One Man Show - Featuring the Authors and Shakespeare

In 1985, I established my one-person company and began the journey along the road of self-employment as a One Man Show.

A road-journey over many years will involve travel along highways and byways. There will be:

• major highways where you engage the cruise control,
• busy 2-way streets where the degree of ‘travel risk’ depends upon the nature of destinations linked by the streets, time of the day or night when travel is either possible or required,
• behaviour of fellow-travellers,
• number of crossings – trains, trams, major streets,
• access to or exits from major highways or bridges,
• availability of service centres or rest areas,
• possibility of snow, sleet, fog, storms, drenching rain or direct rays of strong sunlight that can’t be avoided by wearing sunglasses or tilting the shades provided in the car,
• holiday traffic escaping the cities for beach, mountain, river or outback breaks, or the hairy experience of the school drop-off hours.

And there will be lanes, byways, side streets or cross-country tracks that invite and allow you to
explore ‘off the beaten track’.

Most importantly, there will be lots of traffic lights and railway crossings, where signage and coloured lights will offer direction on how best to proceed from the point of signage.

As a One Man Show, you should heed the traffic lights and plan accordingly. Traffic lights demand quick decisions. When approaching a green traffic light, you can be tempted to increase your speed to make sure you make the crossing before it turns yellow for a brief moment then the inevitable red. As it turns yellow, you must decide whether to stop or continue to cross: this involves looking quickly at your rear-vision mirror in case there is a car close on your heels that could bump into you if you stop suddenly. Sometimes, it’s safer to continue to cross than to stop suddenly. A yellow light may cause you to stop and think, or may cause you to speed up if it seems safer to do so.

There may be times when the red light looks more like a challenge to be overcome rather than a direct statement to stop.

When you are travelling on foot rather than in a car, pedestrian crossings with lights present the same options. And the main thought in your mind, whether as a driver or a pedestrian, is the safety of yourself and others. So it is with your One Man Show.

These lists present a series of green traffic lights that are definite go signs, yellow traffic lights that are definite cautions, and red traffic lights that are definite stop signs.

Red Traffic Lights – Stop!

Must not do’s – run away from these:

1. False pride
2. Making decisions based on your wants, not your business or product needs
3. Believing everything you read, hear or are told
4. Finding reasons to disbelieve, doubt or discredit your inner thoughts or feelings
5. Not creating and maintaining a factual basis for decision-making
6. Neglecting debtors
7. Not looking after yourself – which can lead to de-motivation and ‘dropping your bundle’
8. Ignoring clear and factual signs that your business is not healthy, or your product is missing the mark
9. Failing to plan – and when you do plan, failing to monitor and measure progress
10. Taking your eye off the ball – which for you as a One Man Show means losing or ignoring your vision
11. Not expressing your vision in practical terms as ’short-term achievable goals’ and as a set of annual performance indicators, measures and targets
12. Not marketing regularly, especially when you are at your busiest
13. Not monitoring life cycles of (a) your product and (b) your business
14. Not watching your finances as closely as you watch your own satisfaction or comfort level

Yellow Traffic Lights – Caution!

Must always be wary about:

1. Be selective in what you believe – always test what you read, observe, hear or think against your practical every-day experience and insight
2. Develop your own definitions and check that the meaning of key words and terms you use in conversations or documents are clearly understood by each audience
3. Always test your – and others’ – assumptions
4. Protect your intellectual property or capital to the extent that you decide you need to
5. Treat yourself as your greatest and most reliable asset
6. Treat the past as the basis for planning your future – and use the present to assess/review the past and examine options for the future
7. Examine the perspective and motive of any person or group who suggests you need them in your business – or associated with your business in any way. Make them earn your trust.
8. Finding, attracting, developing and retaining and maintaining staff
9. Maintaining direction and motivation
10. Managing instability or uncertainty
11. Managing your workload, and rewarding/acknowledging effort as well as achievement
12. Managing your time and tasks
13. Keeping vision and focus
14. Being effective, energetic, and practical
15. Remaining pro-active as opposed to reactive
16. Manage your resources with skill and care – this includes finances, systems, procedures, advisors, products, services – and keep a constant watch on facts and figures
17. Being innovative – as well as realistic
18. Balancing innovation with maintenance
19. Deal with each problem or difficulty as soon as you are aware of it: if these situations creep up on you as a surprise, you have a different and bigger problem! This should never happen.
20. Create the appropriate image, and check to see that this is the way you, your business and your product/component/service are perceived.

Green Traffic Lights – Go!

Must do’s – and must do well:

1. Capitalise on your skills, experience, qualities, qualifications, observations – ie what went on and was going on in your life at the time of starting your One Man Show
2. Define and write your business objective/s in practical terms, and place it where you can see it each day
3. Know the difference and relationship between cost, price and value
4. Plan your business and product life cycles, and know that there will be peaks and troughs, times of pleasure and times of grind – and give as much energy to celebrating effort as you do to celebrating results
5. Work out your understanding of ‘trust’ and ‘trusting’ – and monitor reasons to distrust as well as reasons to trust
6. Constantly develop, check with and tap into your inner wisdom
7. Know, understand, respect and love yourself – remember that you are your most important and valuable asset and resource
8. Go the extra mile in customer service – gaining customer loyalty and respect should lead to repeat business, which is the cheapest and best form of marketing
9. Develop strong supplier relationships – find and retain suppliers who are (a) reliable, (b) display a commitment to providing a consistent quality of service that meets your standards and requirements, and (c) show respect for you and your business
10. Do what you do best, and pay suppliers or contractors to do other necessary things
11. Accept that a time of challenge or ‘back to the wall’ is an open invitation to display entrepreneurial activity and initiative
12. Display a high level of commitment to your own effort and potential – this is a strong selling point for your business and your product
13. Be proud and passionate about your business and your product
14. Moving from business activity to business reflection
15. Be specific and confident about your:
    • Uniqueness – what is the ‘point of difference’ about your business and your
      product/component/service that can be presented, packaged and marketed
    • Competition – identify and assess current or potential competitors to maintain and strengthen your uniqueness, and
    • Credibility and viability – these are marketable features which you should always aspire to maintain
16. Coordinate your marketing activities within a carefully structured and resourced marketing strategy
17. Negotiate ’space’ with your personal or private relationships
18. Create – as well as recognise – opportunities
19. Be capable of living with the prospect of success
20. Be capable of growing and developing as a successful One Man Show
21. Find a role model or mentor – no matter how successful you become: you will always need to have a person who will offer advice or a considered response with your best interest at the heart of such advice or response

One Man Show further expands the concept of traffic lights and provides suggests on how to change red lights to green.

