We Have Always Done It That Way

Ever since Good to Great hit the scene, the association community has gotten data religion. Count this, measure that, does this metric make my balanced score card look fat? The problem with too much data collection is that you can be paralyzed by an undifferentiated mass of input. You become the crunchee rather than the cruncher.

Repeat after me: If a piece of data can’t enable a decision to be made, it isn’t worth measuring. Using this simple rule will dramatically reduce your measurement efforts while simultaneously enabling you to take more action. What’s not to like?

This same approach can be invaluable for your Board of Directors and other leadership bodies. When you are pressed for more and more data, push back. Ask what decisions the requested data will support. If it doesn’t support any, it is in everyone’s best interest to not go through the labor of producing it nor the time of assessing and discussing it. You can move on to those metrics that really matter to your leaders making decisions about the future of the organization.

Do not allow your measurement efforts to crunch you and your leadership.

Tags: The Way We Manage, The Way We Execute, The Way We Work Together, The Way We Think, Strategy, Leadership, Technology, We've Always Done It That Way by David
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Thanks to Rosetta Thurman for including us in her “Friday Four” links on Friday. Rosetta has a blog called “Perspectives From the Pipeline: Observations on the Nonprofit Sector from the Next Generation.” She liked the post that I did about constraints-driven solutions. How about this quote from Rosetta:

What’s that you say? We don’t have to automatically increase our budget every year? There may be different and cheaper and better ways to do things? Hmmm, now can we just brand that on nonprofit leaders’ foreheads with hot fireplace pokers?

Ouch!

Tags: The Way We Manage, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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There comes a point in many high-level conversations in the association community where someone plays the “we need to have consensus” card. These conversations often involve Board members or at least senior staff members, and the focus of the conversations is usually contentious. Examples: what should be our strategic priority this year? How should we word that policy so it is fair to everyone? Whose budget should pay for this new program? What program are we going to cut to make room for this new program? You typically start the conversation with great energy, because the topic is truly important. As you progress, however, you discover some intense disagreement among the members of the group, and the conversation stalls. You are not able to overcome the disagreements. People are now officially uncomfortable.

So there is a call for “consensus.” The underlying message is, “We’re not agreeing on this and it is important that we agree.” Of course, if you’re honest with yourself, a more accurate translation might be, “You are not agreeing with me on this and it is important that you agree with me.” But either way, the focus is on agreement or the lack thereof. When people become aware of a deep disagreement on an important topic, they feel they are failing in the conversation, and there is an urge to push towards agreement. What else can I tell you to get you to agree? We’re running out of time, so please just agree! This is a natural tendency, but it is a huge mistake.

At the root of this mistake is our lack of understanding of what consensus really is. It is commonly defined in terms of agreement, and this comes, understandably, from our negative experiences with “majority rule.” In situations of majority rule, those in the minority are often quite unhappy with the decision””so much so that during implementation, they can sabotage or derail the process, either consciously or not. In seeking to avoid these problems, we try to reach what we call consensus””where everyone agrees.

Getting everyone to actually agree, however, is often impossible. And as experts in the field of decision making tell us, it is not required. Michael Roberto provides an excellent definition of consensus that will help association leaders move more effectively through this dilemma. Consensus is defined as a high level of shared understanding combined with a high level of commitment. Note the absence of the notion of agreement. This is ultimately a more sophisticated way of understanding a common way of talking about consensus: “is this a decision everyone can live with.”

So when you encounter a tough conversation where there is clear disagreement, focus your attention on deepening the understanding, and then talking about commitment. The shared understanding piece is too often ignored. When we disagree, we argue more vehemently for our particular answer, and our opponents do the same. But neither side actually seeks to understand why the other side holds their position. When you do this, you will deepen the understanding enough that, even if neither side changes their mind, they at least understand the reasoning. This means that if the decision doesn’t go their way, they at least understand where the other side is coming from, and, more importantly, you know that the “winning” side understands your arguments (this strongly increases the chance that you’ll implement even if you’re on the losing side).

