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OTW Elections
Oct. 31st, 2015 11:34 amIt never fails. Every time we get a peek behind the curtain of the OTW board, it turns out to be a new and exciting picture of a screwed-up organization. The latest installment: current board members trolling the OTW elections chats. (Official transcript. FFA thread on it. Tumblr post about it.)
The screwed-up-ness of the board is, by the way, almost certainly why they keep bleating about confidentiality in ways that prove they either don't actually know how it applies to the OTW or know but are lying to cover their asses. See, the thing about non-profits is that they are supposed to be transparent. Public financial records and minutes. The only things things that should be confidential are hiring/firing/promotion/other personnel issues. The default for a non-profit is that EVERYTHING is a public record unless it falls into one of a few very narrow categories (like personnel records). For the OTW, I would imagine that certain aspects of ongoing legal cases might also be confidential for the duration of the case, but that's specifically the legal/advocacy committee, not the work of the board itself. But as long as they can keep things in-house--as long as they can keep people from seeing, for example, board meeting minutes and chat transcripts--they can do whatever they dang well please without having to worry about being professional or getting called on petty bullshit maneuverings.
I am pleased with the quality of candidates for the current election. Given what we know of the OTW board's inner workings, here's what I'm looking for in a candidate:
1) Never been on the board before (because even board members who started out with good intentions have, by this point, gotten sucked into the dysfunctional system).
2) Experience with other non-profits (because dear God, do they need it).
3) Experience taking a dysfunctional part of the OTW system and getting it working (because they'll need the experience).
Most of the candidates meet all three of those, yay! Lots of good choice. We get two people like that on the board, they've got a chance of getting things turned around.
But that's not a guarantee that they can. I've talked about this before, but the thing is, any organization or group that operates for a while settles into a system. A pattern of behavior. It may be a great system, it may be a terrible system, but the point is that everyone participates in it. Everyone has their place. When someone leaves the system and someone new comes in, everyone in the system generally works to try and fit the new person in to the system and shove them into the spot left behind even if they don't like the system. I mean, even the people working to maintain the system may think it's a horrible system and they hate it, and they will still find all sorts of justifications to try and keep it from changing. Why? Because it's comfortable, and they know their place. Change is hard and scary and uncertain. People will often choose a bad system that they hate over the possibility of changing to a better system, because they value predictability. (When psychologists and sociologists study this, it's usually on a family level, which is why it's called "family systems theory" but it also applies to other sorts of groups-churches, businesses, non-profits of all kinds, etc.)
This is why the last kerfluffle over OTW board elections, in 2011, didn't change much--one or two new people on the board isn't going to magically change the system. And if the rest of the board is really determined to keep things going the way they have been, well, they can. Even now, we get two awesome new people with lots of talent, drive, and skills elected ... and it's quite possible for the rest of the board to stonewall them and generally make their lives very unpleasant until they either give up, go away, or get sucked into the madness themselves.
So how do we change things? Electing good people is a start, but not the end. We have to make sure that the board is accountable and STAYS accountable. This means OTW members (anyone who donates $10 or more in a year is a member) have to keep the pressure up. Keep asking questions. Keep wanting to see the financials. Keep asking about what's going on inside the organization. Make sure they know that we are watching, and that we want things run responsibly and according to the best practices of non-profit organizations.
And the next time seats are up for elections, we need to AGAIN make sure that we are electing people with experience in non-profits who are willing to work towards openness, accountability, and best practices.
It's going to take a while, but it's possible. IF we don't do what we did back in 2011 and assume that getting someone elected means we won and everything will magically be fine now.
The screwed-up-ness of the board is, by the way, almost certainly why they keep bleating about confidentiality in ways that prove they either don't actually know how it applies to the OTW or know but are lying to cover their asses. See, the thing about non-profits is that they are supposed to be transparent. Public financial records and minutes. The only things things that should be confidential are hiring/firing/promotion/other personnel issues. The default for a non-profit is that EVERYTHING is a public record unless it falls into one of a few very narrow categories (like personnel records). For the OTW, I would imagine that certain aspects of ongoing legal cases might also be confidential for the duration of the case, but that's specifically the legal/advocacy committee, not the work of the board itself. But as long as they can keep things in-house--as long as they can keep people from seeing, for example, board meeting minutes and chat transcripts--they can do whatever they dang well please without having to worry about being professional or getting called on petty bullshit maneuverings.
I am pleased with the quality of candidates for the current election. Given what we know of the OTW board's inner workings, here's what I'm looking for in a candidate:
1) Never been on the board before (because even board members who started out with good intentions have, by this point, gotten sucked into the dysfunctional system).
2) Experience with other non-profits (because dear God, do they need it).
3) Experience taking a dysfunctional part of the OTW system and getting it working (because they'll need the experience).
Most of the candidates meet all three of those, yay! Lots of good choice. We get two people like that on the board, they've got a chance of getting things turned around.
But that's not a guarantee that they can. I've talked about this before, but the thing is, any organization or group that operates for a while settles into a system. A pattern of behavior. It may be a great system, it may be a terrible system, but the point is that everyone participates in it. Everyone has their place. When someone leaves the system and someone new comes in, everyone in the system generally works to try and fit the new person in to the system and shove them into the spot left behind even if they don't like the system. I mean, even the people working to maintain the system may think it's a horrible system and they hate it, and they will still find all sorts of justifications to try and keep it from changing. Why? Because it's comfortable, and they know their place. Change is hard and scary and uncertain. People will often choose a bad system that they hate over the possibility of changing to a better system, because they value predictability. (When psychologists and sociologists study this, it's usually on a family level, which is why it's called "family systems theory" but it also applies to other sorts of groups-churches, businesses, non-profits of all kinds, etc.)
This is why the last kerfluffle over OTW board elections, in 2011, didn't change much--one or two new people on the board isn't going to magically change the system. And if the rest of the board is really determined to keep things going the way they have been, well, they can. Even now, we get two awesome new people with lots of talent, drive, and skills elected ... and it's quite possible for the rest of the board to stonewall them and generally make their lives very unpleasant until they either give up, go away, or get sucked into the madness themselves.
So how do we change things? Electing good people is a start, but not the end. We have to make sure that the board is accountable and STAYS accountable. This means OTW members (anyone who donates $10 or more in a year is a member) have to keep the pressure up. Keep asking questions. Keep wanting to see the financials. Keep asking about what's going on inside the organization. Make sure they know that we are watching, and that we want things run responsibly and according to the best practices of non-profit organizations.
And the next time seats are up for elections, we need to AGAIN make sure that we are electing people with experience in non-profits who are willing to work towards openness, accountability, and best practices.
It's going to take a while, but it's possible. IF we don't do what we did back in 2011 and assume that getting someone elected means we won and everything will magically be fine now.
