Finding volunteers

I'm in a neighborhood organization, and I'd like to build a large pool of volunteers for community events.  I'm going to propose doing an internet survey (such as Doodle) to find out who is willing to do what.

I'm thinking of three parts to the survey:

1. Is there a current annual neighborhood event that you have an interest in?  Or, is there a new event that you think we should start?
2. What level of participation are you interested in?  Do you want to lead a big part of an event, coming up with new approaches and strategies?  Or are you just the kind of person who will work hard the day of the event, but wants to be told exactly what to do?
3. What are your strengths?  Fundraising?  Promoting events?  Recruiting volunteers?  Computers?  Carpentry?

I'm hoping that this survey allows us to match volunteers to the events they like, allows them to apply their best skills, and allows them to participate at the level they feel comfortable with.

Making them feel

As I've described in my last few posts, if I want to influence or lead others, I've got to appeal to their feelings even more than their logic.  But how do I appeal to their feelings?  Here are a few things that have worked for me and/or I've read about.

• Connect to them personally.  If we form a bond, they are more likely to empathize with my needs and concerns and make the decisions that I hope they will make.  Recently, I've been working on a new habit.  The people who control the resources I need to achieve most of my goals are the "plant managers"--the people in charge of manufacturing sites.  In the past, I've talked to them mostly when I wanted something.  Lately, I've tried to make sure I reach out to them when I don't need anything.  It feels so much less stressful than when every interaction we have is a negotiation.
• Express how I feel about what I want.  A lawyer wrote a great book about how to get the jury to agree with you.  One of his principles is that, when you really believe in your case, you should expose your feelings honestly and clearly.  The jury may empathize.  (The book I'm talking about is How to Argue & Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere,)
• Ask them what THEY want, and try to give it to them.  Sometimes I'm told to form a team to achieve a certain goal.  But then, even if it is a COMPANY goal, the other people probably feel like it's MY goal.  I was the one who was given the project.  I'm the one who's going to get a pat on the back if it is successful.  Even if the project is good for the company as a whole, their boss is emphasizing other priorities.  It feels to them like a project that will benefit ME much more than THEM.  So I'm trying to explicitly find out what THEY might get out of the project.  For example, there is a new project to revive one of our information systems.  For our initial meetings, I plan to have every person describe what is the best thing they might hope to get from the project.  I hope to be surprised, to learn about goals that they have that never occurred to me.  I hope to find ways to meet these goals because doing so will engage their emotions and win their commitment.
• Gain trust by responding to their requests, their criticisms, and their input.  I almost relish those times when others criticize my projects publicly because, if I respect their feedback, work to understand their point of view, and then address their needs, I gain their trust and their commitment to make the work succeed.
• Get them involved sooner in planning.  I'm often terrible with this, wanting to create a fully defined strategy and proposal before I get others to "build on the plan".  I'm hesitant to approach others with a vague objective and no idea of how to get there.  It feels too rough, too unpolished, almost embarrassing to share with others when the plan is this messy and murky.  But I need to get over this.  If I approach others as soon as the business need has been defined, long before we have a clue about how to reach the goal, I'm more likely to get my peers to feel like "partners", like joint owners of the strategy that unfolds.

Leading with Feeling

I've been writing recently about research showing that, even if people compare options using reason, they DECIDE using emotion.  This concept has made me think about how I try to lead at work--often emphasizing reason much more than emotion.  I expect people to just salute and say, "Yes, SIR!" based on a logical argument, but I often have trouble getting folks to buy in, and I think it's because I don't appeal enough to their emotions.

 Here's an excerpt from page 6 of one of my favorite books about leading an organization through major changes, The Heart of Change Field Guide: Tools And Tactics for Leading Change in Your Organization

"Two approaches can be used in change efforts:  analysis-think-change and  see-feel-change . . . Changing behavior is less a matter of giving people analysis to influence their thoughts than it is helping them to see a truth that will influence their feelings.  Both thinking and feeling are essential, and both are found in successful organizations, but the true heart of change is in our emotions.  The flow of see-feel-change is more powerful than that of analysis-think-change."

Use your heart to make up your mind

I keep thinking about what I read about emotions and decision making in The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.  In essence, he cites research that emotion is almost always involved in our decisions.  No matter how analytical we are when weighing our options, we need to emotion to stop analyzing and make a choice.  We often talk about feeling good about a choice we made, as if we made it first, and then we felt good about it.  It's really the other way around.  We consider our options.  One of them makes a lot of sense to us.  We can see that the benefits that this choice will give us.  We feel good about this option and, only then, only because we feel good about it, we make the choice.

