How Volunteers are Like Managers

In many New England towns, the work of government is done largely by volunteers who serve on school boards, planning commissions and the like. Uniquely in New England, we also have elected representative Town Meetings, which serve approximately as towns’ legislatures, while boards of selectmen provide towns’ executive function.

      For the past several years, I have been a member of my town’s Historical Commission, and have also served as its chairman for some three years (so far). This role is new to me in some ways. But in others, it’s very familiar.

      It is new in the sense that I am learning how local government works, as well as the powers and limits on power of my commission, as well as that of other boards and commissions, and where our roles and functions complement one another.

      On the other hand, the experience is familiar in the exercise of management skills and techniques. The parallels with business are not surprising.

      Just as a company’s department or division manager has general, specific and defined responsibilities, the volunteer town commission chairman must be sure that the necessary actions are taken and promises kept, and that the commission and its many meetings operate smoothly and orderly, according to law. Of course, like business, there are bumps in the road and, sometimes, clashes with peers.

Working in Partnership

Often, we work in informal partnership with one or more complementary boards and commissions, such as the planning board in our case, to achieve objectives of mutual interest.

      Conversely, we must sometimes butt heads with other boards that are working at cross-purposes with my commission. As in business, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, and other times we compromise and reach accommodation.

      Naturally, personalities can be a significant factor. There are – excuse the term – some pig-headed people who have their ways of doing things and their peculiar views of how the town’s business ought to be managed, approaches and views that may clash with my own and/or the views of several other of my peers. Again, sometimes we win and other times we lose.

      In at least one respect, town government can be a bit tougher than a business environment in that we are all volunteers with full-time jobs elsewhere. To get things done, we work and meet in our spare time, mostly on weekday evenings. Attendance at meetings of my seven-member commission is rarely 100 percent. Some of us have to travel on business or stay late at the office.

      Along those lines, too, is the difficulty of getting volunteer members to find the time that is often necessary to do the due diligence required of the commission doing its job according to state statutes and town bylaws. Additionally, as chairman, I’m often the one who attends the several other commissions’ and boards’ meetings that require the participation and perspective of a Historical Commission representative. Again, just like a business manager.

      The primary role of the Historical Commission is to preserve and protect the town’s historical structures. That means convincing and working with developers to renovate and refresh older buildings, rather than demolish them to make way for larger, newer buildings (that usually carry higher price tags) that damage the town’s cultural heritage.

Case in Point

A current case shows parallels between town government and managing in a business context.

      We are locked in an extended struggle with the school board over the disposition of one of the town’s older, more noteworthy town-owned buildings, a 1904 Art Deco carriage house that, because of its proximity to an elementary school, was ceded to the school department years ago for its own purposes. But it has been empty and unused for some time now, and consequently is suffering disrepair.

      Like all towns and cities these days, ours is strapped for cash and since this carriage house was not deemed critical to the town's infrastructure, it has not received the necessary attention and funding necessary to maintain it properly. Flash forward to now. The schools are eager to be rid of it to make room for an expanded school parking lot.

      So we are at loggerheads over the need to preserve a historical structure versus a desire to create more parking spaces. I trust we will reach a suitable compromise and save this irreplaceable piece of our town’s history.

      This kind of challenge is not unfamiliar to those of us in who have management roles.

      The core similarity here is that in the two positions, both as a volunteer commission chairman and as a manager with P&L responsibilities, you have discretion to take appropriate actions to effect necessary changes. You also have the power of your personality and good will to persuade people to your way of thinking. And, you have responsibility both to compromise and reach accommodation, as well as to understand and appreciate conflicting points of view.

      It’s how the world goes round, whether for businesspeople or for volunteer government officials.

Cultivate Your Internal Champions

Over the years, through numerous client assignments involving a range of industries, company size and business focus, I’ve seen a pattern repeated in virtually every sizable organization for which I've done work.

      In the course of trying to engage employees in the organization’s mission, vision and values, or a new initiative, people can be roughly categorized into one of three types. These types may be familiar to you. You may have different terms to describe them and feel that my percentage breakdown is a bit off, but I trust our views closely parallel one another.

      At the top of the hierarchy are those I call the Eager Beavers, the ones who “get it.” These are the ones you don't need to convince when it comes to enacting the necessary changes to make an initiative succeed. They readily understand the rationale and its links to the corporate mission.

      They know what underpins the organization, the imperatives that are driving it, and how they personally fit into the larger whole. They can readily draw the connection between what they do every day and where the company needs to go.

      Eager Beavers want to do well, and they want to progress in the company because they believe in it. Generally, because of their positive attitude, these people do in fact get promoted.

      Whether you realize it or not, these are the ones for whom you provide the bulk of the information you develop. When their manager explains a new initiative in a group meeting, he/she might refer their team to the company’s intranet where the background information is provided. The Eager Beavers are the ones who invariably go to that web page to learn more.

The Flip Side

Conversely, at the bottom of the hierarchy are the Disconnected. These are the employees you'll likely not reach no matter what you do. They rarely pay attention to a corporate message unless it affects them, such as layoff notices or benefit changes. They don’t care to stay abreast of the outside competitive environment and what’s impacting the company. They’re likely just showing up every day for the paycheck. You know the type.

      In most organizations, each of these two segments is roughly the same size, anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of the total employee population.

      I contend that strategic communications programs will have no appreciable impact on them, either in making the Eager Beavers more engaged – who, frankly, couldn’t be more engaged – or in finally connecting the Disconnected.

      Sure, our messages reach the Eager Beavers, and they likely gobble up every word, while the Disconnected ignore most of it. But even if our communications are lacking, count on the Eager Beavers to find out on their own, while, conversely, your best communications efforts will not reach the Disconnected.

      So our communications efforts should target the Big Middle, the 60 to 80 percent of the people who might be convinced of the value of buying into the new change initiative, the corporate mission, or a new strategy. Our challenge as communicators is finding the right messages and the right media to reach them in a compelling way at the right time.

Aiming for the Sweet Spot

It’s likely your Eager Beavers are your best, most effective means to engage the Big Middle. That's if you can get them to be your champions inside the company, leveraging their personal engagement in the company mission to connect to their peers among the Big Middle. Your communications efforts to connect with the Big Middle will be far more successful that way than if you rely exclusively on conventional internal communications tools and messages.

      The head of every unit in your company and every facility manager can readily identify their own Eager Beavers. They exist in all parts of the organization and at all levels. These are the first people you need to reach with critical messages, and then engage them to be your advocates among their peers.

      Another common characteristic of this employee type is that they are out-going and friendly. They generally have developed a high degree of trust among their peers. Naturally, because they stay well informed, they are the ones to whom others turn for news about company changes. Similarly, they are the ones best equipped to knock down false rumors.

      The Eager Beaver group likely includes a lot of supervisors – likely because their high degree of engagement means that you have promoted them. As a rule, supervisors are the most trusted people in an organization, and the primary source of information for most front-line employees.

      Due to this element of trust and their out-going nature, your change messages and breaking news should target these people. They immediately understand your rationale and are readily able to convey your message of change to their colleagues and to answer their subsequent questions.

      These advocates will rise to the extra attention you give them and appreciate the recognition. That has the added advantage of assuring that they will become your willing messengers. Of course, they are not the only means of communicating with the Big Middle; they are supplemental. But they just may become your most credible link.

      Instead of spending the bulk of their time fretting over the nuances of the punctuation of a particular written message or the effectiveness of the latest new media, communicators would be far more successful if they focused more of their energies on identifying and cultivating their internal champions among their most engaged employees.