Reflections on the Quire Re-org
May. 5th, 2018 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tibicenOn Sun, 13 Jan 2002, I replied to an email from my equery in which I gave a history of and my person perspective on the Quire re-org of 2000.
In the middle of it, I go off on a wild theory discussion about the Purpose of Art, Type, and How to Read Books. Because me.
There was also some other discussion in the email after this about other topics, that I trimmed.
Added link. Fixed some spelling.
> 1. I'm curious: can you send me your Pennsic dance guild structure
> proposal when it's done?
I'd be happy to. Note, it is probably more a meta-structure, like what I did for the Quire.
...With which you may be unfamiliar.
Hmm. I will try to describe. I'm mighty pleased with how that worked. Still needs a few things, including documentation. :)
Step 1: Quire developed a leadership crisis.
I don't think any of this would have worked, if the proposal involved ousting an existing director (no matter how bad!), but the previous director quit. It helped at lot that there were no obvious willing candidates to take over, but I quickly opened the issue of an alternative structure to the group, before they hunted down a sacrificial victim.
Step 2: Broached idea of alternative.
In our organizational meeting, I brought up the novel idea of having an alternative structure, i.e. one that was not an autocracy.
Step 3: The Document, Defining the problem
This was *not* a proposal, but something far more critical: a description of *what we had been getting out of our leaders*. The document was titled "What Goes Into the Quire", and described, in 4.5 pages of single-spaced 10pt type, precisely what was necessary for the Quire to function.
I can't exaggerate how critical this document was to changing the system. Nor how political.
1) The vast majority of the Quire, having never directed a music group, had absolutely no clue how much behind-the-scenes work was necessary. Even more critical, many had not really noticed how much work the in-front-of-the-scenes tasks added up to. Any decisions made by people in ignorance of those facts would be disastrous.
2) One of the show-stopping Stupid Arguments in every discussion of guild organization I'd ever be party to was "Is running a guild 'a lot of work' or 'a little work'?" By writing a laundry list of what needs to get done, I made an end-run around the entire dumb destructive comparative-characterization argument. I can't begin to express how smug I felt at pulling that off. :)
3) Technically, there had never been any minimum official standard of what the Quire director's job was. For instance, technically, a director could stop holding rehearsals, or meet only 4 times a year. However, clearly the members of Quire had come to expect certain things of a director. Rather than try to get the Quire members to *admit* they had expectations (which for various neurotic reasons sometimes people won't admit!), this document was a *description* of what I observed was necessary for the Quire to *function as a currently did*. Confronted with the laundry list, people readily acceded to having those expectations. We skipped an entire round of Carolingian Denial.
4) Past directors got a long over-due ego-boo from people finally seeing what the directors had done for the group. This helped to bring the past directors politically into support of an alternative organization.
5) There was a danger of the proposal of an alternative org being seen in some quarters as a criticism of past directors. I had been making the case that we swapping to an alternate org which shared out the work would be more *humane*, and would allow people who would not otherwise direct to do so. This document was the convincing argument.
6) You can say "there are parts of the job non-musicians can do" until you're blue in the face: until you list them, no one will believe you.
7) Full disclosure: If we *were* going to have a single person run the group, they needed to have a warning of what expectations would be put on them.
Quire members were invited to add to the document. I don't think there were any additions. I was pretty thorough.
{ Non-Quire Important Tangent:
Final bit of rant on this step: the power of this step is largely rooted in the fact that it separates the *descriptive* from the *prescriptive*. The place where so many reform/change political efforts fail is that they intermingle the two. You have to assert a definition of the problem *and get universal buy-in*; only then can you move on to making your proposal. Fail that, and people shocked or made uncomfortable by the novelty of your proposal will reject it by *denying the problem exists.*
On really big, i.e. society-wide, issues, that "defining the problem" stage can take a really long time. Getting buy-in from an entire culture can take a generation, or more.
To pick up a loop from a much older email: This is a power of music, and all art. When a song, or story, or painting, describes some grief or problem, it makes people sympathetic to the idea that what is described *is* a problem. _Romeo and Juliet_ does not present an alternative to family feuds or arranged marriage or empowering young people; it merely describes (through depiction) how the status quo can be a problem. It made (and makes!) it's audience realize that blowing off the passions of the young *isn't* ok. "Guernica" does not describe how peace may be attained, or propose a means of attaining it; it depicts why war is a problem.
