Posts filed under 'people'
A Confluence Model for Building Activity-Centered Organizations
The princple of this model is rooted in moving organizations from being department-driven to being activity-driven. Why is this important to associations? The philosophy and psychology of such an approach is rooted in the belief that when people begin to think of initiatives being centered around an activity rather than another department, the goal becomes shared and people become more invested in the outcome.
This is a silo-busting model which sheds “turf” in exchange for shared ownership, balanced collaboration and responsibility. Greater clarity and transparency helps to bring people together on the same frequency. In other words, the goal is to move groups of people from thinking “that’s not my problem” to a sense of “this is our shared problem”.
Think “confluence” in terms of “flowing into” a central place (multi-lateral) rather than “flowing from” (uni-lateral) a specific area. The focus is on the activity to be completed or problem to be solved, rather than who “owns” the issue.
I actually learned this principle while working in politics. The magnitude of selfless teamwork in political campaigns always amazed me. My own analytical viewpoint is that campaigns bring staff resources together because the work is cenetered around one central activity… the election of a candidate. However, I was always equally amazed by the vindictive hell and fury that breaks lose once a candidate wins as previous teammates begin to scramble for their own plot of political “real estate”.
What is the source of this fragile volatility? I believe the answer is the same in both political adminstrations as it is in the dynamics of any organization… the humanistic flaw of envy. For whatever reason, real or imagined, envy is the great initiating force for overt and covert human grudge matches. Referencing a previous posting, it’s the “Pfactor” (the people factor). We’re all human and have our share of flaws and insecurities.
So how do you overcome envy? You must focus on balancing the attention on the important and uniquely essential contribution of each person in the ultimate success of the endeavor. As a leader, to succeed in maintaining this level of morale and security in your team is extraordinarily difficult if you do what so many organizations do and that is to delegate the control and ownership of an initiative to specific department which creates the air of a “master/servant” realtionship. Nobody wants to be a servant to his/her peers… that’s where the “it’s not my problem” mentality kicks in.
Thus, the easier path to fostering a confluence of team is to shift the structure of activites from being around a particular department to residing around the activity itself, with each person’s contribution flowing into development, execution, completion and success. That way, not only is success shared, but so too is failure. Think of the possibilities.
What’s your next step toward this model? Look at your strategic plan and analyze how initiatives are aligned with staff… does there appear to be “domains”, “areas”, “primary” people, “categories” of staff or “divide and conquer” language? Embracing project management is another way to begin fostering a new mentality in terms of activity-centered alignment. Create management teams of key staff leaders who all have an equitable seat at the table from activity conception to completion.
Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean that every task is completed by committee, but rather the overall construct of activities are built around the essential contributions of each component with the organization as a whole being the primary owner and stakeholder of the activity. I am in the process of developing a visual model for this concept which I will share once completed. In the meantime, I will leave you to ponder the possibilities. SM
Add comment December 10, 2008
Accelerated Learning Through Passive Mentoring Opportunities
I must confess, I’m somewhat of an unsuspecting stalker when it comes to seeking mentoring for my own personal and professional development. My ideal “stalkee” can be virtually anyone, regardless of age or level of experience. The reason is when it comes to being mentored in life and career, we are surrounded on a daily basis by unlimited mentors to draw upon for learning.. Simply put, there is much to learn about ourselves through the lives of others.
The reality is you can find a mentor in just about anyone, living or dead. Even more, the many people we have the good fortune to cross paths with on a daily basis may not even be aware they are mentoring you. How is this possible? It’s because each of us possess unique strengths and behaviors which just seem to come naturally and effortlessly. I’m talking about the traits which we can attribute to our successes in life as we perform best when we are able to do what comes naturally to us. Bad actors are always revealed in time and chances are they are the last ones to realize their “jig is up”. Put another way, it takes twice as much energy to work in ignorance of our weakenesses than it does to work in concert with them.
If you pay close attention as a conscious observer you will not only see how others succeed but you will also have a point of reference for comparison against your own strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures. From this process of what I call “passive mentoring” you can actually draw lessons and ideas for your own development from others who most likely have no idea of the gift they are bestowing upon you.
