Category: leadership

Honesty, Leadership and Professional Opportunity

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 6 Comments on Honesty, Leadership and Professional Opportunity

I’ve only had two opportunities to work directly with volunteer groups while at NACHRI, and both times I’ve apparently put my foot in my mouth (and gotten reprimanded for it) because I answered a direct question honestly (some would, I’m sure, say bluntly) rather than giving the politically correct answer (which to me feels an awful lot like lying).

And I’m starting to wonder: is it me or is it the system? A lot of associations complain that our volunteer leaders are disengaged or make unrealistic demands or just don’t understand the reality in which we operate. But is it our fault? Are we, in an effort not to hurt anyone’s feelings or upset them, holding back too much information?

And this is far from just a NACHRI thing – I’ve seen it at every association I’ve worked for or with as a consultant. If we can’t be honest with our members about the hard realities, how on earth can we expect them to be willing and able to make hard, realistic choices?

Ultimately, of course, I’m starting to wonder what kind of (presumably negative?) effect this tendency is likely to have on my long-term career prospects. I’d like to be a CEO/ED some day, but if it requires not being honest with members or volunteers about something that affects them, I’m not sure I can do it.

Maybe I’m seeing this too black and white. But it doesn’t feel that way. And maybe we need to trust our members and volunteers to be the grown ups they are and realize that they don’t need to be handled with kid gloves, and ultimately, it benefits neither them nor our organizations.

What Does the Future Hold?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

At the recent CAE Celebration, Marsha Rhea led us in a futurist thinking exercise, which seemed apropos as this is the 50th anniversary of the CAE.

After flying through some pretty densely packed slides, she divided us into groups that were to look ahead to 2020 (10 years), 2040 (30 years) and 2060 (50 years).  Apparently, looking 30 years ahead is pretty wild stuff for professional futurists – they usually stay more in the 3-10 year range – and 50 years is considered downright crazy.  But we forged ahead anyway.

I happened to find myself at a “2040” table with people who were all quite a bit older than I was (most started in association management sometime in the 1970s).  New CAE and (NACHRI colleague) Sue Dull observed astutely that people were having a hard time not just projecting what’s happening now (virtual meetings, blurring of work and life, telework) out into the future.

I didn’t say much (shocking, I know) because the rest of the group couldn’t seem to wrap their minds around things like:

What will all this mean for associations?

To quote Sue again (she’s really smart!):  humans will have to come up with new ways of affiliating.

By 2040, the Millennials will be in their 40s/50s and will be running our organizations.  Assuming GenX iconoclasts don’t kill them first.  And Millennials are big on respect for authority, institutions, and hierarchy, which could mean a real renaissance for associations.  There will also be a pressing need for humans to collectively organize ourselves to address the above problems.  And – at least so far – government officials have shown themselves distinctly disinclined to address anything that might hurt their chances of winning the next election.  We will need someone to lead us, and nonprofit organizations could fill that leadership vacuum.  Assuming we survive the larger global forces at work.

Accountability – it’s not a dirty word

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

Two things have struck me recently (or perhaps I should say “stuck in my craw”):

Associations are generally warm-n-fuzzy(er) than for-profits.

Associations like to be collaborative and engage in consensus based decision making, but sometimes someone has to stand up and say you WILL do this or you will NOT do that. And there have to be consequences for non-compliance. There has to be a balance, but it has to be just as OK to use the stick where warranted as it is to use the carrot. We’re not children – or at least we’re not supposed to be – we’re grown up professionals.

Associations like to acknowledge effort, and we all know we’re always going to be at least somewhat at the mercy of our boards and other volunteer leaders.  But, to quote Yoda:  “Do or do not. There is no try.” What you tried to do doesn’t matter.  What you accomplished does.  There might be attenuating circumstances, and if there are, mention them.  But focus on results, not what you wanted to happen or what you planned to happen or what, in an ideal world, would have happened.

What do you to keep the focus on mission, results, and being accountable for your actions on a daily basis?  What do you ask of the people you supervise?  What do you ask of your boss?

Next-Generation Leadership

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 7 Comments on Next-Generation Leadership

JNott recently concluded a great series on leadership skills for the 21st Century, and Acronym has declared May to be Leadership Inspiration Month, and the combo got me thinking:

What qualities will the association leader of the future need?

Rather than putting together some laundry list, I thought I’d focus on the two that seem most important to me:

Nimbleness of Mind 

It took us a while to catch the bug, but boy howdy, do associations love planning these days.  We love strategic planning.  We love action planning.  We love work planning.  We love metrics.  We love data.  We love environmental scanning.  We love SWOT analysis. We love Gantt charts.  We love Microsoft Project.  You’d think we were getting ready to invade Normandy, rather than just trying to roll out the renewal notices on time.

And that’s all great – really it is.  A constant Ready –> Fire –> Aim approach can get you in big trouble.

