Script – Concepts Presentation

Dilbert presentation slide.

{Bob] Welcome to Conceptualizations, a graphic representation of our 12 Concepts. I’m Bob M, a past delegate from this area, and this is Jeff Y, also a past delegate. In addition Jeff served six years as a non-member Trustee of Debtors Anonymous, a 12-step group with a service structure similar to AA. We are aiming this talk towards relatively new GSRs and DCMs. If it seems a bit basic to some of you folks, that’s ‘cause it is.

[Jeff] Abandon right now any thought you may have that there are actually 12 Concepts here. Having had 12 steps and traditions, Bill W. dared not use another number. The 12th concept itself has 6 parts and the 10th concept restates the principle of the 3rd concept. So relax, enjoy, and arrive at your own count. There will be a short quiz later.

[Jeff] The Steps came 4 years after AA’s birth and were based essentially on spiritual principles of the Oxford Groups. The Traditions followed 7 years later and were accepted 4 years after that, right here in Cleveland. They were based on experience of successes and failures in our own organization and others in the past. The same year, 1950, we approved beginning General Service Conferences. Bill wrote the Concepts 12 years later, based on the actual operation of the Conference and Boards.

[Bob] That brings us to our 1st Concept, heavily based on our 2nd tradition. I once typed the Twelve Concepts using a word processing application. It had a tool that would analyze a text and tell the grade level necessary to understand it. The Twelve Concepts scored into the graduate school level—Bill W’s level. So I decided to add a simple language translation lower right on these slides. Concept 1: The final responsibility and ultimate authority for AA world services should always reside in the collective conscience of our whole Fellowship. Jeff, would you explain it?

[Jeff] Bill and Bob turned responsibility for the fellowship over to us members in 1950 with the traditions and again in 1955 with the Third Legacy. The founders are gone now, but every AA has a voice and vote in what happens in AA, beginning at the group level.

[Bob] Concept 2: The General Service Conference of A.A. has become, for nearly every practical purpose, the active voice and the effective conscience of our whole Society in its world affairs. Yes we are responsible for AA, but there are 2 million of us. We have to pass that responsibility on to a few of us who can and will take the time to represent us. Even the Conference itself, of only 130-some members, needs to delegate most of its real work to its committees to get its job done on time. The Conference is the decider.

Planes, trains and automobiles. The Conference has been meeting the past many years in or near New York City. If 2 million of us each went to the microphone for a 2-minute debate that one item would take over 7 1⁄2 years.

[Jeff] Concept 3: To insure effective leadership, we should endow each element of A.A.—the Conference, the General Service Board and its service corporations, staff, committees, and executives—with a traditional “Right of Decision.”

[Jeff] We trust God, ourselves, each other)

[Jeff] Our comic friend, Dilbert, explains how this too often differs in industry.

[Bob] Concept 4: At all responsible levels, we ought to maintain a traditional “Right of Participation,” allowing a voting representation in reasonable proportion to the responsibility that each must discharge. To understand this and some of the rest of the Concepts. I need to show you some of the structure of our Boards.

Us is not just U-S. It’s U-S and C-A-N-A-D-A. We have 8 regions each of which elects a regional trustee, and 2 countries each of which elects a trustee at large.

Our region, East Central, consists of 5 States: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Our Board consists of these 8 regional and 2 at-large members plus another 4 AA members, called General Service Trustees, elected by the Conference. Finally the Board has 7 non-alcoholic trustees, known as Class A Trustees, that are generally chosen for their professional expertise. They too are elected by the Conference. So AA members of the Board outnumber non-AAs 2-1. Originally non-AAs outnumbered AAs on the board.

[Jeff] – Why was that?

[Bob] Well, in the early days our AA Trustees got drunk all too frequently. Even now we have still felt it prudent to elect the board’s chairman and its treasurer from among the non-AAs. The former choice, our custom of picking our chairman from only among the non-alcoholics has been broadened to consider all Board members.

[Jeff] The Board in turn elects all the Directors of the other 2 AA Corporations: Our Magazine’s, The AA Grapevine’s Board and our Publishing Company, AA World Services which in turn houses the General Service Office. The Board elects all the directors but makes sure we have participation from all parts of the Board, paid staff and outside AA members called non-trustee directors. And that’s in keeping with Concept 4. We have participation from all affected parties.

[Bob] even staff?

[Jeff] Yes, we have paid staff members on the Boards and in the Conference. Naturally they abstain on issues affecting their own employment.

