Surviving Derby Drama (Part 2)

Quick, walk outside and punch the first random person you see in the arm. Now ask 'em to help you balance your checkbook. Congratulations, you just started a roller derby league! No wait, you got arrested for assault.


Not that getting arrested is always bad...
In a sense, derby players are doing both of those things multiple times per week. They spend hours a week hitting their leaguemates with full game-time intensity during scrimmages, sometimes hurting them or getting hurt by them, getting ticked off at each others mistakes and failures, building competitive rivalries in intraleague bouts and developing a barely contained desire to beat each other about the eyesockets with muffler pipes. Then they take off the skates, sit down at desks and try to build marketing strategies or set financial budgets with those same people. We're human and we don't have the benefit of being able to start each new day with a blank slate. We bring our memories and some some portion of our mental baggage with us no matter how hard we try not to. So it's one thing to listen to a proposal for a bout theme from an unknown person but it's another thing when that idea comes from the dirtbag who cracked your rib with the the clearly uncalled-for cheap shot in the last jam of last night's scrimmage. Learning to rein in your emotions enough to endorse a good idea from "that cheaterbutt douchebag" will ultimately benefit your league and keep you from unnecessarily escalating your personal conflicts. Here are some common sources of conflict and ways to address them constructively.

Skating Conflict
When you're on the track together, someone we'll call Blocker A is always in your way, or guarding the back when you want help guarding the front or chasing their jammer when you need help defending your own. Blocker A ticks you off because it seems like they're always going the wrong way and doing the wrong thing. Blocker A makes you want to knock her/him out and skate shorthanded. How do you handle skating with someone you can't skate with?

There are two schools of thought on this sort of situation.

1. Don't skate with them. Teams generally roll out two sets of four blockers that alternate jams. As much as Blocker A clashes with your instincts, there is probably someone else on your team that has the same instincts as Blocker A and will work great with her/him. Put the most like-minded blockers together in sets of four and reap the benefits of their similar styles.
   
2. Make SURE to skate with them. If their instincts are opposite of yours, that can actually be a very good thing. "Guard the inside!" you yell. What, the jammer went outside? No problem, Blocker A thought the jammer was going outside and knocked that star-wearing biznatch into the third row of suicide seats. Having different instincts working together can actually cause synergy where each of you ends up covering the other one's arse.

Experiment with both of these because only time will tell which works best for you.


Personality Conflict
We'll use "Blocker B" for this one. Blocker B is a good player who walls up well with you and helps you shut down the opposing jammer like an over-mortgaged newspaper (zing!) The problem is that when you're NOT on the track together, Blocker B has a grating voice, makes lame puns, hums ABBA tunes nonstop and hasn't had a shower since the Clinton administration. Without ever really doing anything wrong, Blocker B makes you want to go all Road Runner and drop an anvil on their head. Not surprisingly, the feeling is mutual and they're annoyed by how you constantly sing Creed and recite Dane Cook. (I'm with them on this one, I'd have to kill you.) Since the team needs both of you alive in order to win, you can't just kill them and hide the body like usual. You have to find a way to not only put up with their B.S. but also to help them put up with yours. How can you accomplish this? Here are some options:

• "The Smile and Avoid"
  This one is kind of a cop out but it's also the easiest way to co-exist peaceably. It's the one where every time the two of you encounter each other, you give a friendly smile, say "Hey" and move right the hell on away from each other. It's polite, it's cordial and it requires no extended reconciliation campaign.
• "The Extended Reconciliation Campaign"
  The toughest way but also the most rewarding when it works. I remember watching two girls whose fangs and claws came out every time they were near each other. One constantly did passive aggressive things, causing the other to seek out opportunities to hit her extra hard in practice or oppose her ideas in league meetings, causing the first to scheme back against her in other areas and blah blah blah on and on it went. It was a kind of death spiral where each one decided that if she couldn't be happy, at least she could make sure that that the other one was unhappy. (Apparently they were married. Zing!) Without delving too deeply into it, the two of them ended having to work together on something and as time went along, they gradually learned that they weren't as different and incompatible as they thought at first. They found common ground, started being able to chat peacefully and actually ended getting along great to the point where they worked together on a project that had nothing to do with roller derby. It is hard to do and takes a long time but it is completely worth the effort when it works out.
• "The Border Patrol"
  It's the least pleasant method in the longterm but sometimes it is the only way when two people can't adjust to each other but have to work together. This is where you take the time to set boundaries and agree not to cross them. You actually sit down and each identify the things about the other that push your buttons and come up with an agreement on what each of you should or should not do to minimize the button pushing. This is one that often requires the help of a third party to accomplish, hence the grievance panel/officer mentioned in part 1. Overall it results in a situation where you may still hate each other's bitch asses but at least you're able to get through a board meeting or a practice without throwing punches.

