More leadership roles in LifeRing

When the founding members wrote the LifeRing bylaws back in 2000-2001, we wanted to create as "flat" an organization as possible, and would have provided for no officers at all if that were legally possible.

However, in order to operate on a sound businesslike footing, we had to form a corporation; and corporations have to at least three officers. That's how we arrived at the triumvirate of CEO, CFO, and Secretary -- the only official officers in LifeRing. If you add the nine seats on the Board of Directors, you get a maximum of 12 people with recognized leadership responsibilities.

Now, "flat" is good and there's much organizational research that validates this concept. You can scan the past decade of Harvard Business Review to find a string of learned, researched articles dissing the top-down hierarchical bureaucratic megalith corporation and lauding the horizontal network-type organization with its short communication lines and rapid response times.

We definitely want to stay flat ... but flat also has its dark side, at least in our implementation. Given our current setup, if you show leadership ability and interest, your options are severely limited. You're either convenor of a local meeting (or of a chat or list), or you're on the worldwide Board of Directors or an officer of the corporation. There's a huge gap of nothing in between.

Having no recognized intermediate leadership positions is bad. There's no ramp for people to move up on as their vision grows broader and their dedication to service becomes firmer. Because there's no transition, convenors may get stuck in a local perspective and may even isolate from the rest of the LifeRing network. I think we're infected with that malady in a number of places.

We do have a number of convenors who take on broader responsibilities than a single meeting. Whenever there's a problem in one of the meetings in their area, they help out. If somebody needs a substitute, they get the call. If there's a talk to be given, they take the lead in doing it. If a meeting is out of literature, they take care of it. When there's an area workshop, they're present. And so on. That's great. What's not good is that we have no express way of recognizing the role they play. We ought to have a formal title for them.

It's unrealistic to expect that literally every LifeRing participant will take on a leadership role at some time or other. But it's also unrealistic to expect that LifeRing can grow and prosper so long as we have a whole lot of nothing inbetween the local level and the worldwide level. That's why the Congress in Denver took up discussion of intermediate leadership. We made a start on it: Robert (Itchy) Bradley is now East Coast convenor. Kathleen Gargan is now Colorado convenor. When everybody gets home and has a chance to look at their local situation with new eyes, we'll undoubtedly define a series of additional intermediate roles, with responsibilities broader than a single meeting but smaller than the universe of the board member.

The ultimate guarantee of organizational "flatness" is our Delegates' Assembly. Each meeting has the power to send one person who has one vote in the DA, and the DA elects the Board of Directors. The meetings through their delegates are both the bottom of the organization, in the sense that they are its foundation, and the top of the organization, because they hold the ultimate power. So long as that remains the case -- and nobody is advocating a change in that -- we'll remain a flat, anti-hierarchical organization. But without creating a ramp of intermediate leadership, and granting formal recognition to the intermediate leaders who are active now, there's a danger that we'll get flat in the bad sense, like a soda with the bubbles gone, or like road kill.

Your thoughts?

Intro to Workbook Study (Short Format)

The Recovery by Choice workbook is written mainly for individual home study (“bibliotherapy”). The new Short Format Study Outline is an effort to adapt the book for use in group study.

In theory, groups could work the book in the same way that an individual might: by considering each item, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, page by page, with group discussion of each point of interest. In practice, groups working the book in this fashion march so slowly – approximately a page or two per hour – that it might take three to five years to complete the volume.

The new Short-Format Study Outline provides a framework for completing the workbook in thirteen weekly sessions lasting one hour or less. The thirteen-week format allows four complete cycles of book study in a calendar year. It also approximately matches the fourteen chapters in the workbook.

As you will see as you track the outline through the book, a great deal of material had to be skipped or touched on lightly. One substantial chapter (Ch. 10) is omitted entirely. Study group members may want to work the omitted material on their own as “homework” between study meetings.

Each session in the Study Outline has a more or less set format.

• Opening Statement, setting out general purpose of the study
• A review question based on the material covered the previous week
• A short introductory statement for today’s topic
• References to worksheets or other exercises from the book, exploring the topic
• Reference to a closing exercise, usually for writing a plan that addresses the topic.
• A closing remark that points ahead to next week’s topic.

This format has been tested with an initial group of about 6 people, more or less, for one complete cycle of sessions each lasting 45 minutes. A 45-minute format respects the fact that most of the content is fairly intense and requires considerable concentration and effort. At this level of intensity, a full hour may be too long.

