“Associations don’t exist to be governed, but to create value for stakeholders.”

I’ve heard you and Jamie say that on a number of occaisions. Every governance meeting should start with that statement as a reality check.

At a very fundamental level, the strategic challenges facing associations today are new and quite different, if only because the pace of the paradigm shift we are experiencing continues to accelerate, and the dimensions and potency of the shift itself deeply threaten the core elements of the association business model. So, I think it’s fair to say that associations have never been in this place before. Indeed, in today’s environment, the fact that an association has been around for 50-100+ years may ultimately prove to be more of a liability than an asset if longevity means that leaders are overly invested in the past, and are unwilling or unable to overcome their denial and feelings of nostalgia for a world that no longer exists.

In all candor, I don’t see anything “gimmicky” about challenging our community’s conventional wisdom in an area of work that is critical to success but one that continues to create huge problems for many organizations. If associations are going to be successful in a new world, staff and volunteer leaders will need to fundamentally rethink legacy approaches to association stewardship that no longer serve us well. But a careful reading of the post will confirm that I never actually advocate for associations to “stop exercising governance to succeed.” (There is no such quote in the post, only in your comment.) I’m simply suggesting that we have a responsibility to question long-standing assumptions about the purposes and practices of governance, and an opportunity to reinvent them for the 21st century.

We agree that boards need to operate as governing groups and not management committees. In my experience, however, this is easier said than done. Could this be because what we’re asking boards to do actually encourages them to operate like managers and not stewards? I think so, and this means we need to create a new mindset around stewardship and build governing systems that challenge our senior leaders to fully embrace their most important responsibilities.

Michael, I hope you’ll join the conversation on innovation governance at http://ungovernance.ning.com. Thanks again for the comment.

Organizations have been part of the American fabric since before the Revolution happened and our Federal Constitution was written. How is it possible that organizations have survived for decades, and some over a hundred years, without the inspired notion of “ungovernance”? Are we to believe that all of the changes that have occurred in society for the past 200+ years having an impact on organizations do not amount to the changes we’ve seen in the past few years? This is the logical extension of the “ungovernance argument.

While I applaud the notion of “changing your game plan when you’re loosing”, the entire presentation of “ungovernance” is gimmicky.

I strongly disagree with the notion that organizations need to “stop exercising governance to succeed”. What the failing organizations need to do is “start exercising proper governance” and to know the difference between being a “management committee” and being a “governing board”.