Management Conflict
You and Blocker C work well together on the track, you like each others sense of humor and you both watch "Mad Men" every week. You're home free, right? Wrong, because your ideas on how to promote the league, recruit new skaters, spend league funds etc. are so different that every monthly meeting consists of the two of you arguing while the rest of the room buries their head in their arms, surfs the net on their iPhones or does shots of Wild Turkey. This is the type of conflict that, when left unchecked, is the most likely to lead to people splitting off and forming their own leagues. There are important decisions to be made on critical operational issues and when two sides are diametrically opposed on them, all hell can break loose.

Many times when this point is reached, an outside professional resource is necessary to reach a satisfactory resolution. Can't reach a financial decision? Network through the league members or just pick up the phone book and bring in a C.P.A. The dimes you spend on an accountant could save you dollars down the line and just as importantly, it is a whole lot easier for someone to accept an idea other than their own when it comes from an industry professional with a degree in that field. Some other decisions are more subjective, like whether it would be a good idea or a bad idea to use a cartoon of a tampon fighting with a maxipad on the next bout poster. (Answer: mega awesome!) When that sort of impasse is reached, the best resolution is to put it to a vote by the entire league. Majority rule will help you reach non-factual based decisions that are most in line with the culture and values of your organization. It takes the personalities of board members out of the equation and hopefully allows those on the losing end of it to not take it personally. The overall point here is, don't let two squabbling people make decisions without some sort of assistance. The emotions of a heated disagreement can lead to people fighting so hard to win the argument, they lose track of doing what is best for their derby league and the skaters in it.


Don't let derby drama beat you down, people. Roller derby is too fun, too socially fulfilling and just overall way too awesome to let the drama ruin it for you. Do everything you can to defuse it or at least manage it so you don't end up quitting something you love for the wrong reasons. And if some problem should happen to come up that you just can't seem to work through, who knows? You just might email it in to Derby Helper and give us a subject for part 3 of our 2 part series!

Surviving "Derby Drama" - part 1

A group of people, united by a common goal, puts aside all their personal foibles, agendas and differences and successfully works in harmony to accomplish the various tasks required to achieve their goal. Just another example of the kind of peaceful success story that committees, councils and governments around the world see every day, right?



Well, maybe not. But hey, at least only dudes pull this kind of B.S.


Well god dang.

It's sad but true, where two or more people are gathered and decisions must to be made, angry words and/or fists will fly faster than a jammer with rocket skates. As awesome as roller derby is and as much as its devoted practitioners love it, leagues have to deal with the stresses of differing opinions, conflicting personalities and PMS-fueled hissy fits pretty much from day 1. It is called Derby Drama and it threatens to destroy leagues and drive off promising skaters every day. It is a big enough and important enough subject that I am making this a two-part article. Next Monday I'll take on the subject of "On-track Drama" but in order to even get that far, you have to survive the effects of this week's subject which is...


Organizational drama

Derby News Network co-founder and roller derby guru Hurt Reynolds spent one whole year driving and flying around the continental United States visiting rollerderby leagues of varying ages, attending bouts and talking to skaters and support personnel with varying amounts of experience. (See the details of the epic journey here.) The subject matter discussed in all these different locations and situations was so homogeneous that he gave the phenomenon the name, "Same Conversation, Different City." Derby-loving folks of all genders, sizes and orientations were fed up with blah blah and couldn't believe that so-and-so is doing such and such and they were gonna quit if the *&@ing board of directors didn't change yadda yadda, on and on ad infinitum ad nauseum. I convey this not to dwell on the negatives but as a segue to the first of 3 important points:

