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Start on Time? How Culture Shapes Group Meetings · Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom

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  Welcome to Professor Peterson's Psychology Classroom,
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  connecting the science of human behavior to everyday life.
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  Here's Dr. Curtis Peterson.
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  All right, so we've been talking a lot about process and
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  planning and, uh, keeping, uh,
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  the logistics part of the group process.
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  And so, uh, this— what we're gonna present
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  right here is just a quick example of
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  a meeting process, and I'll make sure this, uh, this slide
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  is provided in Canvas so that it's a quick tool in a,
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  like, a Word document so that it's handy for you.
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  I do believe it's in the reading for this week
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  as well. But this is what a kind of
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  the general outline of a group, uh,
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  I'm not gonna say should be,
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  but provides a flow. Okay,
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  so, uh, usually we
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  always start with a start on time kind of
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  notion. Okay, uh, but I've been thinking
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  about this a lot lately. But we are— we always
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  need to keep in mind the cultural aspects
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  of the group itself.
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  Okay, if this was a— if
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  I was doing this group, let me say, up north in
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  the northern states of the United States,
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  I probably would have a hard
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  deadline that participants
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  should get there 10 minutes early because we start right
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  at 1:00 PM. All right,
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  and I would hold to that. Here in
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  the southern regions, I would
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  probably logistically kind of keep in
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  mind that the start time there needs to
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  be some flow. There needs to be some
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  grace. So say— saying we're gonna
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  start, uh, at 1 PM, and in our
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  planning we know we probably won't get started until
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  5, 10 minutes after that,
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  because that's respecting here
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  more of the culture here in the East southern regions of
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  the United States where time is seen something
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  as different. Time is more of a community
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  base here in, here in the South that,
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  that beginning of meetings is really about
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  building and talking with each other and
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  getting things going. Okay,
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  I will say in for a very
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  extreme part of this is that,
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  uh, there was a European—
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  which, uh, in most of the European countries, you start
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  on time and you end on time. And there's a story
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  of this, uh, um, exec, this researcher
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  going to a, a company in India And,
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  uh, the very first meetings
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  that he did, it said— he said he did 2 meetings.
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  When it hit 1 o'clock, he said, okay everybody, let's start.
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  And then when it came 2 o'clock, he said, okay,
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  we are done. We're done with the meeting. We did our time. For him,
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  that was respecting everybody's time.
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  Those are the things you do When from
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  a European, Northern America kind of
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  thing, you start and you end on time.
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  And after 2 meetings, his boss came to him and said he was,
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  he was fired. Okay. Because in,
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  in the, in that area of India,
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  time is circular and
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  it is based upon the relationships
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  within the, the thing. So things can— don't always
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  start on time because you first have to build your relationships
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  with everyone. And things don't end on time
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  because they end when everybody comes to an agreement
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  that we've talked about what we need to talk about and we're
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  done. Okay, uh, from my Tana'atham
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  history class That was one of the
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  things that was noted about, uh, uh, Ta-Nehisi Coates, that sometimes
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  their community meetings would last days or
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  way into the early mornings of the next,
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  of the next day, uh, because that is—
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  that, that's not, uh, um,
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  um, because of any you know,
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  fault of any members, but in that
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  cultural aspect, it dealt
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  with you don't end a meeting until everyone has
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  come into agreement. Everyone in that
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  space comes to an agreement. Okay.
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  So when I say start on time and close
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  the meeting on time, What I'm saying is you
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  as a facilitator need to make sure you understand the
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  community that you are working with
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  and you make sure that your group
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  is planned around that. Okay?
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  Yeah. So I will tell you, if you do go up north anytime and you
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  have a meeting, make sure you're there at— based
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  on the chronological time, not based on everyone
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  you have to meet as you get there and meet when you're there,
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  as we tend to do here in the South areas,
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  Southern areas. So, and if
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  you are facilitating a meeting up in the North,
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  definitely make sure if it's a 1 to 2 o'clock meeting,
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  It starts at 1 and ends at 2.
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  So those are all cultural things.
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  Okay. So when we say start on time,
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  we always have to bring in the light of culture and make sure
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  that those times are built in based upon that.
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  Okay. And then welcome and
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  thanking everyone. So this is when you're bringing the group members
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  in, you're saying, welcome, it's good to see you all here again.
