Keeping Your Board Focused on Their Responsibilities (and not yours)

The following are my notes from a recent Institute for Organization Management webinar led by faculty member Claire Louder, IOM, CAE, MP, Louder Nonprofit Strategies, LLC.

She started out with the question.  “Are your board members wanting to get more involved in your chamber?”
 
If your board members lack direction, that can result in disfunction, including but not limited to, micromanagement, rogue committees or special projects just to name a few.
 
Six Keys to Success to keep you on track.
 
  1. Strong Bylaws – gives you structure and lays out the roles and responsibilities of your board on what they should and should not do.
  2. Board Orientation – setting expectations upfront will pay dividends down the road.  And I’m a fan of repeating these expectations on a regular basis.  The things to focus on would be roles and responsibilities, and what I call the big three fiduciary responsibility – Duty of Care, Duty of Loyalty and Duty of Obedience.  Go HERE for a previous blog post on that subject.
  3. Strategic Plan with Big Goals – keep your board out of the weeds and keep them focused on the big issues facing your business members and communities.  Your plan should drive your board meetings and keep them focused.  You could focus on one or two of your goals per meeting.  She did not suggest reviewing all each meeting.
  4. New Chairman Orientation – I would expand this to having a yearly orientation with your current chairman and your incoming chairman at the same time.  This will give you continuity through the transition.  Board sets policy, staff implements that policy.
  5. Open Board Chairman Communications – regular communications is a key component to a successful relationship with your chairman.  I call this the “no surprises” rule.  Your chairman should never hear about something related to the chamber by someone other than you first!  Commitment to a communication plan and stick with it.  It could be once a week, every other week or once a month.  Find out if this is a phone call, email, or in-person meeting.  I’ve suggested in the past about creating memorandum of understanding – you can go HERE for that blog post.
  6. Succession Planning – every chamber should have a succession plan in place.  A communication strategy on notifying the proper stakeholders is key (i.e., staff, members, and the community at large).  How are you identifying your next volunteer leader?  I suggest use your committees as a training ground for future leadership on the board.
 
Speaking of succession planning, I suggest you have one for the CEO too.  CEO’s leave for a number of reasons but the big three are retirement, left for a new job or were relieved of their duty.  Your chamber does not want to be caught off guard no matter which of the above three caused the change and be seen as floundering until a new person is hired.  Go HERE for more detail on creating a succession plan for the CEO.
 
Claire ended with the comment “keep your board focused on the big issues,” they will thank you!

For more resources on board management go HERE and HERE.

The Making of an Esteemed Board Chair

This was a fascinating session from the recent virtual ASAE Annual Meeting.

The discussion was led by Tom Dolan and Mark Engle, both longtime association executive CEO’s.
 
They started off by identifying the characteristics of three problem chairs:
  1. Power Grab Board Chair – be careful, they will go rogue on you.
  2. Entitled Board Chair – they spend the chamber’s money, at the best restaurant, expensive venue for the board retreat, and they think they can push things through when the board has already voted it down in the past.
  3. Speaker for Life Board Chair – they stay around and continue to insert themselves in board activities.
 
After that discussion, they delved into the ways you can have an esteemed board chair.
 
  • Minimize the level of disfunction.
  • Keep the board at the theory level.
  • Build a partnership between you and Board Chair.
 
They talked about the role of the CEO and how they need to bring the board chair along on major issues the organization may be facing.  If there is bad news, you need to let the board chair hear it from you and not from someone else.  I call this the “no surprises” please rule of management, at any level.
 
They went on to give tips on how to build a relationship with your new board chair:
  • Find out how your board chair wants to communicate with you?
  • Go over the issues and policies facing the chamber on a regular basis.
  • Remind them of the role between the chairman and staff.  Let them know that 90 percent of staff time is to keep the doors open.
  • Have dinner the night before the board meeting to go over any last-minute items.
  • And don’t forget to meet with the new chair-elect as soon as possible.  Begin by establishing open communications with your chair-elect.  They’ll be your chairman in a year!
At the end of the day, build a relationship with your board chair and make sure there are no surprises by communicating with them on a regular basis.  And remember, communicate with them the way they want to have those communications.
 
A final nugget of information they said, "any board member can become chair."  Be mindful of that and keep track of who would make a good future board chair and who would not!

