Membership Control Goals
There are some things that once you’ve seen it, you can never unsee it. And you see it everywhere.
That’s how it was with the MCG Framework. A colleague/mentor introduced this to me when she was helping me figure out how to resolve an issue. At the time, I ran a professional network and it seemed to be falling apart, but I couldn’t identify any root cause. She knew right away how to frame the issue and the solution. She told me, “This is a framework you can use in any group setting. And now that I’ve showed it to you, everywhere you look, you’ll see it.”
The framework is simple.
It goes in order Membership - Control - Goals. It can be applied to any setting where a group gets together - a professional conference, party, workshop, or any other group dynamic. The elements work in order as follows:
Membership - The people involved in any group function must first see themselves as members of the group. At a party, we make the connection with someone new about how we both know the host. In a silly icebreaker at a conference you start to feel a sense of membership when everyone else around you is forced to participate in the same nonsense. And when you literally enroll in a course or program, you instantly feel like you are a member because you went through a formal process. The first step is to make sure everyone feels that they belong in the group.
Control - No one likes ambiguity. People tend to feel calmer and more comfortable once the rules are established it’s clear who’s in charge. If you’re in a professional setting, this might be where you establish ground rules, review the agenda, and clearly see that the facilitator is in charge of the meeting. In a class, the teacher should review the syllabus or outline the plan. In social settings, the host offers you a drink and shows you where to sit down. These are also simple acts of helping people navigate the rules and order of the situation.
Goals - Here is the meat of whatever it is you had planned. Notice that it comes last. This is the core conversation of the group, the learning they signed up for, or the project in which they might be engaged. This is the stuff of why you came to the event or group in the first place.
Here’s how you use it:
To ensure a group functions well, you can use the MCG framework to move them along. And if at any point along the way the group isn’t functioning well, back up and figure out what needs to be addressed. As I learned it, you have to give as much attention to both Membership and Control as the group needs in order to get to the goals. Actually, it was literally sung to me: “You can’t hurry goals. No, you just have to wait.” (Seriously!)
In my example, the mentor I turned to for advice asked me, “So how is the network doing on membership and control?” I thought about it and realized that we had recently expanded, bringing a number of new people and organizations on board. While we made sure everyone was introduced, we really had spent no time at all making sure everyone had a chance to get to know each other. To make matters worse, when I thought back to some of the disagreements, I realized some of the “older” members had a different idea about how decisions should be made than our newer members. So it was clear that it was time to go back to both membership and control.
MCG worked like a charm then and ever time since for me.
🎶You can’t hurry goals. No, you just have to wait. Goals don’t come easy… 🎶