TRIAD Chapter Three - With whom are you going to TRIAD?

Chapter Three -
With Whom Are You Going to TRIAD?

If you wish to TRIAD about your business, then obviously you want to TRIAD with someone who is interested in your business, although not necessarily persons within your company. If you wish to TRIAD about your school, then perhaps it may be with students or teachers in your school or, on the other hand, possibly with others with academic experience outside of your school. If you wish to TRIAD about your religion, then perhaps with persons in your church, mosque, synagogue, temple or persons in some other congregation, or it could be with individuals completely outside of your religion. I could give many other such examples but all of the answers are not so straight forward and obvious. It could be about your marriage so, yes, it could include the partner in your marriage, but not necessarily. And we will get to that as a special case - later. It may be about a particular life challenge, such as an illness, and you may wish to TRIAD with others struggling with the same challenge. There are many kinds of life challenges and so there could be given many examples in this regards also. You may wish to TRIAD with others in your profession who have understanding and insight into your profession, so that you can progress within your profession. You may wish to TRIAD with others that are seeking to develop a particular skill that you are also trying to develop, so that you may help each other develop that skill. The variety and reasons to TRIAD are innumerable. The general principles and methods of TRIADing, as we will get into them, are applicable to all of the TRIADs, but each unique purpose may have special considerations that apply to it alone, and every TRIAD will certainly be unique in its membership and will, therefore, develop method operandi to accommodate its unique members. All of these points will be considered in later chapters. For the moment I am going to discuss one special application of TRIADing because that was the raison d'être (basic reason) for writing this book. That reason is - TRIADing in preparation for an anticipated Great Disaster and the collapse of society. If this application does not interest you, just skip over the rest of this chapter and where we get into such specifics in other chapters. When facing a disaster, or even making preparation for a disaster, what one needs most is a support group. Students of societal collapse have universally determined that the key determining factor in survival, aside from location, is not what you have or what you know, but rather who you know. The TRIAD insight compounds this factor so we should carefully determine with whom we TRIAD. As with all TRIADs, it is important that the members conform to the following three basic principles: 1. agree on the goal 2. are concerned about the other members of the TRIAD achieving the goal 3. have qualities and capabilities that can contribute to achieving the goal In regards to the particular goal emphasized in this book, that being preparation for disastrous times, let us consider the application of these three principles in regards to the following formulation. TRIADing in preparation for an anticipated Great Disaster and collapse of society 1. Agreement on the goal The statement "preparation for an anticipated Great Disaster and collapse of society" is too broad of a statement to effectively form a TRIAD around it. There is a broad spectrum of the types of preparations that one might make. There are also many definitions and expectations of what form a catastrophe, or what the collapse of society, may be like. What, if anything, is expected can vary greatly from person to person. Some persons may feel that something very similar to, and nothing more severe than the Great Depression of the 1930's will occur, and that it is possible that even that will be avoided. Others may feel that their preparation should be for some large natural disaster such as a hurricane, tornado, volcano, earthquake, tsunami, flooding or forest fire. Still others are concerned about local events such as terrorist attacks, nuclear power plant disasters, epidemics, social breakdown from gang warfare and the like. In some countries there is often a broad concern about invasion from other countries or internal revolutions. All of the above are somewhat local in nature and nothing on the scale that prompts the writer of this book. While I attach probability to only one or two of the following, there are some people who are convinced that life may almost be extinguished upon this planet for a variety of reasons such as: the depletion of oil, breakdown of agriculture, plagues, nuclear World War Three, the planet physically flipping on its axis, earth changes, massive solar flares, the close approach of a comet or what is referred to as Planet-X, complex events associated with 2012 or foretold in their religious scriptures such as the Book of Revelation. Whether or not you think disaster may be brought on by natural events, the failure of financial and economic systems or attributable to some ulterior conspiracy of dark powers, or perhaps even Divine Destiny/retribution, this book and TRIADs present the key underlying response that you need to make in preparation for them. This book will not present any evidence or arguments for any particular type of disaster, nor will it present or propose any specific types of preparations. What it will present is an essential underlying strategy that you need to use to prepare a successful response. Indeed, this newly discovered/identified/defined strategy is useful to any significant undertaking and to life itself. But, to remain focused on the case at hand -- that of preparing for a catastrophe or social collapse -- it may well be that the first TRIAD that you form needs to have as its purpose the defining of what kind of catastrophe or catastrophes you are concerned about and the scope of preparations that you will consider making. There is no need to TRIAD (the meaning of which term, and the techniques associated with it, will be much more greatly defined throughout the remainder of this book) or consult with others who are not agreed upon a specific goal. If you are a dedicated prepper (preparer/survivalist) you already know the futility of trying to talk seriously about preparations with two other individuals who think the idea ridiculous and whom you feel are. at best, probably sneeringly tolerant of your point of view. Even a TRIAD composed of two dedicated preppers (preparers) and one skeptic will not be sufficiently unified to make any significant progress. As the Book says: "Be ye not unevenly yoked." 