askchapo

Yeah it feels like that. Don't get worked up over it otherwise you'll burn out. It sucks but just take things slow and easy and don't be too hard on yourself.

P.S. my partner who does this professionally said you could not come up with a more apt metaphor for organizing

Oh boy, you got me to sit in front of a real physical keyboard for this one!

You've described it accurately imo. I think it's important to view this from the perspective of a dialectical materialist. Not to be too on the nose about it or anything, but it does genuinely help me and I think it will for others too. I'm not the most inveterate organizer ever but I've got a reasonable amount of experience. Here's a scattershot of thoughts:

Organizing is always going to be a product of what came before it, whether as an extension of it or a reaction to it. It's also going to take on the shape of culture and of the people organizing. I've never done organizing in a very labor union-oriented space, e.g. in a sort of radical syndicalist heavy group, but my guess is that they would take a different approach to the ones that I've been a part of. That's just how it is - the org is going to be stamped with the birthmarks of what came before and it's going to be colored by your society and the type of people who make up the org.

This also means that it's important to think in terms of continuity and rupture - sometimes there will be ruptures in leadership or processes or modes of communication. At the most extreme that can look like a split but it can also look like using different platforms or a change in leadership. The ruptures are often the best opportunities to drive critical change in an org because the shakeup can leave the org looking for new paths and people can be more open to changing things. (You can also get change fatigue and siege mentality which is counterproductive but some degree of rupture often produces moments where you can advance positive changes in an org.) Continuity is where people will be reluctant to change and this serves a purpose too. A good org balances a "conservative" approach with a dynamic approach - too much conservatism and nothing gets done, no new things are taken on, opportunities are lost, people get fed up trying to make change in a seemingly immovable org but likewise too much change poses the risk of burning people out, creating confusion and miscommunication, fostering frustration and a lack of coordination, and not allowing enough time to assess and learn and to develop a solid strategy for how to move forward. Move fast, break things (derogatory) as they say in the corporate world (derogatory).

DemCent is good in theory but, as with all things, how it is in practice is going to vary wildly. It's not a panacea for organizing ills, unfortunately, but it can help with developing good orgs that can lead. It can also enable toxic leadership when it's done badly/it's a bastardized parody of DemCent. I've seen the other side though and trust me when I tell you there's a good reason why I'm not going back to more horizontal forms of organizing within formal org strucures; it has it s applications but if DemCent is like herding cats then horizontal forms of organizing are either DemCent in all but name, often as crypto-DemCent, or otherwise it's like trying to dig with a sieve and at least you can make progress when you're herding cats.

A lot of the problems that arise in orgs imo come from a lack of structure. This also plays into what I was saying above with regards to balancing being dynamic with being conservative. At the risk of coming off like a Trot, too much structure turns an org into a bureaucratic mess and it stultifies an org but a lack of structure means that there's no follow through, no obvious means to contribute, no pathways for critical functions like communication and delegation and approval and so on.

There's no-one-size-fits-all solution for this stuff - it changes depending on a bunch of factors like the size of the org and the scope and the priorities. You'll know when you've got about the right balance because everyone will be content and nobody will be happy (semi-ironic there but it's truer than you might imagine.) A bigger org necessitates a higher degree of structure whereas a small org might need very little. In my experience, the best way forward is mostly to proceed until you reach a point where you either outgrow the structure or the structure is no longer capable of providing the positive support for the org and its members, at which point you need to rebuild something better or you need to extend the structure - knowing which to do takes skill and experience though.

For a larger org, it's possible to capture the dynamism of a smaller org that has less structure by creating things like working groups or tasking a small team of people to achieve x or y outcome. With decent leadership within that group, they will defer to the broader org and to the leadership when it's important and when it's not they'll just get shit done and report back when there's progress to report on.

When it comes to structure though it's worth asking - what is it there for? Does it make sense? Does it (mostly) achieve what it sets out to do and is it positive? If not, then maybe it's time to consider reworking that structure. When it comes to bringing about change within an org's structure it can be a really painstaking process of figuring out who your allies and first followers are, getting the right feedback, winning people over, iterating the design until people are generally happy with the form and function etc.

I think a good org either identifies who to talk to - whose domain is x and who to speak to for matters on y, or they will buddy you up with a more experienced veteran of the org to help you find your way through a larger org to identify who to speak to about things etc.

