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.