Tag: Jamie Notter

Becoming a Leader

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | Leave a Comment on Becoming a Leader
Scrabble board spelling out Lead, Team and Succeed

There’s plenty of advice on what it takes to be a good leader, but in my own experience, it doesn’t matter how curious or analytical or resilient you are if people don’t trust you enough to follow you. How do you make yourself worthy of that trust?

1. Praise in public, correct in private.

This encompasses a number of things:

  • Catch your people doing good stuff.
  • Make sure the people “above” you know when the people “below” you think of or do something great.
  • Remember that good ideas can come from anywhere.
  • There’s no such thing as too much praise.
  • Saying thank you is free.
  • Make sure your people know that you have their backs.
  • Be generous – GENEROUS – sharing credit.

2. Be willing to take risks.

Refusing to make a decision IS a decision. The only decision you’ll ever make in life that you can’t change later is the decision to have kids. Whatever you’re considering is probably not *that* serious.

Ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen if we do this?”AND “What’s the worst thing that could happen if we DON’T do this?”

3. Behave with integrity.

People have to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they can trust you. That doesn’t mean you’re never going to screw up. But when you do, own it and FIX IT.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Happy Fabulous Five, Spark!

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
Floral design - Flower

Today marks five years since I launched Spark Consulting. As I look back on the past five years, I have much to be grateful for. Leading that list is all the people who’ve contributed to the success of this Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

First, I have to thank all my wonderful clients. Spark would not exist without each and every one of you. I particularly want to thank the American Chemical Society, my very first client, for being willing to take a risk on hiring the new kid in town, and Ross Simons for making the connection between a brand-new consultant and her first lead. Over the years, many of my clients have referred me to their colleagues and/or hired me again for additional projects. I can’t express how grateful I am for their confidence in me and my work.

Back in late 2011, I was working for the Children’s Hospitals Association. I’d been there for a few years and was starting to think about my next move. At the time, I was thinking it would be my first CEO position, leading a small association. I’d been in the biz for 14 years at that point, had my CAE and an MA, had worked in a wide variety of functional areas in association management leading a variety of different types and sizes of teams, and had even served as an acting CEO for a small association. I started applying for those types of positions, despite the fact that when I mentioned I was looking for my next gig, the nearly universal response was, “So you’re launching your own consulting business, right?” I want to thank Shira Harrington (Purposeful Hire) for being the one who helped me understand that being a consultant would be a better path for me.

Maddie Grant, Lindy Dreyer, and Jamie Notter came over to my house on a cold winter afternoon and helped me figure out what I wanted to call this new consulting business, how I wanted to frame the work I wanted to do, how brand Spark and myself, and brainstormed my clever URL (in which a discussion about “GetMeJamieNotter” led to “GetMeSpark”).

When I was starting out, I was fortunate to be invited to join a Mastermind Group that served as my kitchen cabinet, pushed me to define my goals, and helped me think through how to overcome the barriers to achieving them. Leslie White, Peggy Hoffman, Shira Harrington, KiKi L’Italien, and Sohini Baliga kept me on the right path during those critical first two years.

One of the most useful things I learned studying for the CAE 14 years ago was to know what you are – and aren’t – good at, and make sure to surround yourself with great people who know and can do what you can’t. I’ve been fortunate to work with four outstanding vendors on the tasks I can’t do for myself: Bean Creative for my website, ImagePrep for all my graphic design needs, Andrew Mirsky (Mirsky Law Group) for all my contracts and other legal needs, and Moran & Company for bookkeeping, accounting, and tax advice and planning.

My original career goal, back in college, was to be a university professor. I’ve always loved research and writing, particularly long-form essays. One of the most personally and professionally fulfilling things I’ve been able to do since launching Spark is the Spark collaborative white paper series. I now have the freedom to research and write, diving into topics that interest me and that I think are important for our industry.

I’ve been fortunate to work with a host of fantastic contributors for the nine existing monographs: Jeff De Cagna, George Breeden, Tom Lehman, Jamie Notter, Leslie White, Peggy Hoffman, Peter Houstle, Anna Caraveli, Guillermo Ortiz de Zarate, Shelly Alcorn, Polly Siobhan Karpowicz, Tracy Petrillo, Sherry Marts, Joe Gerstandt, Jess Pettitt, and Joan Eisenstodt.

I also want to thank the many association executives who were willing to share the stories of their organizations’ work, struggles, and triumphs in the case studies that illustrate many of the concepts the white papers discuss.

Thanks also go to Alison Dixon (Image Prep), who’s done all the beautiful layout and graphic work on the white papers, and to copy editors Ed Lamb and Joe Rominiecki, who’ve done their level best to save me from my typos and grammatical errors.

