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Dealing with "social vultures"

#1 · December 20, 2023, 9:03 pm

Quote from John Freeman on December 20, 2023, 9:03 pm
Hello TPM community,
this is a topic that I find interesting I hope you will as well.
By "social vultures" I mean people who take advantage of a social momentum/movement you created to snatch people/groups/events.
Example:
Years ago I created a group of the "positive leader community". The idea was to network and exchange idea between leaders aspiring to be value-adding. It did not go the way I intended so I decided to destroy the group instead of letting it go a way I did not intended to go. One of the members contacted me in private to ask me to take the leadership. I refused. He tried to take advantage of the group I created to take it.
Here is another example from today:
Context: I'm organising a board game via the WA group I created for that purpose. Now that I'm more power aware and have more skills I'm not afraid of social challenges on WA. So I created it. I proposed several dates and one of them is the Saturday with 5 people (better for the board game I intended) and Sunday 7 people (more social capital/status but less convenient for a board game).
I chose the Saturday knowing that I'm leaving some social capital on the table for the board game.
But that's not the choice of JB. After I set the date on Saturday he says:
Him: Seeing that there is many people available on Sunday I find it could be nice to gather together as well? (If that's not too much for you). So we can do a fondue or another thing like that. Not necessarily a board game by the way, depending on the mood.
By "too much" he means too many events with same people on a given WE.
Analysis
I did a poll for the events and he sees the social capital of 7 people. So he's basically hijacking my organisation by proposing something else. He did not do the poll but he gets to use the info and people's availability to do so.
Solution
This one is tricky. Either:
I say yes and I follow his lead.
I say no (I prefer to do something else) and I get ostracised by default from an event that would not have happened if I had not done the poll.
So let's see.
This is a no-no. That's weak and it's lose for me.
It's the better option and I have to be ok with not participating
There's a third option: ignoring. But that's weak since now it's a social challenge. Kind of power showdown. The question is: "Can JB use John's group and poll and organisation to set his own event?". The answer is "no" but now it's in the open so I cannot say openly no and unpropose his proposition.
If you have any opinion on this kind of pattern, I'm curious to hear about it.

Hello TPM community,

this is a topic that I find interesting I hope you will as well.

By "social vultures" I mean people who take advantage of a social momentum/movement you created to snatch people/groups/events.

Example:

Years ago I created a group of the "positive leader community". The idea was to network and exchange idea between leaders aspiring to be value-adding. It did not go the way I intended so I decided to destroy the group instead of letting it go a way I did not intended to go. One of the members contacted me in private to ask me to take the leadership. I refused. He tried to take advantage of the group I created to take it.

Here is another example from today:

Context: I'm organising a board game via the WA group I created for that purpose. Now that I'm more power aware and have more skills I'm not afraid of social challenges on WA. So I created it. I proposed several dates and one of them is the Saturday with 5 people (better for the board game I intended) and Sunday 7 people (more social capital/status but less convenient for a board game).

I chose the Saturday knowing that I'm leaving some social capital on the table for the board game.

But that's not the choice of JB. After I set the date on Saturday he says:

Him: Seeing that there is many people available on Sunday I find it could be nice to gather together as well? (If that's not too much for you). So we can do a fondue or another thing like that. Not necessarily a board game by the way, depending on the mood.

By "too much" he means too many events with same people on a given WE.

Analysis

I did a poll for the events and he sees the social capital of 7 people. So he's basically hijacking my organisation by proposing something else. He did not do the poll but he gets to use the info and people's availability to do so.

Solution

This one is tricky. Either:

I say yes and I follow his lead.
I say no (I prefer to do something else) and I get ostracised by default from an event that would not have happened if I had not done the poll.

So let's see.

This is a no-no. That's weak and it's lose for me.
It's the better option and I have to be ok with not participating

There's a third option: ignoring. But that's weak since now it's a social challenge. Kind of power showdown. The question is: "Can JB use John's group and poll and organisation to set his own event?". The answer is "no" but now it's in the open so I cannot say openly no and unpropose his proposition.

If you have any opinion on this kind of pattern, I'm curious to hear about it.