Great Boards: Finding Them, Engaging Them, Keeping Them

The following post are my notes from a great session led by Claire Louder, Louder NonProfit Strategies, LLC, on the title of this blog.

At this year’s ACCE Summit, Claire started out her session by identifying key attributes of a good board member.  The ones that jumped out for me, include but are not limited to, strategic thinker, visionary, integrity, expertise and financial resources.

She went on to talk about where you can find good board members.  Current volunteers, donors/sponsors, other organizations, and referrals from board members. I’m a fan of identifying skill-sets the board may need; legal, finance, marketing, policy, etc.

Once you have them, support them by holding an orientation – where you can review your program of work, give them support materials and possibly find them a mentor.  Help them build relationships with current board members.

Claire went on to talk about the importance of working effectively with your board chair.  You could have an orientation just for them which is very different than what a full board orientation might look like.  They need to understand their role.  Possibly your past chair could lead this discussion with you as a participant or you could attend a program around the subject. ASAE has conducted their CEO Symposium for over 20 years now.  For more information on that series go HERE.

It is critical that the chair understands his or her role.  They need to understand the difference between the board chair and the CEO of the organization.  Do you have a Memorandum of Understanding on the role of the chair and CEO?  Go HERE for a blog post on that subject and sample document.

And by the way, that document is a great way to set an expectation on how you will communicate, set board agenda’s, etc., in the year they are chair.  Find out what works best for them and stick to the timetable they’ve set.  Respect their time!

She went on to talk about ways to engage them.  Make sure your board meetings are meaningful and timely, stick to the agenda, and use a consent agenda for general reporting items.  Use the other time to discuss any issues the chamber may be facing in the future.

For an example of a board agenda go HERE.  She suggested your strategic plan and business plan should be in your board materials at every meeting.

And her final comments were about recognizing your volunteers.  Thank them and give them credit.  It’s about them, not you!

For resources from Claire’s website go HERE.

I’m Not Interested – Overcoming Prospecting Roadblocks

Here are my notes from a great session I listened to recently led by Doug Holman with 
Holman Brothers.
 
He started out by saying if you want to get more members, you need to make calls.  I would add be focused, consistent and intentional.
 
Who & Why?

Identify the businesses to go after to join as members.  They will join if they see an advantage to joining your chamber if you can solve their problems  He talked about how small businesses need growth, visibility and credibility.  Large businesses need access, influence and resources.  As the chamber, you have the answers to all three for each category.
 
Tailor your pitch to each prospect (i.e., small business pitch vs big business pitch).  Do your research prior to the call.  Find a hook for each prospective business.
 
Prospect roadblocks are not rejections.  He mentioned the three most common roadblocks:
 
  1. Can you send me some information - find out what they may want out of a membership.  Ask them what keeps them up at night in their business.  This will help in your follow-up email confirmation.  And don’t forget to set-up that follow-up call to discuss the information you’ve sent.  Make the communication about them.
  2. Is this about joining the Chamber - don’t take these as negative comments.  Find out what they really mean.  Tell the truth that yes ultimately we’d like you to join but first let’s find out if we have a fit!
  3. I’m not interested - is this a reaction or a conclusion?  You might respond by saying “no problem, the chamber is not a fit for everybody.”  And then ask “do you mind if I ask one question before I let you go?”  "What is it about the chamber that has you convinced that you would never join?"
 
Remember, not every business is a fit for being a member.  But your job is to find the ones that will benefit from joining your chamber.
 
Stay focused, consistent and intentional in your membership recruitment campaigns, and then get on the phone!

Defining Your Relevance Through Advocacy

This blog post is based on a recent webinar I attended, led by Todd Murphy, former President of the 
Jefferson Chamber, Greater New Orleans region, Louisiana.
 
He started out by making the following statements:

How do you define your relevance?  Networking, educational events, annual festival or something seasonal?  What about advocacy?
 
He stated the phrase you’re familiar with “if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
 
And he talked about some rules:  stick to policy over politics.  PAC’s are political.  You must support your business members.
 
He then went on to discuss defining your parameters.  They have a government committee to vet issues and then the board can approve.  What are your issues?  They will be different in every community.
 
He used the phrase – "think big but stay in your zone."
 