People who have done 12-step study groups may find the LifeRing study group format disconcerting at first. People tell me that the 12-step groups mainly do recitation (reading aloud) from the text, much like Bible study. The group leader may provide authoritative interpretation. The role of the average participant is to recite when called upon and otherwise be still and listen.

Here, the over-all purpose of the study is for each participant to build their Personal Recovery Program. Each person’s P.R.P. will be more or less unique, based on their personality and circumstances. Accordingly, it is important that each person participate actively in the group discussion, to get their issue out and get feedback. Although there is an occasional patch of recitation in the outline, and you may once or twice assert your superior factual knowledge, the main process is participatory and interactive. The nearest parallel is a graduate seminar in which each student is pursuing a personal research project.

Part of the convenor’s art in any meeting is keeping track of time. When convening a study group, you may find yourself constantly balancing between the imperative of group participation and the demands of the clock. It’s important to make time for the closing exercise, if the chapter has one, because the final (13th) session begins by pulling these closing exercises together, so as to make a master plan.

Working any workbook requires literacy. Many of the exercises in this outline call for writing. If some of your group members have difficulty in this area, one solution is to have them buddy up with people who are more fluent.

Access to a whiteboard or its equivalent can be useful in several sessions, particularly Ch. 1 (My Decision). You could write the session outline on the board before the start. You can jot key points of the discussion on the board to help the group focus and track the issues.

Nothing about this outline should be treated as if it were cast in stone. Some of the selections reflect nothing more than my hunch about what would work best with the particular group present. On the next go-round with a different group, I might [and did (Note added May 12)] select different material from the book. You should feel free to do the same.

The attached outline is a rough first draft. It reflects actual experience in a first study cycle, and is far from a polished final product. You may be confused at first which lines are meant as a suggested script for the convenor to present to the group, and which lines are editorial asides to the convenor. In future drafts the presentation should gradually rise to a clearer format and higher polish.

Your experiences in leading workbook study groups is valuable. This is a pioneer venture -- really an adventure -- in recovery self-education, and other people can benefit greatly from knowing about the trail you have blazed. Please post your experience in this blog and become a member of the LifeRing convenors’ email group (if you are not already) and post your experiences there, in as much detail as possible, for the benefit of others who will follow behind you.

View the Short Format Study Outline (PDF)

Dealing With People Who Relapse a Lot

--- In convenors@yahoogroups.com, "fibejebe" charli883@i... wrote:

"...The truth sometimes hurts but it is still better than a load of bullshit. Any comments?" -- Fiona.

Not long ago, on LSRmail, one of our members who's been struggling with repeated day-1's since first becoming involved with LSR late last year, in referring to the response from Ellesarians to his latest slip, put up a post which included this line:

"...When I drank 9 days ago a lot of lsr's said don't worry about it, get back on your feet, move on. Should I still take that attitude?"

My response is copied here:
___________________________________________________

What attitude makes the most sense to you, XXXXX? It seems to me that somebody who's made a sincere decision to end the admittedly devastating, suicidal lifestyle of active addiction would not take lightly any episode of drinking, regardless of the circumstances.

Addiction is serious business, and the only known way to arrest it is abstinence. Lapses in abstinence, if dismissed too casually, can become seen as inevitable, or "no big deal". The danger in that attitude, of course, is that the lapses will become more frequent and last longer.

When does one cross the line from being committed to recovery and really making a concerted effort to change, back over to being resigned to a life of struggling with alcohol?

When does a pattern of slips become nothing more than active alcoholism in the form of periodic or binge drinking? I'm not sure there's a clean line there. I'm very sure the danger exists, because that's exactly what I did some years ago.
So, when I hear people suggesting that one "Don't worry about it, get back on your feet, move on...", what I hear is "Don't spend a lot of time wallowing around in guilt and embarassment, by all means stop drinking immediately, and redouble your efforts to attain stable abstinence."

What I don't hear is "Hey, no big deal, forget about it." It is a big deal. It's a failure to achieve what you set out to do. It's a disappointment, a frustration, a bummer. It's an indication that you've more work to do, that there are things you might consider doing differently. It should not be forgotten about, it should be looked at very carefully to see what can be learned to prevent it from happening again.

I guess I'd say the worst attitude one might assume in the midst of, or in the wake of a slip would be, "See? I can't stop drinking. I'm a failure. Screw it, it's too hard, I can't do this, the hell with sobriety." A much better attitude might something like, "See? I'm human, I'm not invincible, I let my guard down and got bitten hard. But I'm not beaten, I'm going to learn what I can from this and do what I set out to do for all the reasons I know in my heart I must, if I'm to live a meaningful life."

