RE: Communications
From: Rob Sandelin (floriferousmsn.com)
Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 10:09:26 -0700 (PDT)
The larger the community the more you can be assured that some people will
be out of the loop. There are patterns which can emerge, people who did not
get the message, no matter how it was delivered. You can choose to care take
those folks, or not. Some groups have people sign up to be the important
info buddy for those chronically out of the loop. Some folks just do this,
sometimes out of their hearts, sometimes from frustrations. I have been in
small groups which did specific outreach to particular individuals to ensure
their input opportunity.

Its a nice goal for everybody to know and care about everything. If you ever
find a community like this of more than 20 people, let me know, it would be
the first I have ever heard of. People choose to be in the loop or not,
based on lots of different reasons. If I don't have a bicycle then I
probably don't have too much interest in the bicycle team, I delete their
email and minutes. If I miss something because of it, oh well.

If a pattern emerges that people are unhappy because they did not hear about
something important to them, and this happens several times to several
people, you have a problem in your communication systems. If the same person
has a pattern of not hearing about things, THEY have a problem. It can be
helpful to point out the mechanisms you create to pass along information
require effort by everyone.

There is a game that gets played, the Nobody told me game, which people use
to absolve themselves from  some action, or as an excuse to highjack the
group after the decision is made. This is often a pattern from an individual
who uses the nobody told me as an excuse to further their own control or to
change outcomes they personally don't like. This is a dysfunctional behavior
that is worthy of intervention work.

Communication is always imperfect, and more communicators you have in a
loop, the less perfect it becomes. I don't expect everyone to know about
things unless I personally go door to door, and even then, what I said might
not be what I thought I meant, and what they heard might not be what I
thought I was telling them.  Huh?

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments  <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous [at] msn.com



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