As described in the "Social Animal", people with brain damage that dulls their emotions can analyze options like the rest of us, but they can't generate enough feeling about any option to stop analyzing and make the choice.  We need to use our hearts to make up our minds.

Decide with Your Gut Feelings.

If Spock from Star Trek really existed, he would not be able to get out of bed in the morning. He wouldn't be able to decide when to get up, or which side of the bed to roll off of, or why he should bother to get up at all, or what he would do if he ever got that far.  Why?  Because he was a Vulcan--perfectly logical, without emotion--and you can't make a decision without emotion.

The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, by David  Brooks, cites research suggesting that people can't make decisions without emotions.  According to the author, a logical mind can brainstorm options, list advantages and disadvantages, but can't decide what is the BEST option without checking which option FEELS best.  So, in a way, no matter how much analysis we do, no matter how logical we think we are, we ultimately pick the option we are emotionally drawn to.  In the end, our decision is based, at least in part, on our gut feelings.

Brooks describes a fascinating case of a very smart man who suffers brain damage late in life and loses most of his emotion.  He continues to have above average intelligence and excellent memory, but he loses the ability to make decisions.  He gets lost in trivial details, analyzing things that don't matter, spending hours deciding what to eat for lunch.  His psychologist, Antonio Damasio, in his book Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, concludes that his patient can't decide because he lacks emotion.  Something is important only if it FEELS important.  Without feelings, we can't decide what to do next.

Before the Sand Runs Out

I've started using a 99 cent plastic green egg timer hourglass at work.  When I flip the hourglass, it takes about 2 minutes for the sand to run out.  I'm using this cheap, ugly egg timer to help me get through my e-mail in-box.

One of the key reco's from Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity is to immediately finish any tasks that take less than two minutes.  Don't bother putting them on a To-Do List.  It's not worth the effort.  Just finish it.  Your "To Do List" should only include the items that take longer than two minutes.

So if you can deal with something in less than 2 minutes--responding to an e-mail, making a phone call, or any other quick task--don't write it down, JUST DO IT!

But how do you get a feel for what tasks take 2 minutes?  I start answering an e-mail, thinking it will be quick, but start elaborating and elaborating.  Suddenly, 20 minutes have passed.

My 99 cent egg timer holds me accountable.  It becomes a game.  I flip the cheesy green plastic hourglass and then start responding to an e-mail.  Can I finish responding and delete the original before the sand runs out?  I made it?  WOO HOO!  Can I squeeze in another?   And another?

When I got to work on Monday, after 4 vacation days, I had 122 messages in my In-box.  This was much more than deleting junk mail.  It involved answering a lot of hard questions.  But the pressure of the egg timer helped me make my point quickly and move on.  I was able to drive the In-box below 60 in less than 2 hours.  I felt much more "caught up" and more confident about my choices of what to accomplish for the rest of the week.

Mozart is Easy

Recently I wrote about a key theme of the classic book What to Listen for in Music, by Aaron Copland.  He basically says, "It's the melody, stupid!"  He writes about rhythm, harmony, tone color, and classic forms and structures for sonatas, symphonies, and fugues.  But he says that, if you get nothing more from his book, realize that you can only appreciate music if you stay in touch with the melody at all times.

I've been trying to practice this on my iPhone.  I'm using the Accuradio app.  It's also available on any computer at Accurado.com.  They have a classical music station called "Mozart's Masterpieces".  The station plays nothing but Mozart, 24/7, with no commercials.

At least for me, I'm finding this station to be a perfect way to reinforce the idea that melody is what matters.  It feels very easy for me to tune into the melodies in everything Mozart composed.  I'm not a classical music expert and often don't "get" a piece.  But I'm finding listening for melodies in Mozart's music to be about as easy as enjoying the Beatles.  It's all SO GORGEOUS that there is no big effort involved.  Just tune into the melody of almost any piece--notice every note--for 30 seconds and I'm hooked.

The Power of Disengagement

Chris and I had to discipline one of our sons today.  We had to take away some privileges for two days.  As always with this son:  DRAMA!!!  He can't stand to be punished in any way for any thing, and will argue for hours and hours trying to get us to restore his privileges.

I must admit he often wins these arguments.  He employs a powerful combination of debating skill, endurance, and acting. He can summon at will everything from outrage to tears.  Eventually, he often wears us down.

Tonight I'm taking the advice of many parenting books and disengaging.  Decide on a consequence and then disengage.  Avoid the drama.  Refuse to play the game.  Walk away for a while.  It's hard to do.  It seems cold.  But it's better than arguing.  I'm telling him calmly that I have to disengage, that I need to make my decision and then leave.  I'm telling him that I need my space.  He keeps coming back to argue and I keep calmly telling him that I can't talk about it right now.