One Man Show - Featuring the Authors and Shakespeare

Contents

About the Author
About the Book

Section 1: Setting out as a One Man Show
Jean – as a One Man Show, from 1985
Shakespeare as a One Man Show, from 1592
Why Shakespeare?

Section 2: The Resource Base of a One Man Show
The ritual of celebration
What I had to work with in 1985 (at the age of fifty-one)
What Shakespeare had to work with – from 1592 (at the age of twenty-eight)
Some features of Shakespeare’s life and times – which contributed to his Resource Base

Your Resource Base
You – being a One Man Show involves your whole person
The ‘Person’ Spider-web
Work/life balance
The Intimacy of Daily Life
The Generational factor
Similarly in Shakespeare’s life and times

Your resourcefulness
Business principles and values
Understanding the relationship between Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity
Momentum
Risky Changes
‘Unshakeable Facts’
There is always a degree of risk associated with a One Man Show
Risk Management – some useful definitions
Engaging suppliers
Risk Management Checklist
Crisis Management
Similarly with Shakespeare
Crisis Management Strategy
Business Brainpower – left- and right-brain orientation
Business Brainpower Tool
As easy scoring tool
Discussion with Business Starters
Application of Business Brainpower to selling and buying
The issue of Trust in your working relationships
Your resources – available or accessible
Cost, Price, Value and Return on Investment
Marketing
Who and What you know
Be wary of making assumptions
Similarly with Shakespeare

Section 3: Two different – and useful – business life-cycles
The relationship between ‘core business’ and business life-cycles
Theoretical Frameworks
Business life-cycles
Example 1: Four-stage Continuous Business Life-cycle
Innovation Stage – new things, or new ways of doing existing things
Research and Development (R&D)
Establishment Stage – business readiness
Project Mentality and Project Management
Planning structure
Growth and Development, Trial and Refinement Stage
Managing Fear
Critical Success Factors – Jean’s A-Z
Evaluation Stage as basis for further innovation
Using the Four-Stage Continuous Business Life-cycle
Example 2: The Sigmoid Curve Business Life-cycle
Similarity of the Sigmoid Curve Business Life-cycle and the Four-Stage Continuous Business Life-cycle
Jean’s Sigmoid Curve Business Life-Cycles
Shakespeare’s Sigmoid Curve Business Life-Cycles
Application of the Sigmoid Curve as a business life-cycle for
Business Start-ups
Checklist to guide planning at each stage in these two separate but similar business life-cycles
Retrospective Planning – a revelation in 1999
Similarly with Shakespeare

Section 4: Traffic lights for One Man Show business start-ups
The One Man Show journey
Green (Go) Traffic Lights – must do’s
Yellow (Caution) Traffic Lights
Red (Stop) Traffic Lights – must not do’s
How to turn Red (Stop) Traffic Lights to Green (Go)
Epilogue Jean’s tribute to Shakespeare
Bibliography

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 Three desired outcomes from on-the-job coaching are offered for your consideration:

1. people at staff, supervisor, manager or board levels experience a genuine learning environment at their respective level of activity – whether as coach or learner,
2. supervisors, managers or board chairpersons accept the opportunity for a valuable learning experience in planning and supporting in-house individual or group learning and development, and/or
3. shared learning and exploration builds trust, facilitates innovation, and demonstrates a genuine entrepreneurial spirit.

Three tools are offered below for one-to-one or group coaching related to a consistent quality of service.  Most importantly, these tools enable the in-house coach and learner/s to practice ‘flying below the radar’, defined here as flying without the assistance, benefit or protection of the radar system. 

 Wikipedia defines a radar system as:

An object detection system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain.

It goes on to explain that:

Radar systems must overcome unwanted signals in order to focus only on the actual targets of interest. These unwanted signals may originate from internal and external sources, both passive and active.   Interference to radar signals can include:

• background noise, including random variations superimposed on the desired echo signal received in the radar receiver – or generated by external sources, most importantly the natural thermal radiation of the background scene surrounding the target of interest,
• clutter refers to radio frequency echoes returned from targets which are uninteresting to the radar operators,
• radio jamming refers to radio frequency signals originating from sources outside the radar transmitting in the radar’s frequency and thereby masking targets of interest. Jamming may be intentional or unintentional.

Workplaces can have a number of systems, including some designed to monitor and improve customer/client/consumer service quality.  Examples include:

1. performance management and monitoring,
2. customer/client/consumer service management,
3. customer/client/consumer satisfaction surveys.

These three systems are a means to a defined outcome – which for any system should be expressed in  organisational terms.  Staying with our focus of customer/client/consumer service quality, outcomes could include:

1. increasing staff retention,
2. staff actively participating in a learning environment,
3. continuous quality improvement,
4. cost-effective systems in terms of outputs and outcomes,
5. growth through referral and repeat business.

As with radar, any system may be effective as a system, but ineffective in terms of the defined outcome. 

As with radar, any system can be subject to interference.  The three tools offered below enable on-the-job-coaching to assess whether – and to what extent – interference is reducing the effectiveness or reliability of current systems. 

 As with radar, it may not be possible to eliminate interference – but it is possible to understand and therefore manage a range of interference factors that may, or have the potential to, reduce the effectiveness or reliability of one or more current systems.

These three tools for on-the-job coaching place a coach and learner/s below the safety and security of the in-house systems, ie working independently of the in-house systems.  The coach is selected on the basis of his/her ability and willingness to share their knowledge, experience and competency: the learner/s are selected on their ability and willingness to increase their knowledge, experience and competency.  Together, the coach and learner/s need to agree on – and define – the desired outcome of their time-specific on-the-job coaching project.

Tool No. 1:     Pin yourself to an order – the focus is the purchaser

This is the title of an article I read almost two decades ago in a training magazine and which has stayed with me ever since.  The coach and learner/s:

1. identify an order – any order – as soon as it is confirmed,
2. attach themselves securely to that order, and
3. accompany that order along its path with diligence – until it is satisfactorily fulfilled, signed off and archived.

