We Have Always Done It That Way

In taking a thorough look at today’s corporate and government sectors, it has become very clear to me that associations must make the significant leap from simply educating our members to managing our trade or profession’s human capital. Why make the leap, do you ask? My first response is simply, if you don’t do it, someone else will. While true, there is more to it than that. The world of human capital management is broad and all-encompassing and deals with all things related to the recruitment, retention, professional development, training, and certification of individuals and how those systems impact the individual as well as the organization. It is even bigger than that as well. It looks at entire systems (a division or department, a company, an industry or profession) and assesses the impact that people have on those systems.

In the association space most of us in the education arena are very focused on one thing, education. And that tends to be defined in terms of conferences, seminars, and perhaps online education. A smaller population of educators focuses on certification or accreditation of professionals. This education focus is simply one very small piece of the overall human capital arena.

Human Capital cuts across every single traditional division or department within an association. It impacts IT, marketing, communications/PR, government relations, education/certification, meeting planning, finance, and research…every department or specialty. I have been touting for years the need for associations to start thinking about the shift from Education Director to Chief Learning Officer, and some organizations have made that leap. But the next evolution is a focus not just on learning, but on Human Capital.

The WHADITW might go something like this… It is time for associations to think in much grander strategic terms about how Human Capital is organized across the association’s entire trade or profession. Not simply themed conferences or seminars, but in the broadest, most global sense. Here are some questions to ponder.

How is your organization…

• Managing human capital across your entire trade or profession? Is it a cross-functional area (as it should be) or is it in a silo within the organization?
• Identifying and managing knowledge creation within your organization but outside of conferences and seminars? How about managing knowledge creation outside of your organization?
• Addressing the need to really know each specific job function within your trade or profession? Can you even identify them clearly? Can you map knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) to each job function? Do you even have the KSA’s identified?

Tags: Leadership, Professional Development, Staff Issues by Amy
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Marketing new education programs is always a fun challenge. In particular we are getting a lot of inquiries about how to market and price new educational programs – especially eLearning products. Before I explain some key philosophies on this, let me refer you to my friend and co-author Mickie Rops’ fantastic entry entitled, “Knowledgizing Associations” that speaks to four value-based services that all associations should focus on. They are simply the ideas of Connect, Context, Filter, and Feedback (see her entry for the details).

Focus educational programs and services around the four values Mickie describes. Work very hard to provide as many of these values to your members as possible. But in the short-term, focus highly on the context and filtering aspects of content. Perceived value is what drives participants to education programs. Identifying what that perceived value might be is absolutely critical to the marketing and pricing challenge. Many times it is saving a member time and money by filtering out irrelevant content and explaining how and why that content can be applied to someone’s professional or personal life. Time and money are the two most common “value” items. With this in mind, here is a philosophy on pricing…

Free is not good. Unless you have some sort of legitimate reason for not charging for a program (a grant funded program, for example) you need to charge something to participants. The more you charge the higher the perceived value of the program. When you offer something for free, the buyer’s mentality is that it is not as valuable, even if it truly is. We also see significant numbers of no-shows for “free” programs versus paid ones.

Bundling products and services creates higher value. If you offer an education product, be sure to think about other products you can bundle with it. For example, you offer a seminar on how to build a great tree house. Your organization also happens to have a research report on new trends in tree house building. Bundle the products together to add value. You could even simply send an email out to everyone who attended the ‘how to build a great tree house’ course that lists all of your other tree house resources, with links to each. This links back to the filtering aspect of value creation.

Tags: Professional Development by Amy
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Before coming to the “dark side” as an independent consultant in 2000, I actually worked at an association in the education department. Somewhere in my training I must have missed the “How to Deal Professionally with Vendors” course. I’m guessing it was never taught or I simply skipped that day, I can’t remember which. But never-the-less I had no clue how to find vendors, select vendors, or manage the RFP process to select them. I winged it. The funny thing is I’m not sure my experience is much different than most association staff.

Here is the ultimate issue… New staff members need to be educated on how your organization purchases products and services from third parties. How this is done is a direct reflection of your organization. It comes back to the bigger issue I have which is simply this. We spend huge budget dollars educating our membership but very few dollars educating our own staff. Professional development of our own staff members is absolutely critical in this knowledge economy, yet I can’t tell you how many times I hear staffers say, we don’t have the budget to attend that seminar/conference, etc. If I were the HR director of an association, here are the critical topics I’d have new employees go through.

• A 101 course on your industry or profession (if your organization doesn’t have one, you should)
• A course on the association and its role in the industry/profession
• A department-level and individual-level overview of how that individual’s job fits into the bigger picture of the organization
• A general association management 101 course
• A vendor/supplier management course
• A general association finance course (see my previous rants on this topic)
• A management course that reflects the organization’s philosophy of staff management, if the individual is going to manage staff

I’d also have a thorough conversation with a new hire about the areas of professional development that they want to focus on and create a learning plan for that individual. And yes, your organization should pick up the tab for this. Employees who feel their employer invests in them stay longer, are more loyal to the organization, and do not tend to turn over nearly as much as those who feel less supported.

