Category: personal reflections

Letter to John Graham and Scott Wiley

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 3 Comments on Letter to John Graham and Scott Wiley

Monday, November 21, 2016

John Graham, President & CEO, ASAE

Scott Wiley, Chairman, ASAE

Dear John and Scott:

This letter is a call for meaningful community-wide dialogue and action on behalf of a nation at risk.

One week ago, Associations Now Daily announced that ASAE signed a National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) letter “to the president-elect” expressing a desire to “work productively” with the incoming administration. While we recognize this same letter would have been sent to Secretary Clinton had she prevailed in the Electoral College, many of us read it as an attempt to normalize a candidate who displayed a level of ignorance, intolerance, and indecency unprecedented among modern major party presidential nominees. Mr. Trump ran an intentionally divisive campaign that included:

  • Proposing a religious test for entry to the United States, which is a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (Since the election, Mr. Trump’s advisors have publicly discussed the implementation of a registry for Muslims, which many see as the precursor to internment.)
  • Indicating that he would require U.S. troops to torture enemy combatants and bomb their non-combatant families, both of which are violations of the Geneva Convention.
  • Bragging about engaging in sexually predatory behaviors without consequence because of his celebrity status, boasts which have since been corroborated by more than a dozen victims.
  • Promising to deport nearly 12 million undocumented immigrants, which would cause great economic cost to the United States and its businesses, and untold human suffering.
  • Openly mocking physical mannerisms of a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter who suffers from arthrogryposis, and then denying the incident occurred despite clear-cut video evidence.
  • Threatening to jail his opponent, despite the fact that she has never been convicted of any crime, which is a violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

There is no need to elaborate further. The challenge before us is clear.

 For those of us signing this letter, the most important question is what happens next. On January 20, 2017, a new administration will take office, led by an individual whose character, rhetoric, and policy positions place our country’s most vulnerable populations at even greater risk. These diverse communities include association members, volunteers, and staff who are expecting ASAE to hear their voices at this perilous time. The question is whether ASAE, and by the extension the association community it serves, will choose to listen to those voices and take steps to help protect people who are now under direct threat.

Through this letter, we are asking you and the ASAE Board of Directors to recognize the uniquely dangerous moment at which our country finds itself, and answer our call for community-wide dialogue and action on behalf of a nation at risk. We recommend that ASAE take the following steps:

  • Issue a second letter calling on Mr. Trump to publicly repudiate his divisive rhetoric and policy proposals before Inauguration Day. Consistent with the described process of preparing the NAM letter, we would ask ASAE to seek support for this letter from philanthropic, professional, and trade associations; non-profits; and other organizations across the country.
  • Call on Mr. Trump to forcefully denounce the hateful attacks against women, racial, ethnic, religious, and other minorities that have been made in his name since Election Day as fundamentally wrong and incompatible with our shared American values.
  • Communicate both publicly and privately to elected officials at all levels of government that ASAE and the association community will oppose divisive rhetoric and policies that place the lives of Americans at risk, and create a communications toolkit for individual association members, volunteers, and staff to use as part of their own advocacy outreach.
  • Develop a more transparent and inclusive process of organizational decision-making around ASAE’s advocacy and public policy activities.
  • Appoint an independent ombudsman from outside of the current ASAE organizational structure to whom any association member, volunteer, or staff person can raise concerns, pose questions, or seek advice on how to address the personal or professional issues that may arise from Mr. Trump’s (and his followers’) divisive rhetoric and policies.
  • Work with societies of association executives (SAEs) at the local, state, and regional levels to organize a series of town hall meetings to nurture an open and honest dialogue about the future of our country, with the intention of bringing people from across the political spectrum together as Americans.
  • Integrate into the Power of A campaign and ASAE’s Public Policy efforts a much stronger focus on issues affecting vulnerable populations, and gather and share more information on diversity and inclusion, equity, and social justice concerns.

While none of these measures can fully protect our country’s most vulnerable populations from the power of the Federal government under Mr. Trump’s direction, we believe they will build confidence across the association community in ASAE’s commitment to tolerance, fairness, and decency in our national life, and create new mechanisms for resisting the codification of Mr. Trump’s bigoted belief system into dangerous policies with potentially dire consequences for millions of Americans.