I believe that our true strengths in life often emerge from our weaknesses and that it is unlikely we can convert our weakenesses to truly natural strengths. In other words, we naturally develop strengths in one area to compensate for our weakness in other areas. We are all “incomplete” in a way. However, we can learn from others and ”polish” our weaknesses to an extent we can keep our weakeness from overshadowing our strengths in life OR we can use our weaknesses as a measure to determine whether or not we are living in accordance with our strengths and true purpose in life. Either way, passive mentoring in the careful observation of others can enable us to evolve through wisdom and learning. Now get out there… your mentors are waiting. SM
Add comment December 4, 2008
A Celebration of Failure and the Epic Misconception of Teaching and Learning
In looking back upon my unlikely Gump-esque path to my present-day life, I recently paused in reflection taking into consideration the relationship between teaching and learning. Beginning with our parents and formal education, the world attempts to teach us, mold us, warn us and protect us from the perilously alluring risks lurking around every corner as heavy doses of well-intentioned directional influence is administered to us as we attempt to write our own life’s prescription.
As we move into our professional lives, the misconceived promise of management and the illusion of leadership hinges on the thought that all we have to do is somehow operate as social pharmacists prescribing the ideal visionary path for our staff teams to follow and we will all live happily and successfully ever after.
Back in the real world, the truth is lessons cannot be taught, they can only be learned. While teachings help us rationalize the world around us, only personal experience can truly transform our reasoning and reshape our behavior. The implication for association executives is we must focus less on teaching and more on fostering learning.
How do we do foster learning and how is it different than teaching?
Teaching assumes that all we have to do is dispense knowledge which results in learned changes in behavior. But just because you teach somebody something utilizing your own knowledge and experience doesn’t mean anybody is learning anything. Teaching may very well plant a partial seed of knowledge, but experience is the soil, sunlight and water in which learning grows. What this means is the discipline of management and the art of leadership is a combination of timing, judgment, freedom, intervention and ongoing cultivation.
In life, our best experiences are often a by-product of our worst experiences. While success is undoubtedly a good feeling, it is a far less effective opportunity for learning than its distant cousin, failure. Could it possibly be said that the road to failure just might be paved with the complacent bricks of success? While success skews our self-perception, failure is the humanizing force which inspires transformational learning.
For these reasons, I encourage you to consider the positive implications of failure and focus on skillful art of learning in not not only guiding and influencing the actions of your staff, but more importantly, inspiring their personal development. After all, within every failure is a success just waiting to happen. SM
Add comment November 6, 2008
The Fragile Economics of Vital Association Resources
The principles of economics can be applied to so many facets of life. I must confess that I’m a graduate of the hard-knocks school of economics as the mere word conjures painful memories of my college days at the University of Kentucky where I began and ended my formal institutional economics studies. Economics is a language in and of itself; however, when you add a professor full of admirable enthusiasm and intellect yet challenged by his own mastery of the English language, economics can be a bewildering road for a young college student.
Despite that rough start, I have grown to love my education in economics from an experiential standpoint over the past fifteen years since that first formal encounter. Aside from my wife’s Uncle being an economist and professor, I’ve discovered that economics is as much behavioral as it is financial… perhaps more so as the world economic crisis is proving these days. Behavioral economics is a field that I believe we all, as association executives, should explore in the context of our associations. All of which brings me to the point of this posting.
There may still be an antiquated misconception out there in some circles of management thought that if an association pays its hierarchy of staff, however towering or flat, a package of salary and fringe benefits that they somehow undergo a transmorgifying elevation to superhuman status in which their productivity and mastery of workload and work culture remains constant and of high quality regardless of how we expand, stretch, twist, push, pull, pinch, stretch, sigmafy or pivot our delegatory expectations of them.
The simple fact is human beings succumb to both the supply/demand principles of economics as well as the emotional volatility of behavioral economics in navigating work roles and responsibilities. The greater the demands we place upon our staff, the more limited the supply of quality and positive emotion, both of which impact workload and culture. Conversely, the more we focus and manage the demands placed upon our human capital, the better the odds that we will create an even balance of positivity and productivity.