Be proactive vs reactive.  Build partnerships with your regional chamber, state chamber, U.S. Chamber and relevant associations (Realtors, Home Builders to name a few).  Host a quarterly meeting with your partners on issues of the day.  Bottom line, be part of the conversation to access their expertise.
 
As a chamber person, lead!  He talked about the idea of “get in the middle” on the issues that affect your members (permit issues, broadband, etc.).  Think infrastructure issues (roads, bridges, water, etc.).
 
He then pivoted to communication.
 
Internally:  You must educate and then advocate.  Keep your members informed through all communication vehicles.  Use committees, forums and panels to educate and get buy-in from your members.
 
Externally:  Communicate with your elected officials about the issues that are affecting your small business members.  These communications can either be public or private.  The key is to have an ongoing conversation with your elected officials.  Build a partnership.  You want to be in a place where they contact you to find out where the chamber stands on a specific issue.  You are never going to always agree with your elected officials.
 
Your relevance raises your revenue.  Think about that!  Business CEO’s will pay for your advocacy efforts.  Design sponsorships for your advocacy programs and ask a member to sponsor!
 
For a separate blog post on relevance go HERE.

Strategy Outside of a Plan

I recently attended a webinar led by Lowell Applebaum, Vista Cova, on the title of this blog post. Lowell is also a faculty member of Institute for Organization Management.

He started out by making the following statements.

  • Strategy – a plan of action or policy.
  • Strategy Benefits – shared vision, mission. 
  • Strategy Deficits – moment in time, these are times of change.
  • Strategic Plans – frequency should be a set of direction and goals – very different then the 5-year goals, retreats in the past.
 
Components of a Strategic Plan
 
  • History – where you came from.
  • Vision – your ideal future, ask your board what they would add, he used the term “additive listening” to create a group vision.
  • Organization Vision and Mission – why, leadership litmus test, resonance in affiliation, definition to the external world.  Always put this in front of your board at every meeting.  Use the back of your name tents to remind why your organization exists.  Vision – statement of the future, Mission – how you’re going to do it.
  • Identity – who we are and how we act.
  • Audiences – know your who.
  • Core Values – what makes you, you!
  • Core Pillars – your area of focus.
  • Unifying Vision – direction and strategy for your volunteers.
  • Operational Plan – action items to implement your strategy.
 
Strategy Outside the Plan
 
What are you doing on an ongoing basis to help the strategic plan through everyday results?  He went on to talk about implementing a “Plan Ahead Team” – a group to keep their eye on the future and trends.  Think Foresight!  I did a blog on that topic which can be found HERE.  It’s another way of saying scenario planning.
 
Listening as a Board Competency – he listed a number of ways you can touch base with your membership to get a pulse of what is happening in their industry, which included but not limited to, surveys, monthly calls, member visits, advisory groups, competition awareness, focus groups.
 
Strategic Refresh – what is your vision in the post pandemic disruption that we all have been dealing with over the past 12-18 months.  Get the right people in the room to have this discussion.  Have a plan for a quarterly update/milestones.  In 12 months, what do we want our members to say about us?
 
Core Audiences – who are your audiences?  Create a list.  Most will be your member’s, but you should also have a list of non-members who are your core audiences (i.e., educators, legislators, groups in your community that can’t be members, etc).
 
Program Impact Matrix – do you measure your programs for relevancy?  What a great way to get rid of those sacred cows.  For a blog post on that subject go HERE.  Others call this program-based budgeting, go HERE for that blog post.
 
Creating Space for Innovation – he talked about how we were forced to do this over the past 12 – 18 months.  But are you solidifying this for future growth?  Think risk/failure options on new programming.
 
Building Board Relationships – between the chief executive officer and the board is critical.  Communication is key.
 
Give yourself space and grace!

Marketing Basics: What You Need to Know to Set Your Marketing Plan

I recently attended a webinar by one of my favorite marketers, Melissa Harrison, Founder of Allee Creative, on the title of this blog.  She is great!

The following are my top line notes from her session.


Melissa started by asking people to think about their marketing plan in 12-month chunks.


Define your competition and value proposition.  Find out what your competition is doing and tracking it on a spreadsheet can be very helpful as you create your plan.


I’ve said it before chambers, look to your left, look to your right, the next town chamber is your competition.


Your value proposition is the answer to what makes you unique and why your members join you instead of your competition.  For a previous blog post on your value proposition go HERE.