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  You thank everyone for being there,
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  and then you make the introductions.
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  And again, these can be various things such as,
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  let's go around the room, everyone state their name.
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  I know we know everyone, but everyone say your first name or your preferred
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  name, how your week went.
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  Some of them do thinking check-ins.
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  One of my favorite groups, it's a
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  Seeking Safety group where they actually
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  have a quote of some type and they
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  say, so, you know, give your name and what is
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  your interpretation of that quote?
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  And so that's the introduction part. And again, it's making
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  sure that you're building that inclusive,
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  inclusiveness and providing that opportunity for
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  everyone to participate. Okay,
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  then you usually review the agenda objectives and the ground rules.
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  Usually, so usually you always do
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  say, so what we need to do for today and what our goal for today
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  is this. And then the ground rules,
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  I usually review at least for the first 3
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  or 4 groups. Okay,
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  in some groups I'll actually say, hey, can someone
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  recite what our ground rules are before
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  we begin, just to remind everyone? Uh,
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  dependent upon the group and the maturity of the group,
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  uh, you may be able to not even need to mention
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  the ground rules because the group is at that has
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  gone through that normative phase, and now they're into the
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  action phases and the, the, the,
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  the, the real growth phase of the group. And at that
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  point, you may not need to. Okay.
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  And then we always encourage some type of participation and
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  making sure that everyone has the chance to participate.
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  And stick to the agenda. Again, this is that
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  idea that the goal,
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  making sure you keep with the agenda and the objectives and the goal of that
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  group. Because in the
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  beginning of the group, you're kind of making this commitment that this
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  is what we're here for. And so
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  making sure that we keep that in mind. Okay,
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  then when we're— we've gone through this, we've role-played,
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  we've done the activity, we've processed it,
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  then we seek a commitment. Okay, and this
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  can kind of include,
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  you know, just simply going through like you did in the
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  beginning saying, so,
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  What's one thing that you're going to carry from this group,
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  uh, and go— going to try and practice over this
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  next week? And going through and having each group member— and that's
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  one form of commitment. Another one may
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  just be, um, I think it's like AA,
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  at the end of each of their group they read together this
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  short Um, uh, this thing.
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  I can't remember what I get. It's been a long time, uh,
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  since I've seen these where they just basically, uh,
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  read this commitment that they're making to stick
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  with their sobriety and those kinds of things. Okay, and so there can be
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  something like that. Okay, bring closure to each
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  item. Uh, and what this means is,
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  is that It's going through and summarizing.
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  We could kind of put these 2 together, bring closure to each item and
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  summarize results and follow up. Okay,
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  the reason why these are separate though is when
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  we say each item, remember when we,
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  we were talking earlier about the whole agenda
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  idea. And sometimes groups will take a right turn
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  when they were supposed to take a left turn, or they should have
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  continued talking about that current topic. When we
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  say bring closure to each item, we're saying we
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  recognize that that turn
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  they made will be addressed in some way.
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  Okay, so saying, and you remember
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  when we talked about this. We will talk about it
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  later in the group in more specifics.
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  Okay. And then again, just as you welcomed and thanked
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  them for coming, you then thank them for participation.
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  And then you come to a close of the meeting, and the close of
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  the meeting might be something as simple as, we're done for today,
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  have a great week. In some groups,
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  like this is a good thing for adolescents and
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  younger, young adult groups, is you
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  say, okay, we've come to a close of the group. Can everyone please
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  take their chair and stack them over wherever
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  they get stacked? Or will everyone
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  clean up real quick and we'll get out of here?
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  The reason behind that and the reason it works very well with
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  adolescents and with young adults is that's
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  bringing a physical behavioral end to
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  that group. Okay?
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  And I will say, and the reason why that is important is there
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  has been groups that I've done with adolescents
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  and some young adults. And I will say,
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  okay, the group is done.
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  Have a great week, and they all still
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  just kind of sit there and kind of try
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  to figure out, okay, what does being done mean?
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  What, what? So we just went through this and
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  experienced this. And so for especially younger
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  people, it's important to give that behavioral
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  end to the group. Such as stacking the chairs or,
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  or doing something behaviorally as a ritual to
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  the ending of the group. Okay. All right.
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  Really quick before we hit the next topic, which is working
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  with disruptions, I'll just stop and
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  stop.