Responses
to March 2004 Hot Topic
Are
you a victim of the 'niceness syndrome?'
by
Andy Fryar
Submitted
on March 4, 2004 by Susan J Ellis, President, Energize
Inc, Philadelphia, USA
Wonder how many of your readers
are thinking, "now it isn't nice of you, Andy, to
call us to task"! But you are absolutely on target
with this essay and it is a world-wide problem.
I think that some folks confuse "nice" with important
characteristics such as friendliness, courtesy, and
open communications. They perceive assertiveness as
aggressiveness, honesty as insult, and taking action
as asking for trouble. What really concerns me is
how much of this is classically "female" behavior--another
of the image issues of our field.
Of course, it also depends on your definition of "nice." Is
it nice to allow volunteers to be taken for granted
or exploited? Nice to allow paid staff to denigrate
volunteers? Nice to let an obnoxious volunteer get
away with poor performance while many more excellent
volunteers bear the consequences? In other words,
if "nice" means passive acceptance of whatever happens--but
with a smile--I'm not so sure it's all that nice.
We have a responsibility to do what's best for our
organizations, the clients and staff involved, and
the volunteers who are contributing their time and
talent. Sometimes that requires taking a stand...and
that means taking sides. It also calls for a degree
of courage. A long time ago, in my first job as a
volunteer program manager, someone gave me a poster
that is still hanging in my office today. It says: "Behold
the turtle. It only makes progress when it sticks
its neck out."
We cannot always be liked by everyone, but we can
make sure we create a positive, enthusiastic, standard-upholding
environment. Now that's what I call nice !
By the way, I credit colleague Marilyn Mackensie of
Canada for coining the provocative term "terminally
nice" for our field in a book about 20 years ago.
Thanks, Andy.
Submitted
on March 3, 2004 by Rosie Williams, Team Leader, Volunteer
Support, SA Ambulance Service, Adelaide, South Australia
Ok
I'll bite!
I
have been working in the voluntary sector since the
early eighties and during that time I have seen lots
and lots of changes from when things were really informal
to putting appropriate processes, guidelines, and
strategic directions in place. I would not overlook
how far we have come during this time, and minimise
the great achievements the sector (and the workers
in it) has made. Yes maybe we still have a long way
to go. In life we are always moving, growing and things
are changing.
Let
me begin with the comment you made that suggested
that because workers in this sector have strong 'people
leadership' skills that they lack dimension and qualities
to their leadership..... what is the definition of
leadership?
Most
of the studies I have undertaken on 'leadership' claims
it is not 'management' rather leadership is the ability
to lead, motivate, promote, council, set an example
to the workers we are responsible for, recognising
that people are our greatest asset. After all if we
didn't have those happy, motivated volunteers in our
programs we would not have a job and in many cases
our clients would not get a service!
I
doubt that our flaws lie in the fact that we are complacent
and comfortable I think that we all work far beyond
what could be reasonably expected of us, and the fact
that we do have few resources and time often means
that we need to make some tough decisions about our
priorities (it is like the chicken and the egg isn't
it!)
Although
the sector is changing I find that still today many
workers in the role of Manager of volunteers:
-
are often offered the role on a part time basis
-
workers are often paid at low levels compared to other
professions
-
they are more often than not working in organisations
where volunteering is not the core business
-
they are often employed to do other work and the volunteer
program is an added extra
-
they are usually the only worker involved in volunteering
in the agency and therefore do not have a supportive
team of people who understand the sector that they
can bounce off
- and I have seen more times than I can count, organisations
employing people from outside the sector to fill vacancies
rather than taking on people with experience in the
field.
So
I guess I am saying that the role is more complex
today than ever before and there are only so many
hours in a day and we only have so much energy (unlike
you Andy most of us mortals need to stop working and
get some sleep during the dark hours :O))
In
regards to your comment that we scratch our heads
and look for simplistic solutions to problems, I would
like to highlight one group out in the Northern Suburbs
of Adelaide called the Northern Collaborative Forum.
This is a local group of proactive workers from a
range of agencies pulling together towards addressing
common issues such as lack of resources, training,
recruitment strategies and so on. In fact my expereince
of this sector is that we do assist each other, network,
look for soluntions, push the boundaries and demand
change (other wise we would not have moved to
where we are today and in my opinion we have come
along way) however we do this in addition to
the all ready heavy and demanding work loads of our
day to day lives.
The
final comment I would like to make is that I believe
no matter how strategic and 'harder edged' we become
and no matter how well a volunter program is managed
there will always be some level of dysfunction, renegade
volunteers etc, (because we are dealing with people!)
. In most sectors there is a lack or resources and
dwindling budgets - that seems to be the trend of
the year 2004 and how life is, but in spite of this
we do seem to get the job done and our targets are
met.
Sorry
I am going to have to go now, my computer screen has
gone 'all blurry!" :0)
Let's
hear what you think
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