Here are nine ways which you can effectively kill off any growth group quickly; it is not exhaustive.  You may well have a technique of your own which is just as effective as any of these.  (Thanks to A. Morgan Denham for this content).

1.  This ploy is for use before the group meets – but it is one of the deadliest.  It is, quite simply, a matter of arranging the furniture in straight rows instead of an informal circle.  As a variation on this, where straight rows are not possible, put low-slung easy chairs behind the more upright version, so that the rear row is lost to sight.  A formal seating arrangement will make a formal meeting; and it will help you to be regarded as the leader ‘up front’ doing all the work (is that what you really wanted?).

2. Take full charge of the group right from the start.  Make it plain that you are the leader, intervene with a well stated and direct answer as soon as a question is raised, and decide when to change the subject.  If you can do this while still putting on a show of ‘democracy’, of being willing to listen to the group, so much the better.  They will get doubly frustrated.

3. As soon as you get the opportunity, sail right in with a long statement or lecture or statement on the subject in hand.  This will probably lead someone to suggest that there is nothing more to discuss, which should suit you splendidly.  It will also kill off the group in record time.

4. Pay no real attention to the comments and observations of the other members of the group. While they are speaking you have the opportunity of framing your next masterpiece of a statement.  Such entirely ‘empty’ observations as ‘That’s a point of view’, ‘Very interesting indeed’, and ‘We must come back to that’ will serve to give the impression that you heard what you were not listening to.

5. Allow the opinionated and vocal members of the group to dominate it.  His strong opinions are, of course, a mask for his own deep uncertainties, so that unless you intervene, he is bound to go on making more and more dogmatic assertions in order to make sure that he does not have to look at his own inner difficulties.  Since he may very well be covering up for you also, do not interrupt him.

6. At the same time, do not do anything to draw the more reserved members of the group into the discussion.  If they stay silent for awhile, assume that they have nothing to say, and leave them in limbo.  The talkative ones, after all, are the ones who are likely to stay in the area of nice comfortable platitudes, so that will make your job easier.

7. Don’t let any strong feelings like resentment or anger find expression in the group. Keep up the fiction that it is all controlled by sweetness and warm, sticky sentiment.  If people get angry with one another, after all, they might begin to learn something – and where will that stop?  Besides, they might begin to get really involved with one another, and then they would insist on working as a genuine group, not as a gang of stooges, and that would not suit you one little bit, would it?

8. In fact, the most experienced group-quenchers have an unerring ear for anything that reflects genuine personal feeling or involvement (as distinct from the mouthing of evangelical clichés and platitudes); such personal feeling must be suppressed at once, and the subject must be lifted smartly to the ideological stratosphere.  “What doctrine does this illustrate?” is as good a gambit as any for this purpose?

9. Finally, and most effective in the long run, allow the discussion to drag on and, when it is already over time, introduce the question of the time and place of the next meeting, and the subject to be discussed.  This is guaranteed to keep everyone going for another half-hour, and then they will be so late home that either they or someone else will regretfully ensure that they do not come next time.

Follow these suggestions faithfully, and success-destructive-is guaranteed.