Tough Topics in Cooperative Groups

Not all topics are created equal. In the context of cooperative culture, some topics are much tougher to get at than others.

Here are half a dozen that I encounter regularly. These are by no means all, but they're representative. If your group consistently handles any two of these well, you're way ahead of the curve. (If not, I'm available for hire.)

I. How Power is Used in Cooperative Groups
Groups need to understand—and be able to talk authentically about—how power (influence) is distributed in the group.

If the group has not done foundational work to define healthy models of leadership, it is fraught with danger for members to admit that they have power or are available to fill leadership roles.

Members of cooperative groups tend to want the power gradient to be a shallow as possible (ostensibly in the hope of getting away from the power abuses all of us have had bad experiences with in mainstream situations, whether it be family, church, school, or workplace), but wishing doesn't make it so. Power is never distributed evenly, and you can't reasonably work constructively with a thing you can't talk about openly.

Groups need to distinguish good uses of power (generally speaking, it's when people use their influence for the good of the whole) from poor uses of power (using influence for the benefit of some and at the expense of others) and to develop the chops to be able navigate the perception that a person did not use their power as cleanly as he or she thought they had. That moment is particularly tricky.

Hint: If your group hasn't yet defined what qualities it wants from leaders, and what constitutes healthy uses of power, have those conversations now! Just bumbling along in the fog is not a strategy; it's a train wreck.

II. Limits of Diversity
No group can be all things to all people.

While all groups have some level of diversity among their membership (surely you weren't expecting clones), and most embrace a common value supporting diversity, it is a nuanced question just how much you can handle of any particular stripe of diversity—which manifests in a bewildering array of sizes and colors.

And it's worse than that. While few groups get around to an in-depth conversation about what they actually want in the way of diversity, I have not yet met the group that's developed a culture robust enough to give voice to the desires of those of how want more of a thing (in the name of diversity), only to encounter others in the group who report feeling stretched to the max. Now what?

You need a strong web of caring relationships to sensitively navigate that conversation.

III. Accountability
In most groups there will be a mix of people who favor low structure and people who favor high structure—with a healthy sprinkling of folks in the middle. Those at the low end prefer minimal rules and a high degree of personal discretion, coupled with personal responsibility. They want the flexibility to make nuanced determinations on a case-by-case basis.

Those on the high structure end favor spelling things out to relieve the anxiety of uncertainty. If the standards are well-articulated than you know at all times where the boundary is and it's easier to relax. You'll know what's expected and when you've done your fair share.

The bad news is: nobody's wrong. People at both ends of this very human spectrum have to figure out how to live together. One of the key tests for this is what happens when Member A has the perception that Member B has broken an agreement or failed to come through on a commitment. (Hint: If you believe this problem would be eliminated by high structure, think again.)

Note that I didn't say that Member B had done anything wrong; I said that Member A thought Member B had done something wrong. In situations like this most groups prefer that Member A discuss this directly (and hopefully cordially) with Member B in a good-faith attempt to resolve this concern as cheaply as possible. But what if Member B isn't interested in hearing feedback from Member A—either because of the content or because of the delivery?

Does your group have in place an explicit agreement that members are expected to provide a channel for receiving critical feedback from other members about their behavior as a member of the group? Few do. Yet you can see how much mischief can result from accumulated grumblings that never get cleared. Yuck.

The next thing you know, there's a call for accountability (we can't let those bastards get away with this; they're ruining the community!). This can polarize the group in a blink.

Whenever there's the sense that someone has neglected a duty, done slipshod work, or acted in their own interest instead of the group's, there needs to be a conversation. You need a group culture strong enough to hold that conversation and to keep its focus on repairing damage to relationship; not on determining who's right and how many lashed should be meted out.

Sanctions come only at the end of the line, when all else has failed.

IV. Standing up to Bullying Behavior 
This is a special case of the previous point, yet one that obtains frequently enough to get its own mention.

Bullying is about intimidation. It's accomplished through size, facial expression, crowding of personal space, belligerent attitude, tone of voice, volume, persistence, and through threats and retaliation. It's pushing others out of their comfort zone to the point where they shut up or leave the field rather than continue to voice concerns or opposition.

