Caution: Small Groups Ahead
Posted: Saturday, September 03, 2011
by Octavia Hansen
Octavia Hansen
Since the dawn of civilization, small groups have been a bad idea. Not all groups are bad. They don't plan to be bad (well, a few of them do, but not many) but most of the time, the outcome is NOT good. They have other names: committee, cartel, club, posse, party, band, but don't let this fool you. A small group is recognized, on the average, as between three and twelve.
1. God, Adam, Eve and the snake. Everyone knows what happened here. The big guy knows everything, wants to keep everyone else in the dark. The other bright guy eggs on the stupid twins and it's downhill from there. Nobody actually talked to each other, it was certainly not a round table discussion. Rather than a teaching and learning experience, they were all punished for gaining knowledge. The lesson out of this is you are penalized for intelligence.
2. The Last Supper (Jesus Christ, party of thirteen, your table is ready!). You think you know your friends but in a power meeting, it's every man for himself. A few of these guys went on to coast on the main man's reputation but most faded away. I get the impression that these groups of three did not consult the other groups, everyone had their own agenda. The big guy's solitude in the center is almost overwhelming.
3. Julius Caesar and His Triumvirate. A Triumvirate is power pact with three friends. Well, this goes out the window where money, power and women are concerned. Julie was relying on Pompey and Crassus to cover his back. That fell apart after a few years, so while Mark Antony was filling in for him in Egypt (money and women), Brutus and a few other senators covered his back (power). Is that dagger in your toga or are you just glad to see me?
4. The White Star Line - RMS Titanic, RMS Britannic and RMS Olympic. A small group of designers and businessmen assured every one their ships were the biggest, fastest and unsinkable ships of the day. You know the story.
On the Titanic, as it was sinking, small groups could not get their act together. Some life boats, designed to hold as many as forty, left with less than a dozen people.
Ninety years later, a small group of oceanographers re-located the Titanic remains on the sea floor.
Part of the small group of large ships, The Britannic, although supposedly refitted to avoid the Titanic's problems, sank even faster. There's a great story there, too, but not enough loss of life for a tear-jerker movie.
The Olympic began as a commercial liner, then became a troop ship and served well. Not much of a story there.
5. The Sex Pistols. They were a very profitable failure as a small group. No talent, no direction, they dissolved almost as fast as their album sales began falling. They were the worst band to be known internationally. Their small group management team knew they were a flash in the pan, a novelty act. Everyone got their money and got out.
6. Enron. What more can be said? They closed their doors two weeks before Christmas, 1997. The small group of executives got their money out before anyone else knew what was happening. Ten-thousand plus employees did not get a Christmas bonus, no severance pay, no health care, no retirement. This small group knew EXACTLY what happened. Shame on them!
7. Waco Branch Davidians. Because?they were a small RELIGIOUS group - no one inside wanted to say "This is crap, let's leave." No one outside could back down without losing face. Religious guilt/loyalty makes people stupid. Non-thinking religious groups includes Charles Manson and family, Jim Jones and The People's Temple, Heaven's Gate Cult, and The Spanish Inquisition. The list goes on, we don't have enough time or space here to guilt everybody.
I’m NOT a group person. Too many times, no matter how hard I worked, someone else dropped the ball. Too many times someone else had a great idea so I could work long and hard hours. Hmm? Maybe I should start my own small group.
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