We Have Always Done It That Way

We sometimes hear leaders in associations from both the staff side and the volunteer side debating the pros and cons of being “member driven” versus “staff driven.” We have yet to hear a compelling argument that rules definitively in favor of one over the other. It seems to vary by context, with the bottom line containing an unsurprising mix of responsibilities for driving divided between staff and members.

The debate over staff versus member driven, however, is really just a reframing of the more basic question: who is in charge? And while we agree that there is no singular or simple answer to that question at the macro level (the macro answer is “it depends”), this should not provide association leaders with an excuse for avoiding this question within their own, specific, micro-level situations.

To be successful, association leaders must clarify and pinpoint a specific answer to that question within their own context, and that is not just at the Board meetings, where the staff versus member paradigm would expect the topic to come up. Confusion about who is in charge appears elsewhere in the association’s business as well:

Staff
Association leaders often espouse “flat” organizations, valuing input from everyone, even suggesting “consensus” decision making. At the same time, however, they structure their organizations hierarchically, where reporting relationships define authority in a clear and vertical fashion. You must confront this contradiction so staff will understand when they have input and when they do not. There is room for broad input, but do not hide the fact that a very few actually have the decision making power on major questions. You need not concentrate all control in the hands of the managers, but be truthful and clear about areas where control is not shared, and everyone will work more effectively.

Related Organizations
When associations create related organizations (often driven by benefits of a different tax status), they too often create independent Boards and structures of organizations that they intend to be literally “subsidiaries” of the association. It is easy to focus on the purpose of the new organization, its mission, and empowering the new Board that is set up to lead effectively, and in doing so avoid the “who’s in charge” question entirely. The two Boards then operate for years, even decades, without confronting huge contradictions in expectations and purpose. Each Board feels it is in charge, yet it never confronts the issue head on.

It takes courage to confront these “who is in charge” conversations, but remember: while the conversations may be difficult, they won’t kill you, and the longer you put off having them, the more difficult they will be.

Tags: Leadership, Membership, Staff Issues, The Way We Involve Others, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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I am sometimes asked why associations need to bother with innovation. Why can’t associations simply do what they do, and focus on running their “businesses” as smartly and soundly as possible? It is a reasonable question, but a naive one, because it assumes that doing what you’ve always done as well as you can is enough to succeed today. Unfortunately, we live in a time of profound discontinuity and even well-run companies led by highly competent executives suffer under such conditions. Don’t believe me? Just ask Sony what happened to the Walkman or, more recently, with the music CDs that included spyware. Even a popular and financially successful company such as Google is facing growing criticism for some of its strategic and operational decisions.

What does this have to do with innovation and its role in associations? Innovation is not only every association’s solitary strategy for achieving meaningful growth, it is every association’s hedge against the bitter realities of an unforgiving marketplace. How does the Google brand thrive (and the company’s stock rise) even when some of its products fall flat or raise the hackles of the business press or digerati chattering classes in the blogosphere? It is Google’s reputation for continuous innovation that creates a powerful halo effect with end users. A genuine organizational commitment to innovation has benefits that extend far beyond the actual creation of new value for customers, which, of course, remains the first and best reason for making it a priority.

When association leaders adopt a more strategic perspective to taking risks, i.e., stop viewing it as a zero-sum game, both the necessity and possibility of innovation will become clear. In the meantime, I’ll keep advocating for it at the top of my lungs, and I’ll continue to be asked why associations need to be bothered with it. God, I love this job! :>)

Tags: Innovation, We've Always Done It That Way by Jeff De Cagna
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Leaders, and I mean real leaders, do not make excuses. Real leaders take responsibility for whatever is going on in the organization–good or bad–regardless of whether they are actually responsible for creating those circumstances. Real leaders recognize that today’s success, no matter how robust it may be, will eventually run out of steam. After all, no organization thrives in perpetuity, yet complacency is a rather common and extremely deadly affliction of the successful enterprise. On the flip side, real leaders recognize that today’s decline will get worse if intelligent decisions are not made in an effort to reverse the trend. Real leaders think clearly about what is, while also thinking creatively about what is possible. Real leaders don’t wait for conditions to irrevocably deteriorate before taking some form of action, even if that action involves risk.

So here is my question: does your association have any real leaders?

I know that posing such a direct and difficult question will raise the ire of some in our community. To be honest with you, however, we can’t worry about that because if there is anything we really have to change about associations, it is the absolutely gaping leadership gap. From my perspective, while we definitely must address significant shortcomings in the way association staff leaders are prepared for their roles, the bigger challenge for the community is with our volunteers. Throughout my career, I have been witness to extraordinary shortsightedness on the part of volunteer leaders who really should know better. In recent years, as the work of associations has become more complex and volunteers have become busier, the problem appears to have become more acute. How much longer will our community tolerate this myopia?

It is important that we not treat this inquiry as merely rhetorical. The association community must develop a next generation of staff and volunteer leaders who do not need to be persuaded to the belief that renewed success will be achieved only through radical change. In upcoming posts, I’ll have more thoughts on how we can do that.

Tags: Leadership, We've Always Done It That Way by Jeff De Cagna
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Performance evaluations certainly sound better in theory than they do in practice. From an organizational perspective, it makes perfect sense, in theory, to monitor and evaluate the performance of employees. Those who do not perform well could be corrected or terminated, thus improving the overall performance of the system. Those who perform exceptionally well could be rewarded, providing incentives for others to increase their performance. The process, in theory, seems straightforward: sit the employee down with the supervisor, perhaps with the assistance of a written form, and identify a set of goals and objectives, or standards at the beginning of the year, and then meet again at the end of the year to measure results against those standards.