This tool traces the experience of the purchaser, and enables the coach and learner/s to identify the effectiveness and reliability of systems and processes in place at every step along the path to satisfactory conclusion.  Has the selected order moved seamlessly through the total process, including in-house systems - if not, why not?  The coach and learner/s prepare a tracing of the selected order’s journey as a basis for negotiating improvements.

Tool No. 2:     Job tracking – the focus is internal responsibilities

This is the name I have used with corporate and nonprofit clients since the 1980s.  In recent years, it wears the title of quality accreditation or compliance with service standards.  The coach and learner/s:

1. place themselves at a point in the organisation where initial enquiries are received,
2. select a specific enquiry,
3. give this specific enquiry a permanent code so that it is continuously traceable,
4. follow ‘the job’ every step along its path through to satisfactory fulfilment, sign-off and archiving,

This tool traces internal responsibilities (not systems!) along its path – a person or team has to ‘own’ this job at every moment of its life.  If it sits somewhere until ‘next action’, then the person with whom it sits has responsibility for it until it is transferred to the person responsible for ‘next action’.   Has the coded enquiry converted to a job – if not, why not?  Has the coded enquiry been owned by a person or team throughout its journey, with each transfer of responsibility safely managed – if not, why not?  The coach and learner/s prepare a tracing of the journey as a basis for negotiating improvements.

 Tool No. 3:     Continuum of service-user experience – the focus is your organisation’s performance at each sequential stage of this experience.

This is a common tool that can be applied to the concept and practice of customer/client/consumer service quality – and indeed to business development.   The coach and learner/s check the sequential stages in a service-user’s experience, and monitor the process and progress of a ’sample’ service-user’s experience.  Sequential stages could be:

1.    awareness – knowing that your service is available,

2.    access – knowing how and when to make contact with your organisation, and deciding to make contact,

3.    matching of their needs, interests or expectations with your available service,

4.    negotiating price, quality, delivery and timeliness – together with terms and conditions,

5.    experiencing the service,

6.    your organisation satisfactorily fulfilling – and the service-user satisfactorily receiving – the agreed terms and conditions of the service agreement,

7.    evaluation and review of process and progress,

8.    satisfactory completion of the service agreement, and

9.    signing off and archiving of the file.

 This tool breaks the service-user experience down to a number of discrete and sequential units of work, with each unit dependent upon satisfactory completion of the prior unit/s for its own effectiveness.   The coach and learner/s monitor the systems, processes and responsibilities applicable (a) at each unit of work for effectiveness and reliability, and (b) throughout the ’sample’ serevice-user’s experience.  They may then contribute to an assessment of core business – is it the total service-user experience, or is it a selection of units of work within that total experience?    

 Do visit:

• Jean’s definition of a case study or scenario,
• Jean’s on-the-job case study (effective meetings), and
• Jean’s on-the-job mentoring (risk scenario), while you are thinking about introducing or reinforcing on-the-job coaching within your own organisation.

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Using a scenario in a mentoring relationship enables both parties to examine a familiar situation (whether need, problem, challenge or opportunity) from a different perspective.  Examples include changing:

• the ‘people’ factor,
• the purpose, end-result or expected outcome, and/or
• the context within which the situation is being discussed or examined.

Any situation can be broken down into three major components:

• people (those involved with or affected by the situation),
• task  (the end to be achieved), and
• environment (the context within which the people will be involved with or affected by the task.

Change any one of these three components, and you are on your way to creating a scenario.

Examining a known situation by changing one or more of these three major components allows and invites both a means of examining an existing situation, or a means of creating a new situation.

Applying this tool to a risk scenario can assist an on-the-job mentoring relationship to explore a wide range of possibilities for an existing – or potential – situation. 

The initial discussion can focus on risks by considering:

• the ‘worst possible’ situation – ‘what would we do if xxx were to happen – how would we recognize the possibility of it occurring and therefore avoid it, and how would we manage it should it occur’.  This risk scenario is more common than most, but it doesn’t usually lead to an innovative exploration of risk.
• the ‘best possible’ situation – ‘what is we were to receive an untagged gift or bequest of $5m – would we write off our debt, invest, build up our inventory, hire more staff, expand our facility, create a new service or product, give everyone a bonus, create a foundation to spread our good fortune to those less well off?’.  What happens with this risk scenario is that the organisation’s culture and/or values can become apparent for the first time, conflict can occur among the decision-makers as to what should be done with this windfall, external stakeholder or community expectations can become a key factor, or accusations can surface about the motives of key people.
• the ‘most unlikely’ situation – ‘imagine  xxx happening in or to our organisation!’.  For example, imagine a major earthquake, an explosion, computer melt-down, a take-over, cancellation of our five best customer orders.  A suggestion is to take a headline event from the day’s news media, and apply the headline event to your own organisation, community, personnel or customer base.

To obtain the best possible discussion from an on-the-job mentoring risk scenario, the parties involved should attempt to place themselves ‘outside the box’: this involves a substantial mental effort – because taking oneself outside the box is different, and easier, than thinking outside the box. 

If you are thinking outside the box, you are only adopting an outside the box perspective.

If you are taking yourself outside the box, you are removing yourself from the situation altogether – meaning that you are not comparing yourself with any aspect of the risk scenario, but moving from a participant to an observer.  

Do visit Jean’s definition of a case study or scenario while you are thinking about using a risk scenario for on-the-job mentoring.

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Riding the Waves of Community Development in Australia

Community Development had begun to take shape and form by the mid 70s: it was an idea whose time had come!

Author: Jean Roberts, 2007. Publisher: Roberts Management Concepts Pty Ltd
ISBN 978-0-646-4850

Chapter 1: The 3 major components in community development – people, tasks and environment

In developing any community, there will be the need to plan, implement and evaluate one or a number of individual tasks or situations. It is predictable that each task or situation will consist of 3 major components:

• the task itself
  • what needs to be done, why, how, when, where, at what cost
• the person or persons involved with or affected by the task
  • who, who for, by whom, who else, together with their needs, interests and aspirations
• the environment within which the people will accomplish the task
  • the broad environment (eg political, cultural, social, economic, geographic) and the immediate environment (eg organisational issues, access to facilities and equipment, physical comfort)

Community activity will need people to be involved, tasks to be achieved and an environment that will need to be understood.

