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Please everyone? Impossible!

Posted By: Phil Simborg
Date: Wednesday, 17 July 2013, at 12:25 p.m.

In Response To: USBGF rate increase (Rod)

I have been involved in many professional and non-professional organizations and even served as president or a major officer of a few....I will not bore you with a list. Let me tell you what I have NEVER seen:

*I have never seen an organization where everyone agrees with what the organization is doing. Never.

*I have never seen an organization where everyone liked and agreed with the leadership. Never.

*I have never seen an organization where there was not a few outspoken individuals who were extremely critical and spoke out negatively and publicly. Many times these people were well-intentioned, and many times they had personal grudges or issues, and often the reasons are a combination of both, but the end result is the same: rather than being a part of the solution to work productively to improve the organization, their negative bashing and public berating ultimately does more harm than good. Always.

People who make positive change work to improve, not to undermine. They do not encourage boycotting and quitting, but rather encourage people to become more involved to help the organization improve.

Rod, and others, may or may not have excellent ideas on how the USBGF can improve, but you can be sure that even if he thinks they are good, that doesn't mean they are right and it doesn't mean everyone else will agree with him and that everything will be done as he likes them. The same is true for every one of us. There are several things I would like to see done by the USBGF that are not being done, and I have expressed my opinions to the leadership and to board members and in some cases they have listened and I was able to influence some change. In other cases they disagreed with me, or felt that the timing of what I wanted was wrong, and they did not do them. In hindsight, I think they might have been right not to listen to me!

But it's not about wrong or right, or doing things my way or their way. It's about the fact that it is the only organization we have to promote and grow the game; it is the best chance we have to grow and improve the game; it is a democratic organization with a terrific number of supporters who have given lots of time and money and effort to help the organization and the game; and whether we agree or not with everything, we need to be supportive and work positively to make the organization successful.

People like Rod who decide to take a public, negative approach and clearly try to stop people from supporting the organization because they don't like they way it is run or the things it is doing are not a part of the solution and it is not productive or helpful in any way.

If Rod was running the USBGF and if the organization was doing everything exactly as he wanted, I can guarantee you there would be people out there who completely disagreed with what he was doing and would be just as negative and critical of him as he is of the current leadership and organization. It is IMPOSSIBLE not to have some people like this, no matter who is running the organization.

I have learned that you cannot stop or even reason with many people who decide, for whatever reason, to become a force of public negativity and refuse to try to work within the organization to influence positive change. But I do believe you can appeal to everyone else to be reasonable and to continue to be supportive and tolerant and realize that, like our country, our family, and our friends, no institution or group is perfect and not everyone will do things exactly the way we think they should be done, but our best hope is to be positive and supportive and not let the Rod's of this world tear down all the great work and effort and accomplishments that have already been done and that are planned for the future.

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