I would find it a bit worrisome that after a damn good period of sobriety you drank, then about a week later you drank again...that's a disturbing trend developing. Time to get serious, if you're serious about sobriety. And I believe you are.
_________________________________________________
And that about sums up my personal view on the question, except to add that the better I know an individual, the better feel I have for what attitude to take in my support of them. I, personally, am likely to pay more attention and actually think about what's being said if I get some straight, no BS talk (and maybe a slap or two) from someone I trust and respect. At the same time, I realize people react differently, and it takes time to get to know what's the best way to get through to somebody. When in doubt, I'll lean toward the "gentle" approach.
Rick Booth 5/30/03

LifeRing Service Center, Press, Move to New Office

A Place Of Our Own
Marjorie posts temporary door sign on our new home.	Gillian gets high on the ladder to brighten up the ceiling.	Chet makes like Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence.
Chet and Marjorie assembling the rubber-like steel shelving.	Ta-daa! Ready to hold boxes of LifeRing Press books.	Syl fights off the great white cardboard box shark.
Lloyd, George and Ellen get down with the shipping desk.	It got pretty chaotic sometimes but, heck, we're used to that!	Chet prepares to tape Mark.
Lloyd, George, Marty (in rear), Chet pile the wagons high.	Laurie and Mark ham for the camera..	Marylou helps put things back together the next day.
	During the week of April 7-13 '03, LifeRing Press and the LifeRing Service Center moved to new office space. Lots of volunteers made the move short work and a good time. The new space is bigger and more versatile, and more important: it's all our own! Please mark the new mailing address: LifeRing 1440 Broadway Suite 312 Oakland CA 94612-2023 The phone number, fax, and email remain the same: Tel: 510-763-0779 Fax: 510-763-1513 service@lifering.org (Service Center) publisher@lifering.com (Press) Come to the Office Warming Party May 23, 2003
Caroline gets the shipping desk ready for action. She also repaired the supply cabinet.

People Develop Commitment Through Having Choices: A Lesson From Harvard Business Review

Somehow a copy of Harvard Business Review landed in my office and I started reading it on my commute train. The following article caught my eye and I want to pass along some points it makes.

Richard Chase and Sriram Dasu author a cover article titled "Want to perfect your company's service? Use behavioral science." (HBR June 2001, p. 79, click to read it online). They try to apply decades of behavioral research to illuminate what the service experience feels like to the customer. Here are some main points:

(1) People remember the start and the end of the experience more than the middle, but they remember the end most of all. Therefore, to bring customers back, service providers should end on an upnote. Can we learn from this principle in our context? Many of our local meetings end with a round of applause. This is a feel-good experience and provides an upbeat ending. Score one for us.

(2) If there is bad news, get it out of the way early. At a recent meeting it was known that one member had had a relapse. When the opening statement was done, the meeting convenor could have started the check-in ("how was your week") to his left or to his right. Instead he went straight across the room to the member who had relapsed and asked him to start off the discussion. Good move. The meeting processed the bad news early and ended strong.

(3) People desperately want things to make sense and will concoct an explanation when none is available. In the recovery context, the atmosphere is filled with "explanations" derived from the religious/spiritual 12-Step movement. If we don't step in with our own secular explanations, people will fall back on what's available, even if it's counterfactual or meaningless under scrutiny. Lesson: convenors who study and develop a deeper theoretical understanding of secular recovery principles can fill the vacuum and help people make sense of their experience in a rational manner.

(4) People develop commitment through having choices. "A fascinating study found that blood donors perceived significantly less discomfort when they were allowed to select the arm from which the blood would be drawn. The lesson is clear: people are happier and more comfortable when they believe they have some control over a process, particularly an uncomfortable one. Often the control handed over is largely symbolic (as in the choice of arm). In other cases, it's very real: the medical profession has long recognized the value of allowing the patient to make an informed choice about alternative treatments for cancer and heart disease. These are extremely important, high-stakes decisions, and great value is gained by including the patient in the decision. He or she feels less helpless, less hopeless, and more committed to making the process work." (p. 83).

In a nutshell, our approach of telling the person new in recovery that they have a choice and that they have the power to construct their own personal recovery protocol is sound in principle, with clear support in motivational research. The contrary approach -- telling people that they are helpless and have zero power to choose -- is a substandard, unsupportable practice. Our approach develops and reinforces the most important single ingredient in a person's recovery over the long term: the inner commitment to succeed.

It's always good to learn that we're on the right track, even if the stroke comes from such an improbable source as HBR.