People of any age, background or culture may be involved as individuals, groups or organisations. However they are involved, they will need to be empowered as individuals before they can be effective in empowering the wider community. Each person brings with them:

• immediate relationships (immediate and extended family, those they live and love with, those with whom they share important aspects of their lives)
• present and past experiences (workplace, personal, social, economic, spiritual, educational, physical, emotional, intellectual, cultural experiences)
• formal and informal learning (qualifications, courses, workshops, self-paced learning, reading, studies)
• community networks and linkages (groups and organisations with whom they are already involved and through which their lives are enriched)

No community is without a community memory, tradition, culture, personality… often called ‘a rich tapestry’. The challenge for people is to capitalise on the existing strengths of their community, and to collaboratively plan their desired future. Previous relationships and established networks need to be respected, as these also contribute to the ‘rich tapestry’ of any community.

Tasks that range from simple through to complex will need to be planned and implemented by the people who make up the geographic community or community of interest, which may include:

• arranging discussions or meetings
• prioritising needs and interests
• considering possibilities for immediate or future action
• acquiring additional resources
• maintaining interest and motivation
• keeping people informed.

Individual tasks need to be:

• appropriate to the community’s needs, interests or aspirations,
• acceptable to the people who will be involved, and the environment within which the tasks is to be accomplished, and
• achievable within available or accessible resources.

Environmental factors that can influence both the people and tasks, and these may be:

• obvious (such as access to distance, terrain, transport and availability of facilities), or
• needing exploration (such as criteria for funding, quality of relationships between existing community-based organisations, government policies and priorities, previous attempts at community initiatives).

‘Obvious’ environmental factors need to be identified, acknowledged and accommodated. For example, an identified community that is situated within a specific geographic boundary offers different challenges and opportunities in comparison to one that is spread across hundreds of kilometres.

Environmental factors that need exploration include language that is currently in use in relevant government policies and funding programs. If the wrong language is used when corresponding with a government department, or a community group has misinterpreted the department’s language, the result may well be a total lack of understanding between the two parties.

Language

Language seems to be a moving target. As we have moved into the 21st Century, a new language has taken preference over the traditional language of community development, community empowerment and community management.

Today, the language includes – and is not confined to – such terms as:

• community building
• community strengthening
• community engagement
• community consultation
• community communication
• community capacity building
• social capital
• social responsibility
• social partnerships
• corporate citizenship
• corporate social responsibility
• neighbourhood renewal
• neighbourhood strengthening

Activity of any kind and at any level of any community – whether formal or informal, whether a geographic community or community of interest – involves the making of decisions.

With regard to language, the first decision any group should make is to agree on their own definition of terms frequently used in their area of influence or activity (such as those above). Start the process of clarification and agreement by trying to obtain definitions of specific terms from the people who use them frequently or have introduced them. And do a search on the internet to see how widely such terms are used and defined. For instance, a search for ‘social capital’ opens a list through www.NonprofitHub.com, where ’social capital’ is defined as the effort of the individual of a community to come together in order to build a social infrastructure of shared values and challenges. This site also presents a nonprofit dictionary, and this list of ‘upcoming terms’:

• social cohesion
• social development
• social enterprise
• social entrepreneurs
• social investing
• social marketing
• social policy
• social venture capital
• social venture funds
• socially responsible investing

For clarity, here’s a repeat of my own definitions of the three sequential steps in community building, community strengthening, neighbourhood renewal – or whatever language is being used:

Step 1 – Community empowerment, where a defined community is given – or given access to – the resources needed to enable it to make decisions on its own behalf. This means that the community itself determines not only how decisions are made, but that decisions are made with the support and commitment of the community itself

• the community must be defined, and
• given access to the resources it needs to facilitate local decision-making

Step 2 – Community development, where a defined community determines its direction, priorities and activities

• the community has access to the resources it needs to facilitate local decision-making, with
• the community developing its own action plan with priorities, and
• the community identifying any additional resources necessary to implement its priorities, and locating these additional resources

Step 3 – Community management, where a defined community manages its own resources through an agreed and appropriate structure and process

• the community may manage implementation of its own priorities with the support of established community or support agencies, funding sources – or through its own efforts and energy

In his book The Different Drum (an Arrow publication, first published in 1990), M. Scott Peck writes about community-making and peace. He sets out 4 stages in the making of a genuine community, and presents a number of scenarios to illustrate these stages. In chapter 5 on Stages of Community-Making, Peck states that:

Communities, like individuals are unique. Still we all share the human condition. So it is that groups assembled deliberately to form themselves into community routinely go through certain stages in the process. These stages, in order are:

• Pseudocommunity
• Chaos
• Emptiness
• Community

 

Peck explains that the:

Pseudo-community Stage finds members attempting to be an instant community by being extremely pleasant with one another and avoiding all disagreement.

Chaos Stage always centres around well-intentioned but misguided attempts to heal and convert.

Emptiness Stage – There are always two ways out of chaos (ie a period of time squabbling and getting nowhere). One is into organisation – but organisation is never community. The only other way is into and through emptiness, the hard part, which means that they need to empty themselves of barriers to communication – expectations and perceptions; prejudices; ideology, theology and solutions; the need to heal, convert, fix or solve; the need to control.

Community Stage – Having worked through Emptiness, the community has been born. The group has become a community. Where does it go from here? What, then, is its task?

Peck infers that when the people have worked out how to work together in their community, they need to know where they want or need to put their collective energy. And in working together, they are able to examine options for action, and to understand their environment.

The waves of community development include the acquisition of resources

Looking back to the 1970s, many community-based initiatives grew into informal groups, and many more into legal entities. A lot of time was given to writing submissions to attract funds from governments, foundations, trusts and corporations to support community initiatives. Such submissions emphasised ‘inputs’, ie additional resources required to cater for the needs, interests or aspirations of their service-users or members. And the greater the need, the more chance there was of attracting funds.

Then, in the 1980s, the focus of submission-based funding moved from inputs to ‘outputs’. This meant that community groups needed to emphasize the new or improved services or programs that would be possible with the funds being sought – rather than the nature and extent of need.

