Structuring a Group
“We want structures that serve people, not people serving structures.”
(May ‘68 graffiti)
Criteria for a Good Organization
Deciding how your group should be structured can be difficult. Do you want to be highly regimented, with officers and a chain of command, or amorphous and egalitarian? Analogously, do you want your meetings to be festooned with strict parliamentary procedure, or to be boIsteroUs, cHaoTiC affairs?
Here are some desirable characteristics to consider when designing a group structure. Your group, and its meetings, should be conducted in a way that will:
- Get things done.
- Be fun.
- Welcome involvement of new members.
- Welcome involvement from people with varying levels of commitment, and various points of view.
- Make all people feel comfortable to speak up, propose new ideas and projects, etc.
- Respond creatively to new issues and situations.
- Encourage and empower people to become confident, powerful activists.
We’ll discuss these more later, but we see already where it’s going: a good group will be effective, fun, and open, and make its decisions in a democratic, participatory way.
Decision Making—Democracy
Everyone involved in your group should have a say in what it does, especially about projects they themselves are working on. You don’t want a class division between decision-makers and workers. You don’t want to create an elite that will alienate new or less experienced
members.
It is possible for a group to get bogged down in endless discussions over trivial points, especially when some of the participants don’t think they’re so trivial. It is partly the role of the facilitator to determine when such a discussion is really warranted, and to cut it off when it’s not. If you’re lucky, this won’t happen too often.