[Jeff] Concept 5: Throughout our structure, a traditional “Right of Appeal” ought to prevail, so that minority opinion will be heard and personal grievances receive careful consideration.

The text accompanying Concept 5 contains the statement, “He or she should be able to do this without prejudice or fear of reprisal.”

[Bob]Yes, Jeff. I was truly astounded at the Conference when a GSO manager made an impassioned plea against an issue, followed almost immediately by one of his employees making a like-emotional plea in favor of it. I voiced my surprise to another staff member who stated that there never have been repercussions as a result of such differences of opinions.

At a later time I was denied copies of a set of published materials that were in GSO’s archives. I felt I should have been allowed these and so I appealed this decision to the Trustee’s Archives Committee. They then ruled in my favor and we received the copies.

Dilbert’s “Bob” also petitions.

[Jeff] Concept 6: The Conference recognizes that the chief initiative and active responsibility in most world service matters should be exercised by the trustee members of the Conference acting as the General Service Board. The sheer volume, as well as timeliness, of many of our service decisions make it impossible for the Conference to act on all of them. The Conference must in turn delegate part of its responsibility and authority to the General Service Board.

[Bob] Bill wrote, “From top to bottom, our whole service structure indeed resembles a large corporation. The A.A. Groups are the shareholders; the Delegates are their representatives or proxies at the “annual meeting”; our General Service Board Trustees are actually the directors of a “holding company.” And this holding company, the General Service Board actual owns and controls the “affiliates” which carry on our active world services. “This very real analogy makes it even more clear that, just like any other board of directors, our Trustees must be given large powers if they are to effectively manage the principal world affairs of Alcoholics Anonymous.”

[Jeff] Concept 7: The Charter and Bylaws of the General Service Board are legal instruments, empowering the trustees to manage and conduct world service affairs. The Conference Charter is not a legal document; it relies upon tradition and the A.A. purse for final effectiveness. If the Fellowship doesn’t approve of what the Board is doing it can pull the purse strings shut and send a powerful message to the Board, through group contributions.

[Jeff] While not a teeter-totter, the Conference and Board maintain a delicate balance leveled by mutual respect.

[Jeff] Concept 8: The trustees are the principal planners and administrators of overall policy and finance. They have custodial oversight of the separately incorporated and constantly active services, exercising this through their ability to elect all the directors of these entities. The trustees set overall policy and finance, not day-to-day operations.

[Bob] Don’t micromanage. At one time the Board felt that a price reduction of literature was in order but sent this to AAWS as just a recommendation. They knew that AAWS’s staff would have to live with the consequences longer than the board members, should they have to soon raise prices again. Nonetheless, since it elects all of the “members” of AAWS and the Grapevine Boards, the General Service Board has ultimate authority.

[Jeff] Concept 9: Good service leadership, together with sound and appropriate methods of choosing them, are at all levels indispensable for our future functioning and safety. Primary world service leadership, once exercised by the founders, must necessarily be assumed by the trustees.

Here are the hallmarks of a good AA leader. [Jeff reads first and alternates with Bob]. Puts principles, plans and policies into such dedicated and effective action that the rest of us want to back and help them. Remembers that a fine plan can come from anyone, anywhere. Never passes the buck. Is able to “give and take” – compromise cheerfully. Leads by example. We say to them, “Act for us, but don’t boss us.”

[Bob] Concept 10: Every service responsibility should be matched by an equal service authority, with the scope of such authority well defined. Responsibility=Authority. This is a restatement of Concept 3’s Right of Decision. One example was when our area’s Archives Committee took proposed Archives Workbook changes to the area assembly for concurrence before sending these to the Conference Coordinator. Thoroughly explaining the changes would have taken way too much of the area’s time. They recognized our authority and responsibility and just added their voice to ours. One item of note is that part of the right of decision is the right to determine WHEN to exercise the right of decision and when to take a non-emergency item to the higher authority: Trustees to the Conference, Delegates to the Area Assembly, etc. In AA it is often easier to get forgiveness than to get permission. [Jeff chimes in] Well sometimes easier. But in my experience the lower authority welcomes opportunities to have the higher authority participate, exercising its Right of Decision sparingly.

Dilbert doesn’t have it so good.

[Jeff] Concept 11: The trustees should always have the best possible committees, corporate service directors, executives, staff, and consultants. Composition, qualifications, induction procedures, and rights and duties will always be matters of serious concern.

[Jeff] The executive must be just one person.

