Cohousing-L Mailing List: Tasks: Was, Where are the grownups?

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

You rely I assume on volunteers to do tasks? If volunteer efforts do not get
supported, then morale drops and people often may stop volunteering. If
morale is high, people volunteer more. So, how is your group morale? If its
poor, why? Is there a team or committee which tracks this? In my opinion,
there should be.  There are reasons why people do things and it can be very
useful to bring those reasons out, so you all understand them. The default
condition is to ignore it when people drop out, and this eventual means you
will lose critical mass for many things.

There are a wide variety of tasks. Only a few are critical. People can have
unrealistic expectations that 1., the tasks I think are important actually
are and 2. People are going to interrupt their full and busy lives to
volunteer to deal with tasks I think are important.

One way to understand this is to make a measured task list. Brainstorm up
all the tasks you think regularly could be done. Then assign them three
categories, critical, important, less important. Let EVERYONE rank the tasks
and then see where your commonality lays. If your meeting attendance is
poor, do this as a house to house survey, and get people to fill it in by
standing there while they do so. Set an example that you need everybodies
input and you are willing to go out and get it. Its OK in my opinion to bug
people to do small things like this in order to help the group. In my
community, when we go door to door we get 90% return on surveys like this.
If we don't we get 40%.  We often set times with reluctant/busy people, when
can I come over to interview you? is the way we state it. Then we show up at
the appointed time and work them through the survey questions in person.
Sometimes doing this once, gets people to fill our surveys in a timely way
,Other times, I think people DON'T fill in surveys in order to get
buttonholed in person. Whatever works....

You might find a task you think is critical, everyone else thinks is less
important, or something you think is less important a large majority see as
critical.  Then, hold a meeting to examine and TALK about why there is a
difference. This talking and thinking about the difference is the key part
of this, so you UNDERSTAND the values and experiences which drive your
different thinking and assumptions.

Once you have a list of critical tasks that everyone is willing to agree are
critical, then you can create a plan for ensuring they get done.

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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