Discussion 02: Building a Group
Please note: In order to successfully complete the program, you must respond to this post. Your comment/response should answer the questions/show that you completed the given activity (if any). Read the post carefully and implement the learning in the chat rooms. If you didn't participate in Discussion 01: Introduction to Group Support, then check here!
Welcome back, crew! In this discussion, we will learn about building a group.
As you have observed and noticed, some chat rooms are the busiest space while some are pretty quiet or slow. That means many factors contribute to a group building. It could be the topic, time of the day, members already there, social anxiety, facilitator, and so on. Each one of them has a critical role to keep the room active and supportive.
The first thing to acknowledge: 7Cups is a global platform. We are available to 189 countries and we have users who speak more than 140+ languages. That is, we have a large group of diversified members and have demographic and cultural differences. But, the challenge is how to connect them?
So, to do that, we structured and created certain rules and policies in order to facilitate group interaction. One of them is to use English as a common language to communicate. As per the research, 20% of the Earth's population speaks English, that is, the highest percentage for a language used for communication followed by the Mandarin language.
Then, we placed the chatroom rules regarding what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior in the chatroom so we are able to ensure the room is well moderated, safe, healthy, and compassionate space to connect and interact to get and provide support to each other.
That means in order to build a group, you need to identify the common grounds, and based on that you can structure a group for group support. Anxiety Support Room, for example, serves the purpose to support the members struggling with anxiety or to share the progress they make and what is working for them. Sharing Circle Room, another example, serves the purpose of the most structured and uninterrupted space to share and vent.
So, how as a group specialist/ facilitator, leader, one sets up the group is crucially important for its success. One needs to have an eye for details, structural features of a group to ensure a good environment for participation. It is important to reduce the unproductive anxiety, foster compassionate interaction among the members, increase the likelihood of good attendance and active participation, therapeutic processes, and discourage any unhealthy cliques to build a healthy group.
Discussion: Share a challenge experienced while building a group in the chatrooms? What did you learn?
Activity: Respond to at least two of your fellow trainees' comments with thoughts on their share.
After fulfilling the requirements of this post, please check out the next discussion here! Ensure to implement the learning from these discussions in the chat rooms to build and support the group. You must take part in the brainstorming/activities given in all of these discussions to successfully complete the program.
A challenge I've seen in group chats can be timezones. It can be really difficult to receive or give support in group chats if no one is online in your timezone. This can make members feel particularly isolated and alone, which is the opposite of what we want to foster in group chats and communities. The international aspect makes it daunting as English, although commonly spoken, is hard to do when you aren't native or fluent in the language and can potentially hinder activity and participation in group chats.
@ASilentObserver
Discussion: Share a challenge experienced while building a group in the chatrooms? What did you learn?
A challenge that I've experienced while building a group in the chatroom is that it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of a queue when many members want to share. I have learned and found it extremely useful to use the 7 Cups notes feature.
Share a challenge experienced while building a group in the chatrooms? What did you learn?
The most frequent challenge that I encountered was that new participants would come in and not say anything, sometimes it can be hard to detect who came in, especially when there is a great volume of messages popping in. Either they end up exiting with the feeling of being ignored, or that they just stay and watch the rest of the group chat.
I learned that in order to prevent it, they need to feel welcomed, meaning that it is our responsibility to welcome them and ask questions to make them feel involved. Pay close attention to who came into the chat and sometimes peak at the participant list to see if the number had risen.
Question : Share a challenge experienced while building a group in the chatrooms? What did you learn?
while I have not built a group in the chatrooms myself but based on my experience as a participant and just observing I would say keeping the conversation relevant can be challenging while dealing with lots of people at the same time , keeping calm ,reminding everyone of the guidelines and getting everyone to be respectful can be hard , finding the balance between being to robotic and strict vs warm, welcoming and making everyone feel "heard" takes practice for sure .
