It was 1 year ago (March 2007) that I agreed to chair the Buildings & Grounds committee. A great deal has changed since then and yet, a great deal remains the same. I had the time, energy and permission to rebuild the committee pretty much from scratch. Now is a good time to evaluate where we've been, what we've got and where we might be going.
A volunteer committee needs to succeed in several divergent dimensions if it is to thrive. Consider the intersection of two axes which create four quadrants:
Human
/|\
|
? | ?
|
Task <---------+---------> Process
|
!!! | !!!
|
\|/
Technical
The Task / Process axis running horizontally distinguishes between what we do (Task) and how we do it (Process). The Human / Technical axis running vertically distinguishes between internal, emotional (Human) consequences and external, material (Technical) consequences of our collective activities.
A successful committee is balanced on both axes and working in all four quadrants. Different folks have different strengths, so good committees have a diverse mix of personalities.
Weakness in any dimension becomes apparent over time. Without Human rewards, volunteers gravitate to more satisfying experiences. Without Technical success, a feeling of futility emerges. Without Task accomplishments, folks lose patience. Without effective Process, progress and growth are stymied.
The Infrastructure and Accomplishments sections below represent the Process and Task directions, of committee development. The work is impressive, but results are skewed toward the Technical. When it comes to the bottom two quadrants we be kickin' ass. On the Human side, not so much. Not terribly surprising, since the committee's creator is an engineer.
These processes facilitate growth beyond the flat committee + chair model which the Fellowship has outgrown.
By mid-year I had developed a vision for the committee complete with a Mission Statement, Objectives, Strategies and Metrics. The plan ranged from high-minded principles to thoughtful details. I published it as an open letter: Mission: Shared Leadership inviting those who had welcomed me aboard in March to meet again and find:
- Consensus on mission
- Agreement on strategy
- Four Group Leaders
Response ranged from little to none. Well, these things take time.
Developed the UUBG Website for sharing virtually all the committee's information. The impetus for this is expressed in Mission: Shared Leadership / Strategies as:
Open access to information This is the linchpin on which the rest of the cultural shift hinges. Free-flowing information lubricates all other processes. These days, this means web-pages that can be read by anyone and updated easily by the committee leaders. E-mail is not open enough. Keep content simple, efficient and clearly organized.
Organized the B&G Committee into a Steering Committee and four topical working groups: Landscape , Hardscape , Structures and Furnishings . These well-chosen and well-defined categories have helped tremendously to organize the committee's activities and documentation.
Organized the committee activities around a process for "Getting Things Done". Defined ways to identify and track Projects and Tasks. Provided Master Indexes, TODO Lists and DONE Lists for these and subdivided by topical group (Steering, Landscape, Hardscape, Structures and Furnishings). Posted the ready-reference matrix to access any of these directly from the UUBG Document Index.
These are a measure of how effective the committee is on Task.
B&G's "customers" have been happy. People thank us for all the work we do. Our regular customers are folks who work here daily: Patricia Weld, Rev. Owen-Towle, Alison Crotty and Emily Auer (Sandy Hill). Partly, the difference is psychological.
When they bring up a concern, I generally post it to the Tasks: TODO List then paste a copy of the item in my email reply to them. They understand it may not get done immediately, but at least its off their desks and in a public forum where it won't be forgotten. This helps us all stay more sane.
We completed 12 Projects in the past year. These are listed in the Projects: Master Index / DONE table.
We completed 39 Tasks in the past year. These are listed in the Tasks: Master Index / DONE table.
We have hosted 6 "On-Site Saturday" (or Sunday) work parties on a monthly basis since October, 2007 with an average attendance of 9. The records of who came and what we did are linked on the Calendar: Tasks & Events.
Plans for the upcoming work party are always posted at Work Party. Have experimented with various formats. The TaskID and TODO Lists have simplified maintenance of the work party web page. It serves as a "what's up next" priority list of pending tasks.
The committee's budget was cut in half this year, so we managed to "Maintain the Fellowship on $11 a day". Details are in Budget: UUBG FY 2007-2008.
Perhaps the most noteworthy accomplishment this year is a budgetary projection based on data rather than historic habits. The FY 2008-2009 Budget Request is based on an enumeration of 47 Tasks and 21 active projects with a solid understanding of what is involved in all of them.
The Technical problems have been minor and soluble. The real failings have been on the Human side.
I took on the challenge of Buildings & Grounds partly as an incubator for developing web-based methods of managing and documenting small projects. Professionally, I am an engineering consultant with some software experience. I expected to develop software to support these methods and expected to have working tools by this time. But I've spent all my time working on Buildings & Grounds ;-}
My philosophy is generally, "Build it and they will come". I've built it. How long do I wait?
