- 1. AVM CONFERENCE SPEECH Finding Our Voice!Courageous thinking
for individuals and organisationsGood morning! Im honoured and
delighted to have been asked to do this a chance to re-connect with
the world of volunteering, which has been an abiding passion for
over 30 years. I am also genuinely delighted to be part of this
special conference and to be able to celebrate 120 scintillatingly
varied expressions of the phenomenon we call professional Volunteer
Management. You do such an important job, although it often can be
a bit marginal, invisible and unsung. Why is Volunteering
Management not held in quite the same esteem as other roles? The
responsibility, skills, innovation, creativity and flair needed to
inspire, motivate and deploy volunteers is of a very high order.
Volunteer Managers can get lost alongside the fundraiser who brings
in the money, and the practitioners at the coal-face who deliver
services for beneficiaries and manage frontline operations. So many
people in the world just dont get it, do they? And some who think
they do, because theyve been a volunteer ... Its a bit like Ive had
brain surgery, so Id like to volunteer as a brain surgeon. We all
know how important volunteering and volunteers are. We know the
facts and figures about their impact the economic value of it so
how come it is often somehow invisible? Two questions were given to
me as part of the briefing for today. What advice would you give to
help Volunteer Managers have legitimacy in their organisation? How
can Volunteer Managers influence within an organisation? You know
what they say about advice: People often love giving it, BUT no-one
likes taking it - in fact we usually hate it when people tell us
what we should or ought to be thinking or doing and most often, we
never take it... VITAL SPACE Fiona Dawe [email protected]
vitalspace.org.uk2 Farnaby Road Bromley BR1 4BJT 020 8466 7302 M
07969 598 548
2. AVM CONFERENCE SPEECH Finding Our Voice!Courageous thinking
for individuals and organisationsSo I have no advice to give. I do
instead have some thoughts and questions which I hope will be
useful in thinking about why we might find ourselves in a position
where we feel we dont have a proper voice and where we need to find
it, reconnect with it and most importantly- use it! I have worked
as a volunteer (still do), with volunteers and in the world of
volunteering for practically my whole career and I have noticed a
few things that can get us down. I am not going to think about how
we might find our voice from the outside in, but from the inside
out so Ive been thinking about the personal and about leadership.
If we are to exercise leadership as Volunteer Managers, we need to
know and value ourselves, so we can be our authentic selves. If we
dont, the chances of us being able to influence our way out of a
paper bag, far less our organisations, or indeed, the wider world,
will be pretty slim... In the words of Meister Eckhart (1262-1328):
"You should be less concerned about what you have to do and more
concerned about what you must be. For, if your being is good, your
work will be of great value." One thing Ive noticed is that
organisations can find themselves playing out the story of their
beneficiaries A good friend, who was a pretty effective CEO of a
charity providing services for children and adults with learning
disabilities, told me this. She was complaining to her mentor about
her disappointment and frustration at being yet again - excluded
from consultations. The organisation was always assessed as very
good or excellent, and clients and families were happy. So why was
she consistently marginalised, excluded, an afterthought?VITAL
SPACE Fiona Dawe [email protected] vitalspace.org.uk2
Farnaby Road Bromley BR1 4BJT 020 8466 7302 M 07969 598 548 3. AVM
CONFERENCE SPEECH Finding Our Voice!Courageous thinking for
individuals and organisationsHer mentor asked I wonder how people
with learning disabilities are often treated and I wonder how they
experience being able to influence things? So what is your
organisations story? Does that kind of story shed any light on how
volunteers, volunteering and your role are looked upon? You hear a
lot these days about getting the narrative right were very
influenced by stories and the things we collectively tell
ourselves. So what different sort of story would you begin to tell
inside your organisation which would re-frame the narrative? As
part of my work as an Advisor for the Social Justice Committee at
the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, I chair one of their special
initiatives Supported Options Initiative for young people with
irregular or undocumented status. As a part of this, we invited
Carlos Saavedra from United We Dream and the DREAMers movement in
the USA. He, together with a large coalition of organisations
(which had many struggles and differences of opinion to overcome
within themselves, by the way) worked for many years to change the
way Americans saw undocumented Latino migrants. And last year,
President Obama enacted the Deferred Action Policy they are well on
their way to legitimising the status of thousands of young people.
