How to build an organization or program

1. How to build an organization or program

2. FIRSTLY THE CHECKLIST • Everything you do needs to be done in a checklist. • When you know how to do everything you will usually find that it is fairly simple. However until that time things can usually get pretty confusing and sometimes overwhelming.

3. The reasons for this are usually • You weren’t trained with a checklist so that you could grasp everything quickly and simply • You don’t work with a checklist so to cut down hours of thinking and going over everything to make sure it is all done.

4. Checklists in the simplest form are nothing more than a very brief description of the activity and a statistic to measure how the production is going. • For those in leadership roles statistical checklists will save you hundreds of hours in monitoring not only how a task is going but also if it is being done in the first place

5. How to train someone • So lets start with how to train someone. Because the import person that you need to know how to train is yourself. • The reason that a lot of programs don’t work is because most of us leave this responsibility up to our boss, senior or supervisor. And if this person doesn’t have the organizational or personal skills then things usually go to pieces or don’t happen at all.

6. Training checklist • Overview (Brief training) • Step by step • Show them • Watch them • Let them do it on their own • Have them teach some (or you) • Monitor them • Detailed training and start again by going through step by step again

7. What people don’t get is that training continues long after someone is able to do the work. Not everything you teach will be absorbed the first few times you explain it. • And things can all ways be improved. • I have always had this rule that says • Training only finishes when they can do every component better than you. This includes being able to teach others And that is usually when you will be come the student again whether you are their boss or not.

8. IMPORTANT NOTE: • If you don’t teach others to teach you will lose thousands of hours teaching others continuously for the same role in the future. • And for a leader it usually means that your organization or project is not going to move forward very quickly.

9. Barriers to learning • There are usually 3 major barriers to learning. • 1) Misunderstood words • 2) To high a gradient • 3) Lack of mass (can’t visualize it)

10. Misunderstood words • If you are using words that a person doesn’t understand you may as well be speaking another language as you are wasting your time they are not going to get it. • Most people will just try and guess rather than stop you. Guessing doesn’t have a great success rate so again you are just wasting time.

11. SOLUTION • When I take responsibility for my own learning and I don’t understand the words I will usually ask what each word means. Or I will ask them to pretend they are teaching a three year old and start again. • Teach people like they are three, not in a degrading way but in a simple way. • The idea of only educating those that are all ready educated it silly and not practical.

12. To high a gradient • Remove the first 7 steps of a ladder and see how easy it is to get to the top. Very very few can do it. And if they do it is because they have used a method that didn’t need a ladder in the first place (eg climbing a pole) • Leaning is no different. Many kids that didn’t understand math early on were just told to keep going. And they just grow up not being able to do or enjoy it

13. SOLUTION • Break everything down into small steps. If you have to teach a three year old you will soon learn what every little step is. • There are so many things we do naturally (meaning we learnt it previously) that we some times just take for granted that everyone else already knows how to do. • Take that for granted and again you are wasting your time because they are not going to be able to do it.

14. Lack of mass • If I said to you I want you to go wash the tractor and you have never seen a tractor before you are not going to understand what I am talking about. You might have been taught that it is piece of machinery used to pull other farm equipment around. But you would not be able to pick it up out of a line up usually. • What if I tell you to get the keys to the tractor and when you get to the board of keys there are 10 sets and you don’t know which one it is

15. Or what if I tell you to make me a cake. There are thousands of styles of cakes so how would you know which one I would want. • Creativity is a basic step of problem solving because it is the skill of being able to close your eyes and see something that you or others have never seen before.

16. Highly creative people can see things that you explain with out having to be able to have seen it before. But they are rear. But their imagination will never see what yours does this can be good in the sense that these people can give you more than what you asked for or something better, or it can be bad in the sense that you will get something that you didn’t want or need.

17. So make sure you show them first and make sure that they get ever step.

18. SIDE NOTE • Have a look at this scale • Pain / pleasure (motivation skills) • Find a problem (observation skills) • Create an ideal scene (creative skills) • Find a solution (problem solving skills) • Do the solution (organization, people and motivation skills)

19. We are motivated in two ways getting pleasure or getting rid of pain. • For the humanitarian most of us either experience pain or experience pain of seeing others in pain. • Wanting to get rid of this pain is what will get most people involved or started • When they start if the pain reduces and the pleasure increases then they will stay involved • If not they will leave • Usually how the pain decrease and how the pleasure increase for most is irrelevant. But good to know if you want to be able to control or monitor continuous pleasure in others.

