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The following is a real case study but names
and details have been changed to preserve confidentiality.
'Onyerbike' - 1 staff, 10 volunteers
Resolving conflict between the Management Committee
and a staff member
Onyerbike is a small environmental charity that improves
green spaces in its local area and has been going for
ten years. It is run by a volunteer management committee
(MC) of eight people and employs one staff member, Julia,
as Project Co-ordinator.
MC member John takes up the story: 'Julia had always
done a good job, and running the organisation had been
a tough learning curve for all of us. But gradually
communication between the MC and Julia
was beginning to break down. Some MC members felt that
she wasn't reporting to us properly, and that we weren't
always clear about how things were being run.
'It all came to ahead when an important funder suddenly
withdrew a grant. On investigation,
we found that it was Julia's aggressive attitude towards
the funder that had led them to question our professionalism,
and the relationship had deteriorated so much that they
felt compelled to withdraw funding, which was over half
our budget for the year.
'There were calls from several MC members for Julia's
resignation. But Julia felt a great deal of ownership
over the organisation - and to be fair, a lot of the
organisation's success was down to her hard work. It
all reached boiling point at an MC
meeting where Julia accused us of incompetence and a
lack of support.
'We'd reached an impasse, and tempers were frayed.
The MC had a closed meeting, and decided that the chair
should try to negotiate a solution
with Julia. And actually, once they'd talked the thing
through, it was clear there were faults on both sides.
The MC instituted an appraisal system and agreed to
give more support in terms of fundraising and managing
volunteers, while Julia agreed to be more rigorous in
her reporting and to attend some management training.
After the training, Julia successfully restarted the
relationship with the funder which was a relief. In
general, we learnt that through diplomacy and negotiation,
we could get through the sticky patch. It would have
been a shame to lose Julia, and we've become a stronger
team as a result.'
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