They did it by volunteering and telling stories not drily
campaigning against existing policy. They played the longer, more
systemic game of changing the perceptions of ordinary fellow
Americans. They created a movement.VITAL SPACE Fiona Dawe
[email protected] vitalspace.org.uk2 Farnaby Road Bromley
BR1 4BJT 020 8466 7302 M 07969 598 548 4. AVM CONFERENCE SPEECH
Finding Our Voice!Courageous thinking for individuals and
organisationsFirstly, they empowered themselves, by telling their
own stories and talking about what they were for, what their dreams
and aspirations are and celebrating who they are and what they
stand for. Secondly, their stories and identities as aspirational
students, rather than criminals, humanised them in the eyes of the
country they saw as their own. This took some courage in their case
as they were, or are, technically illegal. But they found that it
is safer being transparent - especially when people could see that
they were beautiful human beings with a heart, a mind, a passion
for learning and achieving and a commitment to their country whats
not to like? This is such a different story to the negative view of
leeches on the backs of the state who ought to be sent back where
they belong... They advocate for themselves and dont let others
define who they are. I find their story and approach really
inspiring. I saw the power of it when Carlos was telling his
personal story in a room full of undocumented young people who
began to grow bigger in their seats. A couple of them stood up at
the end and declared their status out loud (for the first time) and
outlined what actions they would like to take. I dont think they
would have done that if Carlos had given them advice and told them
what to think or what plan of action to adopt. So what might we
learn for ourselves and our role from this story? What are they
modelling that we could embrace? As he South African writer Philip
Adam said: The future is not some place we are going to, but one we
are creating. The paths to it are made, not found; and the activity
of making them changes both the maker and the destinations.VITAL
SPACE Fiona Dawe [email protected] vitalspace.org.uk2
Farnaby Road Bromley BR1 4BJT 020 8466 7302 M 07969 598 548 5. AVM
CONFERENCE SPEECH Finding Our Voice!Courageous thinking for
individuals and organisationsOne of the ideas that I work a great
deal with in my current work as a Thinking Environment consultant
is: Assumptions. Now these can be very useful things indeed
essential in many cases. In the absence of complete certainty it
can be really helpful to make assumptions (based on best guesses)
when youre thinking about what to pack to go on holiday, or to
draft next years budget, for example. However the ones that are not
helpful are those which block us and stop us doing things. They are
untrue limiting assumptions which we live as if they were true. So
my next series of questions are: What does the world assume about
Volunteer Managers that can limit their influence and self esteem?
(Ask audience to think about a couple of assumptions) Of those
assumptions, which one do you think is most limiting? Say its .....
Do you think that assumption is, in fact, inherently true of
Volunteer Managers? What are your reasons for thinking so?
Reasons... What would be your words for a liberating TRUE
assumption about Volunteer Managers? True Liberating Assumption ...
If YOU knew (insert True Liberating Assumption ) what would change
for you? And what else? If the WORLD knew (insert True Liberating
Assumption ) what would change for the world? VITAL SPACE Fiona
Dawe [email protected] vitalspace.org.uk2 Farnaby Road
Bromley BR1 4BJT 020 8466 7302 M 07969 598 548 6. AVM CONFERENCE
SPEECH Finding Our Voice!Courageous thinking for individuals and
organisationsI am a fan of David Whyte a poet and philosopher. He
talks of 5 courageous conversations. These questions represent five
simultaneous levels of conversation that he believes are essential
to the art and discipline of leadership. Thinking this way may help
to get volunteer-involvement in your organisation better aligned
with its mission. And if it is already, then it might help to get
the perceptions of different parts of the organisation altered in
terms of how they view volunteers and their role and contribution
and therefore the role of Volunteer Manager too. 5. What is the
courageous conversation we are not yet having with the unknown
future - the world that lies over the horizon, but has not yet been
fully articulated? 4. What is the courageous conversation we are
not having with our clients or the society of which we are a part?
This in effect is the future, now, the currents of people and
events that flow around the organisation and the endeavours of the
individuals who make it up. 3 What is the courageous conversation
we are not having between the different divisions and international
cultures within the organisation? What prevents us from taking
another step in working together? 2. What is the courageous
conversation I am not having in my immediate workgroup, or with my
immediate superiors, associates and subordinates? What is the
courageous conversation I can personally initiate to start things
moving in this immediate circle? 1. (The private conversation.)
What is the courageous conversation I am refusing to have with
myself, in my own heart and mind with regard to my work, and the
present life threshold on which I find myself? What is the
courageous conversation I am not having with my partner or spouse,
my children or loved ones?VITAL SPACE Fiona Dawe
[email protected] vitalspace.org.uk2 Farnaby Road Bromley
BR1 4BJT 020 8466 7302 M 07969 598 548 7. AVM CONFERENCE SPEECH
Finding Our Voice!Courageous thinking for individuals and
organisationsThis last question, though asked privately, is an
essential foundation for all the other courageous conversations. It
is very difficult to be passionate or sincere about the outer, more
abstract, strategic, questions, if a leader has neglected his, or
her, own primary questions with regard to work and the part their
work plays in the drama of their own story. Benjamin Mee the man
who bought Dartmoor Zoo (his lifes been made into a film called We
Bought a Zoo, Matt Damon plays him) said: "You know, sometimes all
you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty
seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something
great will come of it." Im sorry if youre disappointed that I have
only posed questions. However, I know that our minds work best in
the presence of great questions. I hope some of these are good
questions for you. I also know that we are all more than capable of
thinking well for ourselves, as ourselves, and if we do this, we
will not only empower ourselves, we will also come up with amazing
ideas and solutions that noone else could. No one said any of this
would necessarily be easy, but if we dont step up to the challenge,
who will? And in any case, its our job! Ill end with Barack Obamas
words: Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if
we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting
for. We are the change that we seek". ENDS FD 23 Oct 2013VITAL
SPACE Fiona Dawe [email protected] vitalspace.org.uk2
Farnaby Road Bromley BR1 4BJT 020 8466 7302 M 07969 598 548
