The New Volunteerism Project
The Archival
Collection of
Ivan Henry Scheier
Ivan's
Musings
They Hardly Ever Do the Hula in El Paso
Some
Reflection on True Goal Retrieval
Permission to re-post this
article was approved by
e-Volunteerism: The Electronic Journal of
the Volunteerism Community
Vol II, Issue 3, Apr - Jun 2002
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the publisher for re-publication
by Ivan H. Scheier
I remember trying to recruit church volunteers for regular, one-to-one visits with jail inmates. I wasn't having much luck, until I realized that my broader, "real" or "true" goal was not one-to-one visits. It was, instead, providing healthy outside contact and influence for inmates and possibly, too, friends outside when they did get out of jail. Once I realized this, it was easy to see that pairs or small groups of volunteers could visit with one inmate and achieve the same goal - maybe better. On that basis, I started getting plenty of volunteers. Good people who were probably somewhat uneasy about solo visits in an unfamiliar and quite threatening environment, could now stand "back to back," so to speak
I also remember a group trying unsuccessfully to get a grant to buy playground equipment for a community park. Finally getting un-fixated on the grant method - children can't play on grants - they realized that a combination of community fundraising and donated equipment might do the trick - and it did.
The Basic Idea and Some Other Examples
This is an old idea but doesn't seem to have penetrated enough, so might be worth repeating: be careful that the method(s) used to achieve a goal do not become goals in themselves, with the original goal blurred or forgotten. Put otherwise, we should be wary that the means do not become the end. If they do, we're likely to forget all the other means that might bring about the desired end. We're also likely to neglect periodic review of the true/original goal to see if it remains relevant and meaningful (indeed, if it ever was).
To illustrate this point, consider the following two examples.
After intensive discussion with a consultant, an executive who wanted more training for his board of directors realized that training for his board wasn't really/ultimately what he wanted. What he wanted was to get rid of his board. The training "goal" (actually, a method) obscured an unhappiness with board performance that was the "real" or "true" problem. That issue could be addressed in other ways, notably improved board selection policies and processes.
Increasing the number of volunteers is surely a time-honored goal among most of us, most of the time. But when you begin to see it more as a method than a goal, you might get back to a broader, more basic, original, "true" goal which would be something like: increasing the quantity and quality of services to clients. At that point, increasing the number of volunteers could conceivably be irrelevant to the broader goal, or even detract from it. This might be so if the increase in the number of volunteers became unwieldy enough to distract the coordinator's and other staff's energy and attention away from services to clients.
Examples from Personal Life
So far, our examples are mainly at the level of program or organization.. However, the strategy of "true goal retrieval" can also have positive potential for our lives as individuals (recognizing that the distinction between organizational and individual life is not always completely clear-cut).
Two houses and four cabins on a property I own were painted gray and looked quite drab, especially in comparison with the quite lovely gardens surrounding them. A full, brighter re-painting was an obvious method to improve things but this would have been formidably expensive, especially since several other major projects were going on at the same time. Then a friend intuited that the true goal was beautification of buildings. In that context, overall painting became just one method for achieving that goal. So we ended up painting only the trim, which was almost as beautifying as a complete painting job (maybe as beautifying) and far more doable.
Going back to school, often for a more advanced degree, is a frequent goal for many of us during our careers. Fine, in many cases, but it is still useful to perceive (or re-perceive) an advanced degree as a method to some other goal, rather than an ultimate goal in itself. Ask yourself: WHY do I want to go back to school? What is it that I hope to accomplish thereby? Is it:
* More knowledge? OK, but might you also get that in an apprentice or mentee relationship?
* More status? Could be, but remember that while you're away at school others may well be achieving higher status by moving ahead, staying on the job.
* A freshening break? Perhaps. But as an ex-academic I've seen plenty of academic experience that is more stultifying than freshening. As for the "break" part of it, it might be no more than going from one piece of hard work to another. Worse, if you try to work part-time while going to school part-time, you could then be busier and more tired than ever.
After such reflection, you might still feel it's best to go back to school and get a more advanced degree. But now you will be doing it with more awareness and realism, I should think.