In the 1990s, came ‘Re-inventing’ of government – the purchaser/provider relationship’ at local, state and commonwealth levels of government. The focus of submission-based funding moved from ‘outputs’ to ‘outcomes’ – and to measurable outcomes. By way of explanation, an ‘output’ is what is created through application of available resources: an ‘outcome’ is the impact or effect of outputs on the life or lifestyle of people in the community. For the funding source, the measurable outcome becomes the return on investment of their funds.

Community development has moved from justifying inputs, through designing and sustaining outputs to being accountable for achieving measurable outcomes. Community-based organisations were now providers of contracted service providers rather than groups of like-minded people offering services or assistance to people with a need, interest or aspiration.

Since the 1990s, legislative frameworks for service standards and accreditation have become highly sophisticated, leading to an increasing requirement for continuous quality improvement – in many cases through external audits. In many segments of the nonprofit sector, accreditation is a pre-requisite for funding or contractual agreements – and this will surely become the norm through the next 5-6 years.

The 1990s also saw a concentrated rationalisation in most segments of the nonprofit sector. The purchaser/provider relationship with governments either enforced or encouraged strategic alliances and mergers.

Now, as explained at the beginning of this Chapter, the concept and practice of community development has been divided into a myriad of sub-titles. However, the unifying fact is that they are all dependent upon people to be involved, tasks to be achieved, and an environment to be explored.

In Chapter 2, we will focus on People, and examine the human factors that impact on the people involved with or affected by community development.

We will look at individuals of different ages and cultures, self-help groups, project teams, community-based organisations, commercial organisations, institutions, local authorities, and the 3 levels of government.

We will also look at behaviours that were prevalent in the 1970s and through decades since then – and dip into behaviours that can be expected to be prevalent in the future.

Read more:

Riding the Waves of Community Development in Australia

Contents

Introductory Chapter
Definitions and descriptions associated with the title
Chapter 1 – The three major components in community development: People, tasks and environment
Chapter 2 – People – human factors that impact on the people involved with or affected by community development, eg cultures, traditions, choices, language, expectations, lifestyles
Chapter 3 – Tasks – task analysis of community development, eg exactly what is involved?
Chapter 4 – Environment – a variety of community development environments, eg planned, imposed, organic, accidental, crisis, desperation, innovation
Chapter 5 – Impact of a variety of waves on people, tasks and environments
Chapter 6 – Concepts and theories that can guide practical action plans to help
us understand, respect and capitalise on a variety of waves
Chapter 7 – Reflections and thoughts for community development into the future

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• identifying problems or difficulties
• examining options
• refining/improving work practices
• increasing cost-effectiveness
• increasing individual job satisfaction
• understanding business methods or systems
• appreciating differences of opinions
• improving workplace relationships

For small and medium commercial and nonprofit workplaces, creating a learning environment is both a challenge and an opportunity:

• challenge includes cost, inconvenience and interruption due to manager, supervisor or staff absences to attend and participate in external workshops or courses, and
• opportunity includes the introduction of structured on-the-job training, coaching and mentoring – staff-to-staff, manager/supervisor-to-manager/supervisor, and staff-to-manager/supervisor – as a key component in the training or learning and development program.

Case study for on-the-job training – Effective Meetings

Meetings are commonplace in workplaces – effective meetings can be few and far between.   The objective of this case study is:

• an improved understanding of an effective meeting, and
• a practical checklist to improve the effectiveness of team meetings.

There are three major components of a meeting:

• the people involved,
• the purpose of the meeting, and
• the context within which the meeting is held.

A Manager schedules a regular weekly meeting with her team of three to check on progress with team performance. She always prepares and circulates the agenda the previous day. The meeting is held in the Manager’s office, always limited to ¾ hour, with each person expected to take their own notes during the meeting.

Only two team members attend today, and the Manager is called away for five minutes about ¼ hour into the meeting.

Five minutes before concluding the meeting, the meeting reaches agreement on three changes to current work practices to be introduced within the week. The Manager finishes the meeting with words of encouragement, advising that progress with each of these changes will be on the agenda for next week’s meeting.

Discussion:

After the two team members leave her office, the Manager reviews the meeting.  She knows full well that the three planned changes to work practices are essential to improve her team’s performance, and prepares a list of things she needs to do immediately to follow up on this meeting.

What should she have on her list – and why?

What could she have done differently with today’s meeting – and why?

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Major signs of business failure:

• financial ratios
• lack of cashflow forecasting
• lack of financial information
• creative accounting
• trading irregularities
• non-financial signs:
  • low morale
  • decline in quality
  • customer complaints
  • deferred capital expenditure
  • rising inventories
  • out-dated products
  • declining market-share

This brings home the truth that technology is a means to an end, not an end in itself.   However sophisticated your technology, these remain major signs of impending or imminent business failure.

Copy these, and keep them where you can refer to them at least weekly.

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 A case study or scenario is a metaphor.  It is an example that can guide an informal but focused discussion among two, three or more people who have knowledge and understanding of a specific workplace situation – which could be a need, problem, opportunity or challenge.

 The objective of this discussion is an improved understanding of either the situation, or options available for the ‘next action’.

 A case study is not a case history – a case history is a detailed and factual record of a specific situation or set of circumstances.

 A scenario need not be factual – but it does need to be believable.

 The need, problem, opportunity or challenge could be:

• agreeing on the value of a particular action or behaviour,
• responding to an unexpected event,
• assessing risk,
• encouraging innovation,
• testing the best language and style for a safety procedure,
• remedying a deficiency.

 In preparation, ensure that:

1. the case study or scenario is prepared with a specific situation – and a specific group of people – in mind, and that a copy is provided for each person in the group (maximum of four brief paragraphs),
2. nothing is written into the case study or scenario that includes or infers any factual details of persons, time, place, incident or experience,
3. each person to participate in the structured discussion has adequate knowledge and understanding of the situation to be discussed with the aid of the case study or scenario,
4. privacy and confidentiality are protected,
5. respect is shown for all involved with or affected by the discussion, and
6. the case study or scenario is clearly presented, and readily connected with the situation.

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The absence of timely, explicit and formal or official clarification allows assumptions to flourish, inviting inappropriate and perhaps negative or defensive behaviour.  This can result in minimal or inappropriate performance.  Imagine an employee undergoing performance appraisal in the absence of role clarity; the supervisor simply – and wrongly – assuming the employee should have known what was expected.  The fault here is with the supervisor.

