Group Dynamics

March 24, 2011

Interview with Kevin Coyne, author of the book Brainsteering: A Better Approach to Breakthrough Ideas

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Mike Carruthers:
In order to problem solve or come up with new ideas organizations have meetings and the larger the meeting the less people participate.

Kevin Coyne:
The group dynamic in a large group is always – you put any group of 20 people together, 17 think they’re supposed to not talk.
 

Kevin Coyne, author of the book Brainsteering...

Either I’m not supposed to talk in front  of my boss’s boss because I might embarrass my boss or I’m shy, or I don’t want to take up the time of this whole group because I don’t feel worthy. For all those reasons it is hard to get a good idea to emerge in a large group.

But wonderful things start happening when you break that large group into smaller groups of 3 to 5 people.

And I mean that, no fewer than 3, no more than 5 then you get a social dynamic where everybody is contributing. You look like a strange person if you don’t talk in a group of 3 or 4 people; you look like a normal person if you don’t talk in a group of 20 people.

When you break a large group into small groups there’s a tendency to spread the domineering personalities or the big mouths throughout all of the groups. But Kevin says that’s not a particularly good idea.

We try to take all the big mouths and quarantine them into a single group they’ll all continue to talk but all of the other groups will also talk because they don’t have to hide from these big mouths. 

 To hear the complete unedited interview, click here