Category Archives: Sustaining Excellence

August 3, 2016 · 2:29 pm

Prepare Yourself Well #4: Access to Cutting Edge Content

th1What makes a university experience so valuable—and life-changing? I’ve identified four aspects of the university experience that serve as the basis for developing professionals: access to a meaningful network, a hotbed for emerging content, a laboratory to experiment, practice, and grow, and a platform from which to launch.

The challenge today is this: with rapidly changing knowledge, networks, and context, if you don’t build in a formal mechanism to continue to deepen and solidify your network, learn emerging content, have a laboratory to practice and develop, and a supporting foundation that will allow you to launch into greater impact, you fall behind. Way behind. “Prepare Yourself Well: There is Plenty of Room at the Top, It’s the Bottom that is Full” is something professionals need to remember—and do—every day if they are to survive, much less thrive, in today’s environment.

That’s where professional associations come in, and where they play an indispensable role today. There is no other entity that can effectively provide the four aspects that are so pivotal in becoming a professional. In fact, associations are uniquely built to carry out the lifetime learning and networking functions beyond a university setting.

By their very nature, universities provide great content. Faculty are doing cutting edge, innovative research, new science and practice is developed, discussed, disseminated, and evaluated. Emerging professionals learn not only content, but how to think and ask questions that will stimulate new innovation. After graduation, it can be a challenge to access, or feel connected to that hotbed of learning…unless you find and maintain your connection to the professional association for your field.

So, where are you going to go to have access to a vibrant network that exists to develop and disseminate emerging knowledge? And isn’t dues really the cheapest tuition to be able to have access? When you think of it, dues really isn’t that much more than students pay for “activities fees” in their tuition bundle. But you get so much more. How are you preparing yourself every day to be better than you were the day before?

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August 3, 2016 · 2:22 pm

Prepare Yourself Well #3 Networking and Association Engagement

networkI’ve previously written that we must change our paradigm of thinking about associations from one of a transaction based service (what I get now, for the dollar I spend now, like a coffee at Starbucks) to one of a life-long university experience, in which dues (tuition) represents an incredible value for benefit received. I identified four aspects of university experience that only associations can offer for professionals across the career span: access to a meaningful network, a hotbed for emerging content, a laboratory to experiment, practice, and grow, and a platform from which to launch. In this post, I want to highlight the Networking only association engagement can offer.

One might argue that social networks in a new interactive world diminish association membership as a way to facilitate network engagement. However, even in one of the best books on the changing paradigm to social that I have read, A World Gone Social, authors @tedcoine and @marksbabbit say that to fully activate the benefits of social, networks need to have both virtual and physical world connections (cups of coffee, face to face eventually matter).

Ted Coine identifies three aspects of a network that make it meaningful: He says that “it isn’t the size of one’s network that matters. Rather, what matters most is

  • the quality of expertise within our networks,
  • the ability to quickly and easily find these experts as needed, and most importantly–
  • their willingness to lend a hand when called.”

There really is no other mechanism, system, or entity where professionals can find, develop, and sustain the kind of networks necessary to succeed today than through membership and engagement in a professional association. Social may build it, but to have confidence in these three characteristics of your network, you need the lifelong university found in associations. What is your plan to prepare and sustain yourself well with a deep, meaningful network? And remember: Prepare Yourself Well–There is Plenty of Room at the Top; It’s the Bottom that’s Full.

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August 3, 2016 · 1:37 pm

Prepare Yourself Well

franklin-quoteNote:  The following post was created as part a series of 5 posts overall to address student members of professional associations about the value of membership and engagement.

When I was an undergraduate (long ago in a galaxy far, far away), my roommate’s father came to our school to give a presentation. Prior to the event, we spent some time talking, and I asked him the basic point of what he was going to say. His words have stuck with me over the years, and this is what he said: “Prepare yourself well. There is plenty of room at the top, it is the bottom that is full.”

The adolescent, cynical side of me thought he was just making sure we didn’t waste the tuition money our parents were all coughing up. However, I knew intuitively that what he said was also true. What I didn’t grasp at the time, though, was that “preparing yourself” never ends. Looking at the rapid arc of change that is occurring in just about every sector of society, whether business or science—I’ve come to realize that preparation is not something you do once. It is something you do every day. Every day I have to get ready to do my very best work. The times demand it, and to contribute anywhere with excellence, I must model that kind of commitment to preparation. It’s a process, not an accomplishment.

