In the decade I served on a school board, I learned a great deal about group dynamics. The most important lesson, I suppose, is that there are people -- most often highly neurotic people -- who deliberately create chaos. They undermine every effort to rationally deal with issues that require solutions. They violate norms like crediting the work of committees that were designated to analyze what needs to be done and offer solutions for the board to act on, dispiriting those desirous of accomplishing what must be done. They go behind the backs of board members to undercut the systematic workings of the board, and then drag out meetings that should take a few hours into the late night.

In consequence, many just cede power to them rather than endure the endless churning of conflicts, bad decision-making and stirred-up animus. Psychologist Wilfred Bion analyzed group dynamics, something I later wished I had studied beforehand. As I recall the experiment he did, it went like this (much simplified): People were divided into two groups only one of which was without a clear mission of what they were to do. The portion of the group that was charged with a particular task was able to accomplish it. The second group with no such mission defined fell prey to the various emotional drives of the participants.

In my experience, the drive for control by one member caused a significant disruption of the agreed-upon rational basis for achieving our goal and only the fact that the work the mission-oriented committee did was sound and its results beyond credible challenge carried the day. Other times, giving in to a member who insisted upon irrational deference and a chair which was too weak to stick to agreed-upon discussion protocol made meetings which should have lasted a couple hours into marathons lasting far longer and with less........

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