But the thing is, you can’t plan for everything.  Associations were never the most change-friendly organizations in the first place, and all this process-heavy planning infrastructure is slowing us down even more in a time when the *pace* of change is accelerating.  Rapidly.  News cycles, already 24/7, have been sped up by social media.  Competition from free and for-profit sources is increasing – and neither of those types of groups has to wait 6 months until the next board meeting to even get an idea on the agenda to be considered.

I’m not saying fly by the seat of your pants all the time – that can leave you without the available cash to make payroll at the end of the month.  But I am saying that the ability of our leaders to perform rapid analysis, trust their instincts, adapt, and come to decisions quickly is going to be critical to our ability to thrive as an association community.

Cross-Generational Fluency

We have 4 generations in the workplace at the same time for maybe the first time ever, as younger Silent generation members and Boomers delay retirement, while Gen-Xers are firmly in the middle of our careers, and the Millennials are moving en masse out of their schooling years and into their careers. Even the most cursory review of the available datareveals that these generations have MASSIVELY different ways of interacting with both people and technology. That lack of shared experience and understanding can produce significant friction in the workplace.  Does any of the following sound familiar?

  • That old guy in my office still prints out all his emails and dictates his responses to his assistant!  What’s wrong with that guy?
  • Why won’t those damn self-centered Boomers retire already? Or at least help prepare younger people for leadership positions?
  • Stupid Gen-Xers – they’re so secretive.  Why do they always want to work on their own?  What’s their problem with team work?
  • Why does the 25 year old program assistant think she’s too good to make copies?  And why did she apply for that open director position?  She’s only been here 6 months!

One of the key management lessons I’ve learned over the years is that you need to meet people where they are, not expect them to come to you.  Our leaders are going to have to become multi-generational-lingual in order to be able to get the most out of our teams.  For more on this idea, I highly recommend Karen Sobel Lojeski’s work on virtual distance.

What do you think?  What do our next-generation leaders need to do and be to make sure associations continue to thrive?

 

Generations, Leadership and Change

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 7 Comments on Generations, Leadership and Change

A number of things, including this post on leadership mindsets by Jamie Notter, have gotten me thinking about the major forces that I think are currently shaping the association community.

“The economy” and “health care reform” both seem like the obvious answers, right?

Particularly given that NACHRI is a health care organization, and we all keep getting those blast emails “from” John Graham urging us to…well, I actually haven’t paid a ton of attention since I already have my mind made up on health care (the only major thing that’s wrong with the bill Obama signed about two weeks ago is that there’s STILL no public option, and since I lack representation in Congress, what I think doesn’t really matter anyway). But (I digress) no, not health care.

And the thing about the economy is that it cycles. What’s going on now is a difference of degree, not of kind.

People who know me might guess that I’d say, “Social media! And it’s going to cure cancer, assure me a lifetime supply of Jimmy Choos, and get us all puppies!” Yeah, not so much – social media provides a new platform (or platforms, if you prefer), but it’s for a very old school activity: communication.

I think the most important force shaping the association community today is generational change.

As described in the Lifecourse work of William Strauss and Neil Howe, generations (like the economy) cycle, but the key difference is that a large majority of associations have never directly experienced significant generational change.

Most associations were built by, are currently staffed at senior levels by, and have memberships largely made up of idealistic “prophet” Baby Boomers. I think that provides the foundation for most associations, and carries with it some very good and very bad things: the level of commitment we require of our volunteers, the fact that we expect members to happily support “common good” programs, the focus on process over outcomes, the emphasis on mission and the willingness to make personal sacrifices in service to that mission, and even the high value placed on gathering face to face.

Gen-X “nomads” are much more pragmatic – we’re not joiners, and we don’t follow movements. Is the membership model dying? I don’t really know, but if it does die, I think it will be Gen-X that kills it – not the economy or social media, both of which are usually held at fault.

Xers lack patience with the hierarchy of belonging and with traditional forms of engagement and volunteering. If the price of admission involves reading hundreds of pages of rote committee reports and spending long hours in meetings that don’t actually accomplish anything, we’ll form our own groups. Remember the Bush 41 recession of the early 90s, when Xers were graduating? No room at the (workforce) inn? Fine – I’ll just go do my own thing (and invent Netscape in the process).

I think this generational shift will require that our membership models become more limited and personalized, our decision-making processes become more nimble, and our model of volunteering become more focused on outcomes and less on process.

Further complicating the picture is the emergence of the Millennials, a “hero” generation, into adulthood. Heroes value community and teamwork, in direct contrast to the independent and cynical nomadic Xers, and they are much more sanguine about institutions and authority than either nomads or prophets. This “hero” generation is our future.

To quote The Hourglass Blog:

“[D]oes leadership mean something different to each generation, and therefore our leadership systems will constantly change as each new generational perspective comes into power?”

I think the answer is “yes” – our leadership models will have to change to mirror generational change. Given the single-generation life-span of many associations, that will, I believe, be wrenching.

How will your organization respond to generational change? How will we, as a community, respond? How is generational change causing you to think differently about volunteerism? Membership? Mission? Leadership? Or are you even thinking differently at all at this point?