I want to go to Hawaii for a few weeks. (Is there anyone here who doesn't?) However, as a goal, it simply isn't affordable at this time. But if I re-perceive Hawaii as a method rather than a goal, I see the underlying challenge as "getting away," getting warmer, needing a change of circumstance or situation - things like that. That leads to seeing El Paso, Texas as a possible though not perfect substitute "method." It is warmer than where I live and only 100 miles away on a direct bus line. It is urban in contrast to the small town I live in, and it is adjacent to another country, Mexico. So, though they don't often do the hula in El Paso, that's probably where I'm going. (Complimentary tickets to Hawaii will still be accepted, however.)
Getting to True Goal Retrieval
True goal retrieval is certainly more an intuitive than a cookbook process. But we can follow an outline of a facilitating strategy:
1. Consider first the most important things you are working on in either your personal or your organizational life.
2. Then, ask yourself what you are doing in order to achieve these things.
3. Then, for each of these "doings," ask yourself WHY am I doing this? WHAT do I hope to achieve by doing this?
You can get two kinds of answers at this point. One kind of answer is: "It's worth doing by itself even if nothing else happens as a result." The other kind of answer, as in our examples throughout this musing, is: "It's really not a goal in itself, but just one method of achieving a broader/deeper/more basic goal." And there may be better methods.
It's helpful to conduct this process with another person or in a small group, since others may see some important things past your own blind spots. Indeed, there has been some early success incorporating true goal retrieval as a helpful new feature in the Support Circle process, described in my book, When Everyone's a Volunteer: The Effective Functioning Of All- Volunteer Groups (pages 5 7-59). http://www.energizeinc.com/total/whe.html .
Relevance to Volunteer Leadership
This musing, while couched in personal examples, has direct application to volunteer programs. It especially relates to the constant demand for "numbers": How many volunteers do we have and is this more than last year? The goal of volunteer involvement is wrongly expressed as a target number, when the quantity of volunteers is actually a method that needs to be matched to a true service goal. If you want to increase the reading level of 100 6th graders this year (goal), then you may need to increase your pool of volunteer tutors by 25% (method). Or - consider this! - you may be better off decreasing the number of volunteers and instead provide more targeted training to those who remain so that they become more effective with the students.
Here's another example. One volunteer role that is currently wildly popular is "mentor," particularly to a child. Most of the time, mentor programs become fixed on the challenge of recruiting adults as one-to-one friends to children. This is the goal. Or is it? I submit that it's another case of confusion between method and goal. Isn't the goal "to provide a personalized support system for a young person through adult role models"? If so, then one-to-one volunteers are one method of accomplishing this. Others might be: recruiting a family or small unit of business to become engaged with a youngster, rotating adults as their schedules permit but still providing continuity; pairing up volunteers and kids so that a four-some or six-some support each other (and someone else is there if one adult has to be absent one week); or partnering the mother or father of the child to improve her/his parenting skills.
Another goal/method mix-up involves requiring volunteers to appear on site in an agency on a regular schedule. The "goal" is expressed as: "We must find 10 volunteers to staff every afternoon here." Maybe coverage of a unit is indeed a necessity, in which case this goal is sound. But what if analysis shows that what you really want is people available to the staff so that they can assign a variety of tasks to volunteers in an efficient way? Maybe, then, the goal is finding ways that volunteers can receive work and complete it by a specified deadline. If so, then other methods might be: virtual volunteering, in which employees e-mail assignments to volunteers to be done anywhere at any time, so long as the work is done; dividing volunteers into teams and asking the team leader only to be present on a shift to accept work assignments and then divide them among the rest of the volunteers; etc.
You may not be able to dance the hula in El Paso, but you can sure have a fun time if you try. And you may not keep adding volunteers to a growing pile, but you might be doing a lot more good through the volunteers you have on board.
Ivan Scheier
Stillpoint
607 Marr
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, 87901
Tel (505) 894-1340
Email: ivan@zianet.comFor comments and editing suggestions please contact Mary Lou McNatt mlmcnatt@indra.com
