Oh, Crystal Ball

Reach out and rub your hands on the crystal ball in front of you.  What do you see for your organization’s future?  What does it look like?  Employee turnover?  Long days of staring into the computer screen?  Negativity?  No doughnuts on the kitchen counter?

–  Fun Song to Play While You Read This –

Instituting several simple habits of leadership may likely mean you’ll  be seeing success in your crystal ball and in the future of your life and your organization.  My recent attendance of Emmanuel Gobillot’s keynote session at Fusion Production’s fabulouso event, Digital Now, at the Contemporary Disney Resort inspired this post.

@egobillot addressed everything from his kid for sale on ebay to the nonsense annual employee evaluation.  @egobillot humorously relayed many often uncharted leadership pointers that reminded the attendees that they too could create a contagious and successful culture.  I’ve gleaned some of the leadershifting ideas.

• Less conversations started with preconceived conclusions.  More discovery.
• Less processes. More valuing, nurturing, helping and loving.
• Less annual performance reviews. More performance conversations every day.
• Less complexity around us. More simplification.
• Less roles, rules, and economic incentive.  More individuals, reciprocity, social and moral obligations.
• Less mission statements.  More stories.
• Less actions.  More effective actions, magical conversations and shared history.
• Less engagement in just the last 5 minutes of the project.  More engagement in the narrative of the whole project.
• Less ignoring that you hate what you do.  More relearning to love what you do.
• Less artifacts of business.  More human relationships.
• Less hiring turkeys to climb trees.  More hiring cost-effective squirrels.
• Less negativity. More asking, “Have I made them stronger and more capable?” And more of it. And more of it.

Look down.  There’s really not a crystal ball in front of you, however, I hope you do see success, magical conversations and doughnuts on the kitchen counter in your future.

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Fun Picture Taken During Conference Tweet-Up

Fun Twitter Follows from this Conference, sorry for those I missed.
@DigitalNow, @egobillot, #diginow, @FSAE, @christytj, @DanScheeler,  @BobFarrace, @tomhood, @BMACMPI, @Iayres, @wadatripp, @andrew_zolli, @lrainie, @rgmcgrath, @hughKlee, @devildawg, @lilacsjudygray, @NFiStudios, @craigfowler, @elizabethb, @sterlingraphael, @LindaChreno, @daxkoconnect, @koschemann, @jasonsamuels, @BillSheridan

You Make Change in Your Association More Often Than You Change Your Underwear

My head is just swimming with thoughts from my time spent at Fusion Productions Digital Now.  The lineup of speakers and list of attendees was phenomenal.  It was my third year attending and as always, I came away with fresh ideas.  This year was confirmation that our organization is headed in the right direction and for the right reasons. Although this year’s conference was about “mobile,” this post comes because I realized something about change/innovation and how associations are doing it.

It’s more obvious than ever that if an organization is to stay healthy and remain in the industry, change is inevitable.  We are changing faster than ever. One quote I heard was, “If you’re not the lead dog then the scenery never changes.”  As leaders of our industries, good associations stand by this philosophy and keep the scenery changing.  According to keynote speaker, Tom Stewart, 25% of organizations will not adapt fast enough to survive, however, what are the remaining 75% doing?  Changing fast enough… what’s that mean and how?  Taking the pulse on some of the attendees at Digital Now, it is very obvious that some staffs and boards might be getting close to a point in saying we are changing things more often than we are changing our underwear.  Everyday someone has a new idea, finds a new tool, or wants to partner with a new solution.  So, change– yeah, we’re gonna do it.  And change– yeah, we’re gonna embrace it.  But one thing we need to start asking ourselves is how are we going to strategize before we implement it?  Does your organization have a change management plan or an ideology department that fields the new ideas from boards, staff or members?  Are some of us over innovating?  Associations aren’t the only ones not handling change properly.

