(ETA: I changed most of these words about 25 minutes after posting, hope that isn’t annoying.)
I’m executive director; the buck stops with me. aCFAR is doing things my inside view says are good, and is not doing anything that seems dumb or useless or wasted to me; I am promising to keep my eyes on the ball.
Caveats/details:
This often involves e.g. encouraging instructors try units they think are good ideas, because my inside view says that that sort of development process will often yield good results in ways that “get instructors to do only units recommended by Anna’s inside view” wouldn’t;
This involves trying hard to create a context where the request to everyone at CFAR is to talk about things freely and fully, rather than e.g. trying to not-disrupt the direction I’m pulling things in;
My eye is on the meta-ball of whether the individual balls have enough of the right sort of caring and feedback loops governing them, not on all the individual balls.
Does this answer your question?
We have been getting lots of good ideas from lots of other staff, and these ideas have been riffing off of each other and growing a lot of the cool stuff we have, but this isn’t via me being shy about my own views. (In the past I was uneasy with some aspect of leadership, but I’m less so now.) A majority of our good stuff is coming from others, via a process that makes sense to me, and that does not at all remind me of “group work” in high school or of a “nobody home”/”dodging the social awkwardness” feeling. (I hated “group work” in school, because I didn’t know how to navigate about contexts where I thought I knew something and yet didn’t want to offend.)
My current theory of “how do good things ever happen in the world?” is “via someone doing things they care about, that make sense to them.” (This is a ~necessary but not sufficient condition, TBC).
I aim to set up CFAR so that: a) All of it makes sense to me, and is something I care about. Since I’m executive director. (It’s fine if the “making sense to me” and “caring about it” is on the process level, e.g. if I care about and see sense in an instructor getting to test their unit, rather than about the specific details they’re testing). b) Each person within CFAR is basically only doing things that they themselves care about, and that make sense to them.
I used to be all wiggly-feeling about leadership because I didn’t realize we could do (a) and (b) at the same time, but we totally can. I mistakenly thought that if I was leading, it meant I was asking other people to be in a weird relationship with their own perceptions of what made sense. Also, I somehow know now how to share my perceptions and my causes out loud, in a more simple and straightforward way that lets everyone else see them at once and talk about them and remember them. (Not perfect here, but better than I was.) And that makes it easier to find ways to do (a) and (b) at once.
Thank you, that answers my question—and it makes me more excited about the project! I’m glad to hear it’s been unfolding nicely thus far, and I’m feeling pride/respect for you taking on the more formal mantle.
(ETA: I changed most of these words about 25 minutes after posting, hope that isn’t annoying.)
I’m executive director; the buck stops with me. aCFAR is doing things my inside view says are good, and is not doing anything that seems dumb or useless or wasted to me; I am promising to keep my eyes on the ball.
Caveats/details:
This often involves e.g. encouraging instructors try units they think are good ideas, because my inside view says that that sort of development process will often yield good results in ways that “get instructors to do only units recommended by Anna’s inside view” wouldn’t;
This involves trying hard to create a context where the request to everyone at CFAR is to talk about things freely and fully, rather than e.g. trying to not-disrupt the direction I’m pulling things in;
My eye is on the meta-ball of whether the individual balls have enough of the right sort of caring and feedback loops governing them, not on all the individual balls.
Does this answer your question?
We have been getting lots of good ideas from lots of other staff, and these ideas have been riffing off of each other and growing a lot of the cool stuff we have, but this isn’t via me being shy about my own views. (In the past I was uneasy with some aspect of leadership, but I’m less so now.) A majority of our good stuff is coming from others, via a process that makes sense to me, and that does not at all remind me of “group work” in high school or of a “nobody home”/”dodging the social awkwardness” feeling. (I hated “group work” in school, because I didn’t know how to navigate about contexts where I thought I knew something and yet didn’t want to offend.)
A more articulate attempt:
My current theory of “how do good things ever happen in the world?” is “via someone doing things they care about, that make sense to them.” (This is a ~necessary but not sufficient condition, TBC).
I aim to set up CFAR so that:
a) All of it makes sense to me, and is something I care about. Since I’m executive director. (It’s fine if the “making sense to me” and “caring about it” is on the process level, e.g. if I care about and see sense in an instructor getting to test their unit, rather than about the specific details they’re testing).
b) Each person within CFAR is basically only doing things that they themselves care about, and that make sense to them.
I used to be all wiggly-feeling about leadership because I didn’t realize we could do (a) and (b) at the same time, but we totally can. I mistakenly thought that if I was leading, it meant I was asking other people to be in a weird relationship with their own perceptions of what made sense. Also, I somehow know now how to share my perceptions and my causes out loud, in a more simple and straightforward way that lets everyone else see them at once and talk about them and remember them. (Not perfect here, but better than I was.) And that makes it easier to find ways to do (a) and (b) at once.
Thank you, that answers my question—and it makes me more excited about the project! I’m glad to hear it’s been unfolding nicely thus far, and I’m feeling pride/respect for you taking on the more formal mantle.
(I didn’t see the early version)