In terms of expressing feedback make sure that you've got a clear understanding of what you're doing with it - an org will shut itself off to criticisms if it comes off as too critical or just venting. For obvious reasons, orgs tend to shut people down when they get too carried away with how one person wants to see change as it's important to bring the rest of the org along, to not step on people's toes, and to consider broader things like organizational readiness for change and whether it's a priority etc. So I'd test the waters with something small and low stakes. Feel out the channels for communication and driving change. See how long it takes to get a response or for action to occur. You will be able to drive more change over time as you build trust through this process and you demonstrate good judgment and a commitment to seeing outcomes through and doing them well, not to mention by providing good feedback. Sometimes simply asking questions like if there's a formal sign-up process can be enough to open doors for pushing for change, especially if you ask the right person at the right time, where raising it at a meting might not get much traction so be mindful of this and remember that there are many different avenues for feedback and change - indentifying them accurately and choosing them wisely can make a world of difference.

Unfortunately there's always going to be a degree of dysfuction and counterproductivity in an org. That's just the way of things. There are internal contradictions within all orgs that hold them back and it's only through a process of identifying them and working through them that they can be resolved and the org can function better. This can be a very arduous process, although an extremely important one too. (To be like water, as they say, can be extremely useful for bringing about change in an org.) And the worst part about it is that new contradictions are produced when the current ones are resolved, but that's part of a vital org that is growing and making progress. I can't tell you how much dysfunction is tolerable for you nor how much dysfunction makes an org a lost cause but it's something that you can only really figure out yourself experientially. I can understand how frustrating it is as a newcomer to see all of these problems and so many different areas of need as well as the potential that the org could have yet seeing little progress or movement. My advice to you would be to use the experience of bringing fresh eyes to the org and to write down all of the things that would improve the org. Keep that document but keep it private. Try to take a long view of this and study the problems in the organization to develop your skills as an organizer - the mode of communication might not suit people's preferences, there might be one single big group chat or email chain that makes communication impenetrable and messy or there might be a thousand different channels that divide things up unnecessarily, or it might be that people are burned out or that you don't get a response because nobody in the org knows who is responsible for it. There are a thousand different reasons why communication in the org, for example, is really not great. When it comes to figuring out why that is, try to approach it from an objective angle - don't assign blame, don't get too invested in it emotionally (that only leads to frustration and other unhelpful feelings), but instead approach it like a technician or a consultant or an engineer would - it's not working optimally but there are ways to improve its function and the first task is figuring out what it's supposed to be doing and then to start coming up with ways to modify it so it will work better. Then it's about figuring out what the consequences of tinkering with it will be and if there will be any downstream consequences from these proposed changes. Then if you think you've got the right solution, one that is effective and elegant, you might start driving change in the org from that point.

This has been very rambly and kinda preachy. Idk if it will be of any use to you but take anything that's good in there and leave the rest. I'll think about this and come back to it if I have any other thoughts.

That's exactly how it is. Bide some time and make some minor accomplishments to build credibility. If you have any initiative/leadership skill at all there's a solid chance that in 6-8 months they'll give you the keys to the org. Then your challenge is to build any of your useful allies into leaders.

It sort of sucks how easy it is, but most organizations have no direction because they are consumed by liberal idealism (sounds like yours has a concept of demcent, but that doesn't fix everything, obviously I don't known the details). If you browse this site you should have a decent concept of what your org is actually trying to accomplish, and the tactics you'll need to get there.

If you aren't finding any useful people in the existing org, your focus ought to be on recruitment and onboarding. Give a consistent onboarding presentation, and then recruit your new recruits to deliver the onboarding presentation. That gets them involved and useful pretty much instantly. When you need something more advanced, now you have a pool of established volunteers to draw from.

Focusing on onboarding and internal development puts you in a powerful position, and it's immediately useful.

Not quite like a school group project as there are actual near-term consequences for not getting something done in that case; more like volunteering. You can't actually hold anybody accountable to anything because everyone there is donating their time. If you're too hard on them they'll just stop showing up and you'll be down a volunteer. Most of your adversaries in government, administration, and elsewhere organize as their full-time paid job. Your other adversary is a nice lazy Sunday staying home playing video games, which is what people will do absent a particularly good reason to keep showing up.

I don't think anybody has really cracked the code of organizing effectively in a present-day capitalist society. I'm a bit doomerish about it because there are just so many more enjoyable ways to spend time. I think organizing around an activity is a good idea. You can read about those white nationalist "active clubs" that go out to parks and do MMA training. The SRA is decent for this reason but guns are an expensive hobby that don't mesh well with poor mental health. One thing is for sure - I won't be joining another reading group.