Some people have asked me various what-if questions. Four of the most common:
- What if a seasonal team doesn’t want to hold a given event (from the list in my previous post)?
- What if we can’t find a Team Lead for a particular seasonal team?
- What if we can’t find a new president?
- What if we try this and it fails?
My thoughts on answers (with thanks to my fellow Board member Jack Asher, who helped me think some of this through more thoroughly).
- Seasonal teams own their events. If they can’t get an event’s logistics addressed in a timely manner (i.e., soon enough before the event: for example, a month prior), we cancel the event. If a team doesn’t want to hold an event, they cancel the event (or never get it on the schedule). The lists of potential events in my previous post are brainstorming and thought fodder. We have fallen frequently into the trap of running around like crazy to avoid canceling an event that “someone” thought we “should” do, even though that someone wasn’t involved in the event planning.
- No team lead, or no team for a season? Couple of thoughts. If there’s no team, we cancel all the events for that season: Shabbat services, BLL, parties, holidays, everything. There’s one big, important exception to this: High Holy Days. HHD is strategic to Keddem. If it looks like we can’t staff the HHD team, the Board needs to be concerned, and needs to get involved, and maybe needs to bring this to the entire membership. If there’s no one willing to serve as team lead, we give the team options. Perhaps each of three team members will take a month of the season as team lead; perhaps they’ll rotate leadership by event. Perhaps they disband, and we cancel the events for that season.
- No new president? We keep looking. If we’re completely unable to find someone, well, that becomes the next situation.
- What if we try and fail? A wise green sage once said, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, “Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.” I think that’s our current situation. (Using a business metaphor instead of a sci-fi philosophical one: I think we have no Plan B. In some sense, this is Plan B, and Plan A’s been what we’ve done for the past nearly 20 years.) If we give this everything we have, and we fail, we disband. If we reach this point before March, maybe we dissolve very shortly after our 20th Anniversary celebration. (“20th Anniversary celebration,” I hear you ask? Yup. In the works: expect more on that in the next several weeks—at least a recommendation to save the date.)
Hi —
I realized reading this that I have a question: how is the “team lead” role defined? What’s the job? Because if we want people to volunteer to do it, it needs to be well defined, with clear expectations.
Your thoughts? Others’ thoughts?
Elaine
Elaine has asked the right question here. I think a partial answer is we need a breakdown of each of the potential events for what the leadership team considers to be a minimum successful season in terms of estimated resources required. This doesn’t need to be difficult or arduous task meaning don’t spend to much time trying to over-refine the estimate. In this way a potential team leader could say “yeah, I can do that” rather than worrying that an undefined job that could become a horrendous time sink. Also a part of the quick quantification effort the leadership team should make an estimate of minimum team size required.
Maybe we should ask exactly what minimum means. It could go several ways. For example xxx events a month. or x ritual events and x other events a month. I think it is important for the seasonal teams to have a relatively free hand to try something new as well as what we have been doing in the past–for example it is not a Jewish Holiday Party.
We probably also need rules of engagement. These worked well at the congregational meetings. For example–If you want to make a comment about an event this is the format in which to do it. I am really excited to see where we are going.
It seems to me that Alan has it right (as we like to say). Certainly the board can define the team lead job as it wishes, however I suspect, perhaps hope, that anyone who takes the job will have some reason for doing so and is perfectly capable of defining their own job based upon why they want the job. This is certainly a matter that can be discussed before the board accepts someone as team lead.
Today it is the responsibility of the board to support our officers. In this new model it is the responsibility of the officers and the board to support the team lead. I seems to me that it is important to always remember that is we place someone in charge of programing that person is not just a functionary of the board, doing the boards wishes. We are anointing someone as a leader and it is then the job of the board to be good followers and helpers, and to use out powers and abilities in their benefit. To do otherwise is to invite conflict and eventual bad feelings, not to speak of failed programing.