It needs to be stood up to and not allowed to control the conversation, yet that often adds up to meeting the bully with behavior that mirrors theirs—which tends to be distinctly uncomfortable in the genteel world of cooperative living. Sadly, many good people would rather exit or tolerate bad behavior than stand up in the face of it.

The challenge is to be both firm and compassionate. It's not about ganging up on the bully (which runs the risk of sliding into vigilante dynamics), and it's not about mud wrestling on the plenary floor; it's about interrupting the behavior as soon as it arises, and changing the focus to what's unacceptable about the process before continuing with the topic that the bully was speaking to. You cannot afford to allow bad process to run unchecked.

V. Being Selective about Members
Many groups shy away from discussing what qualities they want in members—not because they don't have preferences, but because it's unseemly to be viewed as favoring some over others. Mostly, I think, this is a misinterpretation of a core value of anti-discrimination.

It's one thing to be scrupulously fair on matters of race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, etc—all protected classes under fair housing laws—yet it's an all together different matter to be blind about a person's communication skills (when assessing membership potential) or their management skills (when considering them to mange a major construction project). The former makes sense from the standpoint of making strides toward building a more just world; the latter is just plain shooting yourself in the foot.

While you can make the case that almost everyone could benefit from living cooperatively, not everyone has the capacity to do it well and you can only make so many silk purses out of sow's ears. It's hard enough to navigate the intricacies of cooperative living with people who "get it"; why complicate matters by working with random volunteers? Doesn't it make more sense to be deliberate about who joins the group: about who is asked to do certain tasks?

To be clear, I am not saying that groups shouldn't commit to creating opportunities for people to learn the skills needed to take on group roles; I'm only saying it's a poor bargain letting unqualified people fill slots simply to avoid giving them the assessment that others don't think they're ready.

In the case of group membership, it's a frightening risk having little or no discernment about who joins the group, and then trying to get them out later once you've discovered they're a poor fit. In the case of making committee assignments or filling manager slots, the more important it is that the job be done well (or is a high trust position), the more crucial it is that you select well to fill it. The stakes are too high to trust to chance to meet your needs.

What all this adds up to is the importance of developing a culture in which it's OK to be discerning, and it's OK to let others know that you don't think they have what the group agrees is needed. Pretending people have what it takes when they don't is a very dubious foundation on which to build a durable culture.

VI. Working Constructively with Distress
Face it. We come out of a mainstream culture that does not do well with distress (outside of a therapeutic setting), and we bring that inability with us into the cooperative experience. Unfortunately, as human beings, we also bring distress.

Once nontrivial distress is in the room (never mind how it got there; it will come) you really only have two choices: pay now or pay later. Let's look at what happens with each of those options:

—Dealing in the Moment
If you're willing to engage with fulminating distress, then a few things need to be put into place ahead of time: a) you need explicit buy-in from the group that there's permission to go there (seeking permission in the dynamic moment is a nightmare; it has to be done ahead of need); b) you should determine a menu of options that may be used to work with distress, so that folks know what they've signed up for; and c) you need to develop the internal capacity to understand and sensitively employ the modalities on the approved menu.

In my view if you're going to go down this road—which I recommend you do—then you need facilitators who can do two important things:

• Be sensitive to energy shifts so that distress can be recognized and attended to as it occurs. This can mean shifting on a dime, suspending the topic in which the distress erupted, to focus on the reactivity and getting the person (or persons) deescalated to the point that the group can productively return to the original conversation. This is an important criteria in that the skills needed to manage a conversation deftly are almost completely unrelated to the skills needed to work distress well. So asking facilitators to be able to do both can be a tall order.

•  Be able to discern when it's an effective use of group time to work distress, and when that's happened sufficiently that the group can productively return to working the topic that was suspended in order to attend to the distress. This is a sophisticated balancing act that calls for the facilitator to be able to accurately read how upset people are (both the person who was initially in reaction, and those around them) and when the group's attention can productively shift off the persons in distress.

—Setting Distress Aside
When you make this choice you're rolling the dice. The good outcome is that it's possible that the person in distress can work through their feelings on their own and come through the experience OK, with no toxic aftereffects. I'm not saying that's likely, but it's possible.

Unfortunately, the downside is pretty big. All of the following can happen:

• The person in reaction may not be able to manage deescalation on their own. For as long as significant distress continues you have to expect they're experiencing significant distortion. That means they aren't able to hear accurately what's being discussed; they are essentially lost as a functioning participant, perhaps for the remainder of the meeting.