The association consulting community more broadly has also served as a tremendous source of inspiration, help, and advice over the years. Many association consultants have generously given of their time and expertise to answer my questions, point me in the direction of resources I need, or just generally help me to buck up when things aren’t going as I’d like them to with the business. We may be competitors, at least on occasion, but we are a community and we help each other out, and that’s priceless.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I have to thank my spouse, Jim. When I came home from that fateful lunch with Shira nearly six years ago, I was nervous. As far as he knew, the plan was to land a CEO position, with the attendant salary, benefits, and security. I knew I was about to announce that I might want to throw all that over in favor of the risk, excitement, and uncertainty of launching my own business. This change in direction would have a dramatic effect on him and his life as well, and I didn’t know how he’d respond.

When I told him what had happened over lunch and what I was thinking, he responded: “I think that’s a great idea. I think you’d be a terrific solo consultant. You should definitely do that.”

“Well damn,” I thought. “If he’s that confident, what in the hell am I so worried about?”

Five years later, here we are. It’s been a thrilling, challenging, amazing, terrifying journey so far. I can’t wait to see what the next five years bring.

Photo by Peedee on Unsplash

Review: When Millennials Take Over

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

“Every 20 years or so, a new generation enters the workforce, and the rest of us, quite frankly, freak out about it.” 

Cover Image - When Millennials Take OverI recently had the opportunity to read a review copy of When Millennials Take Over, a new book by Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant designed to help us get past the freak out and to a “ridiculously optimistic” view of the future of work.

Their basic thesis is that the environment in which our organizations operate has changed – we have to move faster, with less hierarchy and more sharing of information, and learn how to be digital native institutions.

Sounds hard, right?

Fortunately, the Millennials, the generation born between 1982 and 2004, can help us. Although GenX is currently the largest segment of the workforce, within the next three years, the Millennials will be taking over. And that’s a good thing. As Notter put it during a recent book release event sponsored by ASAE: “The goal is not to ‘deal with’ Millennials but to learn from them. It’s not that Millennials are extra special or have all the answers, but they’re a ‘secret decoder ring’ to help us understand and adapt to these changes.”

Notter and Grant have identified four key capacities that they believe will drive the future of business:

  • Digital
  • Clear
  • Fluid
  • Fast

Digital expects widespread customization and personalization, which includes staff as well as customers and members, and continuous improvement. Going digital is not just about how much you spend on technology (although most of us ARE underinvesting); it’s also about developing a digital mindset, in which you design around the needs and convenience of your audiences (both internal and external), even if that makes things harder for the organization.

tl;dr: In the era of Amazon and apps, your old excuses for 20 years outdated tech and processes won’t fly.

Clear demands information at everyone’s fingertips. Millennials have always had the “why” explained to them – that’s how they were raised. The great thing about this is, when our organizations share more information in a more transparent way, we dramatically increase both the speed and the quality of the decisions we make.

Fluid requires us to break out of our silos, not to the point that there’s no hierarchy at all (Google tried that and found it didn’t work), but to the point that teams are flexible and ad hoc, and different people get opportunities to lead based on their skills match with the project and task at hand. That means that EVERY person needs to know what your organization’s key performance indicators, that is, the keys to success, are.

Fast is the end result of all of these. As Notter and Grant point out, not everything needs to be ultra-fast all the time – there is still room for institutional knowledge and deliberation – but speed is important. As Grant observed at that same book release event, think about how quickly you dump a smartphone or tablet app that doesn’t work as expected. We need to move faster on idea generation, creating rudimentary prototypes, gathering information, and improving/scaling, pivoting, or killing those ideas as appropriate.

tl;dr: Don’t do another member survey! And don’t make decisions about what to do based on the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion). Create a Minimum Viable Product, and decide what happens after that based on actual data about whether people buy and use it, and what they think about it.

The book makes an excellent companion to Notter and Grant’s earlier Humanize. But where Humanize was a bit heavier on theory, When Millennials Take Over focuses heavily on the practical, sharing detailed case studies of four organizations who exemplify the authors’ four key capacities:

The American Society for Surgery of the Hand, a small membership organization that still manages to invest well in technology, personalize and customize, learn from experiments, and incorporate results-only work environment principles.

Menlo Innovations, a software firm that is so transparent about information that they’ve invented their own resolutely low-tech project management system so that every person knows exactly what every other person’s top priorities are and where they stand on achieving those goals. This lets teams that are ahead of schedule know immediately who needs help and offer it without the intervention of boring project status meetings or project managers or complicated negotiations over email. Menlo even invites clients into the office on a weekly basis so they can see first-hand what’s going on with their projects and make more effective decisions about their own budgets and priorities.