Second, make sure you have a conscious commitment on all sides to implement the decision. Don’t skip this step, and don’t assume that an awkward silence means everyone is committed. Ask people to express reservations. Ask people what their action plans are. Make it clear that everyone will work together to hold each other accountable. This becomes partly an issue of group culture. Sometimes you have to develop a culture where people are willing to speak their minds before you can have success in reaching a high level of commitment. You also develop this over time by actually holding people accountable. In the future if people do not come through as promised, you have to be able to discuss that openly with the group. If you avoid that uncomfortable conversation, then you will undermine any future attempt to achieve consensus.

Tags: The Way We Manage, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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I’ve been thinking about this difficult question for quite some time now, but I’ve been reluctant to write about it out of a genuine concern that the question itself might sound like an unprovoked attack on hard-working association staff and volunteers. This is definitely not my intention. Rather, I’m hoping we can make our colleagues’ lives a bit easier by creating a more favorable climate in which they can always bring their imagination to bear on the work of their organizations.

Albert Einstein suggested that “imagination is more important than knowledge,” and who am I to disagree with him. In a time of paradigm shift, what we think we know is increasingly less useful than what we can learn, imagine and create. In a recent post, Micropersuasion blogger Steve Rubel suggested that “the most important ‘tool’ you can have today in business is insatiable curiosity. The minute you lose it, you’re dead.” I think Steve is right on target and, from my perspective, curiosity and imagination go hand in hand: our curiosity feeds our imagination, and our imagination drives our curiosity.

Which brings me back to my inquiry about the possible imagination deficit in our community. I suppose what I’m really wondering is whether the work environment in associations today cultivates and nurtures the curiosity and imagination of staff and volunteers. One specific source of concern in this regard is the recent emphasis placed on so-called “data-driven strategies,” as advocated by ASAE & The Center’s 7 Measures of Success report. Without a doubt, there is a need to infuse the strategic decision-making process with useful data. But we must also recognize there are limits to what data can tell us, and there is good reason to challenge the notion that backward-looking information will always illuminate the wisest course of action for the future of our organizations. Associations definitely need clear, simple and focused strategy, but it should be “driven” by the value it will create for members, customers and stakeholders. Identifying and implementing that potential value necessarily will involve some combination of what we know, what we can learn, what we can imagine and what we can create together.

The powerful forces of paradigm shift are reshaping our society, and associations are going along for that very bumpy ride. But in the midst of this uncertainty, association professionals and volunteers have an extraordinary opportunity to envision a very different and more vibrant future for the organizations to which they have committed themselves. I challenge you to do just that by remaining curious and using your imagination everyday. If you’re able to do that, then in time the more important question won’t be whether there once was an imagination deficit, but what we did to eliminate it for the benefit of our community.

Tags: The Way We Lead, The Way We Think, The Way We Manage, The Way We Execute, The Way We Involve Others, The Way We Work Together, Strategy, Technology, Leadership, Staff Issues, Innovation, Professional Development, Membership, We've Always Done It That Way by Jeff
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We are very pleased to let you know that the cover story in the current issue of Association Meetings Magazine focuses on WHADITW, and includes quotes from four of us. We want to thank fellow blogger Sue Pelletier, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, for approaching us with this idea and for interviewing us for the article. It was great fun!

I especially like the prompt the magazine uses to encourage its readers to provide their feedback on the article and on the ideas we share:

Tell us what you think: Are these folks on the money? Prophetic? Deranged? Naive?

Personally, I’m pulling for deranged. In all seriousness, though, we’d very much like to know your reaction to the article. We hope you will post your comments below.