• Often, when one person is enduring unaddressed distress, there is blow by on those around them, who are significantly distracted by it. Thus, the focus of many people can be impaired when one person in distress is not getting help.

• When group members observe others not getting help (when they go into distress), the message is that it's not OK to go into distress. This leads to suppression, which makes it that much harder to know what's happening when quashed feelings start leaking and someone starts behaving weirdly.

• Even after the meeting you can't count on things settling down in a balanced way. Sometimes, upon reflection, hearts get hardened rather than softened and the group gets that much more brittle. Not good.

• Maybe you're thinking that if the group sidesteps working with distress there's that much more time to work the issue in which the distress arose. Yes, but it tends to be a bad bargain if the room is infected with significant distortion. How good can those decisions be? How good will the buy-in be if some people aren't hearing well?

Taken all together, I'm question whether you can afford the compound interest when you defer payments on distress.

Many groups avoid working distress in the moment because they have no agreement in place to do so, or no confidence in the skills of their facilitators to handle it constructively. Don't let that be your group.

Bullies and Boundaries, Take III

Today's blog is a continuation of my dialog with Vera, on the topic of Bullies and Boundaries. I first posted on this topic Sept 14, and subsequently Sept 20.

Here is my response to your fine post. I really have no issues with the whole first half of what you wrote. Just a reflection how wonderful it is that intentional communities have been able to set such firm boundaries around physical bullying! That is also what I have experienced.
This is essentially a consequence of a firm commitment to nonviolence.

I just want to note that verbal/emotional bullying, especially of the covert kind, inflicts wounds as well, and is harder to spot and to respond to effectively. While it is less of a bludgeon, it can poison the well of good will in the community. So I always appreciate it when communitarians address it, as you have in your blog.

So, I want to respond to the second half [of my blog of Sept 20].
You wrote: "I don't get where developing a thicker skin (becoming less reactive to the bully's irritating behaviors) helps the bully. I'd say it's in everyone's interest to learn to be less reactive." That puts me in mind of the generations of abused women seeking counseling from clergy and psychologists, who were told to grow a thicker skin, and stick it out. It's by no means disappeared, even today.

I am not defending bullying (the attempt to pressure others into doing your bidding, rather than through request, or dint of gentle persuasion). Rather, I am pointing out that it is never in the interest in the victim to see oneself as a victim, and it is always in the interest of the individual to be as open as possible to the input of others, sorting the message from the delivery. 

I am not condoning bullying. Instead, I am making three points: 

a) At least in the context of intentional community, people who indulge in bullying will tend to be isolated and will thereby lose both respect and influence. That is, they will have less power by virtue of trying to force their views on others. In the extreme they will be completely ostracized.

To be sure, bullying tactics may work in the short run, because people find it odious to call others on bad behavior. Thus, for example, a blustering member may intimidate others from joining the committee that will determine how to landscape the front of the common house, yet the long run effect is that the pushy member will either learn to be more cooperative or will find themselves unwanted on future committees.

b) It is murky territory determining intent, and behavior that is clearly bullying to some may be normal, demonstrative discourse to others. I'm not saying this is very enlightened, nor is it particularly savvy, but the heart of bullying is when people are purposefully trying to power over others (whether in a calculated or heat-of-the-moment way), and it's important to point out this ambiguity.

When we act on the basis of we-know-bullying-when-we-see-it, it generally translates into someone unilaterally imposing their standard of behavior on another, with the result that communication between the two going forward is accomplished only on the basis of recipient's sanctioned channels. 

It's my view that it will work better if there is a negotiation between the two parties to discuss what's possible in the way of improving flow between them. There may be room for both to contribute to something better. Given the benefit of the doubt (about intent) the so-called bully may be willing to adjust their style to something less threatening, while the recipient may be able to stretch their comfort zone. (To be clear, I'm talking about increasing one's tolerance of raised voices; not one's tolerance of sexual misconduct.)

If the bully isn't interested in modifying their behavior (what you see is what you get), the recipient is under no obligation to tolerate inappropriate behavior—yet it still may be in their interest to not close the door on the content of the bully's message.

c) It is my experience that once a group labels someone a bully that person is put in the penalty box and may not be allowed out. Once firmly in the majority, groups tend to get stupid about their role in perpetuating a broken link, missing evidence that the bully may be earnestly trying to effect a change. To be sure, the bully does not always experience remorse or is otherwise unwilling to shift, yet I have witnessed vigilante dynamics too many times to not point out the danger.

