Because of longstanding social issues around Big Picture, we recently sat down and had a discussion about “bad apple behaviors”. Specifically, Jim and Sarah played a radio clip from This American Life, talking about how individual people can get in the way of a group’s progress through their actions. Research specified three types of behaviors that can spoil an entire group: “Jerks” (people who make disparaging comments and cause conflict), “Slackers” (self explanatory) and cynics/depressives. Research shows that having even one of these types of people in a group can drastically bring down the effectiveness of a group, bringing work quality and completion down.
Everyone has a tendency to show some of these qualities, but Big Picture especially seems to have trouble with these types of people. The culture of Big Picture is completely based around bad apple behaviors, with some people in particular causing more problems than others. I think that the goal behind our discussion was to help people become more aware of themselves falling into these roles, specifically the people who regularly fill them. If all of us were more aware of the effect we can have on other people, the Big Picture room would be a much more pleasant place to be in.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the bad apples in our group realized the discussion was about them. Even people who were very involved in the discussion immediately turned around and started getting in people’s way, complaining about moving their chairs and going into advisory, and saying openly depressing things to generate a response. The amount of time it took for these to start happening again astounded me. It was clear to me that the people that really needed to hear our discussion totally did not, or didn’t understand that they played a role in the problems of Big Picture. We don’t have any students in Big Picture who have adequately filled the role of a leader, and even if we did they can’t be everywhere at once. The culture of Big Picture will only improve when people realize the effect they have on other people.
Bottom line: people need to get over themselves and learn how to socialize without ruining the barrel.