How about a small for-profit organization where founders step down without naming a successor and the most eligible and involved people decide they want to cooperativize the org
Conversation
Replying to
Again, name one. You’re hiding behind an abstract class of supposedly non-abstract-class groups. And how small? 5 is my conservative set point. If you give me a group of 6-8… that’s weak.
1
Kidding aside, I bet if I knew the details, and there were more than 5 people involved, I could cast the various parties into a 2x2
1
Replying to
I mean...... I'm not really sure what to make of your argument. These conversations objectively exist, I've been a part of them. Archetypal identification/ scapegoating is a problem but it can be dealt with, that is exactly why people do group therapy & learn conflict mediation
1
Not only that, when archetypal identification comes up, sometimes that can be sussed out during the course of conversation, and this is when the most valuable learnings tend to occur
1
1
Replying to
If there were 5+ people in a room at once discussing something comparable to “this place has structural racism” and it went anywhere healthy and productive, I’d be very impressed. More likely it put something miserable out of its misery.
1
3
Invariably when things actually break out of bad equilibria in a positive way it’s because some small subgroup went off to the side and brokered an outcome.
1
1
Replying to
it seems like you're holding these types of conversation accountable to some sort of "outcome" or "getting something done." but in my experience it's often the case that learnings from such conversations are powerful enough that they are then brought into the real action contexts
2
Replying to
In my experience they create fractal layers of futile theater. Sound and fury signifying nothing. Energy and life slowly drains out of the spaces where they unfold, and people who want to do anything worthwhile quietly exit the scene. A lemon market of conflict resolution.