Tags: The Way We Manage, The Way We Execute, The Way We Work Together, The Way We Involve Others, The Way We Lead, The Way We Think, Leadership, Innovation, Professional Development, Technology, We've Always Done It That Way by Jeff
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This story in the Washington Post provides a tragic and inspiring example of change: A Crash’s Improbable Impact. The story is about how the crash of Air Florida on a DC bridge in 1982 illuminated how communicating as they always had in the cockpit decreased the safety of the flights. It then led to dramatic change in how pilots, ship captains and even surgeons interact with their crews. Here is an excerpt:

As experts and airline executives digested the safety board’s report, they began to more closely scrutinize other problems in the cockpit that day. It emerged that Pettit and Wheaton were emblematic of aviation’s lingering cowboy culture, a residue of an era when fighter jocks from World War II and Korea flew for the airlines. In that gung-ho environment, captains were always right. They did not need advice, and co-pilots and other crew members often were afraid to assert themselves.

“It was a more romantic time frame when aviation, wasn’t just a transportation system, but that needed to change,” said Larry Rockliff, vice president of training for Airbus North America.

Tags: The Way We Work Together, The Way We Involve Others, The Way We Execute, The Way We Manage, Staff Issues, The Way We Lead, We've Always Done It That Way by David
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Fred Simmons put up a very interesting post on the Gulo Solutions blog that takes Jeff’s “thought experiment” about no dues a few more steps down the road. Check it out.

Tags: The Way We Manage, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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Every association divides its work into departments. This is not unique to associations, of course, but associations seem particularly good at it. There are associations with less than ten staff people that are able to maintain six or seven departments! Division of labor is a rational thing to do, of course, and the department structure is not evil, but it does tend to generate a serious morale-buster: silo wars.

Even with one- and two-person departments, you will find people complaining about how the other departments are not pulling their weight, or are getting too much of the budget, or lack professionalism, etc. Nearly everyone complains about the “other” departments, and the complaints come from every level in the hierarchy. People waste time complaining about the silos, and they often end up constricting information flow because of unnecessary competitiveness. We’re all on the same team, people, why can’t we just get along?

Unfortunately, it is not just about getting along. No matter how strongly you urge your employees to cooperate and work cross-functionally, if you don’t take care of some important issues at the top of your organization, the silo wars will continue. It sounds counterintuitive, but working on issues among the senior management team is the best way to get the complaining at the staff level to stop. There are three key areas that require attention, all of which are areas that associations typically undervalue.

Focus your strategy
Silos will cooperate when they get clear messages about priorities. Association strategic plans typically break down by department, allowing each department to focus on their own goals, but also generating unending debates about whose goals are more important. All departments have importance, but your strategy still must have a focused rallying cry to guide the short- to medium-term. Everyone is important, but right now we’re focusing on this. When that is communicated clearly and consistently, people will more readily work together towards that goal.

Tighten your senior team
You must include accountability around silo competitiveness as a component of senior team effectiveness. Many associations do not. They overemphasize technical expertise (after all, government relations and meeting planning are fundamentally different things), allowing Vice Presidents to focus primarily on their own department. Issues of competition between departments then become “personal” (which means they are ignored, and fester). This dynamic needs to be nipped in the bud. Issues that generate competition need to be identified and resolved quickly and visibly at the very top of the organization. Without that behavior modeled, it will be too easy to start a campaign of justified complaining at the lower levels. When members of the senior team fail to do this, there must be consequences.

Make the time to do things together
You do not have to restructure into a “matrix” organization or send your people to an off-site to get them to work more cross-functionally. What they need most is a better understanding of what the other departments really do. To learn that, they need to spend time with their colleagues in other departments, working with them, talking to them, asking questions. This takes them away from their own work, and that is perfectly fine. The time you save in inter-departmental cooperation will more than make up for it. But the leadership must support this time investment and manage workflow accordingly. That might even involve modifying deadlines within your own department, if necessary. You must demonstrate your commitment to supporting cross-department cooperation if that is what you really want.

Tags: The Way We Manage, Strategy, Staff Issues, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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It is easy to jump on the “culture” bandwagon. You hear it everywhere: management books, keynote speeches””even your own intuition is telling you that organizational culture matters. If you want to succeed, you need to have (choose from the following platitudes and insert here): a strong culture, a healthy culture, a progressive culture, an innovative culture, a proud culture, “¦the list goes on.

