spf-discuss
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: The Role of the SPF council

2004-12-15 15:10:35
[Sorry about the long quote but I didn't want to summarize or take anything out of context]
--Jonathan Gardner <jonagard(_at_)amazon(_dot_)com> wrote:
The bylaws are a contract among the members of the organization. It is
the  mechanism whereby the voice of the organization is heard and their
will  known. You talk about where the council has the support or lack
thereof of  the community. How can the council know for sure unless that
has been  acknowledged and written down?

If we had bylaws that stated the purpose of the council, they would have
the  obvious and blatant support of the community. They could say things
like  "The community says" and such. Right now, they have no authority
and no  mandate from the community. They are a group of very intelligent
and nice  people, but they have no authority.

...
You're misunderstanding the point of the bylaws. Yes, they help in a
crisis,  but they also give authority to the right people for day-to-day
operations.  Let's say I want to donate $5 to the SPF community. Who do I
give it to?  How is it recorded? What will it be used for? Who will
authorize its  spending? What if a reporter comes to Meng asking for a
statement on behalf  of the community? Can he give it? Does he represent
the community or not?  These are all basic questions we cannot answer at
this time.

...
Mission-statement is a charter, while bylaws are work group procedures
and both are important for well functioning group. Many groups bypass
exact following of bylaws when things are done informarly but have them
available and use them when there are "frictions" within the group.

I don't believe this is true. A lot of so-called organizations don't have
any rules except whatever they think is fair. (They shouldn't call
themselves organizations because they never organized!) The end result is
always confusion.


Wow, I could not disagree more strongly with this if I tried. Rules do not make an organization. Uniting behind common goals makes an organization.

Think of it this way. You would never get a bunch of people into a room and have them all agree on the "rules" by which they will interact, unless they already had a common purpose that drew them into that room.

In your statement, the whole purpose and reason for being is implied, and the minutiae are explicit. That seems totally backwards to me. I think a healthy organization should have unity of purpose. All other agreements are built from that unity of purpose.

In other words, leadership may often do without management, but management without leadership is hollow and unproductive.


If you're curious as to how a family works, most cultures acknowledge
either  an equal partnership between spouses (in Western societies), or
they give  absolute authority to the husband (Middle East and Asian
societies). This  is done by default and there is no need to formalize it
as it is  understood. We have no such understanding here, except the
culture and  customs that we inherited (Robert's Rules documenting them.)


Most families work without a documented mission statement and documented rules. Sadly, I think more families have documented rules than have mission statements. It should be the other way around.

An organization *can* work by well-documented rules. Rules are good for keeping people in line, whether they don't hold with the group's central purpose but they want to "hang around" anyway, OR if they genuinely feel united with the purpose but have sincere differences of opinion about how to accomplish it. In other words, rules make the system work "as well as possible" but not its best.

It's too bad that most of us have *far* more experience with dysfunctional relationships and organizations than with healthy ones. But, when we work solely from our experience of the past, we are likely to repeat it over and over. Humans sometimes focus on learning facts and forget that they also posess creative imagination, the ability to create a vision of how things can be different in the future, and the willpower to make the vision a reality. There are examples of healthy organizations all around, even though they are outnumbered. One cannot learn a principle just by copying a practice, so trying to mimic successful organziations doesn't make another successful; they must learn the principle behind the practice and apply it in context.

A *healthy* organization, whether it be a family, club, company, non-profit, or department within a larger organization, or whatever, is a group of individuals united behind a common purpose. This can be implied, or well-documented, but it is usually there, if the organization is healthy.

If an organization has enough *trust* between people, they can usually dispense with the rules. If the best way to get something done happens to be against the rules, the parties can agree and short-circuit the rules, and get the job done anyway. They can do this because they are united by a common purpose and common principles, and they put their purpose and principles above the specific practices. Practices do not unite people; they are merely specific instances of an underlying principle, and when circumstances change, the principle still holds, even if the practices don't work. Learn, teach, and agree on principles, not on practices.


So, Short version: Rules are OK, but they can never trump a strong mission statement (charter). The mission statement comes first. Rules do not provide purpose. Rules without purpose is ritual without faith.


--
Greg Connor <gconnor(_at_)nekodojo(_dot_)org>