Sometimes art wields this power like a scalpel and is very specific, e.g. "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin. But sometimes it is much more vague, and criticizes the general culture or some very-hard-to- isolate aspect of it, e.g. "Boy in the Bubble" by Paul Simon.
The use of art for social change is very much a Poet Tribe mojo. While individuals of other Types can pick it up, it's very core to them.
Which is (partially) why I also call them the Witness Tribe. (Wizards, Witnesses, Warriors and Workers. I like alliteration.) The NFs witness the experience of humanity, and report back to the rest of the collective. They function, in this regard, a lot like the nerves which transmit signals of pain (and pleasure) in a body.
This is why Totalitarian regimes inevitably wind up suppressing artists. You can't selectively abuse a population, if every time you do, the Poets let everyone else know what you're up to. Poets make it impossible to keep the secret that some people are unhappy, and popular discontent is a great threat to tyrants.
And to pick up *another* loop, this is part of "listening to books all the way down". Instead of merely accepting/rejecting the emotional argument of a story (i.e. feeling sympathetic to the perspective of the book or scornful), one can play emotional detective, and ask "So why is this author bringing this up at all? What in the real world is he perceiving which would make these issues pertinent? What is the emotional life/environment of this author, such that this would be a natural expression of it?"
Meanwhile, the irony is not lost on me that I used a very pedestrian document, as opposed to a work of art, to assert the description of the problem, for a *singing* group. :)
}
Step 4: Meta Proposal
I then made a bunch of proposals on how to proceed. Included were:
* The idea of this being an experiment with a fixed duration, and review/adjustment meetings scheduled *up front*. Too many things flipply referred to as "experiments" in the SCA never have any evaluation planned, which leaves people nervous about getting sucked in to "experiments", which are effectively "radical permanent changes".
We planned a review after one semester, and at the end of the school year.
* A call for would-be volunteers to submit descriptions of jobs they themselves would be willing to do for the Quire. This call included in the preamble as strongly worded request/demand to *NOT* submit or publicly post any descriptions of what one thinks *other* people should do, or describe jobs in the *abstract* which you have no intention of doing.
From this we got several job descriptions and volunteers. We arbitrated overlaps, and then we had our proposed officers.
I like to this of this as the organizational equivalent of paving where people walk, instead of trying to get people to walk where you've paved.
Doing it this way also exploited a niftiness in human nature: different people think different jobs suck. If you let people define their own jobs to only include the "good parts" you will still get great coverage of all the tasks that need doing. If you try to "fairly" divvy up jobs on the basis of what you, yourself, think of as the good bits and bad bit, or even presume what others will like/dislike, you will only succeed in making everyone equally lukewarm.
And if you let third parties start heaping responsibilities onto job descriptions, there are no brakes on that process. Jobs quickly balloon into things which nobody wants to do. Contrariwise, if you let people define the limits of their responsibility, they don't feel exploited or coerced.
* I also submitted a proposed process for how the Quire could cope with multiple (parallel and series) musical directors. I also submitted the first such proposal, guaranteeing we had one proposed musical director on tap.
What this basically did was enshrine the general method of "let the volunteer describe the job they are willing to do, then let the Quire decide if they want that job done," so that going forward, the musical leaders would be covered, too. Nobody can define any one else's job.
This was important, because it makes more sense (both to the prospective job-holders, and to the Quire members) to divide the musical leadership up not by task, but by duration. Musical directors *can* divide their job by task and work in teams (that's the first thing *I* demonstrated as a director!), but the primary way of cutting the musical directors' job down to bite sized pieces is to allow them to limit the duration (or time-breadth) of their commitment.
Part 5: Discussion ensues.
The one big difference of opinion that came up was over the issue of a default director. Some people were nervous about "what happens if no one steps forward to direct?" and wanted to have a volunteer lined up to direct if no one else volunteers.
I opposed this strongly, because I knew that so long are there was someone who would rescue the group, many people who might otherwise give directing a shot would never have the guts to put themselves forward. I knew that "well, if nobody *else* will..." could be some of the most liberating words in the world.
And I saw directing as an educational opportunity which should be shared, not just a job to be done.
I won this argument, and I am *very* happy how well this has worked out. I'm reasonably sure *none* of the people who have directed in the past year would have if there had been a "real director" willing to do the job. Something like 5 of them besides me.
