Do You Want to Be An Engaging #Association Executive?

For the second consecutive year, the Engaging Associations Forum will create an environment where association executives have the opportunity for a true dialogue on the issues that keeps them up at night, foster learning and the exchange of ideas for the next generation of association, the association of the future.

Why?  Because things need to change.

If you have not yet registered, take a look at the program outline.  It will be an event not to be missed!

Sustainable Leadership: Is a leader a position, or is a leader a person? Much of the thinking today about leadership is often about what needs to happen and who needs to make it happen. What we now know, however, is that a fundamental shift is required to think about how the work gets done. Presented by Jill Birch, this interactive and experiential keynote session will show rather than just tell leaders about new ways to think about their leadership.

Storytelling: The Professional Golfers' Association of Canada has implemented a unique program to leverage the unique skills of volunteers, board members and even staff, overcoming challenges and maximizing the association's success. Gary Bernard, CEO, PGA of Canada and Mark Thompson of McKinley Solutions share their experience.

Marketing & Communications: The corporate world is all-abuzz about branding and “living up to a brand.” But what are we talking about, really? How does this apply to member-based, not-for-profit organizations and engagement? Speech-Language and Audiology Canada CEO Joanne Charlebois leads the conversation with her experience – the risks and rewards – of re-branding an established association.

Strategy & Change: A “Fireside Chat” between strategy consultant Meredith Low and two association executives who have successfully navigated significant organizational change, each in their own way: Alison Dantas, Canadian Chiropractic Association and Mary Ann Rangam, Ontario Professional Planners Institute.

Want more info?  Check out the full program and other details here.  Or, just join us!  Register today, there are only a few spots left for the Engaging Associations Forum, July 23-24, 2015 at the Ottawa Marriott!

51 Shades of Gray (Hair)

One of the associations that we work with celebrated their 51st anniversary in 2014 at their Annual Conference and Trade Show.  After the big 50th Anniversary Extravaganza blowout in 2013, staff had to work hard to ensure that the 51st Anniversary was just as exhilarating, so that we harnessed the positive momentum moving forward.  While we were successful in making our 51st Anniversary Conference effective and exciting, we also noticed a trend that we may have been purposely overlooking.

As we started looking around the room at the 200+ attendees at the conference, we quickly realized that it was a room with 51 (or more) shades of gray hair.  Our members are aging!  This means that eventually (soon), they will be retiring and passing their businesses on to their sons and daughters or selling them to current employees or outside parties.  And many of these new owners will be younger and new to the industry and the association.  While we’ve enjoyed 50+ years of continued support from our current members, we can’t just assume these new owners will embrace the same principles of joining and supporting our association.

In order to ensure the continued success of the organization, we are going to have to strategically recruit and retain these younger up and coming members.  As our staff and board discussed this new “look and feel” that would be transcending on the association in the next few years, we knew we had to quickly get ahead of the game and create some new services and benefits that would have these newbies not only joining, but embracing and enjoying our association’s activities and services!

Here are some quick tips we’ve found that helped to encourage the younger generation to participate in our association:

Tip 1:  Technician Subscription – We developed a Technician Subscription Program that would allow up-and-coming professionals to try out and participate in our association without investing a lot of money and time.  Our Technician Subscription Program allows participants to receive all association communication (including the quarterly magazine), attend one educational seminar at the member rate and participate in other member benefits for a one year period; all at a very affordable rate.  We even offer quantity discounts off multiple technician subscribers from the same company.  Since we weren’t sure of the success of this venture, we decided to offer this as a subscription service rather than a membership type, which would have required a change in our bylaws.  Since its inception, we now have 28 new technician subscribers, many of whom are under 40 and excited to be a part of our association!  We see these 28 technician subscribers becoming true new members in the near future!

Tip 2:  Social Media Presence – Social media has become very important to the success of associations in today’s world.   Per USA Today, a recent study conducted for an online casino found that one in four people spend more time socializing online, via sites such as Facebook and Twitter, than they do in person.  This means that 25% of the population would rather spend time communicating online than communicating in person.  With this statistic (and the many others found online), we knew that we had to accelerate our social media presence in order to attract and keep our younger generations of current and potential members interested and excited about our association.  We did research and developed a weekly marketing plan to ensure that information was posted to our social media sites 2-3 times per week at a minimum.  We also worked hard to ensure that different information was posted on each of the venues so that visitors didn’t see the same posts on all of the social media sites.  Finally, we created an email newsletter called Agents of Change that we use to remind our current and potential members to visit our social media sites on a regular basis.  With this new focus on social media, our online presence has grown tremendously!