Human Capital League recently posted about a Booze & Company survey, a survey of about 1,800 executives from industries worldwide. It reveals a remarkable lack of strategic confidence and coherence: 49% said their company had no list of strategic priorities, 43% said their strategy isn’t fundamentally differentiated from others’, nearly 2 out of 3 say their companies have “too many conflicting priorities.”

Tom Hood participated in some of the final comments on the last day and presented some of the best advice of the whole conference. It’s great to get all pumped up about the new technologies that can impact the way we do business and interact with our members, but changes must be strategic.  The strategy must be visual and then easily accessible and understandable by those involved.

In terms of technology, over the last two years our association has implemented a new AMS, established an online learning community (LMS), continued building the ever-growing member community, launched a total revamp of a member-driven CMS, (all of which are operating via SSO, I might add), took the magazine to a digital version, used video at an unprecedented capacity, gained momentum with social media and is preparing to go mobile.  Needless to say… we’re change artists.  Admittingly though and much like most associations, our changes came with hefty pain points and uncertainty of some of the next steps. The vision is there, but the steps to get there are occasionally guesses.  Don’t misinterpret me when I talk about our changes.  For the most part they have been successful, make us look better, help our members and make us more efficient. You know how hindsight is 20×20?  If we had heard this year’s sessions on change management two years ago, we may have experienced fewer frustrations along the way.

So despite the witty title, it’s not really about the number of changes that the organization endures, it’s about the how the organization changes.  The strategy has to be formulated and involve the right people with the right resources at the right time in a structured, methodical and visual way.  Does this resonate with your organization?  How does your organization implement a new idea that’s been brought to the table?

A few ideas on how to make change/innovation strategic:

• Make a line item on the budget called Opportunity Fund that will allow for a new idea to be added without waiting on the next year’s dollars.
• Have an ideology department where ideas can be brought and ran through an established set of innovation stages.
• Create a visual. Share it. Revisit it.

I don’t want any holey ones (ha!), but do you have any other ideas on how associations can better manage change/innovation?

Lesson from Mr. H.

It was recently brought to the attention of the FSAE staff that we would be expecting a special visitor, Mr. H.  All that we knew about Mr. H. was that he is the first Japanese AMC Executive Director, spoke English well, and would be visiting so he could learn more about the operations of American associations.

Mr. H. arrived at the FSAE office with his host and the infamous Bob Harris, CAE.  They both bowed when I greeted them at the door and naturally I reached to do the American handshake.  Little did I know that the man so small in stature was about to actually remind me of a big lesson.

Mr. H. joined the five FSAE staff in the conference room and admitted that he was nervous being surrounded by 5 women (I think he left the beautiful out).  Mr. H. proceeded to give his reasons for visiting and that ultimately, his personal mission was to help rebuild associations in Japan using a healthy and proper model.  Then, Mr. H. began to explain the history of Japanese associations and confessed their corruption.  Mr. H. told us that in Japan there are 37 associations and over the past 50 years, each of them have been organized by the Japanese government.  The government would present itself to the leading business of an industry, force it to organize an association and agree to subsidize the association to achieve its motives.  You can only imagine what the official’s power looks like in the board room and how the mission of the association is not for the purpose of the people’s common interest, but to assist the government with its ulterior motives.

Ponder on it for a moment.  I did and then I became overwhelmed by the power of associations in American.  Everyday I am surrounded by associations that were built 10, 50, 100 years ago who’s foundations were built for a good purpose.  Mr. H.’s story about the purpose of Japan’s associations reminded me of how blessed we really are to be free.  It’s so easy to get tied up in the day-to-day of association work, boards, trends, events, etc., but readers, please don’t forget how lucky we are to be in a country that allows associations to operate and be organized freely.  I know this isn’t a mind blowing concept or original idea, but on the days that are tough, think about what it might be like in the board room of a Japanese association.

Mr. H. is well on his way to helping the Japanese restructure the culture of associations and hopefully he left our small conference room with just as big of a revelation as I did.  Thank you, Mr. H.