Culture does matter, but too many associations end their exploration of culture once they have settled on one of the platitudes above. They choose a feel-good label for their culture and then command from on-high that such a culture is the priority of the organization. This is a path to disappointment, because organizational culture does not work that way.

Organizational culture is simply a collection of tacit assumptions and patterns of behavior that provide a subtext of “how things are done” at your organization. It has been developing and changing constantly since the organization was founded. It develops and changes whether or not leaders pay it any attention. So if you have a problem in the organization and you want to solve it, you had better understand your culture””beyond the platitudes.

Look beyond the language in your mission and vision statements. Look beyond the posters on the walls with inspirational quotes about teamwork. Look at the physical layout of your office. Look at who eats lunch together. Ask people what it takes to get things done, and when they answer, read between the lines to get at the core assumptions underlying your culture. This will provide outstanding guidance as you try to solve problems in the office.

You will likely find that sometimes the culture itself is part of the problem you are trying to solve. You’ll know this when all of your very excellent problem-solving activities strangely fail. In that case, it is the culture that is defeating you, and you’ll need to work on changing your culture. Changing culture is typically more evolutionary than revolutionary (although it does depend on where your organization is in the “life cycle”). If the solution you are trying to implement is starkly different than your current culture, give it plenty of time to take hold. Develop a program of small steps, giving each innovation time to take hold (and establish new patterns) before introducing additional changes.

In the end, jumping on the culture bandwagon is a good idea for associations, but only if they take culture more seriously and recognize that creating a positive culture will come from a collection of actions throughout the organization””actions that must be cultivated and cannot be demanded or commanded.

Tags: The Way We Manage, Staff Issues by Jamie
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When associations realize that they need to do things differently in order to get different (hopefully better) results, they too often turn to the field of “change management” to ensure that their staff and/or members do not ruin progress by resisting the positive change. We need to stop calling these activities “change management” and refer to them instead by a more accurate name: “change enforcement.”

Much of the advice in change management books is focused on compelling other people to do what you want them to do. It presumes that you know better than they do, and it seeks a benevolent way to “get them on board”””because firing everyone and simply orienting your new recruits to your plan seems a bit rash.

The advice in these books is not wrong””knowledge of how fear and the comfort of routine play into behavior patterns is well documented and relevant in organizations. My problem with these books is that they tend to imply that the first time you engage people in the change is when you are enforcing it. While this may happen frequently in large organizations seeking consistency across a global enterprise, this is rarely necessary in associations with significantly smaller staffs. When you only have ten people on staff, there really isn’t an excuse for not engaging them earlier on in the change process.

Tradition, however, dictates that exclusion. Tradition says issues of “change” are relegated to the strategic conversations, which, of course, take place only among the Board and most senior management, so we’ve built organizational routines that reinforce those assumptions.

The good news is, this is easy to change. Simply build new routines. Specifically, build the topic of “change” into your routine at a lower level. Don’t leave the “what are we going to do differently” conversation to the once-every-two-years strategic planning conversation (or to the “everyone get on board” change management processes). Create space on a specific meeting agenda (at least once per quarter, but more often is better) about what is changing or needs to change in the organization.

Let staff develop the agenda and facilitate the meeting. This does not mean they are in charge””decisions about what to change can still rest at the top of the hierarchy (if that’s what you want). But think about it: if you are really interested in change, then it makes sense to get someone other than the person who is most invested in the way things are (the leader) to lead that discussion.

Be open to where the conversation leads you, and use these interactions as a chance to discuss major decisions about change you are going to make. And if you are not going to change (despite the staff’s call for change), then you can use these meetings to make your rationale crystal clear. With these conversations more the routine in organizations, we will have less need for the psychology-based coercion techniques from the “change enforcement” field.

Tags: The Way We Manage, Innovation by Jamie
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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: The Way We Manage, Staff Issues, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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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: The Way We Manage, Staff Issues, 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: The Way We Manage, Staff Issues, We've Always Done It That Way by Jamie
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