Yanked out of another article where it didn't fit.

You know how it is, at a lot of museums. There's a social empire inside the organization which is unregulated and "emotionally driven", and functions like animalistic pecking orders, alpha wolf, all that stuff. The social empire has its own unwritten rules of conduct, which conflict with the museum's best interests. "Misconduct against the empire" causes instant, emotionally-driven backlash, often capricious, unfair or erroneous. The new volunteer sees this as psychodrama and quits. That is the point: the empire is testing the person for compatibility. Anyway, doing a volunteer recruitment campaign for an empire-infested organization is a waste of time.

And I'm not picking on organizations, nor accusing anyone of creating these empires intentionally. Even the empire's leaders are NOT malicious, they didn't roll out of bed and go "HUP, I think today, I'll build a juvenile social empire that destroys my organization from the inside like a cancer, Mwahahahahaha!" They certainly do have the museum's best interest as their higher goal. It's just that they react to the lower goal FASTER and more spectacularly. It's just human nature, or rather, vertabrate nature. So I'm only accusing them of being unconscious of it. The museum leadership, however, is a different matter. They know it's there, it is precisely why they refuse to act in the organization's best interests when it might offend the empire. That is the worst possible thing to do: the empire operates on an animal level and it will respect the alpha wolf. Which MUST be the Board, speaking in unison. If the empire can divide the board or single out one man to shun, it will. I see no way to abolish the empire, only tame it and have it work for the organization's interest.

Best way I can see to do that is to openly acknowledge that it exists, without judgment upon it. The light kills many dark things, others it just makes honest. I, for one, care not which.

So true... It breaks my heart when a organization is a back-slapping ego club with monetary bonuses, and this is a not-for-profit??? Next!

I think I read somewhere about the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical society about being a "Friendly Dictatorship"...

Business nature, go look at the business linkage like the Insull Empire, there are diagrams about what company is connected to whom and at what level, and a company has levels of management.

Like the model railroad club I was in you had President, secretary, etc etc and the regular membership and associate membership, you have levels of involvement, but the club has a constitution describing how to go about things, it isnt about pecking order than it is about your skills and involvement and how you may be able to forward the goals of the club and how involved you can be., and the regular membership votes on whoms president, secretary etc.

Any museum has its goals, and they need to have positive communication and skills with its workers and community, or it fails.

I think you can't avoid some levels of hiearchy pecking order, people tend to gravitate this way or that find your friends or little group within a museum, etc, but it always helps when you have strong communication with your complete group so you get some unity.

I think this is good point you brought up, makes me think about "the friendly confines of Wrigley Field"...now you see my point...

"You know how it is, at a lot of museums. There's a social empire inside the organization which is unregulated and "emotionally driven", and functions like animalistic pecking orders, alpha wolf, all that stuff. The social empire has its own unwritten rules of conduct, which conflict with the museum's best interests."

That exists everywhere, and I suspect, based upon experience, more so in the government/tax exempt sector, because there's more room for argument about the results of operations.

You can decry it, you can attempt to do what you can to minimize it, but people are people so the best you can hope for is minimize it and help others negotiate it because even if for a short time, you eliminate it, it will return in a short period of time-people are people, afterall.

I worked at a for-profit company with this same environment. I chalk it up to human nature.

Wesley

Of course. I'm sure this effect exists everywhere there is human endeavour. What kills organizations is when these reindeer games are more important to people than the mission. Remember it's a question of what they DO, and that is usually decided by what they do first. Emotion has a head start.

One of the most frustrating discussions I had this year was with the president of an organization of how a member (let call him A) was treating a fellow member (B) who co authored the book that lead to the organizations creation. The president’s response was that member (A) is a private individual and we can not control his actions. Well to make a long story short I will not send the organization any information and the member (B) insulted by member (A) has stopped helping them to the point many have noticed. But the group takes no steps to create change.

If we are not inclusive and tolerant of our fellow members how can we expect an organization to grow? If someone has a way to push a clueless organization to realize that it needs as many supporters as possible I would like to hear them.

Robby Peartree

Robert,

Years ago, Erik Ledbetter and I had lunch in Washington, D.C. in sight of the old Southern Railway Office Building and discussed this same issue. Erik called it "new member hazing" which I think is also an appropriate description. In other words, relegate new volunteers to tasks such as sorting bolts for months on end, and maybe they won't come back. In some organizations, there appears to be an interest from the longer-serving volunteers to monopolize the knowledge, because knowledge = power, and they no longer wish to share.