20. Once the pain (or uncomfortable feelings) start then we look for a problem. Being able to understand how things move in relation to others is important. Knowing how an engine works will help get the wheels moving. • A mechanic learns first how an engine moves in relation to its other parts then he is able to observe a symptom of the problem and follow it back until he finds the source of the problem. • Through his study he was given a long list of solutions for different problems.

21. Highly creative people were the ones that designed these engines and also designed solutions for the problems that come with these engines. • The point here is this. People that have a high level of motivation, observation, creativity, problem solving, organization, people skills are the ones that will be able to start programs from scratch. • Others will need help

22. Once we find that problem we then need to think or how we want the situation (or scene) to be. • After that we need to find a solution that gets us from A to B • Then we need to implement the solution and actually get to point B. If we don’t get there we need to start again on the scale until we get there.

23. Again highly creative people or visionaries are able to do step three which is to see what it should be like. People that can do this step well are rare. It is a skill the mankind hasn’t worked out yet how to teach very well. But a simple solution is to walk someone into a room and show them. “This is what it needs to look like when you are done” If you can’t do it yet take them to somewhere that can.

24. What it they don’t have a skill • Pain / pleasure (motivation skills) • You need to show others that they can decrease pain and increase others (its called inspiration at this level) The bad way to do this is to increase their pain until they do it. • Find a problem (observation skills) • You will need to assess the area for them • Create an ideal scene (creative skills) • They need to be shown the ideal scene • Find a solution (problem solving skills) • Give them the list of solutions (usually called training) • Do the solution (organization, people and motivation skills) • Here you will need to motive people (give them pleasure) and if they run into a lack of people or organization skills you need to give this to them also, if you don’t give them the skills to solve their problem or pain they will go

25. People are attracted to pleasure and withdraw from pain. When they don’t withdraw they become stressed, depressed and sometimes suicidal. • If they can’t create pleasure or move toward pleasurable things then the above symptoms become constant.

26. Overview • The reason this is the most important step is because people only absorb information that is relevant to them and their goals. Remember all that information you were taught at school that has nothing to do with any interest or goal - You don’t. And in most cases it didn’t sinking in the first place. • When you show people what it is they are producing they then take every piece of information and picture it and walk it through in their minds.

27. Example. • Task • Talk to Kelly she will give you the database • Task • Call everyone and see if they want to get involved • Task • Book them in • Task • Then send the bookings to the relevant person.

28. With out the overview this information is useless • The person doesn’t understand what they are doing or how to relate and process and remember the information you are talking about. People don’t remember words very well, but the remember pictures much better whether it be created in their imagination and or if they say it first hand.

29. Overview • Keeping all our admin role positions filled is one of the most important part of the organization. If we have none filled then we can’t do anything at all and if we only have some filled then our other admin staff get stress and quit quicker and many tasks are prioritized and others are not done at all • Your job is call people on the database and find people that are interested in trying these positions and then book them into see gary

30. Now that makes a little more sense. • But now here is the problem • Can you recite all the tasks • How many were there • If you think you got them all how confident are you to now teach someone else what you just learnt or even do a seminar on it

31. When you were first trained without the overview the mind was trying to picture what was going on and it formed the best picture it could, and then it filed it. • Then the overview was given and the picture was different. • But believe it or not even though you have all the information you need, all you really have is 2 incorrect pictures even though the task is short and simple • Now lets look at this in the correct order and see what happens

32. Overview • Keeping all our admin role positions filled is one of the most important part of the organization. If we have none filled then we can’t do anything at all and if we only have some filled then our other admin staff get stress and quit quicker and many tasks are prioritized and others are not done at all • Your job is call people on the database and find people that are interested in trying these positions and then book them into see Gary

33. Example. • Task • Talk to Kelly she will give you the database • Task • Call everyone and see if they want to get involved • Task • Book them in • Task • Then send the bookings to the relevant person.

34. The mind now created a picture or a map if you like and you will most likely feel a lot more confident on what you need to do. • But there is one way do give her a much better way of visualizing it. That is what is called a production map.

