'How the unconscious behaviors of people working in groups derail them' with Karl Melrose.

How the unconscious behaviors of people working in groups derail them, and at least one solution.

Why do engaged, brilliant, effective people sometimes move into a new team and become disengaged, dull and ineffective?

And why does it sometimes go the other way?

The problems I've seen really derail organisations come from conversations that "can't" be had, a need to work around "personalities," and time spent managing conflicts instead of getting on with with the work that everyone knows needs to be done.

In short - they are derailed by failures of people working together.

When this happens, there's a tendency to choose a person, and say "they're the problem." I've never been satisfied with that - because I've seen engaged, brilliant, effective people move from one team into the next - and become disengaged, dull and ineffective.

So why does this happen?

Simply - it's because we are not the same person when we're in a group, so if the group changes, we become a different person.

Groups have an identity of their own, and manage their anxieties about the world, their tasks and the people they're working with by using the whole group - or being used by it.

One implication of this is that trying to manage problems at the level of the individual or outside of the group can't work - because it makes them different people.

When we get this wrong, we can't produce the changes we need or get work done effectively.

At extremes, it produces bullying and scapegoating.

In this DD, we'll look at a lens for seeing this behavior, a set of theories about why it happens, and a theory about how to resolve it.

Karl Melrose biography

Karl leads business development and consulting for an information management training company. This is very convenient, because it provides an opportunity to spend all day every day talking to information and records managers in government agencies about their practice - the improvement of which is the thing he's really interested in.

When it comes to EQ Lab and Dialogic Drinks, In his own words, he's not here because he has answers, he's here because he has questions.

His favourite questions are about how our thoughts create the world we live in, the dynamics of people working together, and how we got to thinking the way we do.