[Jeff] The old adage applies here “You get exactly what you pay for”

[Jeff] Dilbert is not so highly valued.

[Jeff] We don’t own our jobs. We just borrow them for a term.

[Bob] Death is nature’s way of teaching some AAs the spirit of rotation. Incidently, when Bill was taking Clevelander Albert “Abby” G’s oral history, Bill credited Abby with creating the spirit of rotation. When Abby set up the structure of Cleveland’s Central Committee, AA’s first intergroup, he included rotating leadership. The transcript of this oral history is maintained in GSO’s Archives.

[Jeff] And everyone gets a say.

[Jeff] Concept 12: The Conference shall observe the spirit of A.A. tradition, taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power; that sufficient operating funds plus an ample reserve, be its prudent financial principle; that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others; that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and, whenever possible, by substantial unanimity; that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy; that it never perform acts of government, and that, like the Society it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action. Yes, this is all one sentence. It has 6 major parts known as the warranties. Together they form a sort of AA Bill of Rights

[Bob] A warranty is different than a guarantee. A guarantee offers something in return, like getting your money back, A warranty is a promise that what is presented is true and if it falters will be promptly restored to become true.

Warranty 1 (“taking care that it never becomes the seat of perilous wealth or power”) is assured by our principle of “corporate poverty.” Primarily by adjusting literature price, we ensure that we keep only a prudent fund available. I used to be a partner in a church software firm. I noticed a real difference in the boards of struggling churches versus those that were heavily endowed. The poorer boards worked more closely with their congregations and continually sought their advice. The richer boards were far more independent.

[Jeff] Warranty 2 (“that sufficient operating funds and an ample reserve be its prudent financial principle”)

Warranty 3 (“that it place none of its members in a position of unqualified authority over others”) We have only one absolute authority—that mentioned in Tradition 2. All human authorities in AA are limited by the other warranties here and by the other 11 Concepts.

[Bob] Warranty 4 (“that it reach all important decisions by discussion, vote, and, whenever possible, by substantial unanimity”) We let everyone have their say. Majority rules—most things require a 2/3rds majority—but complete consensus, unanimity, is better. As a panel 47 delegate I faced a controversial issue my 1st year called “cash incentives.” The question was can we accept a cash payment from a city to defray our cost of holding an International Convention there. The board’s policy was yes we can provided that they would

offer the same terms to any other like-size group—that is an incentive to pick their city rather than some other. Thus it was an incentive for us to choose them, not a contribution to us. This prompted long discussion, votes, reconsiderations, etc. ending in about a 110 yeas and 12 nays vote upholding the Board policy. Our second year it came up again and we were quite dismissive, having felt that we had handled this item at sufficient depth. WE WERE WRONG! And so my successor, Rob S., had to face it again at great length in 1999.

Dilbert knows why we limit debate, however.

[Jeff ] Warranty 5 (“that its actions never be personally punitive nor an incitement to public controversy”) When I was delegate, I faced the difficult decision to remove an ineffective committee chair who refused to rotate. I questioned every motive I had and consulted broadly to make sure I wasn’t punishing this individual for wanting to help.

[Bob] Warranty 6 – (“that it never perform acts of government, and that, like the Society it serves, it will always remain democratic in thought and action.”) Acts of government, hah! Some AAs are much more certain of what the Conference is and how it operates than those of us who have at one time sat on its floor. I heard from one fellow that the Trustees run the show at the Conference, “They just drag the Delegates around by their noses.” From an experienced standpoint, this is like “herding cats.” Yes you can get a group of cats to go one direction, but only after you have convinced each and every one of them that is where they wanted to go in the first place. Just let the Conference try to govern AA and we will learn about REAL corporate poverty.

[Jeff] “Freedom under God to grow in His likeness and image will ever be the quest of Alcoholics Anonymous. May our General Service Conference be always seen as a chief symbol of this cherished liberty.”

[Bob] One of our sources ended with five overlying principles. We simmered these down to just three. [Bob reads first and alternates with Jeff]

That each of us have final responsibility for AA, we respect each member’s dignity, worth, and need to belong; we promote everyone’s right to be heard and to participate in that which affects each of them. That we cannot meet this responsibility without delegating much of it to trusted servants; we send along with them the authority to match it.

To maintain a system of checks and balances in our service entities to ensure that authority not outpace—nor lag—responsibility.

[Jeff] Thank you all for your patience reviewing these esoteric yet critical principles of our third legacy.

Please join us in reciting our Responsibility Declaration.

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