The big picture understanding is very essential for meaningful contributions and moving forward in the right direction rather than pulling the initiative into the wrong track. This is achieved by asking questions and questioning the methods.
This method is all about breaking down complicated problems into basic elements and then reassembling them from the ground up. It’s a technique that strips away the surface layer of accepted wisdom to focus on the foundational truths beneath.
See this blog post https://medium.com/@Rahul_Nain/what-is-first-principles- thinking-a-comprehensive-guide-847886ae787a for more on this.
Volunteering is an add-on to a fully loaded life with many other responsibilities. Once volunteered there should be serious commitment to the assigned responsibilities and shouldn’t take it with a casual approach. One should stand by their commitments and commit only what it is possible to deliver.
Volunteer driven organizations will not have a formal structure or well-defined roles. One should be self-driven either without needing a nudge from others on their tasks or waiting to assist others only when they seek help for their tasks. The team’s progress is of utmost importance.
Clear communication of your thoughts and ensuring visibility of your work are essential. Given that the setting of a volunteer driven organization is usually virtual, clear communication keeps the team aware of each other’s progress and ideas. In such situations, a long silence can make one invisible, as per the saying, “out of sight is out of mind”.
Just doing is a big NO in volunteering. However painful it is, one must follow the process and go through the formal steps of Strategy, Plan & Execute. This will minimize the mistakes and increase the chances of success.
There will be a lot of rejection. Please be prepared for it. Delayed gratification, failure and rejection are inevitable as this kind of work tends to be unique. Deal with it by using the principle of “affordable loss”. Learn from the failures, fine tune the approach and keep moving forward. Do not get emotional or personal with the rejection.
It’s not about ME but about WE. Leveraging the team through discussions, brainstorming and questioning will provide greater benefit to the work at hand. Doing something in a silo without communication will not get optimal results. Always get the work reviewed by the team and so the best comes out.
There will always be volunteers for front-stage roles. A true volunteer is prepared to take less visible, sometimes even invisible, backstage roles for the sake of the larger cause. This is called the “do what it takes” volunteering.
At critical times prioritize the volunteering activity for your availability even if it means sacrifice in other areas of responsibility. If it’s inevitable, clearly communicate early and have somebody else fill-in who can be as effective as you are.