She went on to discuss how business goals and marketing goals are two different things!  Your marketing goals help achieve your business goals.  Business goals are more revenue driven or number of new members secured.


She also talked about how you need to understand your members journey.  This is the sales funnel that everyone talks about - awareness, interest, decision, sales.


She identified 10 elements to establish your marketing plan:


  1. Overview – what are your goals and objectives for the year.
  2. Key messaging – this is your elevator speech, the short answer to who you are and what you do.
  3. Goals – revenue, new members, completing something in your strategic plan.  The goals should be clear and have metrics tied to it (numbers, timing).
  4. Target audiences and persons – understanding a potential members path to join.  They are not all the same.  Also, everyone is not a potential member.  Someone could find you through your website or through some form of social media (this is their discovery, awareness, decision process of joining).  And be mindful that these can change over time.
  5. Competitive analysis – what makes you different.  I’ve talked about the Hedgehog Theory in the past (what do you do best, what do you have passion for and where do you make money).  Where they intersect is the business you should be in.  Go HERE for that blog post.
  6. Distribution channels – think direct mail, email, social media, advertising, video, events, etc.  She suggests your website should be your “home” of your brand as well as it’s a valuable touchpoint!
  7. Budget – you need to be proactive and set an actual budget.  She shared a chart that showed most small businesses budget 7% - 8% of their overall revenue on marketing.  In addition, you need to decide how you will spend that money in the different marketing channels (i.e. advertising, video, website, print and design) you choose to reach your targeted audience.
  8. KPIs/ROI – you must track your success.  What metrics are you going to use to track that measurement?  Stay focused on the numbers.  If you don’t measure your actions, you’ll have no idea if your efforts are successful. Create a dashboard!
  9. Timeline – don’t just plan.  Do.  Give assignments and keep your team focused on the results.
  10. Supporting documents – have a list of resources you can refer to when working through your plan throughout the year.


Melissa ended with a list of tools, templates and resources you can use to execute your plan.


  • Tracking timelines – Asana, Trello, Basecamp
  • Online listening tools – Hootsuite, SproutSocial
  • Content calendars – (templates from Melissa)
  • Email marketing, CRMs, inbound software – Constant Contact, Pipedrive, HubSpot, ConvertKit
  • Graphics and copywriting – Canva, Fiverr
  • Website and analytics – WordPress, SquareSpace, Google Analytics/AdWords
  • Video Platforms – Vimeo, YouTube, Flipgrid 


She finished with a tip for success – “listen harder, focus on digital.”


Good luck in creating your marketing plan of the future.  For a copy of her slide deck go HERE.

Developing Your Board

In chapter six, of his new book Horseshoes vs Chess, Dave starts out by talking about the size of boards, and in his experience, there is no difference in a board of 25 or 75.

Some suggest the smaller the board the more efficient it can be.  Larger boards may take advantage of using an executive committee to do most of the work.

He did talk about how boards should be a representative sample of your community.

 

In the past, I’ve always written about getting board members with three key attributes.

 

  • Intellect
  • Passion
  • Money

 

That’s also another way of saying you want board members who can make decisions for themselves (i.e., C suite or CEO’s).

 

Onboarding is another critical step in having a successful and productive board.  I’m a firm believer that you should have a new board member orientation, led by the chairman, and attended by key staff members of the organization to go over the priorities of the organization and the role they play as board members.

 

This would also be a good time to remind them of their fiduciary responsibilities as board members as it relates to Duty of Care, Duty of Loyalty and Duty of Obedience.


Duty of Care - as a board member it is imperative that you do your homework on the board materials prior to the meeting so you can fully participate in the discussion and make informed decisions.

Duty of Loyalty - as a board member you must take your business hat off and put the hat of the organization on and do what’s best for the organization, not your business.

Duty of Obedience - as a board member you must stay true to the mission of the organization and not get involved in things that are not part of your articles of incorporation  or bylaws.


At the end of the day, set the expectations upfront, that way they will know how to respond.  For a previous post on board orientations go HERE and HERE.

 

Good luck!

Working with a Board of Directors

In chapter five of his recent book, Horseshoes vs Chess, Dave Adkisson, makes the statement that reporting to a board is so different than reporting to a boss.  So true!