While a bully's behavior may be irritating, discomfiting, or annoying, the gist of it is that it is abusive; are you advocating that abusive behavior should be tolerated more by the other party?

I'm pointing out that the boundary of what constitutes verbal or psychological abuse is more vague than most suppose and that this ambiguity leaves plenty of room for mischief in both directions. At the end of the day, the only person you have control over is yourself, and there is an opportunity for looking at your part of a tense dynamic regardless of which end of bullying behavior you find yourself on. 
 
You wrote "how different is it from saying that if the form is not acceptable, then I may ignore your content"? I find that once a person resorts to bullying, they are no longer in a cooperative mode, and the content becomes irrelevant. If the other person tries to pursue the content, they open themselves to further abuse. That is why I am a big believer of calling time out for process. Once the process is fixed, then returning to the content will be a pleasure.

I'm fine opening a dialog about the strain (if you feel bullied, by all means talk about it). I'm only pointing out that holding the content hostage to resolution about the delivery may not be a good bargain. Let me be hyperbolic to make my point: Suppose the common house is on fire because a pot was left unattended on the stove and the person who discovers it believes (wrongly) that it was you. Further suppose you enter the common house right as the person is frantically trying to throw baking soda on the flames and screams at you to call the fucking fire department to contain the fire you started. Do you call a meeting to explore this person's outrageous accusations and verbal abuse? No. You call the fucking fire department.

I am not saying we should ignore bullying. I'm saying we need to contextualize how we respond, and I'm noting the danger of treating the bully as sub-human because you feel you've been treated as less than human by them.

You think that my approach "pretends that whether boundaries have been crossed is an objective assessment and it often isn't. Most often it comes down to: "1) I feel that you've crossed my boundary and 2) therefore I will impose restrictions and 3) blame you for there being boundaries."

Huh? 1) Boundaries are *always* personal and subjective (to the individual or the group). If a man is leaning too close for comfort, I *know* that my boundary has been violated, it's not up for discussion or a vote, and it matters not a whit some other person sets their physical space boundary differently. Other boundaries may be softer than this example, and can be negotiated in good faith (as your example about people speaking loudly as a cultural habit).  

OK, we agree that boundaries are subjective.

2) I don't know what you are talking about when you say I will impose restrictions. I will defend my boundary, yes. Period. Actions have consequences. Undefended boundaries are not boundaries. 

I'm talking about cutting off communication until the boundaries have been respected. Better, I think, is revealing that you're uncomfortable and negotiating from there—with the emphasis on relationship rather than defense of boundaries. While there are dyads that are unsalvageable (not every pair gets along well enough to create a decent relationship, and not everyone has sufficient social skills to navigate problems), I strongly prefer that people in tension start with an issue (I'm uncomfortable with what you're doing) than a conclusion (I will not talk with you until you respect my boundaries). To be sure, if good faith negotiations fail then you can still set boundaries, and I am not talking about situations where a person is in imminent danger and second chances are foolish (when you brandish that knife I feel unsafe).

3) As for the person whose boundaries have been crossed blaming the other, why? This would turn person A into a bully themselves. Blaming is a bullying behavior. If it were me, I would simply say, uh, I feel uncomfortable, would you mind backing up a bit? Or I can back up a bit, modeling where my comfort zone is. There is no blame. 

Your attitude sounds good. It's just not the way I see it typically go down. Most often, when people reach the stage of announcing boundaries in a cooperative setting they're pissed. Generally it requires them to act more firmly than they like and they blame the "bully" for their discomfort (I wouldn't be going through this shit it weren't for you're outrageous behavior).

Here is a snippet that I picked up somewhere: "Personal boundaries are the physical, emotional and mental limits we establish to protect ourselves from being manipulated, used, or violated by others. They allow us to separate who we are, and what we think and feel, from the thoughts and feelings of others. Their presence helps us express ourselves as the unique individuals we are, while we acknowledge the same in others."

