Do you have any evidence for your claim that people need these two layers?
My observation of a few different NGOs and the catholic church. The catholics even have a name for it, although I am not 100% sure my interpretation is correct. From wikipedia:
In many Christian religions, “modality” refers to the structure and organization of the local or universal church, composed of pastors or priests. By contrast, parachurch organizations are termed sodalities. These include missionary organizations and Christian charities or fraternities not linked to specific churches. Some theologians would include denominations, schools of theology, and other multi-congregational efforts in the sodality category. Catholic sodalities can include orders, monasteries, and convents.
Here my translation would be “modality” = the whole church (community-oriented), “sodality” = a working group within the church (task-oriented).
The tension between “people who come to socialize” and “people who want to have work done” in some organizations seems pretty obvious to me. And these goals are not completely opposite; the task-oriented people usually also love to socialize. It’s just a difference between people who work towards the goal, and use the social environment to relax afterwards; and people who come there mostly for socializing—the latter provide a social support for the former, but that’s pretty much their only contribution towards the professed goals.
A person can be task-oriented in one group and community-oriented in another one. I can imagine a person running a successful business, who once in a week comes to a chess club without playing any chess there, merely talking with other chess players about what a great game chess is and then having some talk about their lives. I am not criticizing the person; just saying that if too many people in the chess club will treat it this way, it will become a chess club only in a name, and the most active chess players will start meeting somewhere else. Or at least there will be one corner in the club where the people are really playing, and the rest of the club will be there for the talkers.
I guess during many LW meetups there are also people who want to do some rationality exercises, talk about scientific books they read, do some projects, increase the sanity waterline, et cetera… and then there are people who come because they feel good in the company of smart and sane people. Both of those are legitimate goals; it’s just not the same goal, and it is good to be aware of it. -- Otherwise the people who want to “become stronger” become frustrated by the inactivity of the others; and the people who come there because they enjoy the company of the smart and sane people become frustrated that someone is always bothering them to do something, when in fact they prefer it as it is.
My observation of a few different NGOs and the catholic church. The catholics even have a name for it, although I am not 100% sure my interpretation is correct. From wikipedia:
Here my translation would be “modality” = the whole church (community-oriented), “sodality” = a working group within the church (task-oriented).
The tension between “people who come to socialize” and “people who want to have work done” in some organizations seems pretty obvious to me. And these goals are not completely opposite; the task-oriented people usually also love to socialize. It’s just a difference between people who work towards the goal, and use the social environment to relax afterwards; and people who come there mostly for socializing—the latter provide a social support for the former, but that’s pretty much their only contribution towards the professed goals.
A person can be task-oriented in one group and community-oriented in another one. I can imagine a person running a successful business, who once in a week comes to a chess club without playing any chess there, merely talking with other chess players about what a great game chess is and then having some talk about their lives. I am not criticizing the person; just saying that if too many people in the chess club will treat it this way, it will become a chess club only in a name, and the most active chess players will start meeting somewhere else. Or at least there will be one corner in the club where the people are really playing, and the rest of the club will be there for the talkers.
I guess during many LW meetups there are also people who want to do some rationality exercises, talk about scientific books they read, do some projects, increase the sanity waterline, et cetera… and then there are people who come because they feel good in the company of smart and sane people. Both of those are legitimate goals; it’s just not the same goal, and it is good to be aware of it. -- Otherwise the people who want to “become stronger” become frustrated by the inactivity of the others; and the people who come there because they enjoy the company of the smart and sane people become frustrated that someone is always bothering them to do something, when in fact they prefer it as it is.