On Herding Cats

[matt_arnold]

I'm bringing this up on my personal blog rather than my blog about Lojban because its lessons are broadly applicable to things that a lot of you are interested in, so I'd like to get your feedback.

Comments

[marahsk]

I hear horror stories from >lj user= avt_tor"> about conrunning politics in other regions, in which people actually compete to be in charge, and yet what an embarrassment of riches that must be. By contrast, in Michigan nobody wants to do anything.

It can be an embarrassment of riches if everyone is competent, a scary politcal battle if some are competent and others aren't, and a horrible disaster if the ones who aren't competent are the ones who end up in charge.

But having the number of willing volunteers be dwindling is even worse, and usually when that happens there's a reason; you might want to try to figure out what's driving people away.

You can't successfully build a concom if you say to people "Where have you been?" and "Have you gotten anything done?" as if to say "I don't have confidence in you." But it's true, I don't. As Head of Programming, there are two individuals to whom I say almost nothing but those things, every time I see them, because the success of my responsibility depends on it! I even tried adding someone

[rachelann1977]

In terms of the dwindling of volunteers, I think that may be more a function of the state of Michigan than it is of any particular con in this state. People in Michigan are feeling run down because our economy sucks, and most people are not doing the job they would ultimately love to be doing. Unhappy, overworked, underpaid people do not usually enjoy volunteering, even for something fun like a con.

[marahsk]

I can't speak to Michigan in particular, but my experience with conrunning in general has been the opposite: that unhappy, overworked, underpaid people often *do* enjoy volunteering, specifically because they can get a lot of the satisfaction that they aren't getting from their mundane work lives from volunteering at cons.

Now I'm curious as to whether areas with poor economies find it easier or harder to recruit volunteers.

[avt_tor]

I guess I have collected some of the worst examples over time.

[rachelann1977]

Don't take my word for Matt's or anything, but I'm almost positive it's not you. Chuck thought the same thing, lol.

[tlatoani]

This is going to sound like a lecture, but I haven't really tried to convey this in writing before, so bear with me. In the spirit of your LJ's name, I'm going to criticize your trust/betrayal thing. There's a management concept here that you might not have encountered yet, and it's especially important because volunteers are a limited resource. The fact is, different people are good at different things, and if you can learn how to identify what people are good at, you maximize use of your resources. This sometimes has to be done through trial and error

[tlatoani]

Damn, that's long. Sorry. I've usually done this verbally.

[matt_arnold]

I should clarify that I have a completely different standard for a leader who convinces me to join the team, and those whom I've convinced to join the team. I take it personally when I'm actively sold a spurious bill of goods by a leader, and dread the possibility of passing it down the chain, but toward the reluctant volunteers I don't feel resentment, just frustration. Some of them are only in it to do me a favor because I begged them to, after all. I've been in their position-- heck, I still am half the time-- and I know what it's like.

By the way, no, I do not like to be managed in a hands-off style. I want to talk about what I'm doing incessantly for heaven's sake. If nobody is checking my progress, my work must not be important to anybody, so that makes me care about it less. This is especially true if I'm doing a favor to solve something which I consider to be fundamentally Not My Problem. I'm only a good Head of Programming or program book designer because I dislike seeing those jobs done badly. While helping Rachel scrub her

[tlatoani]

By the way, no, I do not like to be managed in a hands-off style. I want to talk about what I'm doing incessantly for heaven's sake. If nobody is checking my progress, my work must not be important to anybody, so that makes me care about it less.

In that case, why don't we schedule a marketing coalition summit at ConFusion -- when we'll have most of the people we need in one place anyway?

[temujin9]

Thanks for writing this, by the way. It (and our discussions) have given me a better handle on what I need to be doing for Braingumbo. Which I swear I will be getting back to today, now that the fan has finished dispensing its fecal matter.

Which reminds me: got anything for a logo, yet?