X-Message-Number: 22492 Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 01:57:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Subject: Bill Seidel and the art of compromise I see this is getting a bit personal. I'll try to be brief. Bill Seidel's unexpected praise is very kind. Bill recently completed a volunteer project, numbering and cataloguing Alcor's entire tape library. This kind of work tends to be unappreciated, because it is less visible than, for instance, field work during cryonics cases. But maintenance of the infrastructure is of obvious value, and I have a lot of respect for a nice guy who says "I'll help" and does the job, as promised, without expecting any reward (tangible or otherwise). Bill and I were forced into collaboration 10 years ago by circumstances at the beginning of CryoCare. We had some disagreements, as Bill says; but we worked through them. I have also worked through disagreements in noncryonics situations, e.g. where editors have wanted to change my writing, sometimes substantially. This can be a very highly charged situation, yet some of my best friends are former editors. Why isn't the ability to compromise more common in cryonics? Probably because of factors that I described in my previous Cryonet post. I hope it was clear that I was including myself among those personality types. I should add however, it is the task of management to overcome such problems. Jerry Lemler did a fine job of encouraging disparate people to get along when he took over as CEO a year ago, but Jerry was partly absent from Alcor during the past month (while Carlos Mondragon was visiting) and will be quitting as CEO at the end of this year. It's anybody's guess who the next CEO will be. If he has formal management training and/or experience, that will be an obvious advantage. A mechanism for conflict resolution is also desirable. Alcor has such a system, but I have no personal experience of it. As for Alcor membership, if I am a member of an organization, I always want to participate actively. Unfortunately that is problematic right now, so it's best for me to take a break. --CP Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22492