Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Committee Membership

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 27/10/2002 12:33 AM, "Casey Morrigan" <cjmorr [at] pacbell.net> wrote:

> In our case, we figured we had work divided up in a traditional committee
> structure and had low meeting attendance, and rethought that by looking at
> the work that "had" to be done and the work that people wanted to do.  We
> then matched it up and looked at where the gaps were.  We structured the
> work teams more loosely, to sort of follow people's interest rather than the
> "to do list" (they look really similar on the outside but they handle stuff
> differently) and decided to hire out some of the labor that wasn't getting
> done that we thought important. (which we are stuck on, see earlier post,
> but anyway on with the story)

Can you give examples of how you did this? I'm one of those people who does
a lot of work but dreads team meetings. I prefer to communicate by email and
only meet when there is an issue that needs to be discussed or physical
plans that need to be viewed. Like looking at the commonhouse dining room to
see where we can put acoustical treatments or to discuss values around the
use of the workshop.

Listening to verbal reports and presentations drives me nuts. With the
advent of email (24/7 access in writing with relatively permanent files)
this just seems like a waste of time to me. Today we are having a work day .
Having everyone "out there" working while I work on the computer inside is
very gratifying. (I keep all the telephone and emergency numbers, the work
task database, and part of the web site.) Standing around with groups of
people deciding what to do next or waiting for the one person who has the
pliers also drives me nuts. By working on alone on projects, I feel more
productive but with everyone else working, I don't feel alone.

> Something else that somehow helped:  we took Rob Sandelin's advice and set
> aside a piece of our budget last year as a "discretionary fund" that anyone
> could propose to spend a piece of.  They didn't have to go through a
> committee if they didn't want.  There was something that was freeing for
> some people  - to get a gadget or a process or improvement going that didn't
> require (necessarily) a meeting or a committee.  We've also been slowly
> decentralizing our budget as we learn to trust one another and committees
> have more discretion than they ever had to spend their own budgets.  They
> have less layers of bureaucracy to get stuff done.  ERgo less burnout.

Much of our "burnout" is coming from the time it takes to make decisions or
work through objections or concerns. By the time the decision is made, the
initial enthusiasm is gone. It isn't really burnout (the result of overwork)
as it is frustration with lack of results -- the reward comes so far after
the interest that it seems like compensation for frustration, not a reward
for initiative.

In our case, I don't think it  is a lack of "trust" (that word is even more
loaded than "guns") as much as a lack of understanding of how to go about
resolving objections. The people who make proposals are not the ones who are
good at sorting out people's issues. Sometimes they are too invested and
other times they are just not interested in that kind of work. It's almost
like the proposals need to be handed off to a mediator who sorts out the
issues and moves it forward. The person who knows what needs to be done to
fix the kitchen floor is not necessarily the person who can help Mary
communicate why she can't live with vinyl tiles or Harry understand why a
new floor is necessary in the first place.

This is why I'm interested in how you have restructured your teams and
decision making process.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org


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