Tip 3:  Mentoring program – We are currently developing a mentoring program, where we will partner a more experienced (gray haired) member with a newer (younger) member or potential member.  They will communicate via social media, email, phone, etc. throughout the year and then meet in person during our Annual Conference.  Our goals with this mentoring program are two fold and include the sharing of a wealth of industry knowledge from the well-oiled professionals with the newbies and also the importance of supporting their industry trade association.  Only time will tell how successful this mentoring program will be, but we’ve already had some good support on both sides!

Tip 4:  Seminar Topics of Interest to Younger Audiences – Like most trade associations, many of the educational seminar topics we offer are driven by the rules and regulations of the state requirements for continuing education for our industry.  But we are lucky in that some of our required educational requirements include Business Practices, which can cover an array of topics.  With our new goal of attracting younger members, we have recently offered seminars like website marketing, online reputation management and online marketing to grow your business.  In 2015, we plan to offer even more topics (both in person and online) that are of interest to the younger audience and play upon their preferences to communicate and learn differently.  We have received very positive feedback in our post-seminar surveys about these new topics!

Tip 5:  Member Grandstanding –  In today’s world, we all love to share any and everything about ourselves on our personal social media sites, but very seldom does this information get shared with your association.    We are now encouraging our members and subscribers to brag about themselves and their accomplishments and to share this information with their association.  We are creating areas on our website, social media sites, in our magazine and other member communications to allow other members and interested parties to learn more about the association, members and industry.  This information adds a human touch to the association, but also may inspire others to share and do great things!

By implementing these tips and continuing to make many other enhancements to our association and the way we communicate with our members, our goal is that the younger generation becomes just as enamored with the association and 30 years from now becomes our new “50+ Shades of Gray!”

Thanks Amy for providing this post!

@Deirdrereid Has Advice for Emerging #Association Professionals

I never expected to work in associations. Frankly, they weren’t even on my radar. But I was leaving one career and in search of another. I took an association job just to have some stability and income while I figured things out. Little did I know, back in 1999, what a rewarding and fascinating profession I was about to enter.

Looking back, I wish I had asked for advice. It took me several years to find my way. If we were to have a “learn from my mistakes” conversation, it would go something like this:


Never stop learning. You will succeed in this profession if you live to learn. This is the most important piece of advice I can give you. Don’t shortchange yourself. Make time for learning even if it’s on your own time. Your older self will thank you.

Be observant. Listen to and watch people. You have to understand human behavior, both individual and group, if you want to motivate, manage and lead staff and members.

Give yourself time to think. You need time every week to plan ahead, set and review goals, and let your brain work its way around challenges and issues.

Develop a DIY professional development habit. Set aside time to read association management blogs and publications, participate in Twitter’s #assnchat (Tuesdays at 2:00 p.m. Eastern), and attend association events. If your boss doesn’t give you the time or budget to do these things, do it on your own time. Put aside a small amount of every paycheck, even if it’s only $10, toward professional development. It’s an investment in your future, just like your 401K.

Join your state SAE even if you have to spend your own money. You’ll meet a network of peers that could become lifelong friends.

Look for mentors. Find people in your office or at another association who are active in your SAE or ASAE. They might not consider themselves mentor material so don’t even use the word “mentor” around them. A conversation with them could develop into a mutually satisfying relationship.

Find association peers. If you’re surrounded by colleagues who are only there for the paycheck, don’t be discouraged. Don’t follow them down their boring, soul-deadening path. Find people either in your office or other associations who are around your same age and career level. Twitter makes this so much easier now. Arrange monthly meet-ups. Make them your mastermind group.

Make friends all over the building. Avoid eating lunch alone. Don’t isolate yourself in a departmental silo. Learn about the work your colleagues are doing. How can you help them? How can they help you? What member stories can you share? What can you teach each other?

Pause and reflect before reacting. Expect stressful times. You might start the day expecting to work on specific tasks and projects, but find yourself dealing with other pressing problems, issues and people that weren’t on your list. You will constantly juggle a variety of deadlines and demands.

It’s natural to react quickly and emotionally to these stressors – those same reactions save us in life and death situations. But in the workplace, you must develop the habit of pausing before reacting, and thinking rationally, not emotionally. It’s not easy. Yoga helps, but I don’t expect you to practice yoga as a professional development tool – although it’s not a bad idea.

Become aware of your reactions to your own behavior (self-judging), other people’s behavior, stressful situations and change. If you learn to pause and reflect before reacting, you won’t stress yourself out so much and you’ll be a positive influence on the people around you.

Don’t be a workaholic. Never put in crazy hours because you think you should, except, of course, for those special times in the meeting, magazine or budget cycle that require it. You and your brain need time off to recharge. You know the people who are always boasting about how busy they are and how late they stayed in the office? They’re not paragons of virtue to emulate. They’re doing it wrong -- “it” being life.

