I wrote the following email to a team of volunteers that I love, and I'm laughingly frustrated with. It's not even them really, it's the dynamic we've allowed to manifest. At first I wanted to throw an old woman down the stairs (I'm kidding!) and then I settled down to write a lovingly frustrated email laced with humor and ideas. Enjoy-
BTW: This is based on a volunteer community not PJ
----------------------------------------
Hi guys,

I know we are busting our butts to blow this community up. I know everyone is working triple time. I know we need to be flexible. And I HONOR each of you for your gifts to this mission. THANK YOU!

AND I’m over this dynamic. I’m not sure how you all are doing the flyby meeting change thing, and the numbers are now this, and the new system is now this, and the oh you didn’t see the schedule is changed to this and we need a back up short notice for this….and on and on and on.

I’m a flexible guy….I pride myself on versatility. Just the same I call a spade a spade. Straight up, this chaos model doesn’t work for me at all. And anyone who says it does is lying or a chaos theory expert who can’t let go. The really sad part about it is I’ve been giving myself pain about not knowing what’s going on. Tonight was threshold for me. It’s not possible to know what’s going on when it changes that much with no single point of information. (It’s ok mind, you can relax now). What’s more is people jump through hoops professionally and personally to make this happen and then it’s a hurry up and wait or false alarm. *Sigh* It’s like NLP open loops all day long with teammates and participants hanging in the balance.

If this is going to be the norm, (bad idea because it’s not sustainable) then let’s get a single page on NAME or NAME to show the latest updates 24/7/365. This harvesting information from a voicemail, 7 emails, 2 text messages and a NAME post is BULLSHIT.

My idea for resolution (so I’m not just complaining here) is to create that single web page available 24/7/365 where all the key details like numbers, calls, call leaders and backups…etc is posted. This page is to be billed as the HOLY GRAIL of CT information. If there is ever a change to these details it happens there and only there. The page could be set to spawn a simple update email/txt/call that directs the team back to the site for updates. AND work on the process for how daily information is exchanged, what our escalation procedure is and what our emergency contingency plans are. Let’s collaborate to design the better way. (built in for NAME – invoke smile here)

No harvesting from 5 sources and the homeless guy on the corner of confused and misinformed street.

Any other ideas? Heading out to punch that homeless guy….

-NT