Quality Living, a rehab center for people recovering from brain and spinal cord injuries, that understands the importance of shifting decision-making authority and action to the individuals and groups who are best equipped to be successful in a particular situation, no matter what their official place in the organization’s hierarchy. That might mean that someone very “low level,” who is closest to the patient and her needs, values, hopes, and dreams, directs care for that patient across the entire team of more “senior” people.

Happy State Bank, a community bank operating in Texas, that is able to make good decisions almost absurdly fast thanks to their laser focus on caring and relationships (not exactly traditional for financial institutions). As Notter is fond of pointing out, trust enables speed, and that’s exactly the environment Happy State has created, not just among staff but between staff and customers.

Ultimately, this is about all of us – Boomers, Xers, and Millennials – working together for the good of ourselves, our organizations, and our customers/members. We take turns leading the change:

For every Luke Skywalker (Millennial), there is always a need for an Obi-Wan Kenobi (Baby Boomer), and even an occasional cynical and independent Han Solo (Generation Xer). We know it is cliché, but we’re all in this together.

When Millennials Take Over is available in Kindle and print editions at Amazon.com. For a limited time, the Kindle edition is only $0.99 (that is not a typo), or you can download a chapter as a preview for FREE.

 

Strategy, Risk, and Implementation

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

Final day of whitepaper release week!

From the new Spark whitepaper, Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation, co-authored with Jamie Notter (JamieNotter.com) and Leslie White (Croydon Consulting):

Having…conversations around risk and opportunity is not necessarily easy, but it’s becoming increasingly important in today’s complex, mutable, fast-paced environment. You need people at all levels of your association who can analyze and make key decisions that are in line with your strategic direction, and that means they need the skills and tools to quickly get beneath the surface conclusions that create conflicts in order to resolve them, decide, and act.

You do that by:

  • Asking better questions
  • Bringing assumptions to the surface
  • Agreeing to disagree
  • Focusing on the decision

You can find out more about how to do that by downloading the free whitepaper at http://bit.ly/MJ5oo8.

Additionally, Jamie, Leslie, and I offer training for senior teams to help you develop the skills to make better decisions faster. You can find out more on the Spark Services | Training page.

 

Risk, Strategy, Conflict, and Consensus

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

Whitepaper release week continues!

From the new Spark whitepaper, Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation, co-authored with Jamie Notter (JamieNotter.com) and Leslie White (Croydon Consulting):

Strategy and risk are about choosing to do certain things and, sometimes more importantly, not to do certain things. Conversations about these choices are difficult because your organization naturally has a range of overlapping concerns and interests, typically represented by specific groups of people, maybe a department or a membership segment. When you have different groups representing different interests, it often leads to conflict. And most organizations don’t handle their conflict well.

Get the full whitepaper (for free, no personal information required) at http://bit.ly/MJ5oo8.

How Does Risk Relate to Strategy?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

From the new Spark whitepaper, Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation, co-authored with Jamie Notter (JamieNotter.com) and Leslie White (Croydon Consulting):

Risk management is an intrinsic part of strategic thinking. When considering a strategy, you must first determine whether that strategy aligns with your risk appetite…The biggest challenge associations face in establishing a culture of strategic risk management is to get people comfortable thinking and talking about what could go wrong—or right—on the way to realizing your excellent new ideas. The key is to match your risk exposure to your risk appetite, while not undervaluing potential lost opportunity.

Like what you read? Want more? Download your free copy at http://bit.ly/MJ5oo8.

Why Does Risk Matter?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

From the new Spark whitepaper, Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation, written with Jamie Notter and Leslie White:

The risk management process involves the continuous identification, assessment, prioritization, and selection of risk management techniques; implementation; and monitoring of outcomes.

But what if the board and senior team members don’t all agree on what the risk is, how likely it is, or what impact it might have? What if the decision-makers don’t have the same appetite for risk? What if they don’t accord the potential opportunity the same level of importance? Risk management sounds straightforward in theory, but the effective practice of risk management requires broadening your awareness about uncertainty and risk and integrating this risk awareness directly into your strategic decision- making. You need to define your risk strategy.

Want more? Download your free copy at http://bit.ly/MJ5oo8.

Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

I’m excited to share the launch of the fourth whitepaper in the ongoing Spark whitepaper series, Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation.

Co-authored with Jamie Notter (JamieNotter.com) and Leslie White, CPCU, ARM, CIC, CRM, (Croydon Consulting), the whitepaper tackles the question: why do senior teams have so much trouble with strategic decision-making?

Our answer is that a major contributing factor is that they are unable to have good conversations about risk, risk management, risk appetite, and how that all relates to opportunity and opportunity cost, because they avoid conflict and have a mistaken understanding of what constitutes consensus. The whitepaper shares both theory and techniques to help senior teams have better conversations, make more informed choices about risk and opportunity, and ultimately, be more effective in forming and implementing their strategies as a result.