Never be defined by your job. If you develop that limited mindset, retirement will be rough. Yes, your job is a huge, rewarding part of your life, but it’s just one part of your life. Make sure it doesn’t get in the way of the relationships and experiences that add color and passion to life. Find people, causes and hobbies to love. You’ll be a happier and more interesting, creative person and professional.

Deirdre Reid, CAE is a freelance writer who worked at the National Association of Home Builders and the California Building Industry Association. 
http://deirdrereid.com

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Get Your Succession Plan Up To Speed

This is a guest post by Sarah Sladek, an expert on demographic shifts, talent turnover, and generation gaps. She is the founder of XYZ University and author of three ground-breaking books. She launched the nation’s first business conference focused on bridging talent and leaderships gaps in the workforce and became a sought-after speaker and consultant to organizations nationwide. Her goal is to help organizations remain relevant to future generations.

Succession planning is a lot like getting exercise. You don’t just do it once and call it done. It’s something that needs to be revisited regularly to keep you healthy. Succession planning, like exercise, also seems to fall into the category of something everyone knows they should do but no one actually does. But you want your organization to be healthy, so let’s get your succession plans up to speed. We say “speed” because it needs to move.

Make sure management cares

Succession planning isn’t a one off thing, it takes time to build and cultivate; the people at the top of your organization must care so resources can be allocated to it and programs put into place. If your CEO doesn’t seem to care about succession planning, remind them of some great transitions that were made because it was planned, or some failures because it wasn’t.

Hint: There are many more examples of succession planning done badly than succession planning done well. Make sure you don’t fall into the first category.

Succession planning should look different at every level

The CEO isn’t the only vital role in your organization. Mid-level employees keep your business running smoothly too. For each level, you need to have a different plan. Each role is different and having successors lined up for all levels is essential.

Mid-level employees

Mid-level employees need to be prepared to make lateral moves if employees leave in another area. At this level, a cross-training approach might work best. Identify employees who would do well in different areas and make sure they get the training they need to do multiple jobs within the organization.

Cross-training will help you build stronger employees and also keep younger employees in lower level jobs engaged and learning. Your Millennial employees want to be challenged. Cross-training will challenge Gen Y to build new skills, keep them engaged and make them more functional employees.

High performance track employees

High performance track employees aren’t in leadership roles but they are doing more technical or higher level work, think engineers or accountants. Your high performing employees are probably involved in a critical part of a business process that you don’t want disrupted if they leave. Again, it’s important to cross-train your high performers, but with this group, that may include job shadowing, outside training or mentorship programs.

Involving Gen Xers in these programs will help you hold on to your talent. If you have a high performance Gen Xer who isn’t on a leadership track, they may see leaving your company as the only way to advance or make more money. Including them in your succession planning program will show them you value them and there are ways to get ahead without leaving.

Leadership track employees

Leadership track employees, your current and future leaders probably need the most mentoring and coaching to grow into the leaders you need. This level requires a more formalized plan, should have an outside and internal coach and strong commitment from management to see that development is followed through on. Leadership track employees should be given responsibility gradually in managing projects and people. Give them a chance to fail and learn from their failures.

Remember, the purpose of a succession plan is more than just names on a piece of paper, it’s about developing careers so those people are ready to lead when the time comes. Making and polishing a plan is a great start, but don’t think that means you’re done. Action is the most important step, and when it comes to succession, those actions are ongoing.

Don't Listen to Your Board!

Meredith Low provided this guest post.  She is a management consultant, focusing on helping organizations and companies understand how, when, and where to grow in the context of fast-changing environments. Her work with associations includes leading strategic and tactical planning, performing assessments to position conferences and meetings for growth and durability, and assessing the needs of members and other stakeholders. 

“Oh, I’m not really a good person to ask why people don’t join. I don’t know why people don’t. I don’t get it. Why wouldn't they?”

I hear this from association board members all the time, and it’s a nice encapsulation of the paradox of their devotion to the organization.

Associations rely on the passion and commitment of their senior volunteers – it is absolutely critical to success. But when it comes to decision-making, it’s precisely this enthusiasm that can pose a serious challenge.

The most senior volunteers, the people who are supposed to be the organization’s conduits to the community they serve, are generally exactly the wrong people to ask about how to expand its appeal. They love the organization so much that they have trouble fathoming why anyone wouldn't join. (And savvy board members are well aware of this.)

Even if you were nearing 100% market penetration, your board members would not be representative of your membership base. They’re far too committed, by virtue of being volunteers. And in the majority of associations, where market penetration isn't anywhere near that high, your board members may be unrepresentative of the field by virtue of the fact that they’re members at all.