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@BeTheLight111
I've also never tried forming a group on 7 cups, but your observations are on the spot regardless! Having to be kind while abiding by the rules, or keeping 8-10 people calm at at a time seems like a lot of hard work!
Which makes you appreciate the people who take the time and put in the effort even more!
@ASilentObserver
@ASilentObserver
Share a challenge experienced while building a group in the chatrooms? What did you learn?
One challenge I found was building communication. It ius sometimes hard when team members do not communicate to help leaders grow a community better, Second is delegating roles for team members, sometimes a leader of a team will have to do all the work because members of a team do not want to answer or do roles asked for others to help out. The third challenge I see is participation.
@pamharley003
For sure these are major challenges detected in group chats, participation is a big one, without leader-member communication or member-member communication a group will definitely not build. Is there anything that you learned from encountering the challenges?
have read and understand your question.
share a challenge experience while building a group in the chat rooms? What did you learn?
I learned that at times people will often “lurk” whilst in the sharing circle. They don’t want to “join in” and that often leaves an awkward silence within the group when no one wants to share.
having open topics for discussion and games / jokes often breaks the tension and everyone starts chatting and then wanting to share.
@AussieRhyno
I totally understand what you are saying, Sharing Circles can sometimes be a little uneasy when someone doesn't share or doesn't join the conversation. Having games like icebreakers or like you said, fun discussions that engage everyone to participate are great ways to loosen up the tension and start conversations.
@AussieRhyno
I can relate to what you're saying! Sometimes people are just not interested in sharing in Sharing Circles and that can leave an awkward silence and it can hinder the flow of the room. Hosting open discussion and games are a great solution to help keep the room active and engaged.
@AussieRhyno
Great answer! I love the part where you mentioned Sharing Circles, I host sharing circles frequently and agree that it is hard when people do not want to share it becomes hard to keep the chatroom engaged and active. However, with the use of icebreakers we can overcome this
Some sessions are better than others
All around a good answer, thanks for sharing
Question : Share a challenge experienced while building a group in the chatrooms? What did you learn?
Answer : From me, one of the challenges I faced was someone trying to divert the current session to other topics and disrupting the session. I remember facing this when doing a listener check-in session and the person said they weren't interested and keep trying to bait other people to go into casual chats instead. At the time, the listener community room was still open all the time so what I did to solve it was to ask them to stop and drop by the listener community room for casual chats. From that experience, I learnt that each chatroom has a purpose and don't be shy to refer people to other rooms that suit their needs.
@BloomingSakura
Good answer I understand this completely - I have also witnessed discussions going off-topic and agree we should not be afraid to politely nudge the individual and point them in the right direction for a general converstaion
All around a well thought out answer, thanks for sharing
Question : Share a challenge experienced while building a group in the chatrooms? What did you learn?
A challenge I've experienced in the group chats can be time zones. as I am around 5 hours ahead of 7Cups time I often notice during the time I am online, the chatrooms are very inactive this is mainly due to people being at school etc. during this time. This makes it hard to keep the chatroom active as it lacks participants - One time I hosted a session (Pop-Up) and it was not very active this was because when I hosted it, it was early hours in 7Cups time and therefore not many people were awake / logged in
I learnt not to panic and concentrate on my schedule, I built it around 7Cups's most active hours so I can ensure I provide the highest quality sessions I can as well as maintaining an active chat
The key principle I learnt was 7Cups is a diverse community with members from across the globe and that there will always be someone in the chat to talk to :)
@KyleBorg
Having so many people, from so many different countries was one of the things that attracted me to 7 cups, but I can imagine, what a hassle it must be to try and have active discussions and bring support to people when they're all asleep!
I applaud you for your innovative solution to this, and i hope that your pop-ups are now thriving. The next time you host one, I would love to attend!
Challenge:
When building a group, it can lead to overbuilding it at times.
This overbuilding is what called as a clique.
This clique can hinder the participation of new joiners.
To overcome this, we need more common grounds and inclusivity.
@DonaldDraper
Yesss good point