• Having Derby Drama is the norm, not the exception.
  As unique as your problems seem, as bad as things get and as much as you think no other league could possibly be as fuxx0red as yours, trust me, you are not alone. Blowups and throwdowns have formed over minimum attendance requirements, uniform selection, venue lease negotiations, MRSA outbreaks, poster artwork, bout eligibility, afterparty venue, t-shirt sizes, sign fonts and innumerable other issues both big and hilariously trifling.
• Having Derby Drama does not mean your league is doomed.
  The founding leagues in the current rollerderby renaissance started in 2001 and the founding leagues in the flat-track explosion started in 2003. They exist and thrive to this day despite going through the same kind of in-fighting we see today and without the benefit of more experienced leagues to turn to for guidance.
• If not acknowledged and addressed, Derby Drama can divide and conquer you.
  See the 2 different years in the previous point? Flat-track rollerderby exists because sometimes problems are not rectified before the breaking point is reached, in this case causing members of TXRD to break off and form the Texas Rollergirls. (See the documentary "Hell on Wheels" or read this if you don't know the story.) Now take a peek at this map, zoom in a bit and look for places where there is more than one league marker in a medium-sized or small market. In many places where the population isn't really big enough to support it, you'll find two different leagues are competing for players and fans because when the doodoo started to hit the fan inside the first local league, no one turned off the doodoo machine or moved the fan.
  

So what is the secret to thriving in the face of organizational derby drama? There isn't any one easy answer to that question but there is a fundamental concept that is definitely the starting place: You have to build your league to succeed. Getting the proper infrastructure in place may be the toughest part of building a new league or rebuilding a broken one but it's the most important thing you can do for yourselves. Think about it this way: If you had just started a 500 mile drive and got a flat tire, what would get you to your destination faster, continuing to drive at 40 mph on the flat tire or stopping to change the flat and driving 80?



Here's a hint.
Take the time to set up an architecture that can handle known problems and can adjust to handle new ones. It can be the difference between spending your time putting on roller derby bouts and spending it medicating your depression bouts. Elements of such an architecture tend to include but are not limited to the following.

• Distributed Governance
  That's a fancy way of saying "Democracy, not monarchy." When one person tries to oversee every aspect of running a league, they either get overwhelmed and have a nuclear meltdown or else they become "the league tyrant" who everyone starts to resent for being a domineering beeeeyotch. Appointing one person to manage and have final say over each required element of operation (marketing, finance, sponsorship, etc.) allows each of those elements to get the full attention of someone with the juice to make on the fly decisions to meet deadlines and rectify last-minute problems rather than waiting for "Queen Bitchface" to get around to it.
  
• Conflict management
  Sometimes a well-meaning group is doing something unintentionally stupid that is hurting the league and ignoring those who oppose it. Sometimes one nutbag is being a douche at practice and taking a dump on the floor at every afterparty. Whatever the situation, sometimes an issue is too heated to be handled rationally by those immersed in it. When this happens, a third party is required to help the two sides achieve perestroika or at least detente. Some leagues have a grievance officer, some have a conflict committee but whatever the name or makeup of it, the existence of a designated arbitrator can defuse volatile situations before they blow up and wind up costing you a team member or a friend.
• A written statement of goals/values
  Known in the corporate world as a mission statement or core values, this can be one of the most helpful things you can have to help make decisions that are consistent and in the agreed-upon best interest of the league. Take nominations from league members as to what the most important aspects of rollerderby are, discuss them a bit, then hold an open vote on those aspects and assemble a statement or list that includes the top 5 or so vote-getters. Once you have that, you suddenly have a powerful guidance system for making decisions that no one can get pissy about because they voted on and agreed to the system. Let's pretend that a fake league named the Awesomeville Derbysquaws has voted on and approved the following list of league values: Competitive Excellence, Fun, Fitness, Safety and Friendship. The Derbysquaws now have a stated point of reference to use when ideas are presented. If someone makes a formal proposal that says, "Let all kick a beehive and eat lard sandwiches," a quick look at the league values shows that this would violate the values of Fun, Fitness and Safety (and probably blow the crap out of Competitive Excellence and Friendship for that matter) and would therefore be rejected. If someone else proposes, "Let's practice twice a week instead of once a year and actually start wearing helmets from now on," this would be accepted because it satisfies the values of Competitive Excellence, Fitness and Safety. This is a highly simplified and exaggerated example of course but the concept is accurate. Decision making becomes uncontroversial and impersonal (in a good way) because it is based on the agreed-upon league values and not the fact that SOMEONE ate too much fiber and blew non-stop fart rings around the practice track last night.
  

I feel I could go on for another eight paragraphs of further detail on just part 1 but that would be a mistake. Every city has unique people with unique needs and wants that need to be considered. Individual solutions many vary but the concepts here are a good starting point for building your league to succeed. See you here next week for part 2!

(edit: Here's a link to Surviving Derby Drama part 2)

Okay derby veterans, time for you to share your wealth of experience in the comments and save a teetering league from a premature grave!