2. Concern about the other members of the TRIAD achieving the goal It may be that the members of your TRIAD won't all seek to find the exact same solution but they should all have a similar goal. As explained in later chapters, your first requirement for the TRIAD members that you seek to join with is one of empathy and you, in turn, must be concerned about the other members achieving the goal of the TRIAD. This matter of empathy is not unique to the TRIAD. Americans, in general, are noted for their generosity. Most also highly value loyalty and cooperation. What is unique in the TRIAD is the manner in which the values of empathy, loyalty and cooperation between each pair is, in each case, openly monitored by the opposite member. This is a subject that we will treat in considerable detail later in the book. 3. Have qualities and capabilities that can contribute to achieving the goal Each member of a TRIAD is, of course, a unique individual with unique capacities and capabilities. The members of the TRIAD should be matched in goals and also in related capabilities. This is not to say that a TRIAD might not consist of a high school educated line worker, a PhD researcher and someone from an entirely different technical level or background, so long as they are accomplished in their own level of expertise and are devoted to the goal. Diversity of background and perspective is one of the very things that can lend strength to a TRIAD. What is not acceptable are other characteristics like lack of discipline in accomplishing required tasks, laxity in performance, non-dependability in meeting time requirements or the lack of a host of other virtues that are required for achievement. Most particularly, in a TRIAD and often elsewhere in life, what is needed for success are interpersonal and social skills that provide both tolerance and appreciation of others' differences and, at the same time, recognizes one's own requirement, because of the others' characteristics, to conform to some of their expectations. The great and unique strength of the TRIAD is that it monitors and seeks to strengthen those very interactions in the cross pair. Again, this is a theme to which we will return later. To sum up for the moment our approach in using the TRIAD for preparation for a disaster: 1. You need to seek out two individuals with whom you can reach an agreement upon what should be a shared spectrum of concern - AND - an agreed upon degree of preparation that you wish to execute. 2. You must feel sure that these individuals are not concerned only about their own preparation but are also devoted to helping you achieve yours. 3. You must feel confident that the other members of the TRIAD have qualities and capabilities that will help achieve the goal - and they must have like confidence in yourself. Just as this book will not define the threats about which you are preparing - neither will it offer solutions. The solutions will be unique to the threats that you have identified and the solutions will be unique to your location and the quality and capability of the members of your TRIAD. The purpose of your TRIAD is to find and implement those solutions. Let me dispel here what may be a couple of misconceptions. First of all, the solution may not be within your TRIAD itself but may be a larger group, or some other solution, that your TRIAD identifies outside of your TRIAD. Moreover, as we shall discuss elsewhere, your personal solution is not dependent upon a single TRIAD, because you can be a member of multiple TRIADs for multiple specific purposes. In the following story the Ark Two Food Preparation TEAM, through John (B), not only formally contacts the Triage TEAM (the TEAM responsible for determining who enters Ark Two in times of emergency), but John may also, if he and someone in Triage so wish, informally form a TRIAD with someone else in Triage, or with someone who is on some other TEAM. In this way, an informal network of contacts, and shared knowledge and relationships, spreads throughout the Ark Two organization. Ark Two is formally organized into TEAMs (Together Everyone Accomplishes More) of whatever TEAM size that needs to be devoted to an area or task. The TRIADs, on the other hand, are informal relationships formed by the TRIAD members themselves that come into, and go out of, existence at the pleasure of the TRIAD members. There may be overlap in membership between the TEAMs and TRIADs and, indeed, most likely will be. And a TRIAD may or may not have the authority to make management decisions as this one has here. Choose or - Have it Chosen For You by Robert Liberty - Head Chef at Ark Two TRIAD Level Rating 5.9 Rob (A) John (B) Susan (C) are the Food Preparation TEAM at Ark Two. Their goal is to establish procedures for anything having to do with meal preparation at Ark Two. -------- A We need a procedure for setting up TRIADs for kitchen help. B It would be a good idea to have Triage ask every one about their group cooking experience. C-(A/B) Since John thought of that I think he should coordinate with Triage to see that it is done. A-(B/C) Yes. B-(A.C) Okay. A We should get everyone with cooking skills put onto one list and everyone else that Triage says is going to be available for kitchen help, put on another C We may not have enough people with good skills - so maybe some of the TRIADs need to be made up with one skilled person and one or two others. B Yes, that sounds like a good idea, and I think we should keep the TRIADs together so that they are always working with the same people and will know what to expect from each other. A Yes, at that point we can then assign shifts by TRIADs rather than by individuals. C Sounds good. I think it would also be wise to have a TRIAD orientation system for the TRIADs to explain how working in a TRIAD is different, in that each person is responsible for smoothing the relationship between the other two. B Also that, as a work routine, they may wish to rotate positions in the TRIAD so that one isn't always washing, another always drying, and the other bringing and taking away. A On the other hand in some TRIADs they may wish to specialize - where one mixes and the other bakes. C I think we need a kitchen TRIAD coordinator in case some TRIADs have problems adjusting or some people don't want to be members of a particular TRIAD or want to form with others for another one. A-(B/C) It seems to me that Susan sounds like the best person for coordinating that, don't you think, John? B-(A/C) Yes, and she should also be responsible for scheduling the TRIADs' work schedules. C-(A.B) Fair enough.