35. Production map • See how simple it is now every step and chose is laid down and there is no confusion. All that is needed now is to get her good and enjoying each step. This is a good thing to do for trainers as well. You will soon find what is missing from your training when you do this. Vols can’t contacted after 3 weeks Archived New vols on database Total names on database Volunteers called Vols said No Vols said yes Booked for interview with Gary Sent to gary

36. Now that the overview is done which is just another name for a brief training, it is time to walk them through it step by step • So you would walk her to Kelly. Get her the database, now she knows what that looks like. • Open the database and show her which names to call. • Now call one so she can hear you do it.

37. If a volunteer says no you will show her how to archive it to keep track of who you have called and get them off your database so you don’t accidently call them again. • Then when a volunteer says yes you will show her how to book in a volunteer. • Then you will show her how to notify Gary that someone is interested. • After that you will let her do one. • At this point you all looking to see what she observed and did well and what she missed • Explain if you like, do it again also is best but make sure you see her do it after that.

38. Let her get used to that then give her the more detailed training and then spend more time with her again and observe that she has those skills also. • The next step is monitoring. • There are two types of monitoring that you need to do.

39. The first type of monitoring is the production. This is done in the form of a statistic. (or stat) one stat for each task. In this case the stats would be as follows • Lets go back to the production map

40. Production map • Every box would be a statistic Vols can’t contacted after 3 weeks Archived New vols on database Total names on database Volunteers called Vols said No Vols said yes Booked for interview with Gary Sent to gary

41. New vols on database • This tells you if the person who scouts or collects names is doing their job. It also tells you if this girl has enough to do her work • Total vols on database • This also tells you if there is enough work to do. “0” new vols is not a problem if there are “300” on the database and she only averages 40 calls a day. • Vols called • This tells you exactly what she is doing or getting done

42. Vols couldn’t contact after 3 months (3 calls minimum on diverent weeks) • This tells you names that have expired. If you don’t get them in three months then they are no longer probably interested. Volunteers that take months to contact are usually more admin work than they will give you back. So don’t worry about cutting them. • Vols no • When archiving volunteer you would want to know the difference between one that couldn’t be contacted and ones that say no. If 90% said no then you need to would on the persons phone calls where if most are not being able to be contacted then it might be the database that you need to fix.

43. Vols Yes • 10 vols that say yes when you need 100 is bad but if you need 8-12 its good. 10 vols that say yes about of 20 calls might be good. Out of 100 calls and its not so good. Its interesting to note here that most statistics on their own don’t mean a lot. • Vols booked • There is a difference between one that wants to be involved and one that actually gets booked in for an interview to one that is approved after the interview to one that actually starts to one that actually stays. Know a car breaks down is useless if you don’t know which part of it is broken • Send to gary • And finally you need to know if it was sent onto the next person that needs it.

44. Now that you have sorted what to report you need to know sort out how to report. • The best way to do this is to give them two charts. Obviously the first it the production map that tells them what work to do and the description of the stat. • The second is a chart that they can write their stat into.

45. Now in the case of this particular job. There are nine possible stats (or steps) • It is important that they write down all. This is important for three things. Themselves so they can improve that. For their senior to monitor in detail, and also for the committee for future investigations.

46. But realistically if 9 statistics were reported for every task then as far as the committee was concerned then it would defeat the purpose of statistics which is to be a very brief summary to see how they entire organization is going in one page and 30 seconds. • So the committee is usually interested in the start stat and the finish stat. In this case how man new vols in the database and how many vols booked.

47. But if you notice her starting stat is someone else’s finishing stat and the same for her. Her finishing stat is Gary’s starting stat. And in turn Gary’s finishing stat would be how many new admin staff that started on the job. • So really each job needs one stat as far as the committee is concerned.

48. There are two other stats that would be included. • Stats that monitor current problems that have been prioritized by the committee • And stats that show the vital statistics that if crashed will crash an organization or major project or do the most damage. In the case of a car are things like • Amount of fuel left • Oil warning light • Temperature of the engine

49. For most organization is it is about • Number of weeks left of funding • Number of staff • Number of clients • Number of programs completed • Number of program cancelled

50. Now back to the example of booking admin staff it would look like this • Noting that the ones in red are the ones that would be sent to committee. • But in a lot of cases the committee would want to investigate further and would not only need to see this weeks stats but at least 6 weeks prior and possible 12 months prior