He talked about getting your board members involved in something they want to do to support the chamber and the community.


He talked about finding a unique way to get each board member involved, which could be:

 

  • Financial support;
  • A go between with the mayor on a sensitive topic;
  • Use a personal connection to secure a key speaker at one of your programs; or
  • They might lend their marketing department to run a special membership campaign.

 

He went on to talk about the complexities of having a new boss each year (i.e., a new chairman).  I’ve talked about the important role you as the CEO should play in the nominating process so you can have input on who will be going up the chain of command.

 

His approach is more nuanced than that since he never wanted to be in a position to pick one person over another.  He would give background information that might be helpful in steering the conversation and ultimately picking the person he thought would be best, but not always.

 

I have written in the past that a Memorandum of Understanding might be worth sharing with your incoming chairman.  It lays out who is responsible for what throughout the year.  This can be shared at an orientation meeting you conduct with your incoming chairman just before they take the reigns of the organization.

 

The last thing I wanted to comment on in chapter five (there’s so much more) is the “No Surprises Rule.”  This is true for everybody no matter your status in an organization.  Always inform your boss if there is something they should know so they don’t get blindsided (manager to director, director to vice president and yes CEO to Chairman).  I think you get the idea!

 

For more resources on board governance go HERE.  For a copy of Dave’s book go HERE.

COVID Culture Change: Are You Ready?

I attended a webinar led by Jamie Notter, with Propel, on the subject of culture in our organizations.  He’s been doing this a long time and it is not the first I’ve heard him speak.

The following post are my notes from his presentation and some direct quotes from his PPT.

The culture at our organizations has changed over the past year.  He started by making two statements or observations:

 

  • WHADITW – in 2019, we have always done it that way; and
  • WHNDITW – in 2020, we have never done it this way.

 

In 2021, he discussed culture, culture patterns and culture plays.

 

Culture – “the collection of words, actions, thoughts, and stuff that clarifies and reinforces what is truly valued in an organization.”

 

Culture patterns – he discussed the things that are happening underneath in an organization not just on top and put some statistics to his comments.

 

He focused on three of eight of these patterns he’s identified, Innovation, Agility, and Collaboration.

 

Innovation – people embrace innovation but it’s unrealized.  He talked about concepts vs practices.  We make effort but don’t follow through.  His final comment on this was just do it!

 

Agility – he used the terms forward action vs effective action and stated we’re not good at stop doing things.  Think sacred cows and go HERE for a blog post I did on that subject.

 

Collaboration – we value it but we’re not building the processes and systems to bring them to fruition.  In this case, it’s individual vs groups.  This is where silos come in to play and have a negative effect on moving forward.

 

He went on to discuss the advantage of having a culture playbook.  What does he mean by that?  He mentioned six but focused on three: process; structure/design; and technology.  If you don’t have these three in place you won’t make much progress.

 

He identified three areas that have changed since COVID.

 

Increase Passive Transparency - when you’re in the office you get a sense of who does what, who’s meeting and who’s doing what.  In this remote work life, you need to find ways to show that by what we’re missing by not being in the office.

 

Share more from the top – we moved to bi-weekly all staff meetings to hear from the senior leadership team.  We did not have that when we were in-person.

 

Handle your difficult conversations – it’s important to not let these “prickly” issue fester when working remotely.

 

He ended with a suggestion - “if you want to change your culture you need to measure your successes.”  Be intentional about your culture and measure it.

 

Measure results!

Member Recruitment: How to Grow Recurring Revenue, Reach New Markets, and Advance Your Mission

The following blog post are my notes from a webinar sponsored by Marketing General and presented by their SVP Tony Rossell, on his new book and title of this blog Member Recruitment: How to Grow Recurring Revenue, Reach New Markets, and Advance Your Mission. Get your copy HERE.

He started out by talking about the power of membership and the difference you can make in your industry.  He went on to ask the question – “What’s Your Strategy?”

 

The discussion pivoted to what marketing channels are you using to recruit members?  He mentioned, in my opinion, the new buzz word in the space, “Omnichannel.”  What does that mean?  In a nutshell, it means meeting your prospective members where they are, at a time they want to engage, and on a platform they choose.

 

You already are doing this with your website, mail, email, digital advertising, conferences, texting and possibly video.  In my opinion, the key is messaging and I subscribe to the COPE process (create once publish everywhere) keep the message the same.

