THE FOURTH KIND OF HELPING: INTERACTING IN A GROUP

What follows concerns any group. It might be a staff meeting or your family. It might be a social group or a task group. It might be a group set up specifically for focusing—something I will discuss in a later chapter.

We have all heard that groups should "process," take up openly bad feelings. Usually that doesn't work very well. People hurt each other's feelings and don't really resolve them. Everyone gets a say, but no one can go very many steps. No one is really listened to, or focuses, so that the feelings can change. Yet this is what is needed, and can happen. But it usually happens only with listening and focusing.

Focusing can happen in a group, however large. Someone reads the instructions and everyone focuses within the silences between.

Afterwards there should be a time when each person can say something. If the group is large, it can divide into small groups. Divide the available time, and have someone with a watch call time for each person. Say you have half an hour and ten people. Each person gets two and a half minutes (leaving time lost in between). When people ramble, two and a half minutes is nothing, but if they know the time in advance, and have focused, it may be more time than some people will use. Take a minute or two in silence to let people decide approxi­mately what they will say.

A warm group climate exists when people are free to say only what they wish, and no one criticizes, edits, or adds anything whatsoever to it. If people are skilled in listening, or listening is being taught, the person on the right can respond listeningly. If people are not skilled or learning listening, then no one should say anything except the person whose turn it is.

When the group is having trouble with someone, or you are having trouble with someone, set aside a sepa­rate time and arrange for a few people to talk with the person. With just a few people meeting, each can be fully heard and be given enough time. Let the purpose be everybody's growth and straightness. Difficulties be­tween people and within people don't impede the work and dynamics of the group. И they're dealt with in this way, they make a group better. When problems get re­solved, and any person in the group experiences growth, the others feel the excitement.

If several people talk with someone who is upset or upsetting, at least one should be designated to insure that the person gets really listened to. This helps the per­son cope with disturbing feedback from other group members.

Credit another person with some good or seemingly good reasons for whatever is psychologically upsetting or harmful, even if you feel angry or find the person unreasonable.

When an interaction is bad and continues to be bad -- say you've been talking for ten minutes and it's getting worse -- stop. Go to the first and second stages of listening. Assume the other person is trying to do some good thing. Say that. Try to find what this good thing is and say it. (If you don't like it, you can say that you don't agree but that you do understand.) Then, when the other person's side is cleared or heard, say you now want to do your side, and do it. Even if the person doesn't want to hear it, say your side before it's over, or sometime soon. Perhaps bring in someone who can help you be heard.

Why give your life and work to a group and then not invest the few hours it takes to work things through with a person? People often keep quiet out of consideration for someone until they get so angry they want to throw the person out altogether.

At one time or another you, too, may have felt dis­couraged about the group, unwilling to do the work, anxious you weren't doing it right. Help hear the person who is having these feelings today, even if today you don't feel that way.

It helps, in a group, to invite a person to speak who has just made motions or grunts and didn't get a chance to express anything.

If a person says something meaningful and then a lot of trivial things are said by others or irrelevant ques­tions are asked, return to the first person with an invita­tion to say more.

When all are down on one person, there has to be someone who is more interested in letting that person get heard than in joining the attack. Even if you feel insecure or an outsider in the group, you can always express your wish to hear more from any person, or to have that person repeat something to which the group didn't respond.

There are ways to help with an interaction between two other people. If two or more are having trouble, and you are not too upset yourself, you can help each person get heard. In a bad interaction, usually neither person can hear the other very well. If you respond to one person, as in the first stage of listening, the other can hear you and see the good results of the process. Then turn and respond to the second person's feelings.

That lets the first one listen. (Don't mediate and de­cide who's right about what. Keep your view for later, or maybe say it fast and get back to them.)

Most of what we've said about listening can help in interactions with the people close to you. The difference is that you aren't trying only to help; you're also trying to live and work; so expect it to be harder and slower. Accept it if you can't do as well when you personally are involved. Don't be surprised if you can't listen well when you're being attacked. Even just trying these ap­proaches—no matter how slow or hard it seems -- sometimes gets people out of a stuck atmosphere.

A big difference can be made in a group if you listen, if you focus and say some of what you find, and if you ask others sometimes to sense and say more of what they are feeling.

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