As I divest myself from the band a little more each day — even though there are still five gigs before my official parting date — it’s that magical time toward the end where every little thing gets on one’s nerves. Lately it’s been how the band makes decisions. It’s always sort of taken care of itself but this year it got what I felt to be needlessly complicated; things that were decided got undecided and work was wasted. Since then, I’ve started to look at how we actually reach decisions to see if I can figure out how that happened.<\/p>\n
We have always said we were a democracy, and we do often take votes, but I realized that’s not always the best definition after a friend sent me this very informative link<\/a>. Like, in a group democracy, what happens when people simply don’t respond with a vote, or when someone just brings up more data when asked a yes\/no question? That happens a lot, unfortunately, and I think it changes our decision-making category mid-stream. It looks like our band is more like a consensus, with occasional flashes of autocracy (in times of crisis or apathy). I see elements of the other categories in our past decisions, too.<\/p>\n You’ve all been in groups of some sort — charity organizations, creative teams, sports teams, choirs (hi, Jenny3K), whatever. What was your system, and how did it work for you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I divest myself from the band a little more each day — even though there are still five gigs before my official parting date — it’s that magical time toward the end where every little thing gets on one’s … Continue reading