Best Practice #5: Learn to Deal with Dysfunctional Group Member Behavior

Last month’s post dealt with defensiveness from failure to use I-messages. Other common group member participation problems include:

• Passive-aggressive behavior
• Cultural insensitivity
• Distrust
• Superficiality
• Domination
• Inflexibility
• Anxiety or fearfulness

Groups must learn to deal with dysfunctional member behavior openly, directly, and creatively. As pastoral counselor Clyde Reid advises, “In all these group problems, there is nothing like the openness and honest sharing of feelings as a general prescription for group health. This honesty has a price. It may be painful. But pain is often the necessary prelude to health.”[1]

Perhaps the best way to deal directly with group dysfunction is to build regular reviews into group life. That’s how the sharing and support group dealt with defensiveness from judgmental member behavior in last month’s post.

It’s important in its initial agreements about group life to include expectations for member participation. Consider the following conversation guides:[2]

Speak your mind freely.

• Everyone’s ideas are important.
• No one has your specific background of knowledge and experience.
•  Share your ideas––you have a responsibility besides listening.

Try to maintain an open mind.

• Listen objectively and without judgment. 
• Disagree in a friendly way.
• Remember that other people’s views make sense to them.

Help others to participate.

• Let the other person talk, too.
• Show interest in what others think and invite them to speak.
• Help make sure everyone has opportunity to share.

Keep communication clear.

• Listen to understand what others mean to say.
• Ask others to clarify unclear points.
• Perception check when communication breaks down.

Try to make the conversation a pleasant experience for all.

• A smile may do more to further discussion than your best arguments.
• Try to have fun, and make the conversation pleasant for others, too.
•  A laugh or pointed joke can dispel glumness, hostility, and boredom.

Use such guidelines to regularly review your group’s dynamics. Most common dysfunctional behavior can be addressed openly and directly by talking through these expectations for group member participation. 

[322 words]

---

[1] Clyde Reid, Groups Alive––Church Alive: The Effective Use of Small Groups in the Local Church (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 104.

[2] These conversation guides are taken from my book, Communication in the Church: A Handbook for Healthier Relationships (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 37–38.

Best Practice #4 – Use I-Messages

If failure to perception check accounts for a majority my miscommunication, then a good portion of the balance comes from being close-minded or judgmental. Such attitudes and behaviors precipitate defensiveness and make it very difficult to experience healthy relationships. 

In one of my sharing and support groups, one of our members had a habit of expressing his opinions with the phrase, “Well, we all know that. . . .” Such “you all know” judgments had a tendency to drive other members crazy, including myself.

While seeming to assume the rest of us agreed with whatever judgment he was expressing, much of the time his assumption was incorrect. Over time, this behavior created defensiveness among us and became a very exasperating problem for other group members. This frustration became a barrier to healthy communication and relationships.

This dysfunctional behavior was finally addressed in one of our periodic group assessment conversations. One of our members spoke to the offending member along these lines: “Do you remember a little while ago in your sharing, you began by saying, ‘well, you all know. . . .’? You do that often. It feels judgmental, and I end up getting defensive. I find it very frustrating. I’d really appreciate it if you’d learn to speak for yourself, and not also for me.”

Others may not, and often do not, see things the same way we do. It can be aggravating when part of our very being, our views, feel denied, misrepresented, or falsified. Turns out that this member didn’t mean to be judgmental, nor did he assume that we all agreed with him. It took some practice, but he learned to change the way he expressed his opinion without assuming we all agreed with him. And it made us all feel much more positive about our relationships with one another.

It helps to use I-messages, to own our own judgments, rather than speak for someone else, assuming they agree with what we have to say. For example, we can say, “The way I see it this. . . .How do you see it?”

Defensiveness arises because hardly anything pushes our buttons faster than having our selfhood or integrity violated. And as a result, relational health is understandably a frequent casualty. 

[374 words] 

Best Practice #3 – Perception Check

Have you ever gotten into an argument or animated conversation with someone and after twenty or thirty minutes of frustrating, spiraling communication one of you says, “Oh, is that what you mean?”

Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis knew a thing or two about effective communication when he said, “Nine-tenths of the serious controversies which arise in life result from misunderstanding.”

In fact, I find that as much as 75 percent of my miscommunication with people happens when we unconsciously assume that we understand one another. It’s insidious. Without even realizing it, we wrongly assume that we understand each other.