Now is an excellent time to show why associations have always advanced America.

We agree with both the substance and spirit of ASAE’s statement of commitment to diversity and inclusion, which begins with the sentence, “[i]n principle and in practice, ASAE values and seeks diversity and inclusive practices within the association management industry.” In this instance, we ask our association to recognize the urgent need for our profession to work together to take constructive steps on behalf of the entire nation and its people.

There is much discussion today about the long-term relevance of associations. At this uncertain moment in our country’s history, ASAE can demonstrate the significant impact associations can make by taking an unambiguous and just stance to preserve the integrity of the democratic process, protect vulnerable Americans, and defend the future of the American experiment. We hope you will concur and will act decisively for what is right.

Signed:

Elizabeth Weaver Engel, M.A., CAE, CEO & Chief Strategist, Spark Consulting

Sherry A. Marts, Ph.D., President and CEO, S*Marts Consulting LLC

Joan L. Eisenstodt, Chief Strategist, Eisenstodt Associates, LLC, and Past Chair, ASAE Ethics Committee

Jeff De Cagna FASAE, Chief Strategist and Founder, Principled Innovation LLC

Shelly Alcorn, CAE, Principal, Alcorn Associates Management Consulting

Dina Lewis, CAE, President, Distilled Logic, LLC

Mark Alcorn, J.D., M.B.A., Attorney, Alcorn Law Corporation

See who else signed.

Edited: A printed copy of the letter and list of all signatories was mailed to ASAE on Monday, December 12.

Giving Tuesday Thoughts

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

#GivingTuesday heart

#GivingTuesday is not a huge thing in associations – although the ASAE Foundation has done some nice work on social media drawing attention to their donors today (more than directly asking for donations). But it’s ENORMOUS for fundraising/cause-oriented organizations. It doesn’t really kick off the holiday giving season – trust me, they’ve been laying the ground work for their holiday campaigns since before Labor Day – but it does often give a big boost to their efforts.

I rarely time my own charitable giving to fall on the actual Giving Tuesday, but it has got me thinking about giving, and I wanted to share a few things I’ve learned over the years:

One, my dad taught me that, no matter how little you have, give some of it away. There’s always somebody worse off than you. Even when I was a poor starving grad student, I followed that advice, and those few dollars I could afford to give didn’t make any difference in my household finances, but made a HUGE difference in my outlook on life. Generosity is ultimately a little selfish – it makes you feel rich in ways that have nothing to do with how much cash is in your pocket.

Two, my mom taught me that you don’t have to (just) give money – you can give time, too, which is sometimes more meaningful. That’s not to say don’t give money (see point one above), but also think about other ways you can give. Do you knit? There are national groups that collect hand knit items for the homeless, and your local shelters probably do, too. Have some outgrown coats sitting around? Same thing. Give time in your local community. Do a fundraising race or other fun event. But get involved.

Three, I had an epiphany a few years ago: I could give $100 to a large international organization and it wouldn’t even be a drop in the bucket of the cost of their next direct mail campaign. Or I could give locally, to organizations doing good in my own community, and see that money have a direct and immediate impact. Rather than giving $25 to every WWF or Red Cross solicitation that comes your way, save up that money and give larger amounts to local organizations working on issues that are important to you and will have a positive impact on your own community and neighbors.

Think globally, but give – and volunteer – locally. You’ll be glad you did.

What Do YOU See?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

About a year ago, the Harvard Business Review did an interview with Maya Angelou. I definitely recommend checking out the entire thing, but there was one thing in particular she said that stuck with me:

Maya Angelou leadership quoteOne of the great dangers of leadership, I think, is the tendency to believe your own hype. If you achieved this great, high, responsible position, it must be because you’re that much better than everyone else, right? You earned it, all by your awesome self!

The thing is, no one exists in a vacuum. You are the sum certainly of the abilities you drew in the natural lottery and how you’ve been able to develop them but also of all the people who’ve helped you and influenced you and taught you and mentored you and led you and followed you and worked with you to achieve bigger goals than any one person could accomplish alone along the way.

