What Got Us Here Won’t Get Us There

When we started Agile For Patriots in 2017, our leadership team formed organically. Word spread in our network and people started volunteering in different areas, in most cases, without even being asked.

As word spread and our program grew larger, the work that needed to get done became way more than the capacity of our team of volunteers. So we started recruiting people in  our network, asking people for help. As our team grew, we started running into inter-personal challenges for a variety of reasons.

3 Mistakes

1. Mismatched Expectations: In some cases, it was a case of mismatched expectations – volunteers did not know what was expected of them, how to navigate challenges, how to provide and receive feedback and how to request for help.
2. Lack of Personal Accountability: In other cases, we were on the same page when it came to expectations, the problem was a lack of personal accountability. Sometimes, we did not hold ourselves accountable to keeping our promises. We knew that we were not doing what we promised to AFP but we neither upgraded our performance nor did we step down from our role at AFP.
3. Lack of Peer Accountability: Lack or personal accountability was compounded by lack of peer accountability – when one of us was not keeping our promises and unable to hold themselves accountable, the rest of the team was also struggling to hold peers accountable in service of our shared vision and mission.

5 Adjustments

I looked in the mirror and knew that the buck stopped with me, as the leader of AFP. And so I set things in motion to be better.

We clarified expectations (available in more detail in a related blog)…

1. 3 Levels of Engagement: We used a stair step approach to create 3 categories of engagement so volunteers could self-select based on their available budget of effort…
   • • Volunteers
     • Board of Advisors
     • Board of Directors
2. Clear Expectations: We co-created the bare minimum expectations of each category so each volunteer knew what was expected of them
3. Performance Standards: We defined the process that volunteers would need to follow and the standards they would need to meet if they wanted to earn the right to get promoted to positions of greater accountability
4. Cultural Standards: We co-created a working agreement to guide how we behave with each other, especially when things get difficult
5. Recruitment Standards: We improved our screening process and asked applicants difficult questions based on past experiences to screen out people who were not a good fit

Where We Go From Here…

Our work is not done. This is where we are. I am sure we will fail. Our goal is not to fail at the same level. Our promise is to fail fast, learn fast and improve fast and stay true to our shared vision and mission.

If you want to help us get better, come join us.