Put another way, you simply cannot overload and drown your people in their workload and expect a consistently high quality result no matter how much they are paid. People are human and they have their limits. The key is to either find the right balance of workload and mix of talent or to open the floodgates, dial back those expectations and prepare for crisis communication.
Finally, just as the threat of the dreaded influenza begins to creep back into our association workplace as the frozen days of winter approach, so too does the contagious risk of poor morale, output and negative work culture via the equally infectous epidemic of stress in the workplace.
So, as we move forward into the lean days of economic downturn and recessionary thought, let’s try not to think in terms of doubling up responsbilities as budget line items tighten and expenses hit the chopping block. Rather, forge a downturn strategy, adjust and prioritize the level of workload, expend some of that hard-earned capital with your board and keep your precious human resources functioning in a high quality, productive and emotionally healthy manner. Continue advancing that mission at a marathon pace.
If none of the above made any sense whatosever, here’s a final thought/scenario which may be more relatable. Imagine you had to travel to a weeklong board meeting in Borneo and due to airline restrictions could only bring one carry-on suitcase. No matter how you slice it or dice it, you are still contrained to that one tiny wardrobe-on-wheels wonder. Can you create some additional capacity by being creative and ingenious? of course…. can you pack the exact same amount of clothes and chattels that you would have given your much larger wardrobe-on-wheels wonder? well, you might try but you are sure to reach capacity and in the process you may pack the suitcase so tight that it either won’t close or that worn-out zipper will finally crumble under the pressure and permanently head off it’s zippery track rendering your loyal travel companion useless and destined for the place de-zippered suitcases go when the tragically zig when they were supposed to zag (of course, it doesn’t typically happen when you are had home packing to leave… somehow the suitcase gods reserve this special catastrophic event for when you are frantically re-packing that suitcase in your hotel room to either get to the meeting or airport on time).
Whether you stretch or shrink staff, even the most ingenious team will not be able to maintain the previously expected capacity. Be mindful of the fragile economics of association staff and management and keep moving forward in a positive direction. SM
2 comments October 22, 2008
Using social capital measurement as a predictor of future success or failure within your association
I’ve been truly blessed in my career to be able to combine a wide breadth of professional experiences with an even larger variety of teachers who I’ve had the good fortune to cross paths with. As you move along in your career journey, the combination of these elements begin to reveal patterns which illuminate potential truths that may often be overlooked by the general population. Time-tested universal logic and wisdom becomes tools for us all to apply to our associations. In this posting, I will share with you what I believe to be one such truth as it relates to the state of our association world.
If you ask the typical association executive how he or she might predict whether or not their association would succeed or fail in the future, chances are you might hear a seemingly canned response full of management, operations and strategic diagnostic assessment covering everything from strategic planning to long-term investment portfolios to new product/resource development to technology to membership recruitment to research to competitive educational programs to advocacy to etc to etc to etc. I think you get the picture.
While in many ways the above elements are certainly crucial to a healthy and functioning association, I believe the true answer, above all else, is social capital… and not just social capital, but the highest degree of social capital possible.
Social capital has been defined by writers, such as Robert Putnam (in Bowling Alone) and Peter Block (in Community – The Structure of Belonging), as the overall quality of relationships and cohesion within a community.
Putnam suggests that social capital is about acting on and valuing our interdependence and sense of belonging… the extent to which we extend hospitality and affection to one another. Building on Putnam’s assessment, Peter Block suggests that “we need to create a community where each citizen has the experience of being connected to those around them and knows that their safety and success are dependent on the success of all others.”
Personally, I’ve seen the factor of social capital drive success and failure in a variety of “community” settings throughout my career, ranging from my sixth grade rock band and high school football team to the world of state/national politics and, yes, our beloved associations.
In essence, on paper an association might give the healthy appearance of being poised for a strong and secure future only to be disintegrating from the core. Could your association be disintegrating at the core over declining social capital?