I have two reflections about this quote:

a) I like the non-judgmental quality of this statement. I just haven't seen boundaries applied this way very often. Mostly I've seen them as ways to contain the manipulator—which can sometimes be justified (see my recent blog, When the Door Is Closed)—yet are commonly employed as a quid pro quo instead of a decent effort to negotiate an untenable dynamic.
 
b) Our culture (Western Civilization) is obsessed with a sense of "I," as opposed to a sense of "we." As such we are constantly alert for affirmation of how we are unique, rather than for the ways in which we are similar. Observing this I am not so sure it's healthy for us to be looking for yet more ways to distinguish ourselves from others.

I'd say that one of the most profound things I've done in my life from a personal growth standpoint is to learn to see common ground before seeing differences. This is directly related to my skill as a professional facilitator in cooperative settings, and is the result of learning to set as few boundaries as possible—trying my best to accept people where they are. And I am not less clear about who I am.

Bullies and Boundaries Revisited

Today's entry comes from the mail bag. I received from Vera a thoughtful reflection on my recent post on Bullies and Boundaries that I'd like to respond to:

I have never seen a definition of bullying that includes "making people uncomfortable." Generally, bullying is about demeaning, one-upmanship, name calling, using various fallacies in argumentation or even lying to score a point, and so on. While I believe people have a right to protect their groups and their discussions from this sort of behavior, I do not, and have not ever thought that I am deserving of being spared being uncomfortable. Neither do I think that "loud voices" per se are bullying. And I am wondering if you use those examples in order to minimize the seriousness of bullying in groups.

I am dismayed that I've done such a poor job of making my points. Bullying exists in many forms, some of which are pernicious, mean-spirited, demeaning, and even dangerous. However, I am trying to confine my focus to bullying in the context of cooperative culture, where this phenomenon operates at a finer level. I'm not saying it isn't serious; only that it's less of a bludgeon.

In the majority of cooperative groups there is an explicit agreement to be nonviolent. As such, any member who consistently puts others down, jeers at them, vilifies them, or calls them names would be subject to expulsion or ostracism (the withdrawal of community), so I'm talking about bullying in a more subtle context. Rarely are we talking about a threat of physical violence.

The bullying behavior I see in community is about purposefully choosing behaviors or communication styles that make others ill at ease, for the purpose of getting them to back off or still their voices in opposition to the bully's viewpoints (if you speak against me I will make you pay). So yes, trying to make others uncomfortable is part of the picture.

I am not saying that bullying doesn't exist in more stark and nasty terms, only that these kinds of overt power plays are rarely seen in community—mainly because they don't work. The group won't stand for it.

In my experience, bullying is always about power (as in power-over), whether it is intentional or unintentional, conscious or subconscious.

While I agree that the motivation to bully is to exercise power over (I'm setting aside sadism as a possibility), it is reasonable to question how successful that is as a tactic in cooperative culture.

In community, the bully talks louder than others, speaks without being called upon, hogs air time (if allowed to), and is not afraid of confrontation and outright disagreement. In its more extreme forms, the bully may threaten to call in outside authorities or even to sue if they don't get their way. (Please understand that I'm painting in broad strokes and all bullies don't exhibit this exact pattern. I'm trying to be suggestive more than prescriptive.)

If the bully persists in their provocative behavior despite being asked to shift, they are at risk of being labeled a bully and thereby marginalized, which effectively undercuts their ability to influence others—which is the heart of power. Thus, at some level, bullies (in community) are at risk of shooting themselves in the foot if they don't adapt in response to critical feedback.

To be sure, bullies sometimes get away with behavior that everyone agrees is unacceptable because the group does not have the will to object, or to hold people accountable to operating within acceptable bounds. Bullies tend to be more comfortable with confrontation and they tend to know how to get others to back down first. However, even where this obtains, that will not prevent the bully from being isolated as a clear troublemaker, which limits their power.


This dynamic puts pressure on bullies to be no worse than intermittent in their frequency of being difficult, or even more subtle in how they attempt to manipulate others (because only behaviors with ambiguous meanings will be tolerated—perhaps sarcasm; occasional outbursts; in-your-face pressure questioning; late, difficult-to-integrate input on sensitive topics). 

Perhaps the subtlest form of all is when bullies learn to wrap their behavior in the flag of orthodoxy, such that the bully can put pressure on outliers by insisting that they behave "normally" (as defined by group culture) as a precondition to having their input considered—knowing full well that it's difficult for outliers to comply.

