Quantity Over Quality
• all resources of organization are directed toward producing measurable goals
• things that can be measured are more highly valued than things that cannot,
for example numbers of people attending a meeting, newsletter circulation,
money spent are valued more than quality of relationships, democratic
decision-making, ability to constructively deal with conflict
• little or no value attached to process; if it can't be measured, it has no value
• discomfort with emotion and feelings
• no understanding that when there is a conflict between content (the agenda of
the meeting) and process (peopleís need to be heard or engaged), process
will prevail (for example, you may get through the agenda, but if you haven't
paid attention to peopleís need to be heard, the decisions made at the meeting
are undermined and/or disregarded)
antidotes: include process or quality goals in your planning; make sure your
organization has a values statement which expresses the ways in which you
want to do your work; make sure this is a living document and that people are
using it in their day to day work; look for ways to measure process goals (for
example if you have a goal of inclusivity, think about ways you can measure
whether or not you have achieved that goal); learn to recognize those times
when you need to get off the agenda in order to address peopleís underlying
concerns
Worship of the Written Word
• if itís not in a memo, it doesn't exist
• the organization does not take into account or value other ways in which
information gets shared
• those with strong documentation and writing skills are more highly valued,
even in organizations where ability to relate to others is key to the mission
antidotes: take the time to analyze how people inside and outside the
organization get and share information; figure out which things need to be
written down and come up with alternative ways to document what is
happening; work to recognize the contributions and skills that every person
brings to the organization (for example, the ability to build relationships with
those who are important to the organizationís mission)
• only one right way