, there’s more in-fighting and distrust, and nothing gets done.
This is by design.
If this occurs in your group, try conflict resolution, but also research a few of the most recent recruits. See where they work. What values did they share online months to years before joining your group? Fish them out.
Be Wary of Cult Personalities
Successful groups can attract power-hungry people. Throughout history, we’ve seen dictators taken down only to be replaced by “heroes” who then themselves become dictators.
The same can happen in HOAs, mutual aid groups, volunteer groups, charities, etc.
Every organization should have a board, a constitution/rule book, and be open to suggestions from the whole. You can even set term limits for leadership to avoid a hostile takeover.
This may all sound dramatic, but our society is prone to cults and it can emerge from any organized group. The sex-trafficking cult NXIVM came from self-development seminars. The Christian 7M TikTok cult emerged when the father of a TikTok influencer formed a “management agency” for young people who danced in front of a camera for a living. Beware of the overly charismatic and too persuasive leader.
Now, I’m aware of how this advice appears to be contradictory to some of the advice above. A leader needs to be wary of bad actors and bad actors tend to create tension and conflict in the group. However, this doesn’t mean that a leader can’t ever be questioned for clarification. Question everything, but again, consider the manner, time, and place in which you do it. Will it get in the way of the overall goal?
What If The Bad Actors Take Over?
No one ever wants this to happen. You work hard with your community members to be of service to others and then someone, or a couple of people, swoops in and uses the goodwill you’ve created to do something harmful, promote an unethical ideology, and/or render the operation useless and ineffective.
Think about how Twitter went from being a place where you could get live tweets from reporters on the ground as an event was unfolding. And now the platform is oozing hateful rhetoric, rendering the platform useless for reliable and current information.
If something that bad were to happen to a group you build, I have some unpopular options for you: either leave, dismantle it or do both.
I’m not talking about a series of personal disagreements with a couple of people in the organization. If the group is still working towards a goal, but you merely disagree with the effectiveness of their methods, you can continue to work that out.
I’m talking about a group being taken over by people who will use its reputation and resources to cause harm. If that is the case, it’s better to dismantle it. Yes, that’s all of your hard work coming undone. Yes, it will be a kick to the ego because it will feel like you failed. But it is better to break it apart when you can than for it to be used to harm others.
So how do you do this? You become the bad actor. You sow discord by letting people you still trust know how you feel and show them the evidence you’ve gathered. Ruin the organization’s reputation so no one wants to join. Etc. There are more…ethically flexible things you can do, but I’ll leave that up to you to discover if it ever comes to it.
Please, get to know people in your community. Become a face they recognize and a person they want to help in an emergency. But be aware that certain forces may prefer you to stay isolated and afraid. Get to know people, but don’t give away too much personal information. Bite your tongue more often. Learn to sit across someone you disagree with in peace (as long as they’re not causing you physical harm).
And protect each other.