One hard thing about being a leader in any volunteer organization is volunteers constantly share their ideas with you. They constantly tell you what you should be doing or what the organization should be focusing on. Usually the ideas are great, but the process to getting them done takes awhile. You can’t act on an idea without telling anyone because the idea will fall flat. If you’re the only one with buy-in to the idea, you get no support and all that work you put into the design or website or manual…is wasted.

That’s what I’m worried about with a new training I’ve been asked to create. Volunteers need to know the committee chairs and what the committees do so they can sign up. However, I tried doing this at the Aug PCP Mixer and it fell flat. Only 3-4 PCPs signed up for a committee and most of the committee chairs don’t have a plan in place for when they get volunteers. I’m worried I’m going to put all this time into making a presentation training and committees will still consist of one person.

I’m working with a PCP now on the presentation and she’s energized and wants it to happen. She thinks it’ll work. It may. I have doubts though because the committee chairs are disorganized. That’s what’s making me hesitant. How do we get the committee chairs organized? Isn’t that the Chair’s job? Or is it anyone’s job? How do you tell if a committee is organized? By the habits of its chair. Are the committee chairs doing things within the organization already?

Training doesn’t always solve performance problems and it doesn’t change behavior. Well, if it changes performance isn’t that changing behavior though? So it does change behavior/action toward a specific task. If we have this training in January or February, I don’t think it’ll result in anything because the committee chairs don’t know what to do with volunteers. That’s the issue I’m having. Training won’t solve the problem until the leaders start leading.