It's an under-rated asset really, but to be effective we, as individuals and as an organization, need to be like this guy right here (Is that even possible or is it a trick photo?)

It's far too easy for us to fall into our own pre-conceived notions about what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. And we tend to assume that everyone is on the same page, so we can all just slouch over in the same positions and not try to put our legs behind our heads.

Unfortunately, the world just doesn't work that way, and sometimes we have to be able to change our posture. A great example of this came about a day ago here in the office when Randy and I sat down to discuss what or legislative work actually entails. You see, while we both want TCASK to pass legislation, but also believe that that is only likely to happen if we remain mainly focused on outreach and organizing, the term "mainly focused," it turns out, is not as clearly defined as one might have thought.

Now this all came out of new ethics legislation recently passed by the Tennessee General Assembly, which requires lobbyists to register as such and pay a $100 fee and a $400 tax, and the question was, do I need to do that. Since I do technically get paid to lobby (albeit the $500 cost is about equal to three months of my "pay" as a Jesuit Volunteer) it looked bad. The question was would I be lobbying more than 10 days per session?

Now when I'd examined our position, our legislative partners, our goals in three years, I'd thought that I'd probably be spending easily that amount of time on the hill. Probably more, in fact. Randy had thought that "mainly focused on organizing" called for far less lobbying than that- maybe a few days during the session. So what was really needed?

Back to putting our collective leg behind our collective head. We had to talk about what our roles were, how much time we saw me spending wearing the "lobbyist" hat, how this affected work goals in other areas etc. Eventually I think we came up with an understanding that I'll probably spend more time than Randy originally thought, but probably a little less than I thought, considering the other work that I have to do. But the lesson here was pretty clear for me:

1) Communicate. Even people who are working for the same goals don't necessarily come from the same places and don't have the same expectations.

2) Be flexible. With small staffs, we can't do absolutely everything and your original expectation may not be feasible in light of everything else that is going on. So be ready to change those expectations. There are a lot of ways to achieve a goal.

posted by Wiesendanger Permalink