In either type of organization, board members also often too senior, in the sense that they tend to be in leadership positions in their field, highly accomplished and networked – that’s how they got onto the board, after all. That may or may not mean that the board skews older than the membership, as well (the ASAE reports that 77% of boards have no members under 30).

So, assuming you want to expand your membership base, what can you do to make sure this doesn't become a problematic paradox for your association?

• Get solid answers. Ensure you commission – and use – solid research on stakeholder needs. This means non-members as well as members, as well as other commentators (sponsors/industry partners, other associations, and so on).
• Get a wide range of voices at the table. Look at how you can get representation from diverse types of people – especially younger members, but also other categories. Would that mean a student board seat, regional advisory groups, specialist representation on committees, or something else?  How do you get diverse voices around the table when decisions are actually being made? 
• Challenge the use of “anecdata” – anecdotal information substituting for a broader fact base. Leaders should consistently demonstrate recognition that their personal perspective is limited. It’s valuable for Board members to bring in their own perspectives, but ideally they are used as nuance and context and sense-making for existing data, rather than the only source of data.
• Expect some disruption. Think about – and question – how you will actually use all of this input. If you go to all the effort of gathering information and consulting people, but then don’t change how you make decisions, you've wasted your time – and squandered your goodwill with the people you’ve asked to consult with you. The data you gather may lead to some uncomfortable or challenging conversations; not necessarily a bad thing. 

If you want to grow and build your organization beyond those you've already been able to convert to the cause, those you've converted aren't your most important audience. You need to set up systems and habits so that you hear from – and listen to – those who are.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s 2013: Change or die

This is a guest post by Sarah Sladek, an expert on demographic shifts, talent turnover, and generation gaps. She is the founder of XYZ University and author of three ground-breaking books. She launched the nation’s first business conference focused on bridging talent and leaderships gaps in the workforce and became a sought-after speaker and consultant to organizations nationwide. Her goal is to help organizations remain relevant to future generations.

Did you make a resolution this year to change the way your organization operates, and invests in its members?  Research indicates a third of resolutions never make it to the end of January. I think that’s because most of us approach resolutions as wishes and desires and not as goals.

This is true in our personal lives as well as our nation’s institutions.

Even amidst economic upheaval, rapidly changing technology, and unprecedented demographic shifts, many organizations are clinging to traditions and processes of the past. The leaders of these organizations may say they want change, but they don’t actually stick to a strategy to make change happen.

The fact is change isn’t easy. It also isn’t optional.

By 2015, Generation Y (ages 18-31 this year) will be the majority of the workforce. This generation’s move into power is already spurring shifts. In fact, The Economist predicts there will be a “great global redistribution of economic and social power” in the coming months.

This isn’t the equivalent of cutting jelly doughnuts out of your daily diet. This is really big, really serious stuff.
According to The Economist, 2013 will be a transitional year for many of our nation’s institutions because “power will flow away from traditional institutions that have failed to deliver progress” and “flow towards businesses whose leaders understand and act on the big trends shaping our future.”

In other words, the phrase ‘Change or Die’ is more accurate than ever before.

If survival isn’t enough to inspire your organization to change, then perhaps these three strategies will help your leadership set goals, embrace change, and achieve success in 2013.

Influence Change

Changing an established culture is the toughest task your organization will face. You must win the hearts and minds of the people you work with, and that takes a significant amount of persuasion. Recognizing you won’t be able to convert everyone at once, start with people who have disproportionate influence in the organization.

Remember: The influencers aren’t always the leaders. Get the influencers committed to change or, failing that, get them out. And once they are committed to change, shine a spotlight on their accomplishments so others get the message.

Make Change Happen

In the 1990s, the New York Police Commissioner made his top brass – including himself – ride the subways day and night, to understand why frightened New Yorkers had come to call it the “Electric Sewer.” Today, we see similar concepts play out on CBS’ Undercover Boss reality show.

The point is, you can advocate for change until you’re blue in the face, but lecturing doesn’t always work. Look for ways to get the decision-makers to experience the harsh realities that make change necessary.

Invest in Change

Look at where your organization spends its resources and you will find its heart. Is your organization investing in the right things? The right things are those that require the least amount of effort for the most gain.

You are in a race for relevance here, folks. Your organization must be focused, nimble and capable for nothing less than greatness. Anything that drains resources and yields minimal results should be put on the chopping block.

I think the ancient philosopher, Lao Tzu said it best: “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”

Do you simply wish for change to happen, or is your organization being intentional about making it happen?
I hope for the sake of your organization, it’s the latter.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net