Episode 5: Who Influences You?

Episode 5: Influence is everywhere, and it can be heathy or unhealthy. Here are ways to know which is which.

SIGNS OF HEALTHY SYSTEMS OF INFLUENCE

• The system helps people feel welcome and important to the group as they are.
• The system encourages healthy community, teamwork, and camaraderie, as well as open discussion and debate about group projects, goals, and decisions.
• Members are role models for each other, but internal competition is a choice rather than a requirement.
• Individual hard work and excellence are celebrated, and are attributed to the individual.
• The group encourages self-awareness and personal responsibility, but does not require public self-exposure.
• The system supports privacy, self-respect, independence, and kindness.
• Communication is direct and open, and secret-keeping is discouraged.
• Members are not required to spy on or report others.
• Members have the right to challenge the ways that group unity is achieved.
• Striving for excellence may be a group value, but the demands are not harsh, and people are not penalized for failure.
• Dedication may be a group value, but the group makes room for casual members.
• The system incorporates fairness, concern for individuals, and acceptance of outsiders.
• The group provides a healthy sense of belonging and realistic levels of commitment.
• The group does not require people to re-invent themselves or dedicate their lives to the cause.
• Leaders and special insiders are not above the rules, and they can be challenged if they disrupt or ignore group norms.
• The system helps members develop a unified group identity that does not erase their own identities.

SIGNS OF UNHEALTHY SYSTEMS OF INFLUENCE

• There is constant pressure for people to change and conform.
• The push for change comes from above; the needs or ideas of members are not important.
• The system of influence is built into the powerful sense of community; this deep closeness is both supportive to members and also a way for the group to pry into and control members’ private lives.
• Loyalty to family or friends is discouraged; all loyalty must be focused on the group and the leader.
• Gossip, informal communication, and off-topic conversations may be forbidden.
• Members have no privacy; their actions, behaviors, emotions, and even thoughts are monitored.
• Members soon internalize the pressure to conform, and will obediently monitor and report their own behavior.
• Because members must report on themselves and also each other – a culture of confession will arise.
• Confessions are public; and punishment and humiliation are public as well.
• The leader’s behavior is off limits; no one can report on the transgressions of the leader, for they are perfect and can do no wrong.
• Special people around the leader or the leadership group are also protected from any criticism; often there are no consequences for their behavior or actions.
• The group may develop its own special language that outsiders cannot understand.
• Any successes or hard work performed by individuals will be attributed to the group or leader, while any difficulty or failure will be blamed on individuals.
• People in the outside world are treated as non-people: unenlightened, deluded, or evil – and they only have value if they can be converted.
• The group or the leader may reinterpret events to verify the group’s beliefs, fears, or visions of the future; everything will be fitted into their transcendent belief system.