Picking Group Members for the Long-Haul
By now, or at least, hopefully by now, you have figured out the lone wolf approach doesn’t work well in survival situations. Despite numerous fiction novels featuring the protagonist as a lone wolf survivor, having a team, group or MAG (Mutual Assistance Group) dramatically increases your chances for survival.
The key to a good group is having a people you can trust. Unfortunately, finding trustworthy people can be a difficult task.
There are no simple rules to finding and picking group members, and you’re cautioned to be very careful. The average human is made up of a complex mixture of emotion and logic. While this makes us smart and compassionate, it also makes us dangerous. Compounding the issue even more, someone you deemed as stable in normal circumstances can turn into either a basket case or a threat to the members of the group under pressure.
Finding group members is a lot like finding a spouse: you won’t know how compatible they are after only a few meetings. Likewise, the success of a group is partly determined by everyone’s willingness to work hard at it. There will be differences of opinions, arguments, heated discussions, and many emotional conflicts. This is all normal, but it all needs to be properly addressed, especially since this group is supposed to be like a second family.
What Makes A Good Group Member
The best advice here is to listen to your gut instinct. If you haven’t developed your gut instinct yet, you’ll be at a distinct disadvantage but you might as well start developing it now.
Dogs can be helpful with this, as they can pick up on your subtle clues, even if you’re not aware of them. By watching the dog, you can get a better idea of signals your subconscious is picking up on, though you need to be familiar with the dog and his or her tells.
Keep in mind you’re looking for someone willing to put the group’s needs in front of their own, but you also don’t want a martyr. How many cool toys someone owns should have no bearing on whether they are let into your group. It’s far better to have a stable, hard-working person who has nothing than it would to have someone who constantly argues every point and can’t agree to anything.
A common set of values and morals is a god place to start, including their perspective on preparedness. If you are of the mind to help all that need it, you won’t get along well with someone whose preparedness plan is to kill preppers and take their stuff. There’s a lot to gain by having members having a different skill set from yours, but having a common core of beliefs is fundamental to a good group.
A Snake in Your Midst?
The two attributes you should look for in a perspective member are loyalty and trustworthiness. People having these traits are low security risks before, during and after they becoming members of your group. Group members will learn sensitive information about everyone in the group, and the time to discover someone cannot be trusted is before everyone has divulged their secrets.
Realizing the true nature of someone isn’t easy. Most people put on some form of mask when they are around others. You need to engage potential members in activities that will drive their true nature to the surface. It can take years to get to know someone, but there are activities and discussions you can engage in to help this along.
Stressful situations can also bring out someone’s true nature. Of course, at no time should they feel like they are under scrutiny, as this tends to make people behave differently.
While it would seem nearly any preparedness-orientated person would be a good fit for your group, the truth is the majority will turn out to be incompatible with your goals, plans, opinions, and ideas. Starting with that common set of values gives you a platform with which to begin. Knowing this common base also gives you the opportunity to see if they uphold those beliefs they say are important to them.
When someone leaves the group is not the time to find out they have a criminal history, are revenge driven, or have violent tendencies. A spiteful person who has learned your sensitive information can make your life miserable, particularly if they are sociopathic. Imagine trying to operate as a group knowing there is someone out there who knows all of the group’s information and has a large amount of animosity towards everyone in the group.
Once your group decides to have communal property for a bug out location, it’s likely this property will be unoccupied most of the time. If a disgruntled ex-member knows its location, it will be difficult to use that property for storage or caches. Even when there is an amicable separating of ways, unless you change everything about the group, ex-members will know this information.
Use OpSec
Whether you are just starting to look for members on your own, or already have other members, always use OpSec, or Operational Security, when meeting with potential members. Don’t brag about what you or the group has, where it’s located, or any personal information. Even when it’s been decided to let someone join the group, you should maintain a level of OpSec and only reveal a little info at a time.
Groups like Meetup.com make it easy to find like-minded people and interact with them on a comfortable level. No need to divulge personal information and you can see how people interact with different topics and people. Once you’ve identified someone with potential, you can start to do things together and begin the learning process.
