How to Better Manage Your New Organization Without Burning Yourself Out
To make a great book, album, or painting can be done by anyone, but to make a great film takes an army. - Conventional Hollywood insights; speaker unknown
Imagine this: you are Nikki the bartender, who sees a particular customer, Melanie, come in every week over the course of six months. Your first meeting with her is how she has become disillusioned with her career and is stuck in the rat race out of habit even if she’s got nothing binding her to her job at a high-paying corporate firm doing forensic accounting. She’s with her friends enjoying margaritas and while she’s not happy, she still has a spark of life in her that just needs a push to be ignited.
Later on, Melanie meets another patron, LaToya, who just happened to come on the same Tuesday happy hour that she and her friends regularly come for, and they strike up a conversation as though they were high school best friends talking about dreams and passions, and come up with an idea for helping connect underprivileged urban youth with opportunities that exist for them as high school dropouts or those with criminal records–opportunities that they don’t know about–for the purpose of showing everyone has a chance to get ahead even if they can’t afford an education or didn’t get the best preparation for life.
Over the course of the next few months, Melanie and LaToya come in having infectious smiles and a burning passion that gets them excited and inspiring, bringing in new faces regularly. Gradually, this excitement starts tapering off and becoming a kind of dread that is different from the boredom and disappointment before beginning this dream of serving underprivileged youth: the kind of self-punishing agony that arises from fearing that you are a screw-up and it’s affecting other people in ways you try not to imagine.
Wiping your hands with a hand towel and bringing three drinks: one each for Melanie and LaToya, and one for yourself. Introducing yourself as a fellow dreamer, not just their bartender and crossing the bridge to be a friend for once, you share some insights and advice from a woman in Hollywood who manages a bar when she’s not trying to produce films. After a long conversation, smiles and tears, and a tab generously picked up by you, the next six months sees a gradual change for LaToya and Melanie, new friends as volunteers and fiscal sponsors, and team members for their organization–who in turn come to you bringing others for the same advice on how to manage a new organization with limited resources in terms of manpower, time, and money. Pulling out a projector, you have summarized your experience in a short film comprised of several comedy sketches that could even be a PowerPoint presentation, hammily acted out by LaToya, Melanie, and a few other volunteers eager to translate this Hollywood insight into universal insights for artists, nonprofits, and social entrepreneurs especially:
Sketch One: One-Man Army
A black and white flashback of Melanie plays in the vein of an old silent film: she has a firm stance and determined look on her face as she raises her fist up high and opens her mouth confidently, before the scene is interrupted and the captions on the screen read, “Yes! I can!” and she imagines armies of men bowing before her as tanks raise the white flags of surrender.
The next scene becomes a high-definition color film and shows Melanie slumped over on her desk, passed out on her keyboard, snoring and drooling on the computer keyboard with a white flag in her iced latte. The camera shows her computer screen, which shows 300 unread e-mails from prospective partner organizations, potential volunteers, late payment notices for her credit card as a result of fiscal sponsors in turn giving their contributions late because she filed the wrong paperwork and invoice amount. Her phone has a blinking light indicating that her voice mailbox is full.
LaToya then enters the room as the classic choral song “Hallelujah” plays as an army of volunteers marches in and cleans up Melanie’s inbox, while carrying in chairs and desks, everyone taking an equal amount of paperwork and bringing their own computers to man their battlestations. Melanie wakes up, smiles, raises her hand up in the air, and her new slogan is, “Yes! We can!” as everyone stands on their desks and raises their hand in unison, hammering in the point to all dreamers that you can’t do everything by yourself.
Sketch Two: All-Stars and Team Players
LaToya, Melanie, and Nikki, along with various friends and family are wearing basketball Jerseys indicating that they are Dennis Rodman, Michael Jordan, Yao Ming, Magic Johnson, Larry Byrd, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Muggsy Boegs. A series of bloopers occurs while Smash Mouth’s hit single “All-Star” plays in the background as the ragtag team play the worst game of basketball in their careers as they bump into each other constantly, ignore openings to pass and assist, and end up competing with each other more than they compete with the opposing teams, played by a volunteer high school basketball team.
Nikki’s grandfather, wearing a baseball cap and holding a clipboard, plants his palm over his forehead, sighs, and shakes his head as he lectures the group of all-stars. A caption on the screen appears and says, “Four hours later, the coach basically told them to learn to work as a team to play off each other’s strengths, support each other to make up for their weaknesses, and to trust each other instead of trying to steal the spotlight or do everything on their own.”
Sketch Three: *batteries not included
LaToya and Melanie have power cords wrapped around their waist as though they were tails and act like robots doing various office tasks. As the clock on the wall indicates the passage of time, a computer prompt appears showing that each of them at various times are running low on battery, with LaToya having an iOS prompt and Melanie having a Linux notification, showing that each of them have different battery lives, one longer than the other.
Melanie plugs her power cord tail into the wall as she is smoking a cigarette and taking a coffee, and manages to recharge about 10% at a time before resuming work. LaToya reaches 0% and can no longer plug herself into the wall, at which point a volunteer comes in and brings her to her home, plugs her into the wall, and several more volunteers wearing power cord tails make sure that they only work until a certain percentage of battery is used, some leaving at 60%, others at 40%, and one even at 70%, indicating that they only will give a certain amount of time and energy before leaving to recharge instead of going until they have totally spent themselves before going home to recharge not just by sleeping and eating, but by enjoying themselves in various ways, such as playing video games, painting, hiking, doing yoga, or taking a day trip to the beach.
Melanie returns after a weekend of recharging, and her battery burns out quicker and quicker each time she allows her energy levels to drop to zero, while at the same time taking longer to fully recharge to 100%, until she can no longer recharge fully, getting a maximum of two hours instead of eight even if the battery indicator says she has a full 100%, but her battery has expired and needs to be replaced.
The caption at the end reads, “Don’t overdo it, especially all by yourself, or you will burn yourself out!”
The credits roll, and everyone in the audience cheers at the simple albeit silly ways of conveying the necessity of delegating and taking things slowly instead of trying to build and manage a new organization by yourself.
