We Have Always Done It That Way

Anyone managing associations knows that when groups of people work more smoothly together, the organization’s results are bound to improve. Everyone agrees that a high-functioning team is a good thing.

The typical response, however, when an association has a team or a staff that does not seem to be performing at its best, is to do some “team building” with the team in question. This often means paying a large sum of money to a trainer or consultant who will bring the team to an interesting location for a one- or two-day off-site meeting where the team can get to know each other better, play some fun games, learn some interesting concepts about trust or communication, and head back to the office refreshed and “built” as a team.

Unfortunately, that is all a lie. While the team will have fun and will learn interesting and useful concepts, it is highly unlikely that the team will be any more “built” than it was before the retreat. How many times have you gone on a team building retreat, and when you get back to the office the team is more effective together for a period of approximately three months before it reverts back to its old, dysfunctional patterns? Teams are “built” only when they can consistently perform better than they were before. It is unlikely you can achieve that after one retreat.

Real team effectiveness is based on deeply rooted patterns of interaction that do not emerge simply because team members “get along” well or have fun together. Building teams is best accomplished by helping teams to actually identify and work through real work-based problems. This may include some skill building or discussion of new concepts, but it must always be done in the very real context of getting work done. Associations need to take team building more seriously by making it a part of ongoing management concerns. Build team performance into management performance reviews. Provide ongoing internal and external resources to support teams in identifying and building more successful work patterns. Allow teams the space to tackle the tougher issues like conflict and accountability, rather than encouraging them to merely get along better.

If you want to bring your senior management team to a resort for a weekend and have them do trust falls with each other, more power to you. But don’t pretend this is teambuilding. It may be a nice reward for the hard work your people have put in””they will likely emerge refreshed and relaxed. But keep the teambuilding real and make it an ongoing part of the work of your association.

Tags: Staff Issues, The Way We Manage, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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Why is everyone afraid of conflict? Board, members, committees, staff groups, leaders, followers””the one thing they all have in common is that they are afraid to confront each other with conflicts or significant differences in opinions.

For example, an association executive recently asked advice from colleagues on a listserver about what to do about a committee co-chair who had “done a lot of work”¦but stepped on lots of toes and caused extra work for staff.” The incoming president was suggesting not reappointing this person as co-chair.

Instead of dealing with the conflict, the first response is to end the relationship. Unfortunately, this response is typical. At all levels of associations people bury conflict. They hide it. They ignore it. They pretend it isn’t conflict. They lie about it. If it gets really bad, they raise the stakes and take actions that simply remove the possibility of the conflict emerging again (e.g., ending the relationship). Anything but confronting it head on (like, for example, having a candid conversation with a volunteer about how his behavior is upsetting other volunteers or staff).

It is true, of course, that everyone has had experiences of being in conflict where the situation got uncomfortable, tense, maybe even painful and frustrating. That’s why we run the other way. But remember””just because conflict has been unpleasant, doesn’t mean it always will be. Conflict is a natural part of every single human system, so instead of trying to avoid it (which is impossible), how about learning how to deal with it more effectively?

It isn’t rocket science. It takes a little bit of knowledge and perhaps some skill development, but mostly it takes the courage to simply try a new approach. Start small on the less “important” conflicts, and as you make progress you can tackle the bigger issues. But above all, start. The cost of ignoring conflict can be overwhelming.

When conflict is avoided, the real issues never get out on the table. A pattern will then emerge in your association where the “norm” is to hide what you really think (or at best vent about it at the water cooler). So at meetings, people talk around the difficult issues, retiring to their offices without a clear sense of what was agreed to or what they should do next. In fact, in cultures where conflict is routinely avoided, being “accountable” becomes quite difficult, and results suffer””all because we were afraid to deal with conflict.

So it may feel like it would be less painful to avoid that conflict, but don’t be fooled. In the long run you will suffer more by avoiding it. Start paying attention to the conflict in your association. Notice where it happens and notice when you and others avoid it. Then start the work of changing the pattern, and prepare yourself because the first step in changing the pattern will be for you to try dealing with your conflict differently.

Tags: Leadership, Staff Issues, The Way We Work Together, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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I’m sitting here in NYC, attending a conference on innovation, and I’m thinking about things we can do to increase the likelihood of innovation in our organizations. Of course, there are many things we need to do, but eliminating all standing committees is a really simple and really high leverage idea.

Individually, each association committee is a pocket of bureaucracy. The totality of an association’s committee structure is the underpinning of an organization’s “infrastructure of the status quo.” So let’s shake it up! Here is a prescription for an alternative architecture of “collaborative groups” that I think can work for virtually every association:

1. No more than 6-8 members per group.
2. An equal number of staff and volunteers working together.
3. No chairs; co-facilitators, one staff and one volunteer rotating on a monthly basis.
4. A duration of no less than three months and no more than four months.
5. At the end, the group can reorganize and continue if the work requires it, but it must turnover at least half of its membership.
6. No reports, only conversations.
7. Everyone in a group gets to evaluate the contributions of every other member.

The idea here is to change the dynamics of collaboration and decisionmaking in associations by challenging the assumptions of how staff and volunteers should relate. True creativity and innovation emerges when there is shared respect for a diversity of views and “who’s in charge” is much less important than “who’s got a great idea?”

If we’re going to work on projects, we should work on them and complete them as quickly and intelligently as possible. If the original group assigned to work on something can’t get it done, then new people should be incorporated because new ideas likely are required. The result of group work shouldn’t be a report, but some set of outcomes. The role of the group should be engaging others in conversations about them to ensure they are the right outcomes.

Finally, this more flexible architecture should make it possible to develop both staff and volunteers and move them around to a variety of learning opportunities. The only way that we will help our people grow is by giving them feedback on where they already excel and where they need to do further work. Who better than group colleagues to do such evaluation?

Now, I know that everyone who reads this will want to come up with a hundred different objections to the idea. But let me invite you not to do that. Instead, try to improve it. Ask a different question: how could this work? That is a step in the right direction.

Tags: Innovation, Leadership, We've Always Done It That Way by Jeff De Cagna
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