It's not easy to disengage, but it's helping Chris and I stick to our decision.  He needs our discipline more than he realizes, and much more than he needs hours to plead his case.

Melody is the Breath of Music

A few years ago, I was taking a Yoga class.  The teacher, Elizabeth, asked the class, "When we spend 90 minutes in a class, flowing from one Yoga pose to the next, do you know what ties all those poses together?  Your breath.  You can pay attention to how each stretch feels, concentrate on your form, make adjustments to your position, but the whole experience won't feel connected unless you are aware of your breath.  Awareness of the breath is the thread that links all your poses."

I'm re-reading What to Listen for in Music, by Aaron Copland.  Early in the book, he urges the reader--if they do nothing else when listening to a piece--to listen to and follow the melody.  I'm paraphrasing somewhat, but Copland writes, "The thing that takes the place of a story in music is the melody.  The melody guides the listener.  If you can't follow the melody, you are just vaguely being aware of the music."

This tells me that melody is to music what breath is to yoga.  Awareness of melody is the thread that connects everything I experience when listening to a piece of music so that the entire piece becomes a "story".

I Think He Understood

I talked to my teenager about responsibility this morning.  I had him read my last blog post in which I define what I think it means to be responsible.  I talked about how it involved commitment and accountable and how, as you mature, you start to take on responsibility for more things.

Things went downhill quickly when I started to give examples of things which his mother and I feel he needs to  take charge of in his life.  I talked about all the basic things we have to remind him to do every morning and every night, and how he needs to figure out how to remember these things on his own.  I knew I was right, but  he started making excuses and raising his voice.  I knew I wasn't getting through to him.

So I changed my approach.  I started talking about the areas in his life in which he's extremely responsible.  He's gets mostly A's in 9th grade honors at a very challenging high school.  I told him that, in this part of his life, his exhibits responsibility at it's best.  He's committed to academic success.  When he gets a ton of homework or a difficult exam, he owns the situation.  He doesn't complain about the teacher.  He doesn't expect us to fix things for him.  He demonstrates the hallmarks of responsibility:  commitment and accountability.

I told him that he shows similar commitment and accountability in his passion for scouting college football talent and writing 2-3 articles per week on NFLMocks.com.  I reminded him of the times that he would tell me that he HAD to watch the Senior Bowl to analyze several players to complete his "Big Board" because he owed it to his readers to base his views on actual observation.

I could tell that he was now listening.  I was getting through!  So finally I returned to some of the areas in his life in which he is NOT responsible.  For example, I explained how he fails to take ownership for his poor eating habits.  I sensed that he finally saw my point.  He finally saw how this could be described as failing to take responsibility for yourself.

So I went a step further and told him that a big part of becoming a man is to become responsible for all your own problems and all your own goals, and then to go further and assume responsibility for other people and situations.  Again, I sensed he understood so I ended our talk, satisfied that I had made an impact on him.

Explaining "Responsibility"

Being "responsible" is one of those things that I recognize when I see it, but how can I put it into words?  And yet I have to put it into words, because I feel I need to explain it to my teenagers.  I think they often expect us to do things they can do for themselves and that they often miss opportunities to step in and help others.  To change this, they need to grasp the concept of "being responsible", and I need to help them learn.

So what is a responsible person?  What is an irresponsible person?  I think the answer lies in three areas:

1. Commitment.  If I feel responsible for some person or situation, I feel committed to contribute to that person or situation.  I feel obligated.  It's my job.  Part of the role I play in my daily life.  A promise I've made that I intend to keep.
2. Accountability.  If I feel responsible for some person or situation, I feel that I have an influence on that person or situation.  If things don't go well, I look hard at whether I could have done more to help.  If things do go well, I'm keenly aware of how I may have helped on so that I can contribute even more in the future.
3. Scope.  An irresponsible person commits to very little.  They may feel commitment and accountability for some things, but their scope is very narrow.  Like an addict or an immature youngster, they may blame most of their problems on other people.  They are not committed to solving their own problems, and they don't feel accountable for them.  If they keep messing up, they wait for their parents or someone else to fix things.  A responsible person, on the other hand, applies his or her feelings of commitment and accountability broadly.  First, they commit to and are accountable to themselves.  Next, they extend this to loved ones.  Then they commit to contributing positively to everyone they meet.  Finally, a deeply responsible person commits to contributing in some way to things that are larger than the world they experience directly:  society, the environment, suffering in distant lands.