Here's a small general theory of everything, concluded from system + network theory. With Gödel, it's either incorrect or incomplete, but why not have a look? I guess what's behind most of our personal conflicts emerging in group setups: everybody is deeply, massively invested; timewise, emotionally. All the others are, I am, now you're too. There's nothing wrong with that in itself, sure. Additionally, there are big hopes, expectations and hidden agendas for the future outcome/payoff/benefit, be it personally, financially, reputation-wise, experiencial, and these interests are largely in conflict. OK, whatever. The grim fear is that the joint effort might just implode and vanish, and more times than not, that's exactly what happens (those groups/projects that continue running aren't necessarily much more pleasant either). The technology/tools (including language etc.) are hugely inadequate and can't be changed/improved, fair enough. The "harmony" in a group may rely on its participants remaining vague, because otherwise they just might find out that they're all in fundamental disagreement that's impossible to resolve. It's like this on every level, from the family and neighbors to small groups up to large, diverse networks, nation states or the entire planet. The meta-attempt to eventually figure out how to avoid or handle/mitigate conflict, well, might happen or might not. In the end, it doesn't matter that much after all as complexity, distribution/spread/entropy and natural + constructed limitations aren't going away any time soon. In such an environment, all these phenomenons occur in parallel. We'll always encounter and hence have to somehow deal with them, regardless if the group needs to be fixed or is the fix, as one doesn't have much control over any of it anyway. Even system- and structurelessness is just another systemic/structural category. You might say that the few people who are in power can adjust the design of the structure and therefore adjust the course of the system/group, but a lot of factors impact and influence such attempts too, they might indeed simply go wrong and fail. Agreements, trust, procedures, ownership, they're all primarily needed to protect investments. The fear of loosing them is a result of their scarcity. There are several approaches for trying to avoid loss: never invest at all, investing while denying the outcome any value/relevance + objecting that scarcity is real, designing ways that avoid/prevent loss. Conversations are easy/cheap to produce, so not much would be lost with this type of investment (not the presence in the moment anyway, if not kicked out and prevented from access to the audience and ways to make the contribution meaningful), and lessons learned, experiences had, contacts established etc. are unloosable. Again, "investment" doesn't need to be related to money or any other sort of value at all, it can be the simple decision to participate in contrast to not to, or elsewhere or in different ways. It can be more about values (deeper convictions and not so much measurable value). The values of the participants differ or even conflict as they're arriving from entirely different and separate origins. Even in group presence, not everybody can possibly share the same experience all the time, and time is spent without the group as well. Trying to align/agree and protect investments or do without them is the attempt to optimize the setup/design/structure for the single individual (at the expense of the others) or for the group by arriving at a stage at which some or all values of the participants converge, which may or may not happen and would lead to questionable implications/effects either way. Why not acknowledge this nature of things and what they are instead of getting surprised that it doesn't work out as anticipated/expected?