Being overly exlcusive in our memberships, by allowing the social empire to exist is not a way to make railway preservation sustainable. One museum I was involved with, the steam program was never very open to many new members, and some in the program were not interested in passing skills down to younger generations, while others were. The end result is that the steam locomotive now sits out of service. Even if there were money to fund an overhaul, the steam crew is in their 60s and 70s, and thus probably couldn't do most of the work. The innate fear that someone would "take over" the program if they let some of them to try to monopolize the information, keep hold of the power, long after they should have. A cold locomotive is now the natural end result.

I don't know if there is any easy answer, other than to lead by example, and encourage others to do the same. Even though the work is voluntary in nature, you still should be professional in all aspects of your work at a museum. Rarely is acting in the social empire's best interest the same as the best interest for the museum. That professionalism includes how you treat volunteers, new and old, how you share information, and how you manage the organization as a whole. Social empires tend to be created in all types of business and organizations, the best way to deal with them is to minimize their power and impact. Easier said than done. I know what it is like to be screaming against the roaring wind with regard to how things are done.

Also, even if your board is elected by the membership, find some non-profit board training for them to undergo. I found a place here locally that trains people interested in serving on a non-profit board. Their materials look interesting, and I intend on going to a training session, just as it has become an interest.

If this endeavour known as railway preservation is to exist in a fruitful form long past our natural lives, we need to change minds and practices, sometimes in our own organizations. Not an easy task, as Robert points out, but a very necessary ones.

David M. Wilkins
Soapbox-on-Wheels, MO

There is another side to this. I suspect we have all encountered new volunteers who are very enthusiastic and quickly take on an important tasks.....but for whatever reason soon lose interest and stop coming around. Maybe he took irreplaceable parts home to clean and repair, or maybe he took something completely apart and quit before putting it back together. I think wise museum managers try to find meaningful work for "newbe's" but still implicitly enforce a probationary period to see if the individual has staying power before giving him carte blanche. I admit it is something of a balancing act.

While I decry the scenarios described above, I also feel it makes some sense beyond the knowledge = power equation. A lot of people demonstrate a casual interest in getting involved, but don't have the commitment or passion to stick with it. The Hazing phenomena is about weeding out those that don't fit, or aren't going to be around after two months. Is this a good way to run a railroad? Absolutely not, but when given a choice between getting some work done, or going through all the work involved in teaching the new guy (who may not last anyway) how to do something, most people are going to pick the former.

One approach would be to encourage, and reward members for Mentoring new volunteers. Leading Mentors could be recognized and rewarded in a variety of ways with the aim of fostering a culture of mentorship.

Even better, we should look toward creating a program to recruit, train, and ultimately "place" new volunteers. There are precedents for how to do this in the rest of the non-profit world. Volunteering is a big thing in this country, but we are not even playing the same game as most of the volunteer-dependent non-profits out there. They have developed sophisticated approaches intended to recruit and retain volunteers. Our approach mostly seems to rely upon walk-ins and retirees on permanent "Busman's Holidays."

New volunteers could be asked to help out over a very short-term with some of the "bolt-sorting"-program activities that no one really likes to do anyway, but require a low level of skill. Over the course of a few weeks, new volunteers could try working at this low-level with several different departments to help them meet the people involved and figure out where they'd like to devote their time.

While cleaning up, sanding wood, herding passengers, and such are not all the glory that is railway preservation, I'd like to think that if this was clearly a part of a well-defined orientation program, most new volunteers would enjoy it and see it as a good way to become acquainted with what it takes to run a museum.

Such a program could not all be work; there would need to be some kind of play/reward component to show the prospective volunteers some of the benefits of getting behind the scenes.

There are also a lot of precedents related to team building that could be looked at from both the non-profit and for-profit worlds. Barbeques, Trips, Games, etc have social benefits that meetings and media presentations do not.

Opening up the "Social Empire" requires an institutional commitment to developing a plan and following through. Of course, someone also needs to become the champion of such a program and needs to be given the support they need to get the rest of the volunteers to cooperate –mostly carrot though, less stick.