 An assumption can be made in relation to:

• the nature or extent of power or authority;
• the right of possession or ownership;
• benefits of eligibility or status; or
• how, and to what extent, an individual or group is expected to act, react or take control. 

 Where there is no clarity in a business or organisation as to individual or group roles, responsibilities, accountabilities, authority, and even titles – there is potential for misunderstanding, conflict or competitiveness; and for loss of commitment, apathy or a constant state of resignation.

 Where there is no clarity as to boundaries or limitations, there will be those who will assume there is no boundary, and those who will assume a safe and secure boundary: it’s likely that neither will be right – leading to negative outcomes: 

• far better that clear boundaries are set – or at least drafted as a basis for adjustment or confirmation.

 Where there is no clarity as to realistic expectations, there will be those who will assume greater than likely outcomes, and those who will assume less than likely outcomes: it’s again likely that either will be satisfied with the outcome:

• far better to collectively gauge an expectation or outcome based on  previous experience, or preferably, on available facts. 

 Examples of wise and acceptable assumptions include:

• that each and every person is unique – therefore surprises will happen
• that work-place behaviour is a combination of role clarity and personality
• that one should take care in expressing an opinion
• that safety, security and quality depend on clear, explicit, adequate and appropriate instructions

 Examples of unwise and unacceptable assumptions include:

• that the behaviour of people of a particular culture, gender, background, age, educational  status, religion or socio-economic status, etc., is predictable and pre-determined
• that one’s own opinion is always better or more important than another’s opinion
• that volunteer (unpaid) effort is of a higher status and quality than the effort of paid staff
• that seniority equates superiority
• that others will know your intention or requirement without any explanation

Scenario 1:    An extract from chapter 1 of my current e-book – My Spiritual Journey as an Independent Consultant

 Participant entry and exit maturity levels in training courses

• ‘entry maturity’ is the level of maturity with the course topic or theme brought by each course participant as they enter the training room at commencement of the course: ‘maturity’ is a combination of confidence, competence and comfort with the course topic or theme.
•  Participants whose entry maturity was low would drain the group energy: participants whose entry maturity was high would contribute to the group energy, and participants whose entry maturity was uncertain would challenge the group energy.  Together, these three levels of entry maturity would create the group’s collective consciousness.  And I could rely on the collective consciousness being an amalgam of the entry maturity level of all participants – at least for the first hour of each course.
•  My tools and methods for adaptation needed to respond to the group’s collective consciousness in each training course.  (Trainers often refer to their own connection with a group’s collective consciousness as ‘having their antennae tuned into the group’ or ‘using their intuition’ to check the response level of a group throughout a course.)
•  The course topic or theme would have brought the participants to the room and given them the context, the purpose, the framework for attendance.  My responsibility was to ensure that my notes and the course format were adequate to satisfy their immediate need for confidence or competency or comfort in relation to the topic or theme.  
•  At the end of a course, individual participants would have achieved or acquired an ‘exit maturity’ – desirably a higher level of maturity (ie competence, confidence and/or comfort) with the course topic or theme that they would take back to their workplace or private life for use, application or reference.

 It’s an unwise trainer or consultant who will assume an entry maturity:

• the first task is to assess a level of maturity that presents a starting point from which to move toward an appropriate exit maturity
• the entry maturity is set by the participants – not by the trainer or consultant 
• and equally, the exit maturity is determined by the participants and facilitated by the trainer or consultant.

 Scenario 2:    An extract from page 85 of my book, One Man Show – the Smallest of small business, featuring my, and Shakespeare’s, experiences as sole operators

 Be wary of making assumptions

• business methods and systems can and almost certainly will change and improve:    don’t assume that your current business methods and systems will continue to be adequate, appropriate or effective
•  your product or service may have an established market:   don’t assume that you don’t need to continue marketing, improving your product or service, or createnew markets, products or services
•  your customer needs, interests and aspirations may change, or your product or service may lose favour as competitors enter your market-place:    don’t assume your customers’ needs, interests or aspirations – only they can keep you informed about these
•  your suppliers– build strong relationships with them, monitor their performance and reliability, recommend them to others if you are satisfied with their service, and don’t hesitate to change a supplier who proves to be unreliable or to cease adding value to your One Man Show:   don’t assume that a supplier who has proved to be reliable will always be reliable, or that you will always be a priority client or customer – give as much care and attention to your suppliers as you do to your customers.
•  your market-place may be geographic or interest/practice-based – keep in touch with who else is offering products or services similar to, or compatible with, your own; and don’t rely on just one market-place:    don’t assume that your market-place will retain its interest in your product or service, and definitely don’t assume that there is no competitor waiting to see how well your product or service is received before either copying or improving it with her/his own product or service

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• ‘art’ is the doing of a thing, and
• ‘science’ is the understanding of a thing.

For the first half of my life, I was ‘doing’ my spiritual journeying, with total focus on the ‘doing’.

Since then – and almost certainly through the remainder of my life – the challenges, opportunities and rewards have and will contribute to a steady and evolving ‘understanding’.

As with any journey, there have been unanticipated events along the way, with unexpected pauses to assess what I already knew, and what else I needed to know. Examples include misunderstandings or misinterpretations – either on my part or the part of others. At such a time, I heed the wise saying that it’s not what happens to us that’s important: it’s how we react or respond to what’s happening to us that’s important.

‘React’ can imply an immediate and often unconsidered action: whereas ‘respond’ indicates allowing – or taking time to allow – my emotions to subside, then to consider options and alternatives, and finally to initiate a planned action – or in many cases, my planned action is to do nothing.

There have been, and are, risky experiences:

Some risky experiences I’ve accepted or allowed in order to better understand a particular situation, a relationship or a reaction. I’d call these ‘calculated’ risks – I’ll try this and see how things turn out:

• there is great benefit in keeping a spiritual journal: mine is now a major electronic resource, having started out as hand-written notes in 1986
• I can read back through the years and recognize how and how often this strategy has worked or not worked, and am able to appreciate short- and longer-term influences on or even changes in my behaviour and language

Other risky experiences have simply crept up on me, and I’m left wondering – How did this happen?

• with the best of intentions, I have set out on a particular path only to find that the path has not led to where I had expected or planned to go – but rather it has brought me back full-circle to where I had started from, and happily with an increased understanding of my spiritual journey as a result
• the benefit of the path had been the increased understanding gained, rather than the path itself.

