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branchandroot) wrote2012-08-04 06:32 pm
branchandroot) wrote2012-08-04 06:32 pm
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Halfway won't be far enough
Ah, the benefits of deciding to finish something else before writing about the latest note on OTW: other people have already stated my position succinctly in the first few comments.
Which is to say, saying that "If you expect us to act like a nonprofit org, you have to treat us as a nonprofit org" by offering constructive criticism via centralized organs of communication is assuming that the OTW has shown sufficient evidence of professionalism to justify such an attempt. This is, I will allow, a difficult thing to do, precisely because the organization has such a lot of deeply unprofessional and bad-communication history to overcome.
But that history isn't going to go away, and it's firmly attached to the organization's name and continuity. The fact that the complement of people in charge is somewhat different, now, than it was for years worth of deeply frustrating failure to respond to constructive and productive criticism does not erase those years or the suspicion they engendered. There may be more avenues of communication open, but they are still not being advertized as forcefully as they need to be. There may be changes in the internal structure of the org, but no one outside, and apparently precious few inside, of it can tell because those are not well publicized either. Except, I would note, in a lot of unofficial entries that do an end-run around the official outlets.
So, no. The members and contributors who have already given good faith and had it broken are not going to give it again easily. First, there has to be some more sustained demonstration that good faith will not be just one more heartbreaking investment of good emotion/time/money thrown after bad.
The most good faith the organization has earned back from me, so far, is to wait and see.
Which is to say, saying that "If you expect us to act like a nonprofit org, you have to treat us as a nonprofit org" by offering constructive criticism via centralized organs of communication is assuming that the OTW has shown sufficient evidence of professionalism to justify such an attempt. This is, I will allow, a difficult thing to do, precisely because the organization has such a lot of deeply unprofessional and bad-communication history to overcome.
But that history isn't going to go away, and it's firmly attached to the organization's name and continuity. The fact that the complement of people in charge is somewhat different, now, than it was for years worth of deeply frustrating failure to respond to constructive and productive criticism does not erase those years or the suspicion they engendered. There may be more avenues of communication open, but they are still not being advertized as forcefully as they need to be. There may be changes in the internal structure of the org, but no one outside, and apparently precious few inside, of it can tell because those are not well publicized either. Except, I would note, in a lot of unofficial entries that do an end-run around the official outlets.
So, no. The members and contributors who have already given good faith and had it broken are not going to give it again easily. First, there has to be some more sustained demonstration that good faith will not be just one more heartbreaking investment of good emotion/time/money thrown after bad.
The most good faith the organization has earned back from me, so far, is to wait and see.
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Honestly, I'm not setting a single communication foot on otw turf until there is some evidence that /someone/ involved has a clue how this professional communication thing /works/.
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(kidding about the beating part. ...mostly. there are some projects i've hit the edges of that are *even more dysfunctional* that could really use the punctuation.)
because seriously. managing people 101. hell, that's *remedial* managing people. not even talking about the specific contents of the email, you *never* chastise people as a group like that unless the problem is pervasive and you don't actually *know* who's doing the things you want to address because they're all happening anonymously, and *even then* you need to be incredibly specific about what you're talking about. preferably with incident documentation. and timestamps.
now, i'm not saying that you can't issue a set of corrective instructions in a blanket email, but it should only be done when it's something like a policy/procedure/bit of information that people are misunderstanding (and even then you need to be adamantly clear that the fault is *yours* for not having explained it well enough/not having had clear enough documentation). the *only* time, other than "pervasive problem happening and you don't know who's causing it/doing it", that you should blanket-chastise like that is if the problem is happening across literally the entire workgroup and your attempts to address it privately with the 'ringleaders' (because even if everybody's participating in the problem, there's always a few thought leaders who are driving the expression of the problem and influencing others) haven't gone anywhere.
and if that's the case, the blanket chastising should only be done after you *fire the damn ringleaders*. the fact the otw seems to have no way for a committee chair to remove somebody who's causing more problems than they're solving is ... really a bad sign. even if you don't ever *use* that ability, you need it to be there, and you need to be able to pull someone aside and say "look, you don't seem to be happy working on this project and your unhappiness is affecting the entire team; let's find you something that's more suited to your strengths". are chairs even empowered to do that? because if they aren't ... yeesh.
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