A few years ago I was invited to participate in a particular kind of leadership training program. It wasn’t cheap, the cost to attend, but the invitation appealed to my ego, since those invited included some notable “movers and shakers” in the South Carolina Lowcountry.
Participants represented the business and professional sector, others engaged in various public service roles (elected or otherwise), non-profit organizations and the “faith based” community–the last of which I was considered to be a representative.
Besides the plenary sessions in which all of us were involved–calling this segment a “lecture” isn’t quite right, since it also included various multi-media presentations and large-group exercises and discussions–we were randomly assigned to an assortment of small groups.
The group I was assigned to, similar to the others, it consisted of roughly eight persons, including both men and women. And each group was tasked with selecting a “service project” to implement in the community.
That’s when I began to have “flash-backs.” Anyone who has ever been to school has likely had to participate in various “group projects.” And the same is usually characteristic of other kinds of educational or training experiences, not to mention how what I’m describing is not uncommon in this or that work or professional association and involvement.
In my group, various suggestions for a suitable project were put forth. My preference, which I voiced, was that we contribute to some community project that had already been set in motion, one in which our participation would merely represent a valuable contribution.
My concern was that whatever we chose should involve less rather than more of a time commitment on the part of any of us in the group. Since all of us already had “more on our plate” than we could likely “say grace over.” The fact that each of us had even been selected to participate in this program in the first place was, of course, because we were considered “community leaders.” And such an attribute isn’t usually bestowed on people who spend an inordinate amount of time on their particularly personal interests or preferences. In fact, I once had a high school teacher who claimed: “If you want something ‘done,’ give it to a ‘busy person.'”
Plus–and here’s where my “flash-backs” were coming from–I can’t recall ever participating in any “group project” (voluntarily or otherwise) in which I didn’t end up “doing most of the work.”
And yes, I know–that’s “my problem.” Not that it’s some rare disease. Since I also know others who would say the same: those of us who tend to have relatively “strong personalities,” who tend to be “leaders” rather than “followers,” who tend to be more “assertive” (even “aggressive”) rather than “passive,” who tend to “make things happen,” rather than merely wondering, “what happened?”
In the group I’m describing, my attempt to be more “cordially influential” than so “overtly dominant”–something I’m continually practicing, since it’s hardly one of my “strengths,” something I naturally do especially well–it merely resulted in my getting “out-voted” when it came time to select our project. After all, I was only trying to be a good “team player,” a good “company man.”
Since one fellow in the group was rather insistent that his “pet project” be the one we should undertake. It involved teaching children in a particular school, who had been identified as “under-privileged,” how to play golf.
Being in the minority of “golfers” within the group, who had any idea of how “individualistic” a sport golf is, or what a catastrophe taking a bunch of already fairly rambunctious children who had never before even been on a golf course to a golf course–I could already dreadfully see what likely lay ahead.
Especially, when several other of the group members became “cheerleaders” for this project. From their enthusiastic, if uninformed perspective, they envisioned these children becoming successful, accomplished golfers in no time at all, with little effort, not unlike what they had seen televised from “The Masters” at August National.
Except I’ve been “playing” golf (I say that reservedly), not to mention practicing rather dutifully for much of my adult life, and I’m anything but “good” at “playing” such a crazy, demanding, humiliating, “bring you to your knees” game. In fact, there are those who would suggest that trying to “play golf” is not unlike trying to “pass a mental status exam.” There surely must be “something wrong with you.”
Not that teaching golf to some “under-privileged” children isn’t a worthy undertaking. But hardly in a group setting. It should, rather, be pursued more on “big brother” terms. Which I actually once did for several years, mentoring an elementary school youngster. I even had some golf clubs “cut down” to fit his size and spent time with him hitting golf balls (or at least trying to)–practicing the most demanding skill in any sport–in a vacant field behind the school.
I even occasionally took him to a “driving range” to hit some balls, but the idea of even just him and me, only the two of us, on a real golf course–where you’re expected by others (who are also playing at the same time) to have some idea of what you’re doing–as distressful as that would have been, I could only imagine trying to do the same with a group of twenty or so similar kids.
What we ended up doing was going to that particular school one day a week for several months, as part of an after-school program, where–in a game similar to baseball–we practiced hitting stationary tennis balls with small plastic “golf clubs.” As well as also trying to hit the balls at various “targets” we had set up around the school yard.
Except the “we” part was what fulfilled the “expectation” I envisioned in my “flash-backs.”
Guess who showed up at each of those after-school sessions?
A couple of guys in the group came either several or a few times, but most of the group members–especially those who thought our “golf academy” project was such a “great idea,” including the fellow who had so enthusiastically suggested it–they never showed up.
Which provided for me at least another “flash-back.” Years ago I taught a graduate school “Group Dynamics” course, part of a major called “Human Relations.” We spent weeks studying loads of research related to how groups “function,” or otherwise–more or less. And at the end of the course we tried to decide where to go “out to eat,” as a group, to celebrate the end of the term.
Which is when everyone “failed”–since we couldn’t agree on where to go–and therefore gave up on the idea of “enjoying” one another’s company for that particular “celebration.”
So much for “Group Grope.”
