Yellowfire Press
BETTER TOGETHERS OR TOOLPOOLS @ We begin to move
in a more horizontal fashion as people work together as peers helping each other. This
happens in a Better Together model. Help going both ways Alone + Alone = Better Together Some examples: --It’s time to do the annual report for your organization, and it’s not one
of your Glad-Gives. You could contact a colleague facing a similar situation and do your
reports together. Neither of you would be the "expert" or the "client"
but you would be helping each other do something you might not otherwise have completed as
quickly and painlessly. Another aspect of Better Togethers is involved with issues, advocacy, and impacting
policy decisions. Generally, an individual, unless very powerful politically, doesn’t
have the impact a group has when trying to work on issues, policies, and the like. A staff
person wanting to work on affirmative action in a large company may have an immensely
difficult time trying to get his/her voice heard let alone make any changes. Due to the
greatness (and possible hopelessness) of the tasks he/he may lose motivation. However, if
even one other person could be found to share the challenge, the load might be easy enough
to bear. And, most likely the two of them would continue to find other committed people to
help. The motivation will be stronger in cases like this when there are possibilities of
working together with others. Effectiveness will probably increase as well. Suppose you’d like to have a
community-wide recognition event for the people in your program. Perhaps you can do
something alone. But it will probably be better if you find others with the same hope and
then strategize together, bombard the newspapers with letters, attend city council
meetings en masse, and so on. It’s not that nay one of you is necessarily more expert
or well-connected on the issues (as in a Glad-Give, although that may be so). Rather,
it’s that together you have the mutual support, advantages of greater numbers, more
ideas, and better moral. While this factor is important in looking at people’s motivation in networking, it
is not always easy. We’ve all been in groups that have not worked. Group dynamics,
communications, and the like, which teach us how to work effectively with groups, have
been quite adequately dealt with in many other books. One potentially useful manual that
may not be widely know yet is the Resource Manual for a Living Revolution by Virginia
Coover, et al., published by the New Society Press in 1978. This manual is packed full of
highly developed and useful group process skills including group dynamics, facilitating
meetings, conflict resolution, and more. Better Togethers can be viewed in another, only slightly different manner: Toolpools.
Toolpools are cases in which two or more people: 1—Share commitment to a common purpose, 2—As individuals lack the wherewithal to achieve that purpose, but, 3—By pooling materials, skills, or even just numbers, can better achieve that
purpose. For instance, --Mary’s good at research on issues; you have connections in the legislature that
she doesn’t have. By Toolpooling you are far more likely to reach your advocacy
goals. Better Togethers and Toolpools are related. They both show how people can often work
better together when pooling skills, needs, resources, and/or energy to get something done
which could not have been done (at least not as well) alone. Worksheet #3: BETTER TOGETHERS Time: 35 Minutes minimum No. of Participants: from 5-40 These variations help CONNECT people. Once you are in the groups choose a facilitator
and recorder or function in any way that proves to be Better Together.
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permission for use-with-acknowledgment
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--We want to move a log. Neither of us has the strength to do it alone, but together we
can do it. In combining to achieve an otherwise unachievable purpose, we are helping one
another.
--You’re great at graphics but don’t enjoy writing; Joe’s a pretty good
writer but hopeless at graphics. Toolpool teamwork between the two of you make for a far
better newsletter than either could have cone alone
| Formation | Balloting | Postering |
| Ask everyone to think about their answers to the following: | Ask everyone to think about their answers to the following: | Ask everyone to think about their answers to the following: |
| I WOULD LIKE TO BE IN TOUCH WITH SOME OTHERS INTERESTED IN OR CONCERNED ABOUT | I WOULD LIKE TO BE IN TOUCH WITH SOME OTHERS INTERESTED IN OR CONCERNED ABOUT | I WOULD LIKE TO BE IN TOUCH WITH SOME OTHERS INTERESTED IN OR CONCERNED ABOUT |
| -each person writes their top 2-3 issues on slips of paper and pins or tapes to sleeves, chest, etc. | -each person writes their top priority issues on slips of paper and puts in the "ballot box." | -each person writes her/his top priority issue and name and phone # on large newsprint and posts it around the room. |
| -walkabout the room, gradually forming a group with others with common issues | -a pre-designated committee then sorts* the ballots into common clusters and reports to the group at large which issues people are connecting on. | -people then circulate around the room, adding their names and numbers to all other posters/issues they’re interest in. |
| -as groups form, watch for the "strays" and let them make announcements of their issue to elicit others’ interest. Any group size over two and under 7-8 is fine. Large groups should be split. | - individuals then choose one of these groups and meet. | -have groups look at all posters, and combine any that seem to match or relate to one another. |
| -structure the group process as you see fit or leave the groups alone and later ask them to describe their group process, and whether they connected for better or worse. | -structure the groups process as you see fit or leave the groups alone and later ask them to describe their group process, and whether they connected for better or worse | -ask individuals to migrate to one poster/issue they are interested in. If the original signer is in the group, s/he is facilitator and is responsible for calling the first meeting. Otherwise, the group picks a facilitator. |
| * Group Could be doing a Walkabout Exchange during the committee sorting stage. |
-structure the group process as you see fit or leave the groups alone and later ask them to describe their group process, and whether they connected for better or worse | |
| Other Option: for groups with
shared issues: -workshop leaders can have main issues posted on sheets around the room, with a few blank ones for additions by the group -individuals go to the issues posed that most interests them, or create their own. This is the quickest way to connect people and works quite well if you know that groups and it needs. |
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| 1999 Note: There is clearly some resemblance between this process and The Participation Poster. However, Better Togethers seem to be a more general case out of which other productive strategies should have emerged. I’m disappointed that they never did. | ||
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Ivan Scheier
Stillpoint
607 Marr
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, 87901
Tel (505) 894-1340
Email: ivan@zianet.com
For comments and editing suggestions please contact Mary Lou McNatt mlmcnatt@indra.com
