Group dynamics and ASD

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So people with autism are supposed to be bad at group dynamics and struggle being part of groups.
I am not sure I agree with this.
In what way can we be really good at being part of groups?

I should probably tell you that I am confused about how people with ASD deal with groups.
My thinking is that we are better at groups with formal roles rather thank informal when it comes to doing tasks in groups. We seem to be better at teams with formal roles.
I think we are better at this than most people with NT.

Informal roles seem not to work unless we want to do other stuff like just having fun together.

What do you think?

I never "clicked" with groups. When I was a teen, mixed gender socializing was supposed to take place as part of a group. One aspect is that the group decides what they'll do together. Everybody automatically wants to do whatever the group wants to do. Plus all those people consider one another to be friends. So at that age there was no place for someone like me.

The same dynamic also applies to work situations.

Anyone who is on the autism spectrum or suspects they might be should plan their career to avoid situations where that will present a problem. For example, avoid getting involved with startups except as a consultant working remotely. Speaking as a programmer, it's my impression that trends like Extreme Programming and Agile Methodology were developed to make programming more of a group activity, to counter the stereotype of people on the AS being attracted to the profession.

groups that communicate with information sharing and asking questions, groups that are actually forms of parallel play work for me. Smaller groups always work better for me... 5 other individuals seem to be the top number I can interact with in activities or meetings. No good at role playing team building emotion sharing activities. recipe for disaster.

A small number of people working toward a specific goal has worked best for me in the past.

If it's not work then a very small number of well-behaved not-wound-too-tight just eating with a little participation-optional chitchat.

I mentioned formal and informal roles.
One can read about the definitions here:
http://www.syque.com/quality_tools/tool ... 20position.

"When teams are formed, it is normal for people to take different roles, according to their position, ability or character type. Formal roles are the external, defined positions that are associated with given responsibilities and are usually allocated according to the position or ability of each person.

Individuals in a team will also tend to adopt informal roles that depend more on their character than on any specific knowledge or position. Recognizing these behaviors can be very useful when helping the team to work together"

Informal roles seem bloody difficult!
Group psychology is not my area of expertise so I might use the terms in a wrong way sometimes.

What I have found useful when starting a group is to have someone who are an experts in groups who can help us.
A person who can look at the group from outside.
Not a person who is a part of the group.
What do you think?

Why should we avoid startups?


Parallel play?


I'm wondering if what you are talking about is a very rare group.
To me it seems that most groups have as many goals as there are members of the groups. Sometimes we are missunderstanding eachother or are ok with eachother having different goals.
But I do agree that working towards a commmon goal is very important.

I know I'm the exception and not the rule, but I have always enjoyed talking to new people / strangers. Maybe it's because it's low stakes. If I say something stupid or break the rules, I don't have to see that person again and they have no obligation to talk to me again if they don't want to. I think for that reason, it's a lot easier for me to be many people's acquaintance than any one person's close friend.

I remember being fussed at by one such close friend in high school (a rarity for me) because "every day it's a different table at lunch." I was like "yeah, I know, that's the plan." I didn't know that this bothered people. I didn't get that it would hurt the feelings of people I sat with the day before that I didn't sit with them again. It didn't occur to me that people at every table in the cafeteria at lunch wouldn't necessarily want me to sit with them. This friend very bluntly told me that I had to stop and that I was in her group, so I had to sit with them every day.

I can do quite well in a group of two, as long as the other person is "reasonable" whatever that means. More people than that can get too complicated for me.

But if it's a music group then it works a lot better for me even with as many as 4 or 5 people. There's something about music that really helps.

I thought a group had to have three or more people. But I guess people use different definitions.

In music a group of four people can help.
I have found that it can be more difficult to play music with just two people eg a piano and a singer or someone playing the melody on a guitar.
It can be easier if you add bass and drums. It depends on the music.
When it comes to jazz ballads I really want a drummer.
What do you think?

I can't find any definition of "group" that excludes 2, and some say "2 or more." Depends what you think of more or less confining your social activities to one-one one, I guess. Me, I don't see any great advantages of being in anything bigger that wouldn't be outweighed by the complications, though it depends on the goals the group sets itself.

With music, yes two instruments is a bit limiting if you're not content with what a duo can do without any cunning skullduggery to simulate the effect of more musicians.

I've had a lot of fun as part of a few music duos over the years though. One neat way of overcoming the limitation is to get into recording with multi-track technology and become studio-based. I used to do that a lot with one other guy. Drum machines (or software equivalent) and synth bass helped to get a good, strong sound. They're not as good as talented real musicians unless you spend hours programming them, but a lot of music these days has very repetitive bass and drums, so that's not hard to do with a computer.

Jazz is probably quite hard though because it's often very fluid and ever-changing. The problem is that as soon as you move away from robotic, strict-tempo "clockwork" music, it gets much harder to make the computer do that stuff. And with multi-track, the parts you've already recorded can't change in response to the next layer of instruments you record. Even a tempo shift takes ages to program in, and it's much easier for humans to do these fluid things. You end up having to analyse it for hours which takes you away from the artistic aspect of what you're doing. So you might have to compromise on the genre or the goals, figure out some kind of crafty approach, or ditch the multi-track idea and hope that the magical social bonding effect of music allows you to thrive in a real band of more than 2 musicians (which as I say has been known to work, in my case).

Ideally a startup needs a team of young people who readily bond with each other and quickly come to think of the group as their family. Each individual's aims should coincide precisely with those of the group. They should hate not being surrounded by the other members of the group and never wish to go home except as required for family obligations. Not my cup of tea.

Is this because the group has too many informal roles?

Why would more than two people complicate it?
I really like it when two people who really know eachother well work together.
I can't put into words what this is all about other than saying that the more people you have the more communication styles you have.
Groups can be really difficult because of that.

What do you think?

No idea how management theory would apply here. I just know this is a situation that would be overwhelming for me, of course it's hypothetical as I am no longer young and I believe full-time employees in a startup are generally expected to be young, although they might retain some veteran professionals as consultants.

I would advise because of sensory sensitivities and multitasking issues many if not most autistics have to deal with the smaller the group the better.

I did a start-up, and I got burnt out. There were too many new jobs to learn that I couldn't find recruits for. I'm fine with a loose structure for a project like building something familiar, where everyone can just pitch in at whatever is farthest behind. However, for meetings about how to proceed, I have a very strong preference for those with a skilled chairperson. The worst ones think running a meeting is like running a car - taking it to where the driver wants it to go. Actually, the chairperson's job is to make sure that everyone feels heard, and nobody makes it run overtime. Keeping track of the business kept me well occupied when that was my role, such that if I had to cast a tie-breaking vote, I almost had to flip a coin, because I was barely aware of which topic we were on, let alone who was making more sense.

I found this: http://www.syque.com/quality_tools/tool ... 20position

The text mentions a facilitator. What would be the difference between a chairperson and a facilitator?