Tags: Professional Development by Amy
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The next big wave of employees is entering the workforce. They are technology savvy and are the first full generation to be exposed to education technology in both high school and college. Yet they have similar needs that previous generations have had. They want to network, learn about their profession, and become highly valuable workers. Many associations are not sure how to attract the youngest members of our organizations. How do we get them to come to conferences? Engage the association?

My best advice…simply ask them. Get them involved. Empower them to participate and plan. A few years ago I was at an ASAE Annual conference and talked with a young Executive Director of a smaller association. During the cocktail reception he was telling me about his organization’s issues around attracting and retaining younger members and specifically, around new graduates. His solution was to use his current volunteer leadership to identify two dozen or so young professionals across the country. On the association’s dime, he had them all come to the headquarters for a weekend retreat. In essence he locked them in and gave them a simple directive. Design a program that would bring together young professionals in the industry. Something that was fun and engaging for their peers.

At the end of the weekend the group designed a parallel conference to the national conference, just for young professionals. They chose that design to be able to pull from industry experts that would already be at the national conference, but gave themselves their own learning space to deal with their unique issues. The Executive Director got vendors to sponsor the young professionals program as well as offsetting the registration fees. The group of 25 or so managed a word-of-mouth campaign and brought in over 300 of their peers to the first event. The association was thrilled with the turn out and the sponsors were thrilled at the exposure they got with these young professionals.

Tags: Professional Development by Amy
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The premise of this posting is simply this…take the time to plan your eLearning strategy FIRST, before you start developing eLearning. Second, it doesn’t take much to get your strategy started or designed. The key, however, it to do something different than what your organization has done before. Do NOT take the We Have Always Done It That Way approach to designing eLearning. What I simply mean is this, the approach we use to design new conferences and seminars doesn’t necessarily apply to eLearning – and frankly, it shouldn’t. It is very important to come up with a totally different approach to designing education and professional development in the virtual world.

The key concept is that eLearning might be best “consumed” like Americans eat fast food. It needs to be convenient, quick, and taste decent enough. What I simply mean is this. Participants need to be able to find your eLearning products easily and it needs to be formatted in a way that is convenient to your participants. Strongly consider the participant’s work environment and plan the design accordingly. Second, people need to get in, consume the content, and get out quickly. eLearning programs that go on for hours do not typically get the results the organization is looking for. Finally, the program needs to be decent tasting enough that members will come back. There isn’t an expectation that it is a Kobe steak, just a decent burger will do.

Make the learning engaging but convenient, quick and decent.

Tags: Professional Development by Amy
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2008 is fast approaching, and it is going to be a very significant, and quite possibly, historic year for both our country and our world. Not only will America elect its 44th president next fall, but all eyes will be on Beijing during the month of August as China plays host to the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. On a very personal level, I’m looking forward to celebrating my 40th birthday in March 2008. Well, that’s not exactly true. I’m neither “looking forward to” nor “celebrating” the conclusion of my 40th year of life, but I am paying close attention to what I can learn from the inevitability of this important milestone, as well as what new inspiration and imagination its arrival will bring.

This spirit of discovery and possibility in the face of inexorable reality fills me with a genuine hope that 2008 will be a momentous year for our association community as well, a time in which our commitment to meaningful innovation is dominant, and our “we have always done it that way” reflex is in decline. To help nurture this hope in others, I want to propose three “commitments” of learning and action for the association community to pursue in the coming year. Individually, each of these commitments is about building stronger organizations and, by design, a stronger and more authentic community of associations. When taken together, progress on these commitments could be a wellspring of innovation, with broader positive implications for society.

+Commit to build new capacity for association stewardship—Far too many associations, especially small organizations, continue to struggle with the profound challenges of making a complete transition into the 21st Century. The ambiguity and uncertainty unleashed by rapid and on-going paradigm shift creates unprecedented difficulties for all associations. Our traditional business models are decaying, and our standard practices are not delivering their usual impact, if they still work at all. To flourish in the years ahead, our community needs boards, CEOs and other senior leaders who are willing to be inventive, decisive and bold in the pursuit of new forms of success.

+Commit to tear down our irrelevant, self-imposed boundaries—One of the major business imperatives for all associations is the full embrace of inclusion in every conceivable dimension. Diversity is not (and has never been) a human resources buzzword, but a true reflection of our enormous national promise. It is now time for our community to demonstrate that it can fully realize this reservoir of untapped potential. At the same time, we should acknowledge that inclusion isn’t merely a domestic issue. Associations must stretch beyond the limitations of geographic borders, shake off the fear of what we do not understand and reach out to a global, dynamic and diverse network of colleagues to connect, collaborate and create value on behalf of our members and customers.

+Commit to take action on strategic social responsibility—In 2008, all associations will have the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to a critical dialogue on the importance of strategic social responsibility to our community, our country and our planet. The Global Summit on Social Responsibility, which ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership will convene in the spring of 2008, will be the platform for a robust exchange of ideas around how associations can capitalize on the exciting new business opportunities created when we collaborate to develop solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental and social problems. Strategic social responsibility isn’t about community service or doing good works. It’s about protecting and investing in what was entrusted to us to ensure that it is sustainable for those who will inherit it. It’s not about self-interest. It’s about shared interest.

If we are able to act on these three commitments, we can be catalysts for the kind of deep-seated change and innovation that originally inspired the creation of this book. So will you accept the challenge?

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