I agree that it is difficult to know the intention of another person, and it helps to focus on the behavior, not the intention. (Sometimes intentions are so murky that even the individual in question does not rightly know.)

We see this the same way.

If someone in group demeans me or another regularly, what is the proper response? Is it to ask that I grow a thicker skin (thus helping the bully)?

I don't get where developing a thicker skin (becoming less reactive to the bully's irritating behaviors) helps the bully. I'd say it's in everyone's interest to learn to be less reactive.


And that brings me to the issue of boundaries. They are lines drawn by a person that specify what is, and isn't acceptable to me, in the way others treat me. Being put down, jeered at, vilified, called names are examples of behaviors a person might draw a boundary about. A boundary simply means that I will not permit another to treat me that way without consequences.
There are two points to make here. First, the gross behaviors listed above are almost certain to undermine trust and good will between the giver and receiver, resulting in the giver having less power over the receiver—unless the receiver is so intimidated that they become silent or withdraw.

Second, there can be considerable nuance in determining whether a boundary is appropriate because of bullying, or a boundary isn't appropriate because the group hasn't really tried enough to work productively with the behaviors of the difficult person (the would-be bully)—because it's a diversity issue. For example, when is a pattern of loud, challenging statements bullying, and when is it a class issue based on family of origin?

After having looked into the issue of boundaries at length, I have never seen anyone saying, as you do, that "giving up on the prospects for productive communication with someone" is the essence of boundaries. I would say that is the extreme boundary when everything else has been tried, and disengagement and distance are the only things left. But there is a long long road with many options before coming to that point.
I'm not sure we're that far apart. I was using a particular community as a point of departure for my blog and that is how the term "boundaries" is being used there: as giving up on someone. I agree that a person could say that they need x in order to attempt to make common cause with someone, but how different is that from saying, in effect, that if the form is not acceptable, then I may ignore your content?

Are boundaries triggered? In my experience, boundaries are trespassed, or not. Boundaries are set and defended, or not. Some boundaries are firm, others are negotiable. 

My discomfort with this is that it pretends that whether the boundaries have been crossed is an objective assessment and it often isn't. Most often it comes down to: "I feel that you've crossed my boundary and therefore I'll impose restrictions and blame you for there being boundaries." Yuck.

If a group sets (and commits to defend) the boundary of, say, "no name-calling" then agreed upon consequences follow the breach. The simplest consequence being the interruption of the content, calling out "process!" and dealing with the boundary breach before moving on. And by the way, genuine apologies go a long way toward healing a boundary breach, and are the fastest way I know to return to the content of the group discussion.

I'm in full support of surfacing instances of unacceptable behavior wherever they're perceived to occur. I'd like, however, to start with making room for each party to talk about what they think happened and what it means to them, as many breaches are simply misunderstandings, rather than attempts to bully. I'd rather that the emphasis be on repairing relationship damage, rather than dogging down the passageways between air-tight compartments.

Bullies and Boundaries

I was recently in a conversation with a prospective client about the possibility of my working with their group about the dynamics of bullying and boundaries. As I thought about it, I figured the first challenge was defining what those two concepts mean. Here's what I came up with:

Definition of Bullying
Let me start with this online definition from a school website:

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.

In community, I'd modify this to say it's the perception that someone is purposefully communicating or behaving in a way that is uncomfortable, threatening, or disrespectful in order to put others at a disadvantage with respect to engaging on an issue. The effect of bullying behavior is often that engagement is unpleasant, tense, and ineffective. Sometimes it doesn't happen at all—because the person being "bullied" is too intimidated to even attempt it.

There is the perception that if the bully's behavior is tolerated, then the playing field has been tipped in their favor. This is seen as an abuse of power, and the bully comes across as being more interested in getting their way than in working it out with others. (If they were really interested in relationship or collaborative problem solving, they wouldn't behave that way.)

Note #1: The fact that the bully's behavior is unwanted and that this has been communicated to the bully (perhaps even repeatedly) does not necessarily mean that the bully knows another way, or that everyone experiences that behavior as bullying. Further complicating the dynamic, what is scary, aggressive, and threatening in one context, may be culturally appropriate or acceptable in another. This can be a diversity issue.

