Looking around the University of Illinois campus, culture organizations can be found high and low. From the Bulgarian Association to the Korean Law Students Association, it seems as if students can find an organization for practically any interest they seek. Being involved in a fellow cultural organization this past year and taking up an executive position for the same organization this year, I have seen the gap between being a board member and being an executive. That gap includes the nitty-gritty details: the confrontation and arguments, the panic and confusion, and the defining decisions for the organization.
Upon my first few days of this new position, I arrived a little lost but a whole lot excited. Interviews for board positions were to be made within the next couple of days but this new executive board had yet to collaborate and figure out our own groove. All new to the executive board, except our president, we looked to him for structure and command. However, he was a democratic man and instead let us speak and choose for ourselves. While in theory this seemed like the nice and right thing to do, we quickly found out, it was quite the opposite.
When interviews rolled around the next week we all found ourselves thinking to ourselves the night before, "wait where are we meeting and what are we doing?" However, none of us said anything and we all showed up that morning eager for someone else's direction. Unfortunately, we didn't find that from our president once again. The first interviewee sat down and the interview began, awkward silence. I glanced to my left and right and all of executive board was either panicky, staring at their computer screen or straight ahead at the wall. So instead of falling suit, I started speaking, "So why don't you first off tell us a little about yourself." I saw silent exhales of relief around me. Interviews continued with me taking the lead and my fellow executive members slowly but surely gaining more confidence and asking supplementary questions.
By the end of the day, I was quite fed up. When I voiced my concern, finally our president spoke up. He apologized for the lack of direction he had been giving us new members and spoke of how the last executive board had been much different, causing him to panic and lose sight of leading. After hearing his reasoning, I still believed he had been wrong to throw us into the waters unguarded, but understood that this was simply a transaction cost that we had had to sacrifice: our peace of mind and confidence for the day had been taken away. However, instead we gained important knowledge and experience that has actually been proving useful as we continue throughout this year. We continue to pay transaction costs, giving up time for schoolwork or offering our apartment or time to contribute, however we all do it. Why? Because the benefits, seeing the impact and knowledge we are spreading to the campus, outweigh the costs for us. Just like many other organizations and this organization beforehand, we act in the benefit of ourselves, however it also aligns with the benefit of the organization.
Chapter two of Bolman and Deal is likely relevant here. They discuss when employees prefer a lot of top down decision making and structure (they give UPS as an example) and when employees prefer to have a lot of discretion delegated to them. It can go either way so it would be good to know what factors determine which approach is preferred.
ReplyDeleteIn class I discussed coordination in committees and the need for somebody to play the role of "whip" to allow each member to express their concerns, typically in a one-on-one setting done ahead of the meeting. In job searches that I've participated in I'd play that function both with the candidate and wit the other committee members. For the former we'd do email and/or a phone call before the interview. My job in that was to ready the candidate to make the best possible presentation to the rest of the committee. For the committee, we'd meet together beforehand, to discuss ground rules, then again when we got in the applications do discuss who would be interviewed and finally we'd do the interview itself.
So my conclusion from your story is that nobody played that whip role. That's why the group overall was under prepared.
I would appreciate it if in future posts you put line space between your paragraphs.
Francis, I really enjoy your perspective on the opportunity costs and how they are worth making an impact on the community. I is really good that you were able to learn from your experience and later incorporate it within the same organization. For me the cost began to outweigh the benefit of seeing our members happy. In my case there was less cooperation from board members in regards to making structural changes. I became very stressed so I decided to take what I had learned elsewhere and created a new organization. The way I saw it there was no point in beating a dead horse, so I got a new one.
ReplyDeleteYou organization seems to have had too idealistic a president. While democracy is great, in organizations with such high turnover, democracy cannot work effectively. By the time people get their footing, the school year has ended and they are off to another adventure. A democratic board only works when everyone has been around to see what works, what doesn't work, and what might work.
ReplyDeleteA transaction cost that your club needs to have taken on is taking the effort to search for a tight group of executives that knew what they were taking on. This group could have then ruled oligarchically, which would have had probably been more effective than the democracy while still keeping the ideas diverse. This burdensome cost at the beginning would have made for a much better organization and experience for everyone involved with the club.