Conclusion:
The group went and did it, and it seems to be thriving. *I'm* pleased.
In the middle of it, I go off on a wild theory discussion about the Purpose of Art, Type, and How to Read Books. Because me.
There was also some other discussion in the email after this about other topics, that I trimmed.
Added link. Fixed some spelling.
> 1. I'm curious: can you send me your Pennsic dance guild structure
> proposal when it's done?
I'd be happy to. Note, it is probably more a meta-structure, like what I did for the Quire.
...With which you may be unfamiliar.
Hmm. I will try to describe. I'm mighty pleased with how that worked. Still needs a few things, including documentation. :)
Step 1: Quire developed a leadership crisis.
I don't think any of this would have worked, if the proposal involved ousting an existing director (no matter how bad!), but the previous director quit. It helped at lot that there were no obvious willing candidates to take over, but I quickly opened the issue of an alternative structure to the group, before they hunted down a sacrificial victim.
Step 2: Broached idea of alternative.
In our organizational meeting, I brought up the novel idea of having an alternative structure, i.e. one that was not an autocracy.
Step 3: The Document, Defining the problem
This was *not* a proposal, but something far more critical: a description of *what we had been getting out of our leaders*. The document was titled "What Goes Into the Quire", and described, in 4.5 pages of single-spaced 10pt type, precisely what was necessary for the Quire to function.
I can't exaggerate how critical this document was to changing the system. Nor how political.
1) The vast majority of the Quire, having never directed a music group, had absolutely no clue how much behind-the-scenes work was necessary. Even more critical, many had not really noticed how much work the in-front-of-the-scenes tasks added up to. Any decisions made by people in ignorance of those facts would be disastrous.
2) One of the show-stopping Stupid Arguments in every discussion of guild organization I'd ever be party to was "Is running a guild 'a lot of work' or 'a little work'?" By writing a laundry list of what needs to get done, I made an end-run around the entire dumb destructive comparative-characterization argument. I can't begin to express how smug I felt at pulling that off. :)
3) Technically, there had never been any minimum official standard of what the Quire director's job was. For instance, technically, a director could stop holding rehearsals, or meet only 4 times a year. However, clearly the members of Quire had come to expect certain things of a director. Rather than try to get the Quire members to *admit* they had expectations (which for various neurotic reasons sometimes people won't admit!), this document was a *description* of what I observed was necessary for the Quire to *function as a currently did*. Confronted with the laundry list, people readily acceded to having those expectations. We skipped an entire round of Carolingian Denial.
4) Past directors got a long over-due ego-boo from people finally seeing what the directors had done for the group. This helped to bring the past directors politically into support of an alternative organization.
5) There was a danger of the proposal of an alternative org being seen in some quarters as a criticism of past directors. I had been making the case that we swapping to an alternate org which shared out the work would be more *humane*, and would allow people who would not otherwise direct to do so. This document was the convincing argument.
6) You can say "there are parts of the job non-musicians can do" until you're blue in the face: until you list them, no one will believe you.
7) Full disclosure: If we *were* going to have a single person run the group, they needed to have a warning of what expectations would be put on them.
Quire members were invited to add to the document. I don't think there were any additions. I was pretty thorough.
{ Non-Quire Important Tangent:
Final bit of rant on this step: the power of this step is largely rooted in the fact that it separates the *descriptive* from the *prescriptive*. The place where so many reform/change political efforts fail is that they intermingle the two. You have to assert a definition of the problem *and get universal buy-in*; only then can you move on to making your proposal. Fail that, and people shocked or made uncomfortable by the novelty of your proposal will reject it by *denying the problem exists.*
On really big, i.e. society-wide, issues, that "defining the problem" stage can take a really long time. Getting buy-in from an entire culture can take a generation, or more.
To pick up a loop from a much older email: This is a power of music, and all art. When a song, or story, or painting, describes some grief or problem, it makes people sympathetic to the idea that what is described *is* a problem. _Romeo and Juliet_ does not present an alternative to family feuds or arranged marriage or empowering young people; it merely describes (through depiction) how the status quo can be a problem. It made (and makes!) it's audience realize that blowing off the passions of the young *isn't* ok. "Guernica" does not describe how peace may be attained, or propose a means of attaining it; it depicts why war is a problem.
