Sentence Groups

Potential group leaders are able to read the situation and float trial balloons. When group members feel sufficiently anxious about what is going on, a potential leader who articulates a direction that is generally thought will alleviate everyone’s distressing experience will be followed many times without further reflection.

Sentience groups are omnipresent within organizations. Sentience groups frequently spontaneously form around a set of commonly shared feelings and experience. They are filled with shared personal agendas, feelings and experience. For example, a group of upper and middle management executives that meets for a weekend planning retreat may have sentience groups formed up around how upper management has treated middle management and vice versa. The same outcome might occur between management and union employees participating in the retreat. Members of the various sentience groups quickly recognize each other based on the sentiments expressed. A participant that speaks to unilateral decision making by top management that is disconnected from the realities of the workplace will immediately resonate with those who have had similar experiences. These same individuals will identify top management as a group sharing similar thoughts, feelings and experiences relative to the rest of their organization. Sentience groups are, therefore, constantly being formed and abandoned as conditions change and they are often filled with strong emotions and motivations that can promote polarization. It should also be clear sentience groups readily form up around the four kinds of group experience, as everyone in the workplace has firsthand experience with each type of group experience.

In Sum

Groups and organizations often contain subgroups that may be thought of as having their own axe to grind. These groups contain members who share thoughts, feelings and experience that lead them to see the workplace in much the same way. These are sentience groups that are frequently challenging to manage.