The two risks to a group

The two major risks to a group are inappropriate leaders and bad ideas.

Inappropriate leaders

Leaders of groups should be intelligent, mature, reasonable, quick-witted, rational, competent, calm, cooperative, and loyal to the Traditions.

Groups should be extremely careful of who they pick for roles that require chairing, handling of money, liaison or interaction with other people or bodies (within or outside the AA structure), record-keeping, content-production, decision-making, or dispute resolution: essentially anything but manual labour.

Any sign of folly, immaturity, intemperance, slowness, emotionalism, incompetence, anxiety, a personal axe to grind, or a cavalier stance on AA principles should prompt caution. Any of these in extreme form or more than one of these in a candidate should be a red flag.

An inappropriate leader can wreck a group in months, and the damage can take years to repair. They are also notoriously difficult to dislodge.

Bad ideas

In principle, very bad ideas should be rejected at sight by the group conscience.

Most ideas proposed by AA members to the group concern policing others' behaviour, promoting a personal ideology, settling a score, or otherwise bending the group to the individual's personal wishes, and groups find it hard not to incorporate members' ideas in some form, simply to avoid upsetting the individual in question. Note that almost every proposal involves the addition of something, not the removal of something. Group members do not like to appear to be 'sticks-in-the-mud', rejecting everything that comes their way (even if everything coming their way is unnecessary, petty, or otherwise foolish). Once these changes build up, the script doubles in length, and the beginning and the end of the meeting become cluttered with procedures and rituals of questionable merit.

In practice, therefore, most bad ideas are indeed taken up by groups or, on the path to their rejection, swallow time, produce discord, and disgruntle the foiled proposer.

As with bad leaders, the removal of bad script elements and rituals is more cumbersome than their adoption. Rather than grasp the nettle, groups put up with nannying scripts or performative charades for decades.

What's the solution?

Firstly, funnel potential changes through the periodic group conscience process (once a year is usually enough). Unless there is a circumstance necessitating a major discussion (e.g. a venue-related problem), redirect anyone with a Bright Idea to the group conscience process. Reserve business meetings for questions of implementation of the structure and content already agreed, not for alteration of the structure and content.

Secondly, garner written proposals (furnished with grounds that reference the traditions, concepts, or other literature) well in advance of a group conscience meeting. This prevents the opportunistic conversion of a passing feeling or gripe into a proposal. Only the most dogged of axe-grinders actually wants to commit their thoughts to paper.

Thirdly, the competent officers (see above) work with proposers to ensure that the proposals are well reasoned and well documented. Sometimes a bad idea can be turned into a good one or at least a reasonable one. Sometimes a bad idea can be presented as part of a range of alternatives. The group will usually then make the right decision, whilst the individual, even if their idea does not make it through, rightly feels that the group has thoughtfully considered their idea.

Fourthly, if there are lots of ideas (too many for a single group conscience), conduct a simple online poll amongst group members to see which ones interest people. Rank the ideas by popularity. Pick the top two, three, or four. Anything of marginal or singular interest will fail at this point. 

Fifthly, discuss at a group conscience meeting that is time-limited and scheduled away from the usual time of the meeting (if adjacent, well before not after, to avoid bored interlopers). Anything that doesn't make it into the first half-hour or hour of discussion cannot be that important.

Sixthly, vote one month later, not on the spot. This avoids rash decisions, tyranny by the minority, and unwisely going along with bad ideas to 'keep the peace'.