The Dreaded Group Project

The Dreaded Group Project

John Paul Derryberry

I still remember hearing the dreaded words at every level of school I have attended: "Class, this assignment is going to be a group project." The external groans were only drowned out by the internal groans that occurred in everyone’s head.  As you looked around the room, hoping not to get a group where you have to do all the work or worse, with the person who had already planned out the whole project in their head between the milliseconds between this assignment and the group project. Turning the group project into running errands for all their ideas. If my memory serves me correctly, their ideas were not as cool as they thought. Maybe an idea thought up in a millisecond between words isn’t always the one to settle on.

Yet, for the last 6.5 years, I have been smack dab in the middle of the largest group project I have ever been a part of.  I will let you in on a little secret: it’s the most fun I have ever had professionally. A bunch of people looking for the right answer, trusting each other, working through disagreements, talking about next steps, showing up for each other, and just maybe, stumbling into something meaningful. I was lucky enough to present on this topic, which we call “ Community Social Work,” last Friday at the Iowa NAMI conference as the afternoon keynote.  After the news and pictures dropped that we did it, a slew of congratulations poured in. While it’s always nice to get praise, I felt it didn't land in the right place. This work is not just mine; it truly is a group project in the best sense of what groups can accomplish when they are focused on the correct things most of the time.

I’m a lot of things, but my best skill is storytelling about life. Wrapping up the mess in a way that can be all things, uplifting, heart-warming, thought-provoking, and funny if you get my sense of humour. That ability can sometimes lead people to believe that it was my grand idea to practice social work, community intervention, and behavior modification in this way. I wish it were solely my idea, but it’s a grant. My staff gets a chuckle out of me sometimes when my reaction to their grand ideas is to say, “Uggh, that is so much better than what I had planned.”  The acknowledgment that they had a better idea than I did brings a smile to their face. And yes, I do lead this mission, and what occurs under my watch is partly due to how I lead, and I understand some of the credit will flow my way. I can’t stop communicating just how much it’s not my ideas, but our ideas. The best of our ideas, the best of our work, the best of the challenge we give ourselves to be better for our clients. No leader survives by not chipping in, believing, working, and helping the group. Something I wish some leaders understood.

This group project is something I didn’t see coming, and continues to amaze me at the number of people not just latching on, but joining in. I remember a lot of dead weight in my group projects over the years. People are not pulling their weight or just hoping the rest of the group covers for them. We have very little of that, which disproves many leaders' ideas that people won’t help them or that it’s all on them. It’s amazing what people will do when you invite them to help you, give them space to create, and tell everyone that we are successful because of all of us, not because of me.

So over the coming years, you might see me talking about Community Social Work, wherever, whenever, and with whomever I can. I might be the guy in the picture on the stage, but trust me, I’m not the guy making it go. That is the night worker pulling their weight at 3am to keep the client safe, that is the HR team keeping our retention rate high so our staff get better at the job, that is our staff covering for each other so my people do not miss their kids' stuff. That is people cheering for each other, protecting each other, and doubling down on getting outcomes for their community. I have no clue how long this will last. It feels both strong and fragile at the same time. I guess a lot of things in our lives are both strong and fragile, probably more fragile than we would like to admit. All I know is that this group project has changed me, changed the way I think about my work, how I want to interact with the world, and how I tell stories. My stories are better, because all of them, but if I’m being honest, my stories are better because I’m better. And maybe that is the point of a grand group project: to figure out how to be better, to understand that being among the group is always better than being above it.