Responses
to December 2003 hot topic
Is
professionalism strangling progress
Submitted
on December 7, 2003 by Ian Foster, PR Officer, Wide
Bay Volunteer Resource Association, Bundaberg, Queensland,
Australia
First,
on the subject of fishing:
My grandfather was father to 13 sons and daughters,
and was a builder in his day. But builders were not
highly paid professionals back then, and he would
catch a train up to the Hawkesbury River every Friday
evening, fish all night and most of the next day,
catch a train home where he'd clean and store his
catch, then repeat the process, returning home late
Sunday evening. That weekend's catch would bulk out
the family's diet for the next week.
This
was through necessity, but he not being the only one
to rely on the waters of the Hawkesbury to supply
the major proportion of the weekly diet, the result
today is that the river is 'fished out' - you can
often drop a line in any of the known 'top spots'
for finding fish, and at the end of the day the bait
you began with is still on the hook...and the catch-bag
is still just as empty of occupants as it was when
you arrived!
Our coordinator recognises that volunteers do show
a habit of coming up with new proposals or ideas that
are worth taking on board or putting into practice,
and greets each 'I've been thinking about...' with
enthusiasm. The standard reply is 'Great! Put it on
paper for me, and bring it back!'
One sure way of getting the best from your volunteers'
brains is to hold regular brainstorming sessions,
where no idea is to be laughed at, and no idea is
to be considered to silly or innane to be brought
forward. There is a story that the ring-pull tab commonly
found on drink cans today came from just such a session
of Coca Cola department managers, when one, exasperated
with the slow ebb and flow of talk around the problem
of a new way of opening drink cans, said 'Oh, for
God's sake, let's put a zipper on the top of the can
and be done with it!' Research and Development picked
up the comment, ran with it, and we have the results
of putting a 'zipper' on a can on supermarket shelves
all across the world today.
So yes, pay attention to your volunteers' ideas...hold
regular brainstorming sessions, and you may be genuinely
surprised at what comes from such meetings
Submitted
on December 1, 2003, by Richard Irvine, NT Friendship
and Support Inc, Northern Territory, Australia
I
don't think that this issue just relates to volunteers.
It happens in all sorts of fields as soon as people
treat policies and procedures as being definitive.
I
think policy and procedure manuals are an excellent
of standardising what happens in an organisation and
ensuring all the necessary boxes are ticked; we just
need to keep in mind that they are written on paper,
not carved in stone.
If
a better or more efficient way can be found, don't
let policy stand in your way. Just rewrite the policy.
I know that is easier said than done, but you didn't
have anything else to do this weekend did you? :-)
Let's
hear what you think
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