Why a Members Skills Register?

Member Opinion

Skills Offered Express Spirituality

An AA skills register is a spiritual expression of organisational recovery

I’m a very fortunate member! Of late, I’ve had two extremely positive AA-related experiences that have reconfirmed my commitment to the fellowship, and in particular general service. The first was attending the recent Vancouver World Convention. My wife and I were part of 35’000 lanyard-wearing members celebrating recovery in one city, at the one time. We were literally surrounded by thousands of examples of what recovery looks and sounds like, and trust me, it’s a beautiful thing! What impressed me most was what general service can accomplish when it’s supported and coordinated to the enth degree – e.g. the rental of an entire football stadium and world-class convention centre just to accommodate AA activities. Amazing stuff!

The second experience was being able to tour the General Service Office of AA World Services in New York. In its own way, this hour or so out of our holiday was just as impactful as the convention; albeit in a vastly different way.

AAWS has its act together!

It’s mainly the GSO tour that has inspired this essay, which at its core comes down to one obvious fact; AAWS has its act together!

This is personally relevant given the professional work I do. I assist small to large organisations to improve and shape their operations and culture. It’s a great job, much benefitted by my recovery (Trust me, it’s quite hard to run strategic workshops and focus groups when you’re hungover!).

My professional life has led me to ‘go deep’ into studying our beloved Concepts – the 12 essays that frame AA’s ‘operations’ and culture – e.g. how groups of any kind make decisions, how our service structure is designed, what democratic rights members enjoy, how projects get managed, etc. Located in our Service Manual, the short piece of writing that introduces the Concepts describes them in the following way:

‘These Concepts therefore aim to record the ‘why’ of our service structure in such a fashion that the highly valuable experience of the past, and the lessons we have drawn from that experience, can never be forgotten or lost’.

Interestingly, this reasoning seems quite close to the case Bill W makes when introducing our Traditions some 10 years before. In summary, I’ve always taken our 12 Concept essays to outline the most recovered, spiritual means whereby AA can get things done, free of conflict, power-driving, pacts or individuals taking over, etc. In effect, they manifest Tradition 2 – the notion being that the ultimate authority in AA is when a higher power speaks through members within any meeting setting or group conscience.

Concepts Agreement Translate to Action

Personally, I’ve found that whenever such groups agree to follow Concept suggestions, things always feel spiritual, efficient and even fun.

A collective higher power literally seems to shape and steer member thinking, consideration, decision-making, etc. My wife, an ex-Delegate, describes all 3 years of attending Conference in just this fashion.

On the other hand, when I’ve been involved in groups who avoid considering the Concept suggestions, things can get quite messy. Examples I’ve experienced (and at times contribute to) include when no-one on a working group has a professional background in the area(s) being covered, or when someone decides their role in the structure gives them permission to become the actor running the show. The point is, the Concepts suggest both these approaches are to be avoided.

In short, and as it is with our Traditions, the Concepts are a pure expression of behavioural recovery. They are, organisationally speaking, any one of us on our best day! They provide such clear direction as to how to go about things, that rarely do we have to work out such matters on our own. All we have to do is follow the Concept suggestions, just as we do the Steps in the Big Book, and things always seems to turn out just fine.

Tour’s Impact

And that’s why the GSO AAWS tour was so impactful on me. As my wife and I were shown department after department, being introduced to those who worked there, it suddenly dawned on me; this place hasn’t really changed or restructured in over 60 years!

In comparison, most of my clients are constantly tinkering with who does what within their structure. Over half my income is generated purely from the resultant team member confusion! It’s like most organisations are allergic to just bedding things down and letting people settle in.

But not AAWS. It’s departmental structure – and the mirror structure of committees associated with Conference and the Trustees – has not changed in well over half a century! Now, I’m sure there have been minor tweaks here and there, but PI is still PI. CPC is still CPC. Literature is still literature, etc. Such a lack of change is almost unheard of! Unprecedented!

It means we got it right way back when, and as such (and here comes the point of this essay) there’s a lot for AA Australia to continue to learn from. Why do I say this? Because for the entire time we’ve had our own Service Structure, we’ve had a local GSO with two or three staff members. As such we cannot hope to re-create the miraculous office structure of our much larger US/Canadian counterpart!

Some of the Concepts – in particular Concept 11 – remain therefore a pipe dream!

Back to the tour, and why it impacted me so greatly.

