Other people can’t do it as well as you can do it yourself. What if they make a big mistake?

Last week I said we’d talk about what to do when you invite people to co-create events with you, and they make mistakes or fail.

One of the conversations we had at the RuralX Conference was about what to do about volunteers that don’t meet your standards. When putting together an event, one person had volunteered to make flyers. Great! But the flyers ended up with some typos. They told that person, as gently as they could, that the flyers had to be redone. Of course that volunteer got irritated and quit. 

But so what if there are typos on the flyers? What’s your real goal here? 

We forget the real goal. The real goal isn’t perfection, or beautiful flyers, or compliance with our rules. You don’t do a big event for the sake of doing a big event. You don’t need something to occupy your time. That event isn’t about flyers.

What is the real goal of an event? Our real goal in doing events is to build community.

That’s what you have to ask yourself when someone makes a mistake. What’s the real goal here? Our real goal is community. Does this error hurt our sense of community? Or does chewing out someone, no matter how gently, hurt our sense of community? Is there a middle way to accept imperfections without losing the spirit of the event? 

Because community means people. And people mean imperfections.

Perfection isn’t our goal. Community is our goal.  

Keep shaping the future of your town, 
Becky

PS – In our latest 30 minute video, Deb shares her real world experience with doing events this way, and enjoying the imperfections. Sign up today, and you get 2 full weeks to watch.