Note #2: While the most common way that bullying is understood is when a person uses forceful or threatening behaviors to get others to back down (perhaps the bully can tolerate being in a tension-filled environment better than others), the essence of this dynamic is when people use a communication style that is known to be awkward, difficult, or inaccessible to others, thereby placing the other person at a distinct disadvantage.

Thus, two people with very different communication styles can each feel bullied by the other. Because each may come across as insisting that the other person adopt their style as a pre-condition of being willing to communicate, it can lead to a stalemate with each blaming the other for the impasse.

One of the tricky aspects of bullying is that there is often an assignment of bad intent to the bully's behavior, and it is very difficult to know intent. It is not a simple matter to distinguish between an action that is deeply conditioned versus one that is calculated to cause distress.

All of that said, you do not just have to lump it if another's behavior or communication style doesn't work for you. You can still try to discuss it and explore what's possible with regard to the "bully" making efforts to move towards the comfort zone of others without becoming too uncomfortable themselves. Similarly, this can be worked from the other end as well: to what extent can those who struggle with the 'bully" learn to cope with their behavior, assuming good intent? (If you tense up in the presence of loud voices, are you willing to work on that response?)

Definition of Boundaries
In the context of a cooperative group, "boundaries" have to do with how far individuals (or the group) are willing to go to in attempting to engage with others in a good faith effort to work through issues. It comes into play when people feel they've tried enough and it's OK to disengage in integrity. You don't have to think very hard about this concept to appreciate that if boundaries are easily triggered, it leads to a lot of unresolved tension and general unhappiness. So healthy groups try to develop a culture in which there is ready support for people in tension, ostensibly so that those good faith efforts are easy to attempt and more likely to be productive.

While you can be sympathetic to the desire for boundaries (who wants to keep butting their head against the wall?), the danger is reaching for the boundary card prematurely. There is the general sense that Pontius Pilate was too quick on the trigger in writing off Jesus, and thus there is nuance about when you've tried enough and when you're simply trying to avoid something awkward while wrapping yourself in the flag of moral virtue.

While I believe that setting a boundary (giving up on the prospects for productive communication with someone) has to be an option (I've reached that point half a dozen times over the course of four decades in community and cooperative networking), the overwhelming danger is not trying too long; it's giving up too soon. The most seductive version of this is when there's a difficult individual with low social capital. Time and again I've witnessed groups embracing the story that the outlier's behavior is the problem and it's on that person to conform. Absent that, they'll be ignored.

Stretching, by definition, entails a certain amount of awkwardness, trying to figure out how far you're willing to move outside your comfort zone to find an intersection with a person you find difficult. If you're going to give up on them, you need to be able to sleep at night with having made that decision. Most people think of themselves as reasonable and compassionate. Have you lived up to your own standards with respect to adjusting how you come across in order to reach the other person? (Note: I'm not talking about trying the same thing over and over and it still not working; I'm talking about trying different things and none of them working.)

When people invoke boundaries—limiting their future engagement with people they find difficult—it makes it that much harder for the group to succeed. Communication and bridging are the lifeblood of the community and boundaries cut off the communication and block the bridges. It is an act of withdrawing the possibility of community with the person with whom you have established a boundary. It's a serious deal, and should only be taken after everything else has failed.

Too often, in my observation, people are willing to establish boundaries in retaliation for what they've experienced as disrespect (and perhaps disregard) by the other person (perhaps someone who comes across as a bully), without actually testing to see what the other person intended or checking for what they'd like their exchanges with you to be like, or are open to working on.

In effect, we're setting boundaries around unpleasantness, forgetting that it can have a profound impact on the people and relationships. If someone promised you that community living was not going to involve awkward dynamics, I have some oceanfront property in Utah that I'd like to talk to you about.

Taking the Bully by the Horns

I define “bullying” as behavior that intimidates another person into either being quiet or otherwise acquiescing to the bully’s wishes even though that person has reservations about the wisdom or appropriateness of what the bully is asking for.

While bullying behavior may occur as a one-time incident, the more interesting case is when it’s perceived as a patterned tendency. Where that happens and it goes unaddressed, it can further develop into the people being quiet or tentative about stating their concerns for fear that expressing their views will trigger bullying behavior—rather than because it is actively occurring. Then, when it comes out later that people are upset because they felt intimidated, the bully is understandably frustrated because they are being blamed for something they might have done, rather than for something they actually did. It can get ugly.