Sometimes art wields this power like a scalpel and is very specific, e.g. "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin. But sometimes it is much more vague, and criticizes the general culture or some very-hard-to- isolate aspect of it, e.g. "Boy in the Bubble" by Paul Simon.
The use of art for social change is very much a Poet Tribe mojo. While individuals of other Types can pick it up, it's very core to them.
Which is (partially) why I also call them the Witness Tribe. (Wizards, Witnesses, Warriors and Workers. I like alliteration.) The NFs witness the experience of humanity, and report back to the rest of the collective. They function, in this regard, a lot like the nerves which transmit signals of pain (and pleasure) in a body.
This is why Totalitarian regimes inevitably wind up suppressing artists. You can't selectively abuse a population, if every time you do, the Poets let everyone else know what you're up to. Poets make it impossible to keep the secret that some people are unhappy, and popular discontent is a great threat to tyrants.
And to pick up *another* loop, this is part of "listening to books all the way down". Instead of merely accepting/rejecting the emotional argument of a story (i.e. feeling sympathetic to the perspective of the book or scornful), one can play emotional detective, and ask "So why is this author bringing this up at all? What in the real world is he perceiving which would make these issues pertinent? What is the emotional life/environment of this author, such that this would be a natural expression of it?"
Meanwhile, the irony is not lost on me that I used a very pedestrian document, as opposed to a work of art, to assert the description of the problem, for a *singing* group. :)
}
Step 4: Meta Proposal
I then made a bunch of proposals on how to proceed. Included were:
* The idea of this being an experiment with a fixed duration, and review/adjustment meetings scheduled *up front*. Too many things flipply referred to as "experiments" in the SCA never have any evaluation planned, which leaves people nervous about getting sucked in to "experiments", which are effectively "radical permanent changes".
We planned a review after one semester, and at the end of the school year.
* A call for would-be volunteers to submit descriptions of jobs they themselves would be willing to do for the Quire. This call included in the preamble as strongly worded request/demand to *NOT* submit or publicly post any descriptions of what one thinks *other* people should do, or describe jobs in the *abstract* which you have no intention of doing.
From this we got several job descriptions and volunteers. We arbitrated overlaps, and then we had our proposed officers.
I like to this of this as the organizational equivalent of paving where people walk, instead of trying to get people to walk where you've paved.
Doing it this way also exploited a niftiness in human nature: different people think different jobs suck. If you let people define their own jobs to only include the "good parts" you will still get great coverage of all the tasks that need doing. If you try to "fairly" divvy up jobs on the basis of what you, yourself, think of as the good bits and bad bit, or even presume what others will like/dislike, you will only succeed in making everyone equally lukewarm.
And if you let third parties start heaping responsibilities onto job descriptions, there are no brakes on that process. Jobs quickly balloon into things which nobody wants to do. Contrariwise, if you let people define the limits of their responsibility, they don't feel exploited or coerced.
* I also submitted a proposed process for how the Quire could cope with multiple (parallel and series) musical directors. I also submitted the first such proposal, guaranteeing we had one proposed musical director on tap.
What this basically did was enshrine the general method of "let the volunteer describe the job they are willing to do, then let the Quire decide if they want that job done," so that going forward, the musical leaders would be covered, too. Nobody can define any one else's job.
This was important, because it makes more sense (both to the prospective job-holders, and to the Quire members) to divide the musical leadership up not by task, but by duration. Musical directors *can* divide their job by task and work in teams (that's the first thing *I* demonstrated as a director!), but the primary way of cutting the musical directors' job down to bite sized pieces is to allow them to limit the duration (or time-breadth) of their commitment.
Part 5: Discussion ensues.
The one big difference of opinion that came up was over the issue of a default director. Some people were nervous about "what happens if no one steps forward to direct?" and wanted to have a volunteer lined up to direct if no one else volunteers.
I opposed this strongly, because I knew that so long are there was someone who would rescue the group, many people who might otherwise give directing a shot would never have the guts to put themselves forward. I knew that "well, if nobody *else* will..." could be some of the most liberating words in the world.
And I saw directing as an educational opportunity which should be shared, not just a job to be done.
I won this argument, and I am *very* happy how well this has worked out. I'm reasonably sure *none* of the people who have directed in the past year would have if there had been a "real director" willing to do the job. Something like 5 of them besides me.
Conclusion:
The group went and did it, and it seems to be thriving. *I'm* pleased.