In a few instances, some risky experiences have overwhelmed me to the extent of confusion, and even during the confusion I’m asking – What’s this all about?

• as well as learning to understand our own motives and behaviours, it’s most important that we learn to understand the motives and behaviours of others
• I’m constantly reminded of the scripture that unless we love ourselves, we cannot love others – and, in this case, unless we understand ourselves, we cannot understand others

There is one risky experience that I frequently bring to mind and respectfully share with others. On this occasion I was ‘put’ into a situation by one manager that would enable him to further his workplace credibility. It followed that I was then accused by another manager of acting in a particular manner that was totally uncharacteristic of me, and expected by both managers to forget that this situation had ever happened.

• the understanding that I gained from both managers – and from this experience – was that some people expect you to behave as they would in a given situation
• in effect, there are people who treat others as if they are replicas of themselves
• this is often referred to as controlling behaviour – using others to achieve their own ends, or at least trying to do so
• not only has this experience helped my understanding of human behaviour, but others as well when I share the experience without compromising the managers involved

Understanding human behaviours is a key factor in the concept and practice of trust, and I’ve written extensively on this in my 2008 book One Man Show – the smallest of small business – featuring my own and Shakespeare’s experiences as sole operators.

Trust is a critical issue in running your own business. Believe me, Shakespeare had a significantly more complex environment within which to operate 400 years ago that we have today!

Back to Chapter 5 of this e-book:

In the concluding comments of Chapter 5, you’ll find five underlying principles that have supported my continued learning and understanding. They are also relevant to risk management in any person’s spiritual journeying:

• to value my time – and to invest it wisely,
• to read the mind of the Universe – and learn more about Universal love,
• to be confident that I am ‘in place’ – with wonderful events and experiences moving toward me,
• that learning by observation is as valuable as learning by experience, and
• that life is just one continuous journey – with peaks and troughs, with laughter and tears… in constant one-ness with the collective consciousness, which is the manifestation of our patient Creator.

My focus now is on the underlying principle that learning by observation is as valuable as learning by experience. I’ll expand this principle to show its relevance to risk management – firstly in physical journeying, and then in any person’s spiritual journeying.

Risk can be defined as what you may lose less what you are willing to lose – which leads to the need to know the nature, level and extent of risk you are willing to accept. The nature and extent of risk can be quantified by the effect of a risk should it occur.

There is ongoing discussion as to there being only and always one cause to any problem: this implies that solving or addressing any problem must start by identifying and addressing that one cause. However, my experience shows that with risk, there may be one causal factor – but many contributing factors.

Let’s look at two examples by which we can learn about risk by observation:

• TV documentary Why the Titanic Sank, and
• 2008 BDO Nonprofit Fraud Survey.

TV documentary Why the Titanic Sank

In November of 2008, I arrived into my Belfast hotel in preparation for the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship annual conference. On the television that night was a documentary Why the Titanic Sank, and I watched with great interest – Belfast being the dockyard in which the Titanic was built and from which it was launched, sailing into its first and final journey.

We all know that the cause of the sinking of the Titanic and ensuing loss of several hundred lives was collision with an iceberg followed by a desperate and tragic mismanagement of lifeboat evacuation.

However, the documentary went on to present 14 contributing factors to this event and outcome. These contributing factors are presented in the order in which they were introduced and explained in the documentary:

1. substandard rivets
2. design of the ship
3. questionable quality of steel/iron
4. unusual iceberg behaviour
5. Marconi officers were only paid for transmitting passenger messages, therefore priority was given to these above the iceberg warnings received from other ships in the vicinity
6. lifeboats – 16 only had been installed instead of 49 that would be needed to evacuate the number of passengers and crew
7. no lifeboat drill had been initiated, therefore the crew were not trained on evacuation of this ship, which was on its maiden voyage
8. the Captain of a ship is the law aboard ship: but Captain Smith was not acting as ‘the law’
9. when instructing crew on shepherding passengers into the lifeboats, the Captain said ‘women and children first’ but the crew member heard ‘women and children only’
10. that the ship was unsinkable had been the accepted and continuing Company’s marketing message
11. the sister ship, Olympia, needed dock space in Belfast to repair the anchor that had been damaged on that ship’s earlier voyage when Captain Smith was in charge of the ship and voyage. This repair delayed the Titanic’s maiden voyage by a month, resulting in the Titanic’s First Officer being replaced by the Olympia’s First Officer – due to seniority
12. when leaving the ship prior to departing from Belfast, the Titanic’s First Officer accidentally packed the key to the cupboard in which the binoculars for the look-outs were stored: therefore the two look-out officers on iceberg-watch duty that night had no binoculars
13. there was no moon, therefore the wash at the base of the moving iceberg had no light by which to show movement to the Titanic’s look-out crew
14. Captain Smith was in a state of mental break-down – therefore no one person was in charge of the total evacuation procedure, and crew members had no-one they could go to for direction

Some observations:

One could observe that it was this collection of contributing factors which laid the foundation for the causal factor to sink the Titanic with the loss of several hundreds of lives.

One could also observe that if only one or a small number of these contributing factors had occurred, then this disaster may have been averted or minimised.

However, the key observation is that there is a difference between a causal factor and a contributing factor.

2008 BDO Nonprofit Fraud Survey

Note: The contents of this publication are not a substitute for specific advice and should not be relied upon as such. Accordingly, while every care has been taken in the presentation of the publication, no responsibility is accepted for persons acting on this information

Management of fraud within both the not-for-profit sector and organisations is only effective when the specifics of fraud are understood. In this section of the survey, respondents were asked to address the single largest fraud that has occurred in their organisation over the past two years.

Key findings include:

• the most common type of fraud reported by respondents was cash theft (33%);
• the typical fraudster is in his/her forties and is a paid non-accounting employee; only 8% of fraud was committed by unpaid volunteers;
• collusion was present in 25% of frauds reported with the typical colluder a female, over 50 years of age and a paid employee;
• the average value of the largest frauds in the not-for-profit sector is under $50,000 ($45,527);
• of all reported cases of fraud, 54% of respondents believed they discovered the full extent of the fraud;
• internal controls are the most successful method of discovering fraud, with 36% of frauds discovered this way;
• the average duration of a fraud was 14 months;
• respondents indicated that financial problems and pressures are the most common motivator for fraud;
• the majority of respondents did not report fraudulent matters to the Police;
• 20% of organisations did not terminate the employment of the person who committed the fraud.

