[Ansteorra] Persian Dance

Tue Aug 19 04:18:52 PDT 2014

 An Answer to population lostby Duchess willow de wisp,OP Many of the problems we are having in the SCA are also happening in the modern world. Researcher and thinkers have some interesting takes on the subject. John Kotter, Konosuke Matsushita professor of leadership at Harvard University suggest that the answer of some of the problems is understanding the difference between management and leadership.John Paul Kotter (1990) argued that the functions of the leadership and management are dissimilar. The main function of management is to provide order and consistency to organizations. The function of leadership is to produce change and movement. Because of these different functions management is about seeking order and stability and leadership is about seeking adaptive and constructive change. He believes that both management and leadership are essential for a well working organization.At this site http://www.leadershipasheville.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Kotter-What-Leaders-Really-Do.pdf   you can find an article by John Kotter that is very interesting and lays out what he is talking about.Here is a table that gives you a general idea of what he is saying.,http://nelsontouchconsulting.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/leadership-vs-management There is a lot more to it and I suggest it would be worthwhile to read how people in the Mundane world are employing these concepts in helping their organizations, But right now I would like to touch on how this relates to our Kingdom.    First I would like to talk to you about how the founders of the Kingdom used these ideas, even if they were not popular at that time to break up roles in Ansteorra.We always saw the officers in the role of managers and we saw the Crown, peers and nobles as Leaders. We saw that because first and foremost the peers were chosen from the natural or emergent leadership coming from the populace. We saw the individuals proving themselves as leaders in Ansteorra and then because they could fulfill the roles needed being recognized as peers. We created a pattern using the middle Medieval vassal and Lord structure with the balance of give and take between the Crown and nobles and peers as for the pattern of Kingship and Government. We also saw this from a very Celtic viewpoint. We saw kingdom officers coming from the peers. We saw local officers filling the roles of management but leadership coming from the local populace and those local leaders moving up and becoming peers as the proved themselves. We did not see officers running everything or micro managing. They were to help with the red tape and to negotiate solutions between creative people.  We saw the Crown not as an Absolute ruler but more of the Celtic Ard Righ. The main purpose of the Celtic Ard Righ is to bring about compromises among people. It is similar to being a mother with two children fighting over a ball. If everyone is doing things sooner or later there will be conflict over what is going to be done and what order. Often people will engage in destructive politics to insure that they and their people get the time and resources. We saw the Crown and their Vickers stepping in and arranging peaceful and fair solutions.      This system worked very well and for about 23 years we were growing, but then we started having problems. The first one is we had too much going on and it was causing too much conflict and the Crown and Peers and Nobles were having to step in all the time. They are volunteers like the rest of us and about 19years ago it was too much and over half of those kinds of people burnt out and left the SCA. At the same time we had a big influx of new people. The group that left had not trained their replacements and the people who should have taken on the roles didn’t understand what needed to be done. They also didn’t understand “why” they needed to do it.  They haven’t had to do those roles in the past and they didn’t see any reason to do them now. Because they lacked knowledge in how groups worked they thought that “all that just happen” and it comes in cycles and it will happen naturally.  They didn’t realize that nothing in groups happen naturally some person and then people have to make things happen.    At the same time the mundane world was talking about doing away with standards and how things will happen naturally if controls are taken away. That really struck a chord with the Crown, peers and Nobles so leadership stopped performing many of their traditional roles and took a holiday.  The same thing started happening in the united states as a whole.  The one group that could not take a holiday was Management. Many of the roles that were not being done were transferred over to management. This was bad because it is near on impossible for sets of roles to be done at the same time by the same person. Another problem was one of time. Our officers are volunteers and they only have so much time to do everything and just doing their jobs as officers takes up most of their free time. Expecting them to develop visions and inspire people and encourage the people’s creative side and at the same time negotiate compromise is just too much.  As a result of this the people in charge started simplifying things.  I do not believe they even knew that they were doing that. If people in a guild started fighting they closed the guild. If a group started to have conflict the kingdom told them to close down and not do anything for 6 month. Because guilds and groups that close down for 6 months most often do not restart and if they are not in existence then they are not fighting and not going to officers with their problems that worked out great for the officers. Because the officers were overwhelmed by the work they did not see what the policy was doing.  Let me show you an example of something that happened to me. In a group I was in we had a very active Middle Eastern guild. Now this guild grew until it had two teachers. One teacher, me, was a Laurel and the other was a very talented dancer coming from a modern viewpoint. As a Laurel I was interested in folkloric dance and period costuming. As a modern dancer she wanted pretty and modern Egyptian dance. As a Laurel I felt obliged to warn her that she would not get positive enforcement from the Laurels with her approach. I explained this badly and she got upset. She brought her complaint to our Baron who instead of trying to negotiate understanding between us he just killed the guild.  Why was this bad? First the 15 people in her circle left the SCA and the 5 people in my circle left the guild and that includes me. I felt like a failure and didn’t organize anything for about 6 months. I know some of you, just like some of the people in the Barony, are saying “good riddance” but what this did was o the stop that interest in that area. That action also stopped that interest that might engage in new people coming into the group in the futureMaybe the next person, who is just the person to share your interest in something  comes in, but his lady likes middle eastern dance but your group “doesn’t do” middle eastern dance and doesn’t want Middle eastern dance or bardcraft or siege machines or Whatever. He wants to be in the SCA but his lady can’t find anything to interest her so they do not stay.  Every time we drop an interest area we lose people and every time we promote an interest we gain someone. Look at Archery as a good example of that.  The number may not be large but they are there and if you add them up they can explain the loss of population.  To turn this around we do not need more management. Our officers are working themselves to death.  We need more leadership. I believe we should look to John Kotter and other such Modern writers and see what they are advising modern companies and organizations to do to improve their leadership skills.I believe that we have people who could be leaders if they were given a little training. Duchess Willow de Wisp 0p   
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