A Group is it's Own Worst Enemy
At the 2003 O'Reilly EmergingTechnology confernence ClayShirky gave a keynote speech titled "A GroupIsItsOwnWorstEnemy". It really struck home to me based on my experiences with the CommunityWireless movement and my time with the PersonalTelco Project in particular. It especially struck home because it showed me exactly where I had failed worst as a leader (though I did learn a lot!).
What I unknowingly did was create "not enough order" which ended up being quite destructive to the groups social dynamics. Surprisingly other groups that stayed completely adhoc were actually better off, sure they had flame fests, arguments, alienation and chaos but because there was no pecking order it never ramped out of control. I tried to learn from their "mistakes" and instituted regular meetings where we took notes, asked people to perform functions and created the occasional committee but by and large still played fast and loose because that's what I like best, organized chaos.
Unfortunately what this did was create a pecking order with no clear way to climb it, or know where you stand. I watched us become increasingly cliquish and xenophobic, and it drove me crazy because I knew it was something I was doing but I couldn't figure out what. The penny didn't drop until Clay's speech and by then I was too burnt out and frustrated to know what to do or have the energy to figure it out.
See also: TheTyrannyOfStructurelessness, EmergingTechnologyClayShirkyKeynote