Where Group Dynamics meets Analysis and Design: The importance of conceptual clarity and acknowledgement of complexity.

Groups matter

When working as a consultant, leader, analyst or designer,  the work requires a mix of individual contributions and group contributions.  Group processes are required to (1) generate ideas, (2) vet ideas, and (3) achieve consensus, which is often a pre-requisite to buy-in and approval of initiatives to improve or build something.

Group processes only succeed if no member of the group feels fear that their membership in the group is under question or that sharing their ideas might lead them to experience humiliation or disrespect.  Even a single member with such feelings often poisons the group dynamic.  I wrote about this in a blog post in 2011: What makes teams effective? (2) Achieving the Piranha Club state – Reward Health.  The post emphasized the use of humor and intentional efforts to build a group culture and motivate group behaviors to participate non-defensively and provide only “loving” feedback.  Although I did not use the terms “emotional intelligence” and “group dynamics” in that post, I think those concepts are applicable.

Two talents matter

In group processes, different members of the group have different talents and capabilities in two key areas: (1) conceptual clarity, and (2) capacity for complexity.  

Conceptual clarity is about cognitive neatness and precision, the ability to understand parallelism when authoring a list, and the ability to intuitively pay attention to semantics and terminology and taxonomy, even when they don’t use any of those words.  It is the talent and habit of mind that drives people to put the right silverware in the right slots in the drawer, or to organize their toolbox or dresser drawers, or to put labels on things, or to organize their electronic files in a folder hierarchy, or to use a standardized format for naming files.  If a group is engaged in brainstorming a list of fruits, and the first person says “apples,” the second person says “bananas,” and the third person says “carrots” and the fourth person says “apple pie” — that is an example of failure of conceptual clarity.  Similarly, if a group is developing a process flow diagram, and some of the boxes are process steps and other boxes are types of information and other boxes are outcomes, and other boxes are the names of people, and some of the arrows describe sequence and other arrows represent information flows and other arrows show cause-effect relationships and other arrows show reporting relationships — that is also an example of a failure of conceptual clarity.

The capacity for complexity is the ability to hold many things in one’s brain at the same time.  Such capacity is a pre-requisite for reading and understanding a diagram with many boxes and lines or reading and understanding a block of text with many words and some long sentences.  Although there is value in simplicity, there is also great harm in oversimplification, as I noted in blog post in 2016 (Three ways to keep it simple — one of which is bad – Reward Health). The distinction between simplicity and oversimplification is based on the notion that complexity is something that exists in the world and people may succeed or fail in acknowledging it.  When people lack the capacity for complexity, they are vulnerable to oversimplification.   If a group is making a process flow diagram, and they assume only the “happy path” and fail to acknowledge the need for process steps to deal with exceptional circumstances, that is an example of failure to acknowledge complexity.  If a group is creating an entity relationship diagram, and someone wants to “keep it simple” by assuming that every market area is associated with one and only one state, even though some market areas actually overlap state boundaries, that is another example of a failure or unwillingness to recognize the existence of complexity. 

The harm is huge

It is my experience that a majority of the resource waste and quality defects in large, complex health care delivery and health insurance organizations can ultimately be traced to failures in conceptual clarity and the acknowledgement of complexity.  Bad data causes problems that require costly remediation.  Processes that break when facing exceptions cause defects that harm customers and brand reputation and also require costly remediation that cuts into profits.  In health care organizations, broken care processes can kill people. Organizational structures with ambiguous responsibility boundaries cause turf conflicts when boundaries overlap and failures of accountability when there are gaps between boundaries.  All these problems have common root causes in failures of conceptual clarity and failures in the acknowledgement of complexity.

Group dynamics challenges

When a person receives a chunk of information, they naturally make a quick assessment of the complexity of the information and a quick determination about whether that level of complexity exceeds their capacity or if it would require a level of cognitive burden that exceeds the level they are motivated to accept.  They reject the information if it is too complex or burdensome.  My daughter taught me the text messaging shorthand “TLDR” — an acronym for “too long, didn’t read.”   (As an aside, people also are prone to reject information that does not support their prior beliefs or perceived self-interests.) 

If they are in a group context, they face some social pressure to process the information and contribute to the discussion.  But they also face an additional level of fear that if they try and fail to process the information and then try to contribute, they might be humiliated, driving them to not only reject the information but to preemptively discredit the provider of the information and reject the expectation for active participation in the meeting.

Similarly, when a person considers whether to participate in a group process of authoring a new chunk of information, they naturally make an assessment of the level of expected rigor and discipline, and if that level exceeds their capacity for conceptual clarity, they withdraw from participation and preemptively discredit the process and the associated expectations as being “too academic” or “too nerdy” or “too picky.”  They roll their eyes and cross their arms and lean back in their chairs.  After the meeting, they will badmouth and disown the group process and connive ways to thwart it.