And I think that’s what Dr. Angelou’s quote is about. True greatness isn’t running around singing “I AM SO GREAT! I AM SO GREAT!” It’s saying “YOU are so great.” It’s highlighting how others’ ideas helped you. It’s sharing credit. It’s talking about everyone’s contributions at least as much, if not more than, your own. It’s knowing that what you’ve achieved has been the result of many, many people’s efforts and making sure OTHER people know you know that, too.

How many of us, as leaders, are strong and confident enough to do this? How would our world be different if we did?

Image credit: Daily Good

Resolution Time!

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

It’s that time of year – the time when we look back and look forward and decide what we want to change. Most of the time, people think about bad habits they want to stop (like smoking) or good habits they want to start (like eating more vegetables).

And that’s all fine, if a little dull and, let’s be honest, likely to get broken.

Or….

You could join me in resolving to do something fun that will stretch you in some unexpected way:

Won’t you join me?

 

Five Tips to Write Better

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 1 Comment on Five Tips to Write Better

I write a lot. Obviously, reading this, you know about the Spark blog (which started in 2008, long before Spark was even a twinkle in my eye, as the independent association blog Thanks for Playing). I also write whitepapers. And for other association industry publications. And I write a food blog. And I’m just kicking off my 9th consecutive season blogging about the NFL. And, to brag for a minute, I’m not too bad at it (writing, that is).

How does it happen? How does one become a passable writer?

  1. You have to read. One of the best ways to learn any skill is to apprentice to a master. Does that mean you should expect TC Boyle or Natalie Angier or Virginia Wolfe or Michel Foucault to tutor you personally? No (and Virginia and Michel are dead anyway). But you can learn from them by reading what they wrote. The best thing you can do for yourself as a writer is to read voraciously and widely: essays, articles, blogs, poetry, magazines, newspapers, short stories, novels, fiction, non-fiction. The surest way to get words to love you is to love them back.
  2. You have to know yourself. Where do your skills lie? What writing style suits you? What genre? Short or long? Opinion or research? Fiction or fact? Flip or earnest? How do you know? You have to experiment and find your voice. Which leads us to…
  3. You have to practice. Although Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours thing has been pretty much disproved, he was right about the fact that without focused, intentional practice, you’ll never get better at anything. You have to develop a writing practice. Err on the side of structure, at least initially: “I will write for 10 minutes only for myself every morning over my second cup of coffee. I can write about anything I want to, or nothing at all, but I have to write for 10 full minutes. I will do this six mornings a week for a month.” It doesn’t have to be precisely that structure, but you have to get into the habit of writing by making it a habit for as long as it takes.
  4. You have to learn. It’s extremely rare for people to be excellent writers immediately upon starting to write and in first draft form. In fact, it pretty much doesn’t happen. Ever. You need to develop a thick skin to be able to critique yourself and take criticism from others. Start by writing something a little more substantive than your morning 10 minutes, something that took a little more working, thinking, and research. Set it aside for at least a few days. Come back to it, and try to read it objectively, assessing both content (“what did I say?”) and form (“how well did I say it?”). After you’ve edited it, share it with someone you respect and ask for her feedback. When she gives it, don’t react – accept it, unpack it, learn from it, get better. It’s tough to improve without someone to help you see where you’re going wrong. Even pros have coaches.
  5. You have to be bold. Writing, particularly writing that you intend to share with another person, is scary. Putting your thoughts and ideas out into the world can feel an awful lot like taking Butterstick away from Mei Xiang and throwing him into the tiger enclosure at the zoo. You have to be willing to make public mistakes, occasionally look the fool, and withstand sometimes harsh (and unfair) judgement. But if you really want to do this, trust me, it’s worth it.

Finally, I’ve found a few resources that have helped me in developing as a writer: Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and Natalie Goldenberg’s Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind. I won’t lie. All three are a little “woo-woo,” but the practices they recommend *will* help you develop your chops.