 

Speaking of messaging, it’s one of his five pillars of a membership plan.  The five are:

 

Define your target market – he mentioned the data pyramid, some may call it the sales funnel, it’s makes you focus on who to target as a priority (i.e., lapsed members, prospects who attended an event of yours, a referral and then your list).

 

Special offers – this is your call to action.  Many do a 15 month for 12 membership campaign.  He talked about how membership is a push product.  We need to go to them.  They don’t show up at your chamber door to buy like the retail sector.

 

Messaging – what is your value proposition?  For a past blog post on that subject go HERE.  Find out what your members want from you.  This can be done with your annual member survey.

 

Channels – what platforms are you using to get your message out?  Website, mail, email, digital advertising or texts.

 

Resilience – you need to track and analyze your results and adjust accordingly.  

 

He went on to talk about the two biggest reasons why membership growth is a challenge:

 

  • Paralysis of analysis; and
  • No budget or staff resources are put in place for the plan.

 

Just get started!  Get a test out there.  Go to your lapsed members first.  Some may have dropped because they had to watch their budgets last year.

 

Membership builds loyalty, trust and repeat customers, that’s why corporate America are calling their customers members and charging them to do it (think COSTCO).

 

I did a blog post in the past “Membership is Everybody’s Business.”  For that post go HERE.

 

At the end of the day, we are membership organizations, and as he said, you can’t renew your way to growth.  You need new members to grow your chambers and have a healthy organization.  And as far as budgets to fund your recruitment campaign, make sure you know the LTV or lifetime value of your members.

 

Another key aspect to your marketing is to test your message and frequency of responses to maximize your recruitment dollars.

 

For more resources from Marketing General, Inc., including their annual benchmarking survey go HERE.

Onboarding to Activation: Hook New Members Early, Reel Them in for a Lifetime

What a great discussion from the speakers, as well as the participants, who all deal in membership activities for their organizations.  The following comments are my notes from the session. 

Onboarding – while I’m sure you’re already doing many of these, I thought I’d put a list of what they suggested from a trade or professional association perspective.

Do’s

  • Send them your new member kit via mail or email.
  • Welcome call from the CEO, staff member of volunteer (one of your membership ambassadors).
  • Ask why they’re joining in your application process or you could do a quick survey after they’ve joined to get to their motivation.
  • When onboarding, focus on everything you have to offer that responds to the what, where and how they want to engage with you.
  • Do a new member orientation every month for the new members.
  • At the end of the day, make messages/communications personal (make a connection).
  • Personal introductions to key staff members, outside your CEO, within your organization (i.e., policy experts, etc.). 

Don’ts

  • Feel as if you have to do everything in-person when onboarding your new members.
  • Communicate with all new members as if they’re all the same (i.e., segment them) and focus on their individual needs.

Activation – finding the right hook

  • What is the number one member benefit they are interested in?
  • Survey them at their six-month anniversary to deepen your ties.  It’s important to do this before the renewal cycle.
  • They talked about serving the different staff levels of your members, many may want different things and you need to find out what that is (i.e., advocacy for CEO and education/networking for others)?

Onboarding to Activation

  • During the Pandemic they talked about moving everything to digital communications, quarterly webinars, etc.
  • It’s important to keep your members engaged during these times and sending mail was not the best option, at least at this time.
  • Try some more informal meetings throughout the year for different segments of your membership (i.e., networking for those individuals).
  • Moving forward they feel as if events will be a combination of hybrid options of in-person and online programs.

A main theme that came out for me is don’t give them too much all at once (think drinking water from a firehose).  You should have a three-month, six-month or nine-month campaign where you are communicating with them on their membership benefits (drinking water through a garden hose).  Obviously, they’ll be getting all your regular communications throughout the year on other membership activities and programs.

It’s important to be consistent in your onboarding process communications.  A first Monday of the month communication for your three, six or nine-month strategy should be tight, focused and based on features of membership.

Another thought was don’t ask for them to volunteer in these communications or don’t do a direct marketing campaign to sell them something else.  Give them time to engage with the free features of membership.  BTW, money is tight right now!

Some even have a rule of don’t sell them anything for the first six-months of their membership (i.e. a solicitation for a PAC contribution or Foundation donation if you have either).

