We're all volunteers!

I’m going to rant a little bit. I’ve mentioned before that one particular volunteer board I serve has a higher than usual number of tense discussions. In fact, the tension usually comes when I ask some questions and try to understand a project or proposal. Interestingly, the other volunteer organizations I serve do not have this problem at all. It’s made me wonder what is going on.

I’ve noticed a few recurring themes or phrases that come up in these tense discussions. I’m not going to lay out all the dirty laundry here but I want to explore a few. These phrases don’t seem helpful for the discussion and may, in fact, make it worse.

Limited time

I’ve seen a number of comments along the lines of “we have limited time”, and I don’t disagree, but it’s more nuanced:

Please let’s all be respectful and keep emails concise… we are all volunteers.

We are all volunteers on this board…

…You clearly have way more free time than I do. I don’t have any problem taking the time to get things done […], but I am begrudging the time this is taking.

These phrases “we are all volunteers”, “you clearly have more free time”, “I am bedgruding the time this is taking”, “keep emails concise” are valid on the surface. I agree that volunteers only have so much time and they have no financial incentive to keep contributing. The trouble is that these phrases make the author look bad. Let me see if I can elaborate a little.

Is there a positive way to interpret “we are all volunteers?” I’m trying to finish a sentence that starts that way and I keep coming up with negative endings:

• We are all volunteers so my minimal effort is good enough.
• We are all volunteers so I don’t need to act professional (or civil or respectful).
• We are all volunteers so I don’t have time to collect data or review data and make informed decisions.
• We are all volunteers so it’s okay to ignore your comments.
• We are all volunteers so stay out of my way and let me do my job.
• We are all volunteers so trust what I do and say (more on this one later).

”We are all volunteers” feels like a weapon to shutdown a discussion or excuse decisions made without due diligence. Ironically, the discussions and decisions probably take longer because of the attempt to short circuit. I say probably because we don’t really know the alternative.

Being a volunteer does not excuse poor work. In fact, many volunteers I know do much better work because they are passionate about what they do. If you find yourself wanting to use a phrase like “we are all volunteers” then perhaps you should ask yourself: Am I passionate about this? Am I doing good work here? If not, you may actually help the organization more by getting out of the way and letting someone who is passionate take your place.

Trust my Expertise

After a couple of decades of working with [various trades people] I feel I have a very good sense of who can assure reliable and competitively priced services.

A phrase like this is an attempt at giving a personal opinion more weight. The speaker has decades of experience therefore they must know what they are talking about, right? I shouldn’t question information because I have less experience.

Here’s another example:

In all my years (over 35+), of working in Finance I have never heard of a “spending policy”!!!

I still cringe when I read this because it is an emotional, poorly thought out response and I upset the speaker. No one wins in that case. This response came near the end of a discussion about how we prioritize items for the budget, who approves spending, and how much approval is needed. The term “spending policy” is mine, and I admit it isn’t a great term, but it was clear from the thread what we were talking about. If you have 35+ years of experience working in finance but have never heard of a policy governing budget and expense approval then I question the validity of that experience. Have you learned anything in all those years?

Experience gives you knowledge and wisdom and insight which are valuable. In these cases, experience should give you warning signs about the quality of a contractor or their work. Experience should give you examples of how other organizations spend their money and how we can adopt similar policies. Experience doesn’t give you a reason to dismiss people. If anything, I would hope experience gives you lessons you can pass on to others to save them trouble.

Experience here feels like a weapon to assert control over a discussion. Your experience should allow you to make an argument without resorting to credentials. A mechanic should be able to tell you what’s wrong with your car without first needing to show you their credentials, right? The mechanic, in general, already knows more about cars than non-mechanics. The credentials don’t matter, the knowledge and experience does.

Personal Anecdotes

I have looked at our nets and they are better than city ones so it is fine

Interestingly my son was [doing XYZ] at his school at 16.

Anecdotes are compelling because they are easy to grasp and believable but they need to be considered in context. Your son doing an activity in a different city, in a different institution, with different circumstances and policies may not apply here. Your subjective comparison of nets does not mean they do not need replacing ¹.

There are a few problems with personal anecdotes. First, they are personal. If someone refutes your anecdotes with data then are they refuting your personal experience? It can be easy to take objective facts and make them personal. Second, it’s easy to come up with alternative stories. For example:

Oh, your son does [XYZ] at 16? My nephew’s school does not allow that until 18.

Who is right? If I find 10 other people who claim the same thing do I win? What if you find 15? When do we stop?

Oh the city nets are worse? The nets in town A, B, and C are much better.

These anecdotes don’t really help move the conversation forward. In fact, they feel personal. They pit you and your experience against mine.

Anecdotes are a helpful starting place:

• If you think the nets are good enough, what does good enough mean? What conditions would make you want to replace the nets? Why are nets worse or better in other places?
• If your son does XYZ, what needs to be in place to achieve the same thing? What is stopping us from offering the same?

Anecdotes are a starting place, they are not an argument for or against something (unless you collect a big pile of them). It’s hard to be objective, we all have biases. Anecdotes should be viewed as a first step on the road to getting objective facts.

Final Word

Where do I go from here? I’m going to keep thinking about these phrases. If I cannot seem to influence the culture toward reasonable discussion that encourages collaboration and asking questions and learning, then it’s hard to imagine continuing to volunteer. I am aware of lots of other places that do appreciate questions and collaboration and learning. I can only swim upstream for so long.