By now, you are likely focusing your thoughts and analysis on your various membership segments and the degree to which they may or may not feel a sense of cohesion and belonging within your association. You may even be contemplating how well your association’s bundle of resources, opportunities and networking structure is advancing social capital at the individual and group level. Finally, I’m almost certain that as a seasoned association executive you are wondering how you can measure, benchmark and track social capital and it’s impact on the growth, activity and success of your association.
At this point, if you’re thoughts are precisely at the same place as my thoughts above then I would heartily congratulate us all for overlooking the a significant foundation and factor for the successful cultivation of social capital within our associations… our staff.
Yes, it is true that we are all “paid” staff and in keeping with the traditional fallacy of economic enrichment let’s celebrate for a moment the desperately flawed assumption that a clear definition of job responsibilities, adequate compensation, leave time and fringe benefits automatically assures a high degree of social capital and personal investment within our staff structure.
Simply put, unless the heart is beating the rest of the body isn’t going very far.
It is quite possible to have the most talented and experienced group of people comprising your staff structure yet fail miserably for a lack of cohesion and sense of belonging (aka social capital) which, if unaddressed, may only worsen over time leading to decline in social capital cultivation with members/volunteer leaders and the ultimate “extinction” of staff. Your workplace will become overly stressful, the best and brightest won’t likely stick around and those who do remain are likely the ones whose only goal within your association is to collect that paycheck.
Think of your staff as a mirror image reflection of the social capital within your association.
Okay, so here we are. We’ve pinpointed the source of social capital, right? I’m afraid we’re likely wrong once again. After all, our staff is in place to answer the marching orders of our governing boards and councils and if these volunteer member leaders fail to espouse the creation of social capital with membership and staff alike then the leadership is to blame, right? Well, let’s not jump to hasty conclusions just yet.
Ultimately, I believe the most powerful source of social capital creation with your association is none other than you… regardless of your role or scope of responsibility. Our volunteer leaders certainly have a great deal of authority within our associations, but remember that leaders come and go while staff remains the constant, leaving you with considerable influence.
When we commit ourselves to living and measuring our own success by the impact we have on the success of others, the ideal environment is created all around us for the cultivation of social capital. More broadly, I also believe you can apply this principle to any aspect of your life.
Let’s face it, if we aren’t helping others succeed aren’t we in a way allowing them to fail? Granted, sometimes we take great satisfaction in seeing others fail, such as anyone major league baseball team playing the Chicago Cubs (sorry, couldn’t resist); however, we are talking about the construction and maintenance of an environment of intended cohesion and belonging, not a competitive environment. Think Chicago Cubs fans unified around the ultimate success of that elusive world series pennant, not the more general community of major league baseball fans, with the one caveat being if the day were to arrive when the future of major league baseball as a whole is threatened. Though alliances is not intended to be part of this posting, there clearly is significance in terms of social capital well beyond our own associations that I might address at a later date.
Nonetheless, if you characterize the conditions within your association as intensely competitive, then it may already be too late. Think of it this way, social capital is the essence of the phrase “good-of-the-order”.
For some reason, the primary motivation in the traditional management world is more often than not negative motivation. In essence, we are often conditioned to believe that if we do a good job then our economic security is assured and that if we fail it may ultimately cost us our jobs. The topic of “risk” always factors prominently in the minds and weighs heavily on the shoulders of association executives, especially at the CEO level. But regardless of your role, ask yourself which of the following most closely resembles your association:
Association A: If we take a calculated risk, our primary concern is the impact of failure.
Association B: If we take a calculated risk, our primary concern is the impact of success.
In other words, some associations camp on the question of “what if it doesn’t work”, while others work from the perspective of “what if it does”. Which of these two environments do you think has the greatest abundance of social capital and potential for future success?
As association executives at any level of management or responsibility, our role is not only to ensure the execution of marching orders issued by our governing leadership, but also to serve as dynamic leaders and facilitators of social capital within our associations at all levels. Let’s face it, if social capital disappears from your association, the next vanishing act may be that of your association.
