Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: RE: Mission and value statements: How to create one that has meaning

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

The reason for  marking off what you would NOT do is that it makes the list
much easier to process. Having zero marks is much easier and faster to see
than counting all the YES marks for every single item. (takes much less
setup and space on paper as well) Doing it the other way can take a long
time to process, you have to actually count all the names, and see who is
missing, doing it the way I suggest can take a couple of minutes to scan the
list. And of course doing it the "positive" way means you have to come up
with a different set of criteria for when to evaluate it. If everybody but
one person signs to yes, do you still evaluate and process it, or just
ignore the person who does not agree? The only way you will figure out the
no is by the process of elimination, who did not say yes to recycling
newspaper?  But putting the NO outfront, you can clearly see who says no,
while the other system, the NO is much more hidden.

There are times when letting people say NO is OK. In my experience, having
done it both ways, this is one of them.

I like Trees idea about evaluating energy levels. I have done this in a
different way, by making a task list of the communities "important" tasks
and then giving people 5 colored stickers: leadership, high energy, modest
energy, low energy and no energy (each sticker has a color and a label
attached and each individual puts their name on them). Then folks place
their  stickers on the list of tasks to do, with the pre-knowlege that is
very unlikely that a task will actually happen without at least one
leadership and one high energy sticker attached. This way, the community can
sort out its task lists by leadership and energy levels pretty fast. As you
probably already know, leadership is required to accomplish any kind of
complex task, without it, energy  is wasted or fades away into other things.

Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Tree Bressen
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 11:15 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: Re: [C-L]_RE: Mission and value statements: How to create one
that has meaning


Hi,

I support the process Rob suggested for values clarification, with 2
suggested tweaks:

1. Instead of having people mark off what they won't do, i'd put it in the
positive and have them mark what they would be willing to do.

2. I'd add a 3rd category for additional clarification.  Besides what you'd
do and what you wouldn't do, i would add "what you are willing to have
happen
if someone else does it but you're not personally going to put a lot of
energy into it."

Cheers,

--Tree
_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l

---
Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.332 / Virus Database: 186 - Release Date: 3/6/02

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.332 / Virus Database: 186 - Release Date: 3/6/02

_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l