Too often we fail to take the necessary time to listen carefully enough to perceive accurately what our conversational partner means. Mennonite theologian and counselor David Augsburger suggests that we bracket our judgments. We momentarily put our own views on hold––“in brackets”––while we make sure we understand one another’s meaning.

What’s needed is the communication skill of perception checking; that is, paraphrasing our understanding of each other’s meaning. This is especially important when our conversation or arguments include abstract concepts, strongly held ideas, or below-the-surface feelings.

Here’s how perception checking works. One of you says, “So, the way you see it is. . .” and put into your own words what you understand the other person to mean. You may also need to ask your partner, “Please tell me what you think I mean.” Then, don’t overlook the next important step: wait for each other to confirm or clarify that you accurately understand one another’s meaning––to each other’s satisfaction.

“Hear the other side,” says Saint Augustine. It may well be that pausing and taking the time to perception check what each other is getting at is the single most important skill we can use to help us create healthy communication and relationships where we feel understood and taken seriously.

Next time your conversation with someone begins to get frustrating, to spiral out of control, or you find yourselves talking round in circles, try this: pause and take the time to perception check your understanding of each other's meaning.

[352 words]

 Best Practice #2 – Often, It’s Okay to Differ with One Another!

My most common, frustrating, and unnecessary arguments are with my wife. They arise quite frequently when we have simple differences of opinions.

All too often we get caught up in “I’m right you’re wrong” banter that results in getting stuck in our communication. Tension can arise in our relationship as we become frustrated and angry with one another.

Usually, these arguments are over small, mundane, and unimportant disagreements. And we all too often get stifled and go around in circles in our communication, and frustrated, even angry, in our relationship with one another––unnecessarily.

Amazingly, our mounting frustration, anger, and impasse diminishes, even dissipates, almost instantly when one of us realize, acknowledge, and verbalize that we simply disagree with one another––and it’s okay to differ with one another! In short, we can both agree to disagree.

In these instances, there’s no decision to make or problem to solve. We simply differ! As we both decide that’s okay, we can quickly move on to other matters in our communication and relationship.

The cause of our frustration with one another is rooted in framing of our argument in terms of  the insidious need to be right and to convince the other that they are wrong. These common arguments are unnecessary because they can be framed simply as differences for which it’s okay to agree to disagree.

How do you handle such disagreements or arguments in your communication with important people in your life? What can lead you to get unstuck as anger and frustration flare in your relationships when you differ with one another over mundane, inconsequential issues––unnecessarily?

[268 words]

Best Practice #1– Diminish Defensiveness and Foster a Supportive Climate

Communication research on healthy climates in small groups discovers six sets of supportive and defensive behaviors[1]:

• Description and evaluation
• Problem-orientation and control
• Spontaneity and strategy
• Empathy and neutrality
• Equality and superiority
• Provisionalism and certainty

It helps to use descriptive, I-messages, rather than evaluative, you-ought-to messages. Lead with the indicative rather than the imperative. 

Problem-orientation collaborates and mutually explores while control relies on hidden agendas and predetermined solutions. 

Spontaneity allows the conversation to flow and considers other points of view rather than strategically manipulating the conversation to win our own point. 

Empathy, as novelist Mohsin Hamid puts it, "is about finding echoes of another person in yourself." It includes a commitment to dialogue and active listening whereas neutrality discounts or ignores what they have to say. 

Equality respects another’s importance rather than making judgments based on ethnicity, race, class, or gender. Claims of superiority lead to hostility, hurt, and division. 

Provisionalism keeps ideas tentative and open to change whereas certainty makes them absolute or close-minded. We’re able to influence one another. 

In short, defensiveness leads to feeling judged, controlled, manipulated, ignored, excluded, and cut off while supportiveness means we speak for ourselves, collaborate, have free-flowing conversation, are attentive, inclusive, and open-minded.

So, how are you doing in diminishing defensiveness and fostering a supportive climate in your communication and relationships? Which behaviors most affect the health of your relationships? For example, think of an experience where close-minded, judgmental attitudes adversely affect the communication climate. How can your use of I-messages or other effective communication behaviors and skills result in better relational outcomes? 

[260 Words]

---

[1] Jack R. Gibb, “Defensive Communication,” Journal of Communication 11, no. 3 (September 1961), 141–48.