At the Nov. 12 meeting on revisiting Bhumisparsha’s structure, Trinlay and I (Leigh) talked about needing to slow our timeline down to better align with transparency, workload, and the hiring of a new staff person. We also returned to discussing possible choice points for our organizational structure, and laid out a few specific questions (see bold/underline below) where feedback and the wisdom and experience of the sangha would be really helpful! Hope you will respond to these questions, or anything else, in the comments.
You can read the full notes below, and/or watch the meeting recording (60 minutes) here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/j0A5CYe_JWchdRlIV_8cvLpItsiyBr2y1wJIeRJ12chEgZ-7Vwm4kydVotnmKc9D.ILdQAHo7clW5945L Access Passcode: !23&Ys4c
NOTES:
Section 1: Timeline revisit - needing to revisit, slow down (0:00-11:30)
Needing to re-align of processes of 1) restructuring and 2) hiring new staff person in light of Alex Rodriguez stepping down
The Mission Circle had been working on a process to replace Alex Rodriguez as General Coordinator, who is stepping down at the end of the year. Simultaneously, the restructuring conversation has been happening. We have come to a point where we have realized that these two projects were on overlapping timelines, but at slightly cross purposes. The hiring process had been focused on a new “General Coordinator”, while our restructuring conversation has been exploring how this role might be reimagined, with some of its responsibilities and allocated resources divvied up to potentially create additional paid positions.
With this in mind, and to better align these two processes, the job description for Alex’s replacement now will be explicitly “transitional”, even though it will still be a permanent position.On our side,this takes pressure off of the restructuring conversation to be “finished” before a new person is hired, while still creating some space to continue developing the functional role of the General Coordinator as we move forward.
We also found that transparency has been more time-consuming than expected. We deeply value transparency, and understand that it still remains unclear for many what the Mission and General Circles talk about and how they make decisions. I wanted to express deep gratitude to Trinlay for extensive time on writing blog posts so far to help make this process much more transparent. In support of this, I have helped edit and post the articles on the website.
Between this and then getting word out (thanks to Sam in the UK for this!) , we’ve found that it takes at least a week after a meeting to carry out our aspiration of greater transparency.
So, a sincere wish from both of us is to let this process be more geared towards human ease, feedback, transparency, which will simply take more time than the timeline posted in this previous blog.We feel we need to space out meetings to every two weeks, to give the community enough time to be involved.
Section II. Structure discussion, continued, and specific questions
a) Supporting people financially
(12:55) We briefly discussed supporting more people financially to work within Bhumisparsha, which is covered in more detail in the previous blog post. (This might include asking people what they need financially to take on significant responsibilities for more sustainably and equity.) We realized this aspiration will need to be more phased in, and hopefully part of future community conversations. We welcome feedback on this topic.
b) A practice circle budget
(43:50) In the previous meeting looking at paid positions and key rolls, Trinlay advocated for the creation of Program Development manager as identified through Ms. Brenda’s Structural Proposal. Since we’re currently quite constrained financially, I wondered if some of the budget went to the practice circle to decide for any given program to coordinate/bottom line that program, rather than hiring a staff person additional to our Teacher-Student Liaison.
Could this need be covered by volunteers, or pay someone on an as-needed basis, rather than paying one staff person (as something like a program development manager) to help with new program launches? And for program development. Or could we do both?
Who facilitates conversations needed to create the program? Is that Sesalli or is that unfilled? Trinlay will report back on what that circle might be thinking.
c) Volunteer coordination
(54:00) Currently, volunteer management falls under the Resources Circle. We wondered, if more weight is given to individual circle coordinators for managing volunteers, does that take away some need from Resources to do volunteer coordination? And, who would have time to really hold volunteer appreciation and any hands-on management needs of volunteers? Could this be another team, perhaps not a circle? Or does the central coordinating team look at this aspect of volunteer support?
d) Structure of the general circle-type of function
16:10 We also discussed how best to structure a “General circle”, and roles of someone (currently General Coordinator) to carry out organization-wide decisions. We discussed the possibility of including both 1) cross-circle meetings of circle coordinators who are paid to hold large portions of responsibility (like an “all circles” meeting) and 2) project based meetings across two circles, but not always through a central meeting group.
43:30 One idea was to think of this function more as a “Coordinating Team” and possibly smaller.
34:13 We also discussed the pros and cons of “double” vs “single” linking of committees to the central coordinating group. There could be efficiency advantages to a smaller General Circle, with perhaps one member from each circle, rather than “double links”, which is central to the Sociocracy model? (Sociocracy always includes a second representative from each circle in parent circle meetings, to help distribute/balance power and responsibility since not every person is a great communicator or delegator.) 39:05 Double linking seems good if we have enough people, but if those with more responsibility do take info back to small team effectively, is it necessary?
Question: In linking between two decision making groups, such as circles currently used in our Sociocracy-based structure, what do you see as pros and cons of “double linking” (having two people attend meetings one level “up” to represent the group, rather than only one person)?
This raised the question: does every group of people holding responsibility for something need to be a circle? Could some working groups just be a committee or department or group doing a task, which would reduce the number of circles and perhaps help prevent burnout?
e) Does the Resources Circle need to be a circle?
(51:30) An example of this came up around the Resources Circle. We wondered if it places extra admin burden on folks to be a circle rather than a non-circle group/team, so they can focus more on tasks. They are doing so much, including volunteer coordination, budget reports, technology, vendor management, we learned recently. How can the workload be easier for them? Let’s ask them for their perspective on this.
f) Roles and limitations of General Coordinator position
We discussed in some depth the roles and limitations of the General Coordinator. (20:06) If responsibilities of this role were distributed among more people, what would the responsibility of the General Coordinator be? IT would likely include checking in with the coordinators of the various circles to track what is happening, more than being the person to orchestrate all communications between circles.
26:30, 28:20 and 32:40: We recognized that we do need a staff person to “bottom-line” big organization-wide decisions. Likely this person would also be the intermediary between the Board/Mission Circle and the operations of organization?. How can this happen, while still centering decisions in the hands of people doing the work?
Question: Any thoughts on this section?
g) Making larger organizational decisions?
Sometimes large, organization-wide decisions must be made - 23:40 We wondered which group should ratify these decisions, and when? Mission, General or something else? (Example: if we wanted to change how we bring in money from programs. This would impact Practice Circle, Fundraising, Resources Circle.) This would also need someone to “bottom line” cross-organization work.
24:30 We also recognized different schools of thought around the role of Boards of Directors in non-profits, and that it could be useful to look at similar organizations.
Question: What is the best way for a Board of Directors to function in an organization like ours? What do you see as pros and cons of different types of boards?
32:40 Similarly, should decisions impacting operations also go to everyone who is doing the operations work, or rest with a smaller group group of deciders? 29:10 We wondered about balancing laying too much on people to have to weigh in on so many decisions, with the need for the decision to be owned by people who are doing the work. A meeting of all coordinators at times may be necessary for some decisions. This speaks to some wisdom of having more of the decisions made in the General Circle, as opposed to Mission.
We welcome all comments.