While we have garnered a regular and respectable turnout for the Saturday work parties, the real challenge has been to recruit folks at higher levels of responsibility. I delineated these rungs on the Ladder of Responsibility in my treatise on Getting Things Done:
- Committee Chair - Manage the entire process
- Group Leader - Manage process & task related to Group topic
- Project Planner - Convert Project plan into task descriptions
- Project Leader - Understand Project and lead its execution
- Task Planner - Convert Task description into doable steps
- Task Leader - Understand Task and lead its execution
- Recruit - Do the next step of a task.
All these rungs are based on my experience at UUFSD. I can name the volunteers available at each level. Encouraging someone to go up a level requires care and patience.
The B&G committee requires four Group Leaders working with the chair to complete the organizational chart. I have attempted to describe the the duties of a Group Leader in the form of an open letter: Welcome: to Steering Committee. I asked folks to sign up for a 1 year term working a couple hours a month by phone and email (you CAN do this from home) plus occasional Task leadership at a Saturday work party.
I began recruiting Group Leaders 6 months ago, in September. Caroline DeMar had been de-facto Landscape Leader since before I came along. When she had knee surgery in February, we gave her a well-earned retirement. Without going into details, I started my term with one Group Leader and a year later I have about one and a half.
If recruiting Group Leaders represents failure in the Human/Process quadrant, I also have problems in the Human/Task quadrant recruiting Task Leaders. These are folks who know how to use tools and fix stuff. The older guys are retiring and I'm not finding young ones coming in to take their places. And I just learned that we are losing one of our most reliable.
Where does the Buildings & Grounds committee go from here? Considerations of the future for any organization seem always to come down to people and money.
I see several issues that contribute to my recruiting problem:
- Too Complicated
- Chicken & Egg
- Tinkering Loners
- Too Much to Do
- Puttering is Passe
- Work and Class
At the Group Leader level, the scheme I've outlined for the committee is too complicated. Or just so different that it takes too much effort to figure out. And at the Task level it's micro-managed which takes all the fun out of the work.
Perhaps if the committee were up and running on the model I've designed, it would be a satisfying and inviting environment. But getting it cranked up is overwhelming and outside of most folks' comfort zone. It won't work until it's working.
Folks with the skills we need seem to prefer to work alone. They are in it for the personal satisfaction of a doing a job well. "It's easier to just do it than try to explain it". And they value freedom above all. The more organized the activity, the less fun it becomes. These are sentiments I've heard and relate to. The last thing I want to do is chat folks up on the phone or sit in meetings.
When the new buildings were built 12 years ago, they pushed the maintenance requirements beyond the reach of amateurs and volunteers. The building program emerged from "Decisions for Growth", yet the Fellowship has not grown. And now we are stuck.
I once heard the question posed and answered: "What did guys do before there were computers?" "They puttered in the basement." We now have so many entertaining diversions that people don't take up old-fashioned hobbies like gardening or wood-working.
Perhaps the affluent younger denizens of North County are unaccustomed to physical labor of the sort needed by Buildings & Grounds. You hire other people to do that stuff. Or perhaps I have it backward. The economy of middle and now upper middle class America is collapsing so both parents work and no one has time to volunteer.
I don't know what to do about these problems. I have put some effort into recruiting but it's not my strong suit. I have even asked for an intermediary - a people person - to help me recruit and didn't find any such.
Hiring a handyman would eliminate a whole lot of organizational thrashing I've been caught up in for the past year. The Project and Task descriptions make it possible to put a lot of this stuff out for hire. But costs would increase considerably.
Naturally the egregious budget request provoked questions: Why is this request so much higher than in previous years? Which are the items that are critical to fund?
The phrase "critical to fund" suggests there are clear boundaries and imminent consequences. But there generally aren't. It's just like decisions we make about maintaining our own homes. If we get a flexible mortgage and keep skipping payments there's a growing problem down the road, but it seems like lots of people are doing it these days. If we don't repair things when they break, it all depends. Some things are obvious emergencies so we stop the leaky pipe from ruining the carpets. But we can let a house go for years without painting, fixing the roof, putting in decent insulation or cleaning the furnace ducts.
And that's basically how we've been running the Fellowship for the past decade, so far as I can gather from conversations with my predecessors and ex-treasurers. The question is not whether to fix the plumbing or to paint the walls, the issue is when to quit thinking we'll win the lottery and return to living within our means.
I'm estimating that we have accumulated a backlog of $15,700 worth of overdue repairs (Tasks and Projects) with an ongoing depreciation (Maintenance) of $4,600 per year. These numbers may be low because of unanticipated emergencies and the errors tend to be errors of omission (the $1000 tree removal is not included, for example).
If we continue funding only emergency repairs then presumably the backlog of overdue repairs would grow by the depreciation rate times some compounding rate which accounts for collateral damage from leaking roofs, unpainted wood exposure, etc. How does that rate compare to say, the prime lending rate. Dunno. Probably its higher.
Sincerely,
Stu Anderson
Chair, Buildings & Grounds