THE
PRINCIPLES OF A TRUE GROUP MEMBER
1. The
successful participant of a group is one who, in his own activities, approaches
the ideal, ethics
and basic principles of the generality of the group.
2. The responsibility of the individual
for the group as a whole shall not be less than the
responsibility of the group for the individual.
3. It is
the responsibility of the Group Member to operate smoothly throughout the
group.
4. A
member of a group must exercise and
insist on his rights and prerogatives as a member
and insist on the
rights and prerogatives of the group as a group, not letting these rights be in any
way or degree diminished by any excuse or better efficiency.
5. The
member of a true group must exercise and practice his right to contribute to the group and must insist on the
right of the group to contribute to him. He must
recognize that numerous failures in groups will result when any of these contributions
are denied as a right. (A welfare state is one in which the member is not
allowed to contribute to the state but must accept the contribution of the
state.)
6. The
member of a group must refuse and block
disturbances in the functioning of the group, through sudden
changes of plans not justified by the circumstances, interruption of recognized
communication channels or cessation of operations useful to the group. He must
be careful not to disturb a manager thereby diminishing affinity[1], reality[2] and communication in the group.
7. The
group member must correct
for the group any failure
to plan or not to recognize
the goals by taking the matter to conference or acting on his
own initiative.
8. A
member of a group must align
his initiatives with the basic goals and principles of the
whole group and the other members, clearly manifesting his activities and
intentions so that all conflicts can be presented beforehand.
9. A
member of a group must insist on his or her right to take initiative.
10. A
member of a group has to study the goals,
basic principles and implementations of
the group, understand them and work with them.
11. A
member of a group has to work toward becoming as expert as
possible in his or her specific technology and specialty in the group and has
to help other individuals in the group to understand that technology and
specialty and their place within the needs of the group.
12. A
member of a group must have an operational
knowledge of all the technologies and specialties in the group
in order to understand them and to see their place in the needs of the group.
13. The
amount of affinity,
reality, and communication in the group depends on the group
member. He has to insist on high-level lines of communication, clarity in
affinity and communication, and know the consequences of not having these
conditions. AND HE HAS TO WORK CONTINUOUSLY AND ACTIVELY TO MAINTAIN A HIGH ARC[3] IN THE ORGANIZATION.
14. A
member of a group has the right to be proud of his work and the right to decide and manage that
work.
15. A
member of a group must recognise that he himself is a
manager of some part of the group and/or its tasks, and that he must have both the knowledge and the right
to manage that area for which he is responsible.
16. The
member of the group may
not allow laws to be issued that limit or make illegal the
activities of all members of the group, because of errors of some of its
members.
17. The
group member shall insist on flexible
planning and positive implementation of plans.
18. The
group member must understand that an optimal performance of his or her tasks by
each member of the group is the best protection for his or her survival and
that of the group. It is therefore a pertinent matter for each member to ensure
that all other members of the group achieve optimal performance, whether there
is a chain of command (or similar) that ensures such oversight or not.
lrh January 1951
[1] Affinity is a phenomenon of space,
because it expresses the will to occupy the same place as the thing loved or
liked. The reverse would be antipathy, "aversion" or rejection which
would be the reluctance to occupy the same space, or the reluctance to approach
something or someone. It came from the French, affinité,
affinity, kinship, alliance, to be near, and also from the Latin, affinis, meaning near, which borders with. (LRH Defs. Notes)
[2] By reality we
mean solid objects, the real things of life. It is used as a gradual scale,
with some things being more real than others. What we agree on tends to be more
real than what we don't agree with. It is also defined as the degree of agreement
reached between two people.
[3] A word formed with the
initials of Affinity, Reality and Communication, which
together are equal to Understanding.