How are you preparing yourself? What is your plan? And if you articulated where you are aiming, is it at the place where there is plenty of room (the top) or where it is crowded (the bottom)? Thinking about this over the holidays I was reminded of the commercial where the kid says, “When I grow up I want to claw my way all the way up to middle management.” Doesn’t being a professional imply we want more than that? And where do you go for context and opportunity to continue preparing yourself?

 

 

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June 16, 2016 · 3:25 pm

Executives and the Four Directions

UnknownNative Americans have the concept of a medicine wheel, based on four directions:  North, East, South, and West.  While I am simplifying the concept, they believe that health is achieved through balance in these four directions.

Association and nonprofit executives have four directions they can face as well.  For association executives, you can be member facing, staff facing, advocacy facing, or industry facing.  When you look at how associations hire, you can tell what they want in an exec in terms of what constitutes an optimal balance for their organization.  If an association is looking for a former congressperson, for example, there is a strong indication that their “balance” will be weighted more toward the advocacy facing individual.  If they hire within their profession or interest group, it may well indicate that a member facing executive is important to them.

Nonprofit executives have a similar set of “directions” they can face as well.  A nonprofit executive can be staff facing, beneficiary facing, donor/funder facing, or community facing.  Depending on the nature and needs of the nonprofit, any of these directions can be primary at a given point in time.

A key for executive success is understanding the organization’s needs and context, the Board’s expectations, and the executive’s skill set and interest, and how these three dynamics define a healthy balance in the four directions.  It is also important to know that the needs of an organization can change—either over time, or quickly, depending on context and events.

As executives, knowing both our natural comfort, skill, knowledge, and ability regarding each of these directions is imperative.  Examining ourselves, and seeking professional development opportunities to help round out and balance our knowledge is critical.  It is also important to review these “directions” with the Board, to make sure that how the executive is orienting her/himself is consistent with the Board’s understanding of the needs and priorities of the organization.

One good tool that provides assessment of career cycle, strengths, skills, and balance is The Association CEO Handbook, by Paul Belford.  In disclosure, while I wrote the foreword to the book I have no financial interest in it.  The content can help improve an individual’s awareness of strengths and development needs.  Whatever tools you use, though, make an assessment—in what direction has the majority of your time actually been spent in the last year?  Is that the most critical to the needs and priorities of the organization, or the most comfortable because it is your wheelhouse?  What needs to be re-calibrated for you to have optimal balance?

 

Michael Bowers provides consultation to organizations addressing strategic, programmatic, and operational challenges and coaching to association and nonprofit executives.

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May 31, 2016 · 12:36 pm

Checkup: 4 Key Accountabilities an Executive has to Her/His Team

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There are baseline responsibilities all leaders have to their teams. Do an assessment—or better yet, ask your team.  How are you doing with these key accountabilities?

  • Establish a clear, commonly understood, and attainable definition of success.

To be engaged, teams have to know where they are headed, what success looks like, and they must believe they can achieve it.  Can your staff clearly and easily articulate what success is for them?  For your organization overall?

  • Create and maintain structures and processes that facilitate moving toward success.

Too many times, our systems, structures, and processes are not aligned with the goals we have established for success.  How do you monitor and adjust your management systems and processes so they help align and engage your team toward that clear definition of success you have established?  Perhaps more importantly—does your staff team believe that you focus on aligning systems and processes to help facilitate their success?  How do you know?

  • Provide opportunities for development and growth for your team.

To build and maintain excellence, you must offer your staff opportunities to learn and grow.  This can build your bench strength and cross train your staff.  For many smaller associations and nonprofits without a significant career growth ladder, you may be training folks to leave for more advanced work in some instances.  However, the price of not investing in growth and development is a non-engaged workforce and entropy.  What formal and informal mechanisms do you have—that your staff can identify—that gives them a sense that you care about their growth and careers?

  • Create and Maintain a culture of trust and safety.

A search of contents on Harvard Business Review shows 213 offerings on “employee trust.” Add articles on “leadership,” and “employee engagement,” or just “trust”, and the numbers go up exponentially.  The fact is, if your team doesn’t have confidence in you and a sense of trust and safety, it may not matter if you have met the other accountabilities listed above.  In fact, it may not be possible to successfully achieve the three prior accountabilities if there is not a bedrock of trust.  Again, it is your team that can best answer whether trust and safety is present in the workplace, not you as the leader.  How long has it been since you’ve asked?

Put these accountabilities to the test!  Create and consistently implement a plan to consistently ensure that you are meeting them.  These are keys to success.