By examining the specific fraud incidents of organisations we are able to provide the sector with information regarding what is the most likely type of fraud for their organisation size and type. Once again this enables organisations to remain on the front foot in the prevention of fraud.

There are some obvious correlations between the type of fraud and the category of the organisation that suffered the fraud. If an organisation handles a lot of cash then it is logical that cash theft would be the primary type of fraud occurring, in that the opportunity exists for those individuals who may be tempted.

While the information in this section can provide assistance to organisations in identifying key risk areas, it is also important not to categorise employees and volunteers and be blinded to other possibilities. The greatest weapon in the fight against fraud is prevention.

Learning by observation is indeed as valuable as learning by experience – and this applies to spiritual journeying as it does to physical journeying.

This method of learning can be as valuable as personal experience, and the gaining of formal qualifications. As well as your own, you can learn from the observations of others.

Observing others on their spiritual journeys can almost be a full-time activity. There is a wide range of options available, and many choose an option after observing the experiences of those who have already chosen a particular option.

We need to constantly remind ourselves that we may well be the subject of observation as we move through our spiritual journey. The manifestation of our spiritual journey is our physical journey – how we behave, make decisions or choices, respond to unexpected events, work our way through various risk experiences – and most importantly, how we integrate our observations and experiences into our knowledge and understanding.

Risk management means being able to see through the likelihood of risk to the potential and new level of understanding.

Risk management in spiritual journeying relies on having a toolbox of strategies based on personal observation and experience, together with knowledge and understanding of available tools and strategies.

It is necessary to understand and appreciate the practical implications, possibilities and potential of your spiritual journey.

In the next and final chapter of this e-book, I’ll re-cap on the tools and strategies offered in this and previous chapters – and encourage you to test and try tools that could be of interest and usefulness at the time of your reading: these are listed, in the sequence in which they are introduced, should you wish to review them in the meantime:

1. Retrospective Planning
2. Rennes paper
3. Journal keeping, including your dreams
4. Definitions
5. Choice-making
6. Entry/exit maturity
7. Multi-dimensional being
8. Enlightenment (art) and communication (science)
9. Experiencing the collective consciousness
10. Seven categories of growth and development
11. Deliberate practice
12. Principle of relativity
13. Genius
14. Adult learning principles
15. Innovation formula
16. Genius explained
17. Conscious/unconscious competence/incompetence
18. Risk management
19. Contributing and causal factors
20. Learning by observation

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 Quality is the degree or standard of excellence, especially a high standard:   the totality of the attributes of a product, component, program or service that meets the requirements of the buyer, owner or end user.

 The basis of quality is that there are procedures and systems in place to ensure:

1. consistent and replicable standards,
2. consistency and replicability of improved standards,
3. assessment and resourcing of identified risk factors, and
4. avoidance or management of risk.

A risk factor is present where there is likelihood that a product or component will have to be:

• re-worked – requiring further attention and therefore involving further cost and inconvenience, or
• replaced – resulting in loss, wastage or inconvenience.

 A risk factor is present where there is likelihood that a service or program will be:

• ineffective – unable to achieve the purpose for which it has been designed
• inefficient – result in or contribute to an unwise use of resources, or
• sub-standard – failing to meet or comply with advertised or required quality or standard of delivery, process or outcome. 

A Quality system is a series of actions designed to ensure consistency in approach, process and output.

 The outcome of a quality system is that the organisation has:

• a sound basis for applying the basic philosophy of quality assurance, a clear set of guidelines for quality systems and processes, a means of satisfying contractual obligations, and readily available guidance and direction.

Advantages of a quality system:

1. a sound base for applying the basic philosophy of quality assurance, plus
2. a clear set of guidelines for quality systems and processes, plus
3. a means of satisfying contractual obligations, plus
4. readily available guidance and direction for monitoring systems and controls, resulting in 
5. a uniform initial approach to quality

Quality control is the internal method of avoiding a deviation from the desired or required situation, or the method of altering or changing the situation to achieve the desired or required situation.   A key factor in any system is ‘control’, and there are two sorts of control:

1. the maintenance of an existing situation, bringing it back to normal when it deviates, and
2. the introduction of change into a situation, whether by making alterations to the existing situation or by creating a new situation

Quality assurance is the result of quality control, in that there is certainty as to consistency in approach, process and output through the quality system.  This includes ensuring that all repetitive functions or activities are consistently performed or carried out to the same desired or required standard.  An audit or assessment process is the usual method of quality assurance.

Continuous quality improvement indicates an active commitment throughout the organisation to improving – rather than simply maintaining – the desired or required degree or standard of excellence.  The 3 basic stages are: 

• increasing your organisation’s knowledge and understanding of stakeholder expectations and requirements 
• improving the design, so that the mix of features afforded by your organisation’s products, components, programs or services more closely match stakeholder expectations and requirements, and 
• improving your organisation’s ability to consistently perform, function and operate more closely to the design.

 Now, let’s move to the relationship:

 Continuous quality improvement is the objective – and it’s the simple rule first things first.  As with anything, there has to be a starting point, a place to begin.

1. The starting point – the first thing – is the presence of a quality system.   
2. With a quality system in place, it’s then possible to have quality assurance.
3. With a quality assurance system in place, then – and only then – can you achieve continuous quality improvement.

 And the tool to achieve continuous quality improvement is quality control.

 Without a quality system, quality assurance is at best a guess, with no basis for continuous quality improvement.

 Without quality control, there is no connection between the quality system and quality assurance.

Each person working within an organisation is responsible for the quality of their own work – and for continuous improvement in the quality of their work.  If everyone is to be responsible for the quality of their own work, each person needs to know:

• the needs, aspirations and interests of their clients, customers or service-users, and the needs of the people they work most closely with, ie both internal and external ‘customers’
• the quality of research, planning and delivery required to achieve the agreed standard of product, component, program or service, and the quality of interaction with the people their internal and external customers
• how to consistently plan and deliver products, components, programs or services to the desired level of quality, and consistently monitor the quality of their interaction with others
• how to measure the quality of their own performance, and
• how to make improvements in the quality of (i) their performance, (ii) their research, planning and delivery, and (iii) their interaction with others.

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