Can’t decide?

Decisions, decisions.  I’m all for democratic decisions, but sometimes it gets a little ridiculous when perfectly normal, smart people are fearful of making decisions on behalf of the “people” they represent. 

For those who are unfamiliar with school councils, they are made up of volunteer parents along with some teachers, principals, etc.  Any parent of a child in that school can join in on the meetings, and be a part of their child’s school council. 

As a parent volunteer of a school council, I believe I represent the other parents.  And if my opinion does not happen to adequately represent the others, then I’m afraid that’s actually not my problem.  If other parents wanted to give their opinion, then by all means, they should be coming to the meetings.  I believe all the members of school council are empowered to make decisions on behalf of the other parents.

So it was frustrating when I went to our latest meeting and found out they couldn’t make a decision on two movies for movie night.  Its really simple.  A movie night was planned as a fundraiser and about 6 – 8 movies were tossed out to the group.  Someone volunteered to do up the flyer once a decision was made on the movies.  The group agreed in April to go ahead for a date in early June.  When the group met in late May, someone mentioned that the flyer has not been made or sent out and that the date is no longer feasible.  Apparently, the reason the flyer was not done because a decision was never made about the movies.

I missed that April meeting, and when I heard this, I couldn’t believe my ears.  Is the school council that fearful of making decisions?  Oh, I know what their thoughts were… “What if the other parents don’t approve of the movie?  What if the kids don’t like the movies?  What if the parents aren’t interested and don’t bring their kids?  What if this is a flop?”

Tough.  Whatever.  Move on.  Get real and realize that all the movies suggested were excellent choices and that the best part of movie night isn’t necessarily the movie, but the experience of watching something at school with a whole bunch of your friends at school.  It’s something different and cool.

I blurted out before I had a chance to stop myself, “Why don’t we agree to the movies right now, get the flyer ready and out to parents in two days and we can delay movie night by one week?”  Seriously.  This isn’t rocket science, our kids could have figured this out.

It boggles my mind when fear stops people from making decisions.  Next time we wonder why big business projects at work are delayed and missing critical timelines, it’s possible someone didn’t feel empowered to make a decision about which movie to see.

– Daisy

P.S. I’ve seen delayed projects due to indecisiveness about the most insignificant items.