It reminded me of a Conference Topic I submitted half a decade or so ago; the AA Australia Skills Register. You may or may not have heard of it. Either way, the idea behind it is very singular and simple; let’s recreate the AAWS GSO structure one Advisory Action project at a time!

Interestingly, this topic never went to conference.

As sometimes happens, it went straight to the board prior to conference for implementation. That means members didn’t get to read about, or discuss it. As such it was launched out of the blue at some point thereafter. I wasn’t involved by the way. To this day, no-one at the bottom of our structure has ever asked me to expand upon what my topic was suggesting, not that I necessarily expected that to happen.

Anyway, once my wife and I returned from our holiday, and with the GSO tour still swirling around in my mind, I decided to re-read the Skills Register topic I submitted, and guess what?

It’s not that well-written. It doesn’t clearly-enough reference the ultimate intention sitting behind it. It doesn’t clearly enough site Concept 11, or simulating what the AAWS GSO does in a different, more agile way.

In other words, I kind of blew it!

Now, to be fair, it isn’t always easy to capture suggestions for complex organisational change in 150 words or less (the limit for topics at the time), but still. Looking back, I could have been clearer. Regardless, motivated by my contact with the New York GSO, I thought it might be a good idea to share my original thinking re the Skills Register, now that it has been around for a couple of years!

The Concept 11 essay outlines processes through which various Advisory Actions can be, in effect, project-managed. Equally, it suggests who ought to do what, as well as how.

For example, it recommends that Board members shouldn’t sit on working groups related to realising Advisory Actions; more-over they ought to sit away from where the action is happening, stake-holding proceedings from afar.

WWS Worker Bees

The essay literally outlines how the worker-bees at the GSO assist the board in carrying out their responsibilities.

The issue down-under has always been however, that our GSO has never had enough worker-bees! As a result, Board members have sometimes had to step in and operationally assist the GSO, which as I say, is not what the Concepts suggest.

That’s where the Skills Register comes in. Project by project, skilled professional members of the fellowship can provide their experience and competence for the good of AA.

Paid or not, it’s all about replicating what’s happening today at the GSO, where competent, experienced people are producing high quality results as efficiently and spiritually as possible.

For example, the essay suggests ‘A Board or committee can never actively manage anything, in a continuous executive sense. This function has to be delegated to a single person. That person has to have ample freedom and authority to do his job, and he should not be interfered with so long as his work is done well’.

I met quite a few of those ‘single people’ last month in New York. They all seemed so passionate, and confident in the projects they’re managing.

That’s what I’ve always envisaged the Skills Register would replicate here in AA Australia, the only difference being that these motivated, skilled and board-empowered individuals don’t have to be full-time employees.

They come and go depending on the project, but whilst they are operational, they work in exactly the same way as the full-timers in New York.

A simple example would be that someone who sets up financial systems for a living, does so for AA Australia. A professional literary editor could nominate to be the ‘single person’ to project manage the development of a required new AA publication, or the re-design of an existing one.

And by this, I mean they get to project manage things autonomously, steered by the Concepts, just as they might within their day job.

For me, that’s a scenario where the trusted servant becomes just that more-easy to trust!

Professional competence, combined with the service focus recovery provides, has worked wonders for decades at the AAWS GSO, and it can do so here too!

That’s why I submitted the topic, and I’m assuming that’s why it is now a reality.

Every time one of us with the right skills and experience is permitted the freedom to manage, or assist in managing a project for AA, we’re not just helping out AA Australia in a specific way. We are also growing AA Australia in a more general, selfless and spiritual way; towards more fully embodying our third legacy.

Is the Register currently working exactly as I envisaged it might?

Not completely to be honest.

For me it sometimes lacks the ‘single person’ focus that seems so critical to the success of our service structure.

Just as a group has a single GSR and an Area has a single Delegate, so the Concepts suggest that each project receive a single manager, trusted to do a good job, organise other team members to assist, etc. Of course, they remain accountable to both the GSO and Trustees. That’s a given. It’s just they’re the ones who are, in an ongoing way, responsible.

Anyway, I hope the above in some way inspires those of you with professional skills to contribute these so that we can better carry our vital message.

It could be in the area of IT, the law, media or publishing, marketing and coms, finance and admin; service may keep you, and AA Australia, well and truly sober!

You may be that next ‘single person’ who can use ‘ample freedom and authority’ to carry the AA message further into the fellowship, the community and beyond.

AA Member Albury NSW