Why are so many chief staff officers so afraid of their Board of Directors? Because their Boards are difficult to work with and the decisions they make are so bad. Recent research and conversations with CEO friends in association management highlight the astonishing amount of time and energy devoted to convincing, navigating or just plain avoiding bad Board members. We Spend Too Much Time on Governance to Have Bad Boards Much of modern day association executive leadership is focused on preparing and using volunteer leaders to inform decisions. Recent data from Looking Forward 2018, Association Laboratory’s global environmental scan of the association environment, indicated that 69% of chief staff officers identified governance and volunteer management as one of their primary responsibilities. With so much time spent on governance and, specifically, the Board of Directors, why don’t our volunteer leaders do a better job? At what point is a bad Board of Directors our fault as
Successful association membership is not always about the Big Reveal. One of the most common expectations of a strategy firm like Association Laboratory, is The Big Membership Idea, The Silver Bullet. The new thing that will completely turn things around. The innovation that nobody else has ever thought of before. Current TV shows constantly show us the Big Reveal. This trains our members, volunteers and staff to think that the famed silver bullet exists. Associations Waste Time and Money by Focusing Exclusively on the Big Picture Unfortunately, for most associations, these types of ideas are not only rare but, often, counterproductive. I say counterproductive because while we search far and wide for the magical elixir that will save our associations, the real answer is much closer at hand. The great quest blinds us to simpler, easier and more effective strategies that are well within our means to implement. Consider the following. 1 Simple Step to Improve
Do you ever get the feeling that you’re doing the same thing every year - and the same things as everyone else - but for no better results? This, I think, summarizes all our conversations on engagement. Over the last several years, one of the most common themes has been the concept of membership or stakeholder engagement. How can we establish it? How can we expand it? How can we make it a more ongoing, or annualized relationship? The missing link in our conversations is annualized engagement. Annualized engagement is defined as the interaction between you and your members throughout the year, on an annual basis. How often do they engage with your association, in what manner and how consistently over time? Critical to annualized engagement is the existence of opportunities or channels for annualized engagement. Successful annualized engagement is more likely if there are more, not less, opportunities for a member or other stakeholder to
The precise origination of the Manhattan cocktail is unclear. Was it created at the Manhattan Club in New York City in the early 1870s at a political banquet or invented at a noted bar on Broadway?
Like many of you, I travel. Often. More than often in fact. I average more than 100 days a year on the road. This isn’t a complaint. I love seeing new places and having the opportunity to meet the people I’d otherwise only talk to on the phone.