Having a CMS or marketing tool that automates this process is key. For a resource on auto marketing from Hubspot go HERE.

5 Skills for Turning Ideas Into Innovation

This post is based on my notes of a recent webinar I attended on the title of this blog with presenter Greg Roth, IOM, The Idea Enthusiast.

The conversation was rich with ideas shared amongst chamber and association executives from around the country.

Here’s my takeaway!


He started with two stories.

 

Medical association story - they wanted a new product, they did feasibility studies, etc. – six months later they went to the board with their results and the board said no thanks!

 

Lego story – their version of the design sprint concept, one week process, 150 sprints a year!  Bottom line:

  • New ideas don’t take forever to come to fruition;
  • New ideas need tangible discussion; and
  • New ideas rarely start out ready.

Best ways to come up with new ideas, be an idea-driven organization?

 

Here are the 5 skills for a culture of innovation.

  1. Discover – get smart, understand the problem, gain insight.  Asking questions is a key component of this process.
  2. Diverge – create choices and options to see what could be.  Good ideas come from many ideas.
  3. Debate – use the group to discuss the pros and cons of the ideas.  It’s about the idea not about people, no opinions.  In other words, getting different perspectives from different viewpoints.  Think open ended questions not yes or no questions.  He gave two ways to open the discussion - What I like! What’s missing?
  4. Develop – the group builds a prototype of the best idea so others get the idea.
  5. Demo – now it’s time to present your idea to “outsiders.”  User experience vs design can be two very different things – sidewalk meme.

Innovation questions – Why?  How?  What if?


Crazy eight exercise!  Fold a piece of paper three times (go HERE for his example).  You now have eight panels to write in eight different ideas on solving a problem or creating a new program.  Great tool for your board members when doing your next annual strategic plan.


For more information on Greg Roth go HERE.

Looking Forward 2021: Key Takeaways from Association Environment Scan

The following comments are my notes, based on a recent webinar I attended, presented by Association Laboratory, Inc. speakers Dean West, Miranda Barrett, and Rob Miller.

They started out with the statement: Historical views that drove your strategy ended with Covid-19.


Business assumptions must be reviewed, adapted, and shaped to the new world you live in.

 

5 Forces Driving the Future

  1. Covid-19 Hangover – the long road to recovery.  What’s the impact on your members, your staff and your office space?
  2. Reimagining of Space – cellular to centralized.  Working from home for everything vs going to the coffee shop, the office, lunch counter, etc., has changed how we do business.  Some of this change will be with us forever.
  3. Economic Disruption – transitions in the new world.  Will organizations take risks like they have in the past in these uncertain times.  Pricing and delivery come to play here.  Also, on the bright side, the transitions have driven innovation within our organizations.
  4. Workforce Realignment – maintaining and recruiting a qualified workforce.  The past year has us thinking differently on how we can use remote workers to do our program of work with today’s technology.
  5. Technological Interconnectedness – the Internet of Everything!  Technology has eliminated boundaries.

What is the future?

 

Disruption creates opportunities that you may have not of thought of before.  Now is the time to drop those sacred cows!  For a previous blog post on that subject go HERE.  Get rid of that legacy baggage!

 

They talked about how competition will become savage.  I take that as you need to focus on what you do well and don’t try to be all things for all people.  Think Hedgehog Theory.  For a blog post on that topic go HERE.

 

Then they focused on the idea that we need to be flexible and adapt to our members needs to be successful.  Those organizations that can adapt will thrive.  Those that don’t will have a hard time moving forward and recovering to the good times!

 

You have a window of opportunity to build a new organization.  Eliminate what you don’t need,  redo your strategic plan.

 

Virtual events won’t replace in-person, but they also won’t go away.  They’ll just be different than what they are today.  It's just another tool in the toolbox, that’s how you should think about virtual events.  The key is how to price it.

 

Good luck!

Designing Strategy for Sustainability

The following blog post are my notes from a recent webinar I attended sponsored by Institute for Organization Management with Dr. Steve Swafford and Dr. Jill McCrory of Leadership Outfitters.

The session was focused on designing a strategy for sustainability for yourself, staff, leadership/volunteers and organization.