It is important to note that bullying does not have to include physical intimidation (threat of physical violence). It can be entirely accomplished through verbal and/or written statements, and even through body language and facial expressions that involve neither touch nor words.

It’s important to understand that the roots of this dynamic can go back very deeply on both sides of the equation. For the bully, they may have learned that speaking more forcefully and passionately (perhaps loudly, or embellished with fist pounding or arm swinging) has the effect of enhancing their chances of getting their way. Building on that success, they’ve learned over the years to do it more. While they may be aware that they have this power (to control through intimidation), their rationale may be that they’re not asking that others refrain from doing the same thing. They believe their contributions are valuable and everyone is free to express their views as persuasively as they can. Let the best ideas survive!

Going the other way, the bullied may have grown up in a household with an angry or abusive parent. They may have learned to be timid and inconspicuous as a survival mechanism. While that’s not the (current) bully’s fault or responsibility, you can see how no-holds-barred meetings are not experienced as a level playing field. Instead, they may be a mine field.

One of the important nuances around this is being able to distinguish the boundary between an acceptable range of expression (for example, demonstrative and energetic) and unacceptable intimidation That is, at what point are dynamics being controlled by the raucous and passionate; at what point are they being dominated by the soft-spoken who never raise their voices? This is not a simple question and there is no agreement on the right place to draw the line.

Note: people can dominate events through being a bully, and they can also steer events through being a victim. Groups need to be aware of both dynamics. In a recent group I was working with, some people expressed extreme frustration with what they perceived as the group’s tendency to support the bully more than the victim. Sometimes it’s the other way around. The ideal though is to develop a culture when everyone in distress feels supported, and no feels either run over or muzzled.

I believe the line you want to draw is doing everything you can to permit a wide range of authentic (as opposed to postured) expression while at the same time checking to see if anyone’s boat is being swamped by someone else’s strong bow wave, or their boat is being sucked down into another’s whirlpool of misery and fear. When you’re group encounters heavy seas, you’re trying to bring the entire fleet safely into the harbor of agreement.

What you want is to be able to hear everyone’s input in their own words and with their own affect. That is, you want to know (both in your brain and in your bones) what they have to say and why it matters, yet you also need to be sensitive to how one person’s full expression can feel unsafe or destabilizing to another. These can be tricky waters to navigate.

I recall years ago facilitating a neighborhood association meeting where I had no prior experience with any of the participants. Among the attendees were an older black man and an older white man, both of whom had a fair amount to say and very different styles. It became quickly clear to me that the black man liked things up-tempo and animated. So when I was working with him, I picked up the pace and responded with higher energy. In contrast, the white man liked things slowed down and deliberate. So when I was working with him, I lowered my voice, and made sure the pace didn’t leave him behind. Each got a style of facilitation from me that matched what they needed to feel heard, yet neither’s preferred style dominated the meeting. Each got half a loaf, and both were able to feel fully included in the sandwich conversation.

In a lot of cases where someone in a group is perceived as a bully, there is the sense that the bully’s right to be heard is grossly out of balance with the paired responsibility of the bully to hear others. That is, it may appear that the bully is insistent upon their voice being heard (in the manner they prefer) while it’s not clear how they are also working respectfully with the input of others (or even supporting an environment where the viewpoints of others can be expressed). It can go a long way to deescalating a tense dynamic if the person who is labeled a bully can demonstrate how they are in fact supporting the viewpoints of others being fully voiced and considered.

While no one wants to be seen as a bully, people feel intimidated and triggered all the time. It’s important that groups have a way to discuss both what’s happening and what to do about it, yet you need to be careful about how the topic is introduced. Because the term “bully” is a pejorative, you may potentially already be in hot water if you begin with a direct statement such as, “I want to talk about bullying,” because this will invariably lead to someone’s behavior being tarred with that brush. It may get you off to a less charged start if you offer something like, “I want to discuss how we can better balance the right to freely express our views with the right to feel safe.”

The key here is that if you can’t talk about it, you can’t fix it. And if you can’t fix it, decisions will be made by those with the thickest skin and the loudest voices, rather than by those with the best insights into how to balance factors and viewpoints.

If your group is handling this well, bully for you!