HOW CAN WE ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRAM CHANGES HAPPEN? (August 2012)
By: Jeff Garbutt, Western Australia

The April 2012 copy of "Direction" was a breath of fresh air. There was an overall theme of recognition that (1) We are losing dancers; (2) We need to shorten the teach time needed for new dancers and (3) We need to do something now, (not procrastinate). In short there seemed to be a general agreement that we need to change our programs and we need to make change now. (Fantastic I was thinking).

Then within days we received the news that the Mainstream Triennial review committee had decided to make no changes. It seemed almost oxymoronic - everyone knows we need change - but can't agree on how to make change.

Make no mistake I am on the Mainstream committee and I believe in the process. I support the concept of gradual, logical and effective changes. I participated in the process and actively read all the ideas and submitted my votes for changes. But it was not enough for the change to happen. So what is going wrong?

In the Chairman's article opening article he stated: "There will always be a certain amount of resistance to change and some who are dissatisfied." So what can we do?

I believe the fundamental problem we have is that Callerlab is too democratic. To back this statement please take some time to reflect back on the wise words of Ed Gilmore:

Every time you ask the group to vote you're having a contest. If you ask a group to vote "shall we have refreshments next week or shall we not have refreshments" maybe 80 people in the group vote yes and four vote no. Those 4 will have indigestion next week. "They shouldn't have refreshments. I voted against it." They've lost and that's important. But if somebody just says "we're going to have refreshments next week" they will say "oh?" and no one will have indigestion.

The problem is that we are so concerned about the 4 people who might get indigestion that we are not making any meaningful change for the greater good.

I believe we need to go back to our grass roots of where Callerlab came from - such as the "Blue Ribbon Committees" of the early 1970s. I believe we need to form a smaller working group to work through all the programs and reorganise them to better suit the needs of contemporary times. Democracy is great but sometimes we need to turn to small management group for a strategic direction. And maybe those few people who resist will just accept the changes and "not have indigestion".

Until now we have been trying to clean parts of a dirty plate every 3 years instead of the whole plate. We can still have timely reviews afterwards, but let's start off with a properly cleaned plate instead of trying to clean parts of the plate.

Jeff Garbutt, 

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