These challenges are not rare.  In my decades of experience working with large and small organizations, I would estimate that at least a third of all group processes were substantially harmed due to challenges related to resistance to information for which the conceptual rigor and complexity exceeded the comfort level of some of the participants.  (And another third failed entirely because the information failed to conform to the prior beliefs and self-interests of some of the participants.)

What works for groups

Knowing about these principles of human psychology and group dynamics, a leader of a team that is to engage in group processes involving analysis or design must select group process methods that do not exceed the talents and capacity of any of the people involved.

In my experience, the following methods ended up being most useful:

• Brainstorming — making a list of concepts or ideas with no expectation that all the contributions have to be of the same type, thereby minimizing requirements for conceptual clarity.  Each person contributes only a single concept or idea at a time, with no expectation of relating to other items, thereby minimizing requirements for capacity for complexity.  The group is explicitly instructed to abstain from making any negative comments about the contributions of other people, thereby reducing the fear that contributors will feel humiliation or disrespect.
• Mind Mapping — like brainstorming, but instead of a simple list, the artifact is a diagram with concepts inside shapes and with lines connecting the shapes.  As with brainstorming, there is no expectation that the concepts or lines are of the same type, minimizing the requirement for conceptual clarity.  Each participant contributes only a single concept and line at a time, and each concept is connected to only a single other concept in a simple hierarchy, thereby minimizing the required capacity for complexity.    Also like brainstorming, the group is typically reminded to refrain from providing any negative feedback, reducing fear.
• Commenting on a draft.  Based on the results of brainstorming and mind mapping exercises done during previous group sessions, one individual or a small subgroup of a few individuals with greater talents for conceptual clarity and capacity for complexity can draft clearer and more complex artifacts, such as textual documents, process flow diagrams, concept maps, cause-effect diagrams, entity-relationship diagrams, organizational structure diagrams, GANTT charts, or system architecture diagrams.  Then, these materials can be provided back to the group, preferably with lead time for review by the subset of group members that are willing and able to review the draft and formulate feedback comments.  Finally, in a group meeting, a brief presentation of the draft can be provided, allowing some participation by those that were unwilling or unable to review the material in advance.  Comments are gathered in a manner that resembles brainstorming, with the expectation that the subgroup will use the comments to consider edits to the draft after the group meeting has ended.  A wise group leader intentionally avoids getting into “group wordsmithing” mode, other than for very specific scenarios such as when drafting a mission statement, product name or tagline.

No guaranteed success

Even if the group leader does an optimal job in selecting group methods and managing group dynamics, success is not assured.  The likelihood of success is a function of the subject matter and the talents of the members of the group.  If the group is conducting an analysis in order to make a decision, the analysis might involve complexity that exceeds the group’s capacity.  If the group is participating in a design process, the integrity and coherency of the design might exceed the group’s capacity for conceptual clarity and the optimal design might involve a number of components that exceeds the group’s capacity for complexity.  The requirements for success and the capacity of the group are like a Venn diagram for which there may or may not be overlap.

A dozen ways to improve current group processes

Given this uncertainty about success, all a leader can hope to do is take steps that increase the chances of success for current and future group processes. The following 12 strategies can help with current group processes.