Think of social capital as a measurable predictor of success, stagnation or failure within your association. Why? Because the degree to which members, leaders and staff feel a sense of cohesion, belonging, purpose and investment within the association will directly impact future output and action at all levels.
From the very beginning, the driving principle of associations has been rooted in the recognition that our success ultimately depends on the success of others. Put another way, if our success is driven by the desire for personal gain and not the ultimate success of others, then there is little chance for survival on both an individual and collective level. However, if we focus our energy and service on helping others succeed for the good of the whole, then we all succeed. After all, I don’t know too many people who if given the option would prefer to fail than to succeed.
Now for the million-dollar question, how do you cultivate, measure and track social capital? Well, if you’ve read or heard me talk about my concept of Association EQ, then you likely know what I’m about to say. I would argue that social capital is not driven by logic, rather it is rooted in emotion. Remember, we are talking about a “sense” of belonging, cohesion, healthy relationships, connecting, and experiences as contributors to social capital. I might suggest a slightly simplified definition of social capital as “a cohesively unifying state of emotional well-being”.
Regardless, my point is the measure of social capital may very well be the measure of emotion as behavioral economics suggests that the majority of people base economic decisions based upon emotion rather than logic. So, if the desire of your association is to strenghten and expand your base of people (including members, volunteers, staff and other stakeholders) then you must measure the degree of emotional attachment to your association as a whole and in its parts. Here’s where it’s time to get real in bringing psychology into play.
At this point, I have reminded myself that my goal was to write a blog posting rather than a book. Given the many dimensions of this issue materializing in my mind I am going to create a related series of postings in near future to further explore ideas for putting social capital cultivation into practice within your association. Stay tuned!
Add comment September 19, 2008
Succeed in association business innovation by seperating it from “the pack” in the developmental phases
If you’ve read my previous postings, you may be starting to see a pattern in my thinking. In my mind, one of the biggest threats to innovation, in general, is not a lack of creative thinking or evolutionary ideas… it’s often the wrong composition of people involved in the decision-making process and roles of influence.
Let’s face it, some people find a greater level of comfort in tradition. While tradition helps us honor the past and the lessons learned, it often serves as the arch enemy of innovation. The question is:
Q. How can well-reasoned innovative ideas and new association business models survive the gravitational forces of tradition and marginalization?
I would argue in analagous terms that you wouldn’t plant a new tree within inches or even feet of an existing mature tree because you need adequate spacing in order for the young tree to grow and prosper. Over time, the young tree grows in size and it’s branches eventually reach toward and join together with the mature trees in concert to create a forest.
In association terms, why not create a special incubator with the right composition of people who embrace the vision and goals behind the well-reasoned innovation to do the foundational and developmental work with adequate spacing from the influence of tradition. During the incubator process, the innovation endures the rigors of research, pilot testing, stage-gate and all predicted scrutiny.
Eventually, once ready and the timing right, the innovation can be brought out of the incubator and the political journey toward institutionalization can be taken with the peripheral knowledge and validation gathered during the incubator phase.
I will confess, this is less a theory and more a case study from earlier in my career. Based on well-reasoned analysis, a small team I was leading developed a truly innovative concept which would transform the structure of relationships and activity within and between our components. You might be surprised to learn this is not a Board story. As a matter of fact, our Board approved the initiative in the strategic plan.
The struggle came with our internal stakeholders as we began building the foundation of the project. Very early on, during stakeholder meetings, we realized that not everyone was enthusiastically on board and some simply struggled to understand the practical application of the concept.
We were very understanding of these potentially sabotaging concerns/challenges and consciously avoided judgement realizing that some simply were not ready. As a result, rather than “drag” the entire stakeholder group through what may have been both a failure-inducing marginalizing process, we chose to break the development process into phases.