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May 26, 2016 · 4:06 pm

Assessing the Effectiveness of Your Annual Report

 

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Annual reports are ubiquitous and essentially required for nonprofit organizations and associations.  Every organization wants to document its activities, successes, and impact.  It is a challenge, however, to know how to evaluate the success of the annual report in meeting its intended goals.

There is not one size that fits all organizations.  In reviewing a variety of reports, one can see they range in content and style from over 100 pages that report on every committee’s activity and outcomes to 7-10 page glossy mailers that are graphic heavy. However, there are three screens that can be used to determine whether your annual report is accurately reflecting what you want to reflect in presenting your organization’s annual statement of activity and impact.

Examine The Top Line

Marshall Mcluhan famously said, “The medium is the message.”  This is definitely true for your annual report.  It is vital to determine whether the design and packaging reflects the culture and messaging of your organization fairly and in the way you want to be presented.  There needs to be congruence between the format, design, graphics, and “glossiness” of your annual report and the “soul” of your organization.  A text heavy, detailed, and relatively “unadorned” annual report may fit the culture of a technical, scientific organization in a way that a glossy, tri-fold or “doormat” size of publication (assuming you still do hard copy annual reports) may not.

On the other hand, too detailed an annual report may never read fully, lessening its impact.   The meta-message may be “don’t even open this until you have an hour to see if you can find out what is really significant to you.”  Take time before gathering content to think through the medium you will use to present the material.  Now, more than ever, just pulling the template from last year’s report and plugging in new content will not signal vibrancy.  How far you go is up to you.  Also, though, find out how any content might be viewed on various platforms and browsers—especially (and hopefully) with a website that has responsive design.

Define The Bottom Line

What is the one thing that is most important for you to convey that happened in your organization this year?  How does it relate to your mission and priorities?  How does everything else you do align in helping to achieve those priorities?  And very importantly, how is your organization achieving impacts in a sustainable way?

You will do better to front-load your key impact statement.  That may not be a standard format, which typically would lead with a letter from the Chief-Elected or Chief-Staff officer.  Even if your culture or precedent requires the “letter” format as a lead in to the rest of the content, make sure you front load the most important messages in digestible form early in the report.  Think of your leading material as a newspaper article that will report the most why, what, when, where, and how messages quickly and memorably.  Do not backload this material!

Sustain The Through Line

What is the theme that holds your report (and your work) together?  A theme can be a primary value, a focus on your mission, or a reflection of your most critical priorities.  How is that primary theme, however you have defined it for the year, reflected through the different sections of your annual report?  Does the report have coherence?  Does it build the case of your impact through the various components in a way that amplifies the messages you want to make sure are received by those who look at your annual report?

Focus on your top line, bottom line, and through line.  Let some readers (not the most engaged volunteers, but closer to the “person on the street” level of knowledge) read your report.  See what they take away from it—and if it isn’t what you wanted someone to remember, change it.  Annual reports aren’t just your statement of a year of work.  They become your organization’s archival story.   Make sure it is a good one!

If you’d like to take a look at two different organizations’ annual reports, with vastly different budget/staff sizes, missions, and focus, take a look at the Arlington Free Clinic (AFC), and the American Chemical Society (ACS) annual reports.  The AFC is a community based non-profit providing health care.  The ACS is very large membership organization.  Both present their story well, within their allowable budget and scope–consistent with the brand they have.  ACS is able to produce an interactive, online annual report that jumps to more detail, while the AFC report is more .pdf/document like in presentation.  Both, however, focus on presenting impact of work in a meaningful way.

 

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May 13, 2016 · 9:19 am

Recruiting, Retaining, and Engaging Millennials (and Everyone Else) in Associations

UnknownYou are reading it everywhere:  millennials have different expectations for a member experience than other demographic groups.   Their history of social experience, being “digital natives” having come of age with social media, and the resultant values and norms create challenges for many associations who have built structures and features of membership primarily for boomers.

Ironically, while millennials will be driving change, as they will be 75% of the workforce by 2025, we are now in a period where the expectations of all demographic segments are changing as technology and social becomes embedded in the culture.   Almost all demographic groups have adopted social interaction on the web, from reviews on Amazon, Yelp, etc., to social platforms.  While millennials are the demographic that associations need to attract and retain to create lifetime value and members, the principles necessary for success matter to every age group at this point.

