Knowledge has organizing power. Only knowledge can organize. The more steeped you are in knowledge, the better you can organize.
These seven principles will make you effective and will build a strong team, within any organization:
- Never underestimate your organization. If you underestimate your organization, you will not be able to build it.
- Defend your intentions, not your actions. Often people defend their actions and lose sight of their intentions. Then they feel sorry and weak. There is no need to feel sorry. Defend your intention to do right.
- Teamwork. With teamwork you achieve more than you do individually. Some work is best done alone and other work is best done with a team. Find the balance between walking alone and working with a team. In either case, alone or with a team, you will face obstacles. For your growth, both are essential. Each has its disadvantages and advantages. Drop either one, and you will be at a loss. The skill is not to have an aversion to either and to focus on the goal.
- Not defending friends. Suppose you have introduced a friend to a job and they make a mistake. Do not try to defend them. That is where the team breaks up. When you defend a friend, you are not friendly to everybody. Defending someone’s mistakes does not do justice to the team and stops the person from learning. Soft-heartedness and compassion in an organization can be detrimental to both the teamwork and the organization.
- Never justify a mistake with intimidation or logic. Raising your voice, intimidation, anger, shouting, and applying erroneous logic make a wrong appear right. Someone may do something wrong, but with shouting he makes the wrong appear right. Raising your voice and asserting through intimidation may make a wrong appear right. Do not give in to that. Do not give into aggression, intimidation, wrong logic and soft-heartedness.
- Volunteers often act as though everyone is a boss and not a worker. When working with such volunteers, be calm and quiet. Ask, “Have you finished your work?”
- Solutions will always be ad hoc. The more dynamic an institution is, the more the solutions will be ad hoc. It’s not like a nine-to-five company job where roles are designed and planned for a year. With volunteers, the productivity is more intense. The more dynamic a group, the quicker things happen. Maintaining a margin for confusion and chaos can prevent stress.