• Choose the right participants.  When choosing group participants, stack the deck with people with greater capacity.
• Use spoon feeding.  Focus on the least capable group members and try to spoon feed them safe opportunities to provide input, careful to avoid any appearance of condescension.  One way to accomplish this is to schedule time to pre-review draft materials with the least capable or most difficult participants outside of the group meeting to provide them with a safer opportunity to provide feedback, then incorporate the subset of those ideas that make sense into the draft.  Then, at the group meeting, make a big deal out of those contributions.  Again, even traces of condescension are poisonous.  I’ve seen group leaders and otherwise sophisticated consultants try to use this technique with a kindergarden-teacher “uptalk” voice (with rising pitch at the end of sentences), giving the verbal impression of patting the audience member on the head.  The result was the immediate cessation of group process effectiveness.
• Use naming.  Try to get people to name things, which has a strong effect on their sense of ownership, being careful to avoid setting the expectation that they should name important things for which they might provide a conceptually unclear name.
• Use choosing.  Try to provide opportunities to choose between multiple “good” versions of the design, giving participants the necessary sense of ownership and control with reduced risk of selection of conceptually unclear or oversimplified designs.
• Use “bracketing” to overcome objections to complexity.  This technique involves responding to people that reject complexity by providing multiple versions of the design artifact with different levels of complexity, anchoring the spectrum with one version that is clearly oversimplified and another version that includes gratuitous, unnecessary complexity, thereby steering the participant away from the “simpler is always better” mindset and toward more thoughtful designs that are conceptually clear and that acknowledge the right level of complexity.
• Use “build up” approach to presenting artifacts, such as by using a series of PowerPoint slides or using slide animations to present a more complex diagram by starting with one box, then adding an arrow connecting to a second box, then adding another arrow connect to a third box, and so on.  When a group of people see a complex diagram all at once, some of them will immediately tune out.  But by initially presenting something very simple, it is possible to lull some of those people into continuing to pay attention, receiving bite-sized increments of complexity until they are eventually comfortably viewing the whole diagram they would otherwise have tuned out.
• Use intuitive graphical language.  I learned long ago that diagrams can be much more intuitive if attention is paid to layout, particularly to avoid crossed or tortuous lines. Colors and font sizes are important to convey grouping and relative importance. Some visual symbols are more intuitive than others.  For example, I learned long ago that people accept concept maps (with labels on the lines) more easily than entity-relationship diagrams (with symbols on the lines). Among entity-relationship diagrams, people find “crow’s feet” symbols far more intuitive than the Chen or UML notations sometimes favored by IT architects. 
• Use casualness.  In my consulting practice, I often use hand-drawn diagrams toward the beginning of engagements to convey the idea that the group participants are involved in the early stages of idea development, making them feel a greater sense of ownership.  Even when I have developed a more polished version of the information for a previous client, such that I could easily adapt it for use with the current client, I nevertheless use a hand-drawn version.
• Use humor.  Particularly when people are anxious, they appreciate comic relief.  Therefore, when a group process involves conflicting interests or opinions or fear of being disrespected, the leader can insert some humor and encourage the group members to keep it light.  Self-deprecating humor, in moderation, can be particularly effective in smoothing over conflict and setting an example to increase humility and decrease aggression.
• Use polish and beauty.  People will pay attention to things that are visually interesting and beautiful, and they will put more trust in things that are polished and that otherwise reflect high production values.  So, especially toward the end of a group process, polish and beauty are good.
• Use story telling.  Humans are naturally attentive to stories. They want to experience movement and change. They are curious to see what comes next and how it ends.    Therefore, the more analysis and design artifacts can be presented in some order that sets the scene, presents a problem, reaches some climax, and offers some resolution that is actionable, the information will be far more effective and impactful.
• Use tailoring.  The artifacts can be provided in multiple forms, providing different versions of the same information tailored to people with different backgrounds and interests.  For example, in addition to providing a complete detailed version of a diagram, a simple “high level” version of a diagram can be provided for the people unwilling or unable to deal with the detailed version. Also, different versions can express overlapping information using terminology that is more familiar to different participants, such as using clinical terminology for clinicians, financial terminology for finance people, IT terminology for IT people, and general common terminology for lay audiences.  Some participants may benefit from access to a video explanation that they can play and replay as needed to help them absorb and understand, giving them the confidence to participate in the group meetings.

Five ways to succeed in future group processes

• Over time, hire more talented people, with attention to the talents of conceptual clarity and capacity for complexity.
• Engage consultants with those talents to augment the internal team, and maintain long term relationships with those consultants so they can function as trusted members of the team, rather than being seen as threatening “outsiders.”
• Build a “piranha club” culture over time — rewarding people for the bravery of participating and “gracefully” (non-defensively) accepting negative feedback and for providing only “loving” (constructive and gentle) negative feedback to the contributions of others.
• Build familiarity and skill with tools, methods and forms of information that facilitate thinking and communication that is conceptually clear and that acknowledges complexity.  The capabilities of people for conceptually clarity and capacity for complexity are largely matters of natural talent, but are partly a function of familiarity and training.  For example, if people have a lot of experience reading process flow diagrams, they will over time have a greater capacity for reading more complex diagrams, just like a person has an easier time playing more difficult pieces on the piano after spending lots of time learning their scales and playing simpler pieces.
• Cleanliness begets cleanliness.  Over time, an organization that insists on conceptual clarity and appropriate acknowledgement of complexity will build a strong base that sets an example and facilitates continuation of those good organizational habits.  When data is a mess, cleaning it properly seems hopeless. But when data is clean, errors that are introduced over time seem fixable and doing so is of obvious importance.  Similarly, when organization structures and job descriptions and process boundaries are clear, it is easier to keep it that way.  When information systems have a strong, clear architecture and bug-free implementation, they can be far more easily maintained and improved over time.  Therefore, conceptual clarity and acknowledgement of complexity are self-reinforcing annuities that pay dividends into the future.