So how do we assess relevance and create a better context for success as leaders?  Boil down the research and literature, and what millennials (and others) are saying they want from associations can be summed up like this:

  • Connect me to people and give me relationships I can’t find easily elsewhere—including with you as an organization.  Organizations that primarily emphasize features or benefits of membership seem to have no personality—or transparency.  The impression is that the association is conducting transactions with customers, not having dialogue with a connected network of members.  Connect me with others, talk to me about why you are doing what you are, why it matters, and what should happen if we, together, are successful.  Most importantly:  listen to what I think is important, and show me that I have been heard.
  • Personalize my experience and value. In a nutshell, don’t try to sell me 800 cable channels for $200 a month.  Show that you know what matters to me, and deliver it without me having to wade through a multi-page channel guide to see if there might be something that’s interesting or important to me.
  • Tell me things I don’t know, that I need to know to grow and advance.  Deliver curated and relevant knowledge and information that is reliable.  Push it to me, so that I have access to the information early, and in a digestible manner.  Think of what I can read on my phone while waiting in the Starbucks line.
  • Relate what you—we—are doing and and what we stand for to a higher social value and meaning.  What difference is the organization trying to make, and how it is connected to my values about greater good?  Show me that, and you will win my loyalty and commitment.

You can run a test of these characteristics through everything you do as an association.  You can look at your communications (do you have a listening strategy, btw?), your programming, your membership recruitment/retention appeals, the messages your leaders give when they go to speak, and more.  On these measures, how do you scale?

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May 11, 2016 · 10:22 am

Sustaining the Capacity for Leadership

 

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During a question and answer period at a recent professional meeting, I was asked how I sustained the capacity for leadership over time. It was a great question—one that I had thought about previously and a lot more since that event.

First, for me, leadership is behavior, not position. We’ve all known or seen individuals who have positions of leadership that we wouldn’t choose to follow. And we’ve also seen others, who didn’t have official positions of leadership who, nevertheless, commanded respect of others who would follow them almost anywhere. Some characteristics that have been well written about that determine leadership include such things as commitment to clear principles and values, the ability to articulate a compelling “why” for the direction that is chosen, and an ability to help others identify and maximize their unique contributions to the cause and direction of the leader. But the question still remains: in a world of so much noise and distraction, and with competing priorities all of which may have validity and meaning, how does someone maintain focus and consistency over time? What disciplines provide the best soil for leadership to grow?

I strive to be consistent in four disciplines (albeit imperfectly) that center my life and prepare me for service, whether as a leader or a follower. They are:

1. Spiritual Discipline. By this I do not necessarily mean a religious discipline, although certainly that can be a central component. But to be centered as a person and as a designated leader, I have found it essential to take time, preferably daily, to focus myself in a spiritual sense. The disciplines include journaling, reflection, meditation/prayer, and other activities aimed at keeping me focused on the greater part of who I am—my greater angels.
2. Mental Discipline. I try to make it a point to keep at least three non-fiction books going at any given time—usually a biography that provides some human/historical learning, a business book that gives insight/skills, and a “free choice” that may include anything from a book on guitars to the bucket list scuba dives that I want to do. One aspect of sustaining leadership is to foster intellectual curiosity, and while that may come naturally for some, I find that I can get so busy doing the tasks of the day that if I don’t name it as a specific discipline it can be one of those important things I don’t do consistently.
3. Creative Discipline. Aside from the mental discipline of trying to learn and be intellectually curious, I find it critical to also engage creatively as a conscious exercise in life. I have been a musician at some level of proficiency for many years, both as a writer and performer. The wonderful thing about undertaking a creative discipline is that one is almost required to approach creativity with a “beginner’s mind.” Whether writing, playing an instrument, painting, or any other creative endeavor, one enters creativity with a sense of wonder, and (for me, at least, some degree of feeling of incompetence!). Of course, Picasso didn’t start out as Picasso, either. But the creative process forces me to a place of learning and wonder (and sometimes frustration), that provides not only focus that is different from my daily tasks, but that also teaches me anew what it is like to be a learner. I believe this is a vital bit of knowledge and empathy for any leader.
4. Physical Discipline. Part of sustaining the capacity to serve or lead is to make sure that one has the physical stamina, capability, and health to do so. Study after study indicates that we are too sedentary, and “under-dose” ourselves with physical exertion and exercise. It’s important to work the heart and the body, and to sweat regularly! It is also important to pay attention to diet and sleep. Leaders–particularly those whose work is mostly cerebral or relational, need the endorphin kick of exercise to renew themselves, and sufficient rest to rejuvenate.

These disciplines don’t guarantee that anyone will be appointed to a position of leadership. But engaged in consciously and consistently provides the best context for a life of meaning, depth, and service, out of which the best leadership can flow.

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