I’ll be blogging about the contents of the whitepaper all week, but in the meantime, pick up your free copy at http://bit.ly/MJ5oo8, no divulging of information about yourself required.

And don’t forget to check out the other Spark whitepapers:

The Consultant and the Association Exec Should Be Friends

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

Eons ago (actual time: four years), I wrote two  blog posts on the topic of consulting and RFPs. They’re still among my most popular posts ever.

I got thinking about this topic again recently for a few reasons:

  • I just got my shiny new ASAE Buyers’ Guide, which includes an article on the RFP process.
  • There’s been some chatter lately on some of the Collaborate communities about the RFP process.
  • I just submitted a proposal in response to an RFP that asked for my “project management methodology,” aka, my approach to managing the consultant/client relationship (which I thought was a damn fine question).

As the title of this post states, the consultant and the association executive should be friends (bonus points if you get the Oklahoma! reference). One side has expertise to offer, the other side needs that expertise periodically (but not continuously, which is why you’re hiring a consultant rather than another staff person), what’s the problem?

The problem, often, is that we fail to follow the golden rule. Rather than treating each other as we ourselves would want to be treated, we behave badly.

Consultants can be overly aggressive and too “sales-y.” We are sometimes guilty of hounding execs, acting boorish, discounting organizational culture, and being far too convinced of our own brilliance.

Association execs have been known to issue “spray & pray” RFPs to everyone under the sun, a huge waste of time and energy on both sides. They waffle. They refuse to talk to consultants and withhold information. Some of them have been known to steal consultants’ intellectual property, or give (higher priced) Consultant A’s (perhaps overly detailed) proposal to (lower priced) Consultant B to implement.

People! We have to work together here!

And that’s that point: the consulting relationship is just that – a relationship. A partnership. The proposal process is like getting dating. Signing the contract is like getting married. And you both want your marriage to work, right?

Consultants provide a lot of the intellectual capital in association management, some of it for free, some of it for pay. Association execs are our clients, and our partners in creating change. And both sides are vital members of the community we all love. Because, as Jamie Notter is fond of reminding us, it’s all about love.

Or to quote myself, from that ancient RFP blog post:

What’s the common theme? Relationship. We’re about to enter into a relationship. You don’t start a dating relationship by refusing to talk to the other party, withholding information, and putting them through a lot of silly, unnecessary tests (and if you do, odds are you’re single), and you don’t want to start a consulting relationship that way, either.

 

 

What Makes Community?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 2 Comments on What Makes Community?

Back in the mid-1990s (so, in Internet time, 500 years ago), I was a member of a thriving online community on the Runner’s World website. We shared training regimens, asked each other questions, told race stories, got injury and gear advice, told stupid jokes, gave each other a lot of shit, got into arguments and then made up, and generally had a ball.

“Wait!” you say. “That was, like, 10 years before Facebook or LinkedIn or MySpace or Friendster or any of that stuff. Were you using carrier pigeons to communicate? How did that work?”

The technology was neither intuitive nor sophisticated. I remember how excited we all got when the discussions started being threaded instead of appearing in a Hunter Thompson-esque stream-of-consciousness. There were no community managers, no training videos. No one created a community strategy or marketing and communications plan. It shouldn’t have worked.

But it did.

Why? What makes community?

This question came up a few weeks ago during #assnchat. Many associations have launched private communities of one sort of another at this point, or are at least considering it.

Unsurprisingly, “results vary.”

The question is why.

It’s not like there’s some BIG secret around how to make online communities work.

  • You need organizational buy-in at all levels, but particularly among executives and volunteer leaders.
  • You need dedicated community manager(s) to shepherd process and nurture the community.
  • You need community champions from among your audiences to keep the conversation going.
  • You need a platform that works (from a tech perspective) and is relatively intuitive to use.
  • You need to educate your audiences (ALL your audiences) in how to use that platform, and do it in bite-sized chunks and in a variety of formats.
  • You need to give people a reason to show up and participate, and to keep coming back.
  • You need to remember the 90-9-1 rule and learn to love your lurkers.
  • You need to communicate what’s going on in the community with your audiences on an ongoing basis.

But even with all that, your community can still fall flat.

Why?

Passion, or to be more precise, lack thereof.

People have to care, about each other, about the topics being discussed, about sharing knowledge, about learning from each other, about projects they’re working on together.

Or, as Jamie Notter would say: “It’s all about love.”

If you have it, there’s a good chance your online community will make it, even in the absence of a manager or a strategy or a communications plan or even adequate technology. Without it, you could have the best strategy and marketing and staffing and platform and support in the world, and it will probably flop anyway.

What is your association doing to discover and support your audiences’ passion?