That’s a nice fantasy, isn’t it? This “theory” of performance evaluation is unfortunately riddled with questionable assumptions and an incomplete understanding of human systems and how they work. Conventional wisdom has told us for years why we need to do what we have been doing, and it is time we start challenging this wisdom based on wisdom we have gained from our actual experiences in organizations.

Conventional wisdom: when employees know their performance will be monitored and evaluated, it will motivate them to perform better.

Experiential wisdom: performance evaluations do not motivate people””they only scare them, and fear is never a good motivator in organizations. At the end of the day, people are afraid of getting “dinged” in their evaluation. It is psychologically uncomfortable to have a “superior” give you a bad grade, so your focus turns to things that will cause you to get a good grade (not necessarily things that will help you develop or help your organization’s performance). With your attention on avoiding a reprimand, you end up actually lowering your sights to the level just above that mark.

Conventional wisdom: we need the performance evaluation system to document poor performance as legal cover to our terminations.

Experiential wisdom: yes, you need to document poor performance, but no, you do not need to do it through the performance evaluation system. Try creating a separate system specifically for documenting poor performance and keep your performance evaluation system focused wholly on employee development and organizational performance. Once people know that their evaluations can be held against them, trust disappears, and with trust goes open expression and communication. Without open communication, the performance evaluation system cannot work.

So take a look at what your experience in your organization is telling you, and use that to redesign the performance evaluation system. Clarify the intent of the system, and revise the structure accordingly. Allow for more frequent evaluations of performance. Allow for feedback to flow in all directions (yes, bosses, it is useful to be evaluated by your subordinates). Give people the time they need to implement the system effectively. And when you are done, use your newly acquired experiential wisdom (not conventional) to make the necessary modifications.

Tags: Staff Issues, The Way We Manage, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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When is the last time you heard anyone in your association say, “Oh boy, it’s time for staff meeting!” In fact, most people hate staff meetings, but for some reason we treat it like going to the dentist: we hate being there, but we know we’re better off in the long term by going.

It doesn’t have to be that way (at least for staff meetings). It is true that staff meetings serve a purpose in the long term. We need to be aware of what others in the organization are doing. We need to know how what we are doing connects to the organization’s strategy.

But staff meetings do not need to be painful and boring. In fact, with the pressures on association staff to do more with less, we really cannot afford to spend as many as two hours per week wasting time. We need new solutions that allow staff to communicate and act strategically, without boring them to tears.

For example, you can make staff meetings more engaging and focused by distinguishing between big-picture discussions of strategy from the more simple sharing of implementation details. Patrick Lencioni, in his book, Death by Meeting, recommends that “strategic meetings” occur only monthly, cover one or two topics, and require staff to do homework and intense preparation before they convene. In the weekly tactical staff meetings, however, the agenda is created mid-way through the meeting, based on issues identified in the initial go-round. By creating a clearer context for discussion, the meetings can actually be more engaging and productive.

There are also ways to leverage technology in solving this problem. What about creating an internal staff meeting blog? Individuals or department heads can post reports on what they are doing. Other staff can comment with questions and get responses to areas that are specifically relevant to them, skipping over the parts that are not as important. And people can do this on their own time during the week. This way when you do actually convene a meeting, people have more information when they start, and the conversation is more focused and effective.

Those are simply two ideas for changing the way you do staff meetings. You will have to experiment with alternatives. Try them out””at least for a month or two””and then evaluate their effectiveness as a staff. When people are genuinely excited about coming to the meetings, you will know you have it right.

Tags: Staff Issues, The Way We Manage, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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Generational differences receive a lot of attention these days, particularly in the association community, but too often in comments about these differences fall into the “sky is falling” category:

“¢ All the baby boomers are retiring!
“¢ Generation X are not “joiners!”
“¢ Millennials only want to play video games!

As researchers begin to identify trends in attitudes and behavior that vary from generation to generation, association executives struggle with how to apply that information to the actual running of their business. I actually heard an association executive suggest that the best strategy to deal with generation X is to simply wait them out. Millennials, he suggested, are joiners, so we just need to wait for them to take over the leadership positions in the association!

Get a hold of yourself, Chicken Little. The first step in dealing with generational shifts is to look beyond the stereotypes that have been generated over the last few years. Some of them are quite accurate, but some of them do not tell the whole story. For example, you may have noticed that there are fewer Generation X members entering your volunteer “pipeline.” While they may have different attitudes about “joining” and volunteering than their predecessors, the Baby Boomers, the fact is this drop in numbers is to be expected. Generation X was the baby “bust” after the boom. The Department of Labor predicts a net decline in the middle management workforce in this country by 10% between 2000 and 2010.

Sometimes, of course, the stereotypes are accurate: yes, generations are different. Knowledge of those differences, however, can only help you manage your association more effectively if it is paired with a critical organizational discipline that is too often neglected: the discipline of conversation. How do you manage the ongoing conversation with your members to uncover the relevance of generational differences? You know that there are generational differences, but it is only through a careful and respectful conversation with your membership that you will uncover the relevance. If younger members aren’t volunteering as much, don’t rely on an article to tell you why””ask them yourself. All that background information you got on Generation X will help guide the conversation, but the conclusions about what to do differently will only emerge from the conversation itself.

Have you actually examined your own organization’s capacity for conversations? How do you engage your staff in conversations about strategy and implementation? What is the quality of conversation during performance reviews? To what standard do you hold your Board in their conversations? And at the most basic level, how do you conduct meetings? Are people focused on the topic and listening to one another?

Take the answers to these questions and apply them to generational differences. Try intentionally starting some new conversations across different generations, and see where it leads. Remember, the goal is not to find the static answers; the goal is to find dynamic strategies for ongoing renewal.

Tags: Leadership, Membership, Staff Issues, Strategy, The Way We Work Together, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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