They started out by asking the question, what is your chamber’s greatest strength?  The sample of responses from participants:


  • Storytelling
  • Mission minded
  • Advocacy
  • Relationships
  • Communication
  • Community builder


Then they turned and led a discussion on focusing on strengths.

 

Yourself – pay attention to yourself because the team is paying attention to you.

 

Staff – identify your staff’s strengths through Clifton or other aptitude tests, do some team assessment and get the right people in the right seats.

 

Leadership/Volunteers – what are the leaders best at?  What are their aspirations?

 

Organization – do you have a clear vision and mission?  Where are you going, why?  Do you have clear achievable goals?  How will you get there?

 

They then talked about the SOAR Framework, a twist on the SWOT analysis, that most folks are familiar with, and how you should look at your staff leadership and organization through this SOAR lens as a tool to maximize performance in the areas mentioned above.

 

Strengths – what do you do well?  What are you excellent at?

 

Opportunities – what are the opportunities here?  Even those not in your control.

 

Aspirations – what do you aspire to become or do?

 

Results – what are the measurable results and outcomes?

 

To me, the SOAR Framework is very much like the Hedgehog Theory in the book Good to Great – which asks the following three questions:


  1. What do you have passion for?
  2. What are you the best at or can you be the best at?
  3. Where do you make money?


Where those three intersect, that is the business you should be in.


They also talked about strategic leadership and the three components they feel make up that process – strategic thinking, strategic acting, strategic influencing.  What possibilities can you see?  Maximize your strengths.

 

They pivoted to address the question, what’s coming down the track – change catalysts?

 

They have identified four big areas that organizations are dealing with - you don’t want to get hit by the train!  The key is to be proactive before you see the trains light.  You need to anticipate what’s on the horizon for your organization in these areas.

  1. Virtual and tech
  2. Social and cultural
  3. Legislative and regulatory
  4. Financial and economics

I did a recent blog post on Foresight that addresses this concept.  Go HERE for that post!


For more resources on strategy for chambers and associations from Steve and Jill go HERE.

Ten Purposeful Provocations for Association Boards in 2021

I recently attended a webinar on the subject of this blog post by Executive Advisor, ForesightFirst, Jeff De Cagna.

Jeff is always thought provoking in his presentations and his insights are worth discussion as we navigate the new order of our organizations in these unprecedented times.

He segmented his presentation into three areas:

Where are we at this moment?

  • Turbulent Twenties (T20s)
  • No new normal, we have to adapt to the new way of doing business.  The pandemic has changed the way we do business and we must change our thinking moving forward, as we serve our members.
  • Uncertainty, volatility and risk is the new “discontinuous next.”
  • Finding a balance between the short-term and long-term for our organizations, think the next quarter vs the next decade.

Ten Provocations for Boards

1.  Embrace voluntary service – it is a high privilege to serve on a board, it’s a choice to serve the long-term stewardship of an organization;

2.  Capacity over comfort – continue to look at building capacity in our organizations versus thinking about just being comfortable.  The future will have uncomfortable times for boards and the decisions they will need to make;

3.  Discard orthodox beliefs – everything we think about is grounded in history and that has changed.  We have to base the future on the now and not the past.  Don’t let orthodoxy capture our thinking going forward;

4.  End inequities – build diversity in your boards, move to picking key stakeholders who may or may not be part of your membership (an orthodoxy is that all board members must be members of the organization);

5.  Pursue stewardship with intention – leaving systems in better shape than what they inherited;

6.  Focus on governing – ensure the organization knows what it is trying to accomplish.  Focus on outcomes;

7.  Stand up for the future – ask different questions with an eye towards the future (i.e., again think decades not the next quarter).

8.  Step back from strategy – stay out of the weeds and bring in younger stake-holders;

9.  Reject ideological division – reject the divisions on our boards and in our communities and focus on what is good overall for our organizations; and

10. Sacrifice for their successors – long-term shared interest for the members of the organization for when board members are long gone.

What are we going to do differently this year?

  • Don’t wait to act on the new way of thinking in these turbulent times on your boards and organizations.
  • Reinvent the work of your boards.  What can we do differently?  Your boards need to ask the question, where are we going, not where are we or where we’ve been?
  • Build a high-performance board to thrive in the turbulent T20s.

He ended his presentation with his favorite quote from Barbara Jordan – “For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future.

For resources on Jeff and his work go HERE.