Answer me – dammit!

How to infuriate your Executive Director

Don’t answer me!

Ignore my emails.

Don’t return my phone calls.

It seems there is a rash of this going on these days. In the last few weeks, this has been at the top of the frustration list among executive directors I’ve been working with.

What work gets stymied?

• Can’t get a meeting date arranged.
• Can’t get some input on an important decision.
• Won’t confirm their pledge or the date they are sending it.

I hear the lament… ” I simply can’t get them to call me back.”

Doesn’t make you feel very important, does it.

How many phone calls and emails are enough to make you respond?

Having just spent hours trying to arrange three committee meetings myself, I so totally understand this frustration. And that was using a Doodle meeting set up helper. I even ended up texting.

I don’t have a strategy for this.  I do have an answer… stop dodging the question.

Of course, I understand that in some cases the Executive Director is hounding board members and they might be trying to avoid him or her.

But really, a better strategy would be to tell your executive director why you feel like he/she is hounding you. Then arrange a better way to communicate.

What do you think?