Phase 1 was our incubator which included both my early team who envisioned the concept as well as supporter stakeholders who could see how the concept would benefit their area. As a result, the right environment was established to cultivate the innovative concept in tact and we were able to achieve some early success providing greater concept clarity which enabled us to win over our previously skeptical stakeholders… and everyone lived happily ever after…. okay, well we know it’s not always “happily ever after” in the association world as new challenges inevitably arise. However, I believe this approach can help anyone maximize the potential for successful innovation. Finally, regardless of how brilliant the innovation seems, never forget to do your homework at each step in the process! SM
Add comment September 11, 2008
The Key to Innovation Within Your Association Just Might be a Mentor
Thomas Edison said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. If I may humbly be so bold, I would like to suggest that there has been a missing ingredient in this formula, especially for those of us who work in a crowded association “laboratory”. That missing ingredient is encouragement.
The path to change and innovation within our not-for-profit business environment compared to our for-profit corporate world cousins can often be a lonely one. There is a natural tension lurking within not-for-profit corporations between mission, volunteerism and revenue which can often impact creativity and innovation.
Yet, now more than even, associations need the creative energies, courage and political acumen of innovative executives who can engineer the needed transformation within traditional associations. Even more, associations need talented staff at all levels who are not afraid to venture out on that limb to deliver their valuable ideas and thoughts.
So how do we keep from stifling the innovation pipeline? How do we inspire new generations of association staff to take risks? How do we maintain the motivation to weather the obstacles of change to make a lasting difference within our association?
The answer is a tiny spark of encouragement. Not allot… it can be but one person… but just enough to serve as an anchor which keeps talented association professionals who are full of potential from drifting away from a powerful idea prematurely. To provide a compass which helps them chart a course for navigating change. Someone to tell them that, in fact, they aren’t crazy when everyone else might think they are living on another planet.
Our world has seen countless innovators who summoned the courage to persevere. If you wisely accept the adage that “no person is an island”, there were likely many unsung heroes who knowingly or unknowingly served as a mentor who helped shape these great people. We are all human beings and need just a little bit of encouragement from time-to-time to muster the courage to keep moving forward. In its most complex or even its simplest form, this is the role that mentors play in our lives.
Find a mentor… be a mentor… look for mentors in unexpected people and places… read about mentors… they will provide the wisdom and encouragement you need to bring visionary ideas to the right level and into existence.
Add comment August 28, 2008
The De-massification, De-centralization and Deconstruction of Association Participation
In many ways, associations for years have operated with a limited set of entry points were members come together en mass, almost as a seemingly invitation-only pseudo private club of connected people pariticipating in broad mass-justifying topics.
In the future, I believe associations who will build a strong future will do so by tearing the gates down and creating a broad variety of entry points for members, to keep participation from becoming an exercise in bottleneck traffic. Even more, once inside the gates, the expectation won’t be that the magic kingdom is entirely built out. Rather, passionate members, especially those with narrow niche interests which cannot be served via a prioritization of formal resources, will build these aspects of the community themselves.
How will this be accomplished? It’s already happening via the emergence of organic online communities catering to virtually every conceivable interest and connecting like-minded people in the web 2.0 world. Early web 3.0 technologies, such as Twine, will intensify and speed up the process of interlacing all angles of relevancy for narrower niche interests (you probably already have by now, but think of a big ball of tightly wound twine). Globalization will give way to localization as people with like interests will be able to better each other in coming together. Suddenly, that 1% of your membership with a very narrow and highly specialized area of interest/focus will be able to help build and connect in a robust community within the boundaries of your association… perhaps trumping the power of more larger and more traditional formal groups.
The reality associations must consider as soon as is humanly possible is these communities can spring up in one of two places… inside your assocation or outside of your association. Chances are, they’ve been sprouting all around the outer perimeter of your association already.
Management strategy will move from a model of prioritizing limited resources to formal mass projects catering to broad segments to a role of informal enabling and managed de-centralization of grassroots organic community. Boards will retain governance and fiduciary obligations, but I believe they will move more into a role of democratized community facilitation with expanded participation by members at all levels of the spectrum. Perhaps the association of the future will be more like the United Nations and less like Congress.
Thought leaders, such as Chris Anderson in his book The Long Tail, see the rise of niches as contibuting to the de-massification of society into their intended narrow channels of interest. It’s happening all around us and, fortunately, is a trend which will create boundless opportunity for associations. SM
Add comment August 25, 2008
