To: JH
From: DC
Re: MK employment review and transition
General thoughts: he is surprisingly good and well worth investing some serious time and energy in.
On the positive side, he's extremely accountable, fairly good on detail, decent instincts, hard-working, can do the fundraising, is basically a stable personality, is certainly like able on a personal level, has surprisingly few liberal tendencies....Also I've done at best a sporadic job of training him, at worst, almost a minimal job of training him. Therefore, I'm impressed by the fact that he's hung in there through a somewhat difficult time (other than quitting and/or being fired, cold weather, weird part time hours etc.) without any hand holding etc. In short, he's just a good hearted relatively bright and enjoyable guy who doesn't expect everything on a silver platter or to change overnight.
On the negative side, like most new organizers, I don't think he values his time enough. He still has to learn some of the basics of being organized himself. My overall sense is that he may not be the world's most creative individual. He doesn't keep charts and list in the most manageable or re-usable format.
Perhaps on the negative side, the most significant comment I could make is that in many ways, MK is untested. He has done virtually no preparing nor ever seen me do any. Sad to say, in fact he's seen me through together meetings and actions with embarrassingly little leadership preps and may not even define this as an organizing shortcoming.... He's also untested in terms of just his own thinking and strategies.....
(5) Someone should certainly have one or more of those longer, over a beer type discussions with MK that we usually do with the newer staff, largely so that a more accurate sense of what makes him tick can be gained. I would obviously argue that you do this. Perhaps less than anyone I've ever trained, I have no real lengthy conversations upon which I can base an informed opinion as to what really motivates MK, what he really enjoys, etc....I guess what I'm really trying to say here is that MK's definitely worth more than than I've given him. And indeed this is probably the key to keeping him around---just understanding really what he gets out of the work, why he's doing it etc. I really don't have any knowledge of his presidential politics. Guess he's not anti-Jessie Jackson, unless he's totally keeping that to himself. I think I've heard him make some disparaging remarks about Dick Gephart, but we've never had more than a 5 second conversation about this--embarrassing to admit....
(10) Canvassing--he's decent, but like the rest of us, needs to learn how to avoid getting nickles and dimes...
(12) Door knocking--here too he's decent, though its been like decades since I've heard his rap. I must say that I've never trained anyone less than MK. Maybe have him and AG hit a few doors together, but it should be pre-dark because having 2 white males on the south side may have them have a hard time getting inside.
(13) He sometimes brings his car, sometimes his bike. You should not assume that he'll have the car--its apparently an ACORN vehicle--not the worlds most reliable....
(20) He's wonderfully skeptical to hostile towards the Aboussie-Konroy-Sheehan gang. Has seen the direct benefits of working though institutions though--and should be encouraged to do more of this. I'll bet he seems very honest and folksy and unradical to them yet at the same time is loyal and sharp enough to avoid being unduly influenced or distracted by them.
(after a weekend with the whirles in Metropolis--their mother being in chicago)
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