SCN: Meeting: "It's not a dumb lawsuit."

[Lorraine Pozzi]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2000, Kurt Cockrum wrote:

> ...  In fact I hope things can be
> repaired, but it's going to have to require smarts on the parts of *both*
> Rich and the SCN Board.  Just one group having smarts won't do.

Oh, Kurt, you optimist you!

Seriously, I think you have summed up the problem -- and the potential
solution -- very well.  I've served on several boards -- volunteers
do get annoyed, burned out, find more exciting opportunities to
volunteer -- but I have never been on a board where they didn't
just walk away.  When you have James and Rich, both very dedicated
volunteers, turning a flamethrower on the organization as they pass
through the exit door -- well, I think there is a message here.

We tried an unbiased arbitrator when the fundraising committee
went through meltdown (though at least nobody sued) and it was
not very successful (or maybe given that last statement, it was!).

I don't think that things will be worked out without a third
party -- whether that be a judge (and probably major legal expense
en route) or someone in the conflict resolution biz.

What was the name of the guy who worked for Group Health?  He
has quite a bit of knowledge of the organization, but is not a
party to either side of the dispute.  

As a two-year board member (was it ONLY two years -- seemed like
an eternity)  I suggested several times that we have exit
interviews when volunteers turned in their resignations -- just
to have data on what we were doing that was sending them away.
Still seems like a good idea.

Lorraine
femme2 at scn.org

> 
> I do think Rich is being foolish and wrongheaded, though.  And he told
> me after the meeting he was *stuck* and couldn't think of any other way
> to do it but sue.  Well, OK, that's honest, and just maybe provides the
> nucleus that a solution can crystallize around.  What do you do with
> somebody who's stuck?  You try to help them.
> 
> So somehow Rich has to be convinced that there exist better solutions to
> the problems between him and the board than litigating a tort-in-a-court
> (homage to Dr. Seuss :) or other hardline solutions.
> 
> I can't dump this all on Rich, though.  It's seemed to me there have
> plenty of times where the Board has had to get a get a whack on the
> head to get *its* attention.  Delve into the archives of this list if you
> don't believe me.  And Rich's suit qualifies as a pretty big whack on
> the head!  And 86'ing him from the e-mail training slot frankly was a
> colossal blunder that the Board ought to cop to, so it can get about
> the business of fixing it.
> 
> And the realm, e-mail training, is one where there ought to be *plenty*
> of room for a wide variety of philosophies and theories and experiments,
> and that battles over which way (as with the schools, for example)
> is best are stupid and counterproductive.  Where possible, multiple
> experiments should be running, a la Charlie Barb's e-mail experiments
> that run concurrently with the conventional training methods.
> 
> IMO what should've been done at the cusp of the Rich/BOD conflict is for
> there to fork off another e-mail training experiment, and that's something
> that ought to still be possible to pick up, if it's worth doing at all.
> (no, I don't want to hear a flood of objections why that can't be done;
>  I won't get sucked into that "why-don't-you/yes-but" game).
> 
> That's the best use of the system, IMO.  Let a hundred flowers bloom.
> 
> So this is a live and functional test of the quality of the board, too.
> A smashing-type victory, where one adversary crushes the
> other, would probably prove very unsatisfactory in the long run, and would
> demonstrate the board's unfitness, hopefully to be remedied at the next
> election.
> --kurt
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