 

In Order to Advance, Sometimes You Have to Retreat

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
Water - Water resources

Next week will mark one year in business for Spark Consulting. Thanks to the advice of several wise friends who’ve been down this road before me, I scheduled my first “get outta Dodge” corporate retreat, and spent the early part of this week in Berkeley Springs, WV, reflecting on the past year, planning and dreaming for the coming year, and thinking about the larger “why” of doing this. The picture to the right is of my view from my retreat location.

Driving out, I was worried: would I be successful in shutting out the day-to-day work of actually running the business long enough to focus on assessment and planning and visioning? Would I really get what I wanted and needed out of my retreat?

When I arrived, I shut off my email synch to both my smartphone and my tablet, set my phone on vibrate, and got to work.

And it worked. I was able to keep my attention on the larger issues I needed to think about, and stay away from email and phone calls and social media, at least for two days. The amount of deep focus and perspective and learning I enjoyed was remarkable.

On the drive back to DC, I got thinking about the concept of a retreat. It has (at least) two connotations: one being a military retreat that signals that your battle plan may be in trouble, and the second being the idea of withdrawing into safety, privacy, or seclusion for purposes of reflection.

I think they’re related, though. Sometimes, in order to progress, we have to take a step to the side and regroup. And that deviation from the planned route can give us a different view of the whole landscape around us, and our place in it.

Which is hard to do. Small businesses face a lot of pressures on our time and resources. Associations face a lot of pressures on our time and resources. We tend to experience the cycle of business and the fiscal year and events and renewals and campaigns speeding up and speeding up and speeding up, with no way to get off or even slow down.

But that’s a lie. Even if it feels hard and painful and maybe impossible, we need quiet time to reflect periodically, to back up and see the whole picture not just the details in one tiny little corner, to lift our eyes from the problems right in front of us that seem insurmountable and get the perspective that comes from seeing the entire horizon.

What are you doing to secure that vital introspective time for yourself? For your association?

 

Learning to Take Critcism

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

This is a tough one, right?

Criticism happens to all of us, whether it’s in the form of evaluations after a presentation, the official annual review, unofficial feedback from a boss or colleagues, or editorial comments on something we’ve written.

First, we feel shock: “You didn’t love it?”

Next comes the hurt: “You just said you think my baby is UGLY?!?”

And then, generally, the outrage: “How dare YOU criticize ME?!”

If you’re able to respond with equanimity immediately, going straight to “maybe my critic has a point – I should assess this rationally,” check your pulse. You might be dead.

But then what?

Usually, responding to criticism is something we do less well early in life and our careers, and, hopefully, is something we learn to do better as we mature as people and professionals.

Let me offer a brief example from my own career. Early on, a boss told me that I make decisions rashly and without doing research or considering the data or other options.

I was young, and I didn’t particularly like or respect this guy. In my mind, he was so risk-averse, he was probably afraid to change his socks. So I dismissed his comments with a “Whatever, Poky. I’m decisive, and you just can’t handle it.”

However, the issue of perceived (too?) rapid decision making came up again later in my career, when I was more experienced and able to think about it rationally.

Here comes the advice part.

The first thing I did was unpack what he was really saying.

“Rashly” is a judgement, and a fairly harsh one at that. Let’s try putting it more neutrally.

“You make decisions too quickly.”

Better, but that’s still a subjective opinion.

“You make decisions more quickly than I am comfortable with.”

Ah ha! That’s truth, it’s accurate, and it doesn’t put either party in the place of necessarily being right or wrong. That I could work with.

What about the second part? “Without doing research or considering the data or other options”?

That’s an attribution of cause that may or may not be correct, but it’s what he was perceiving from the outside.

OK, now I had a neutrally-phrased critical observation attributed to a cause that might or might not be correct, which is a good starting place.

The second thing I did was to ask people I trust for some insight on this. “We both know I tend to be pretty decisive, but I’ve been given feedback that I make decisions too quickly and maybe without considering all the data. What do you think?”

At that point, I got some really useful feedback from people who knew me well. They helped me see that because I process information quickly and play it pretty close to the vest while I’m doing so (in Sally Hogshead‘s schema, I’m a “secret weapon”), from the outside it can look hasty. All others see is that I made a decision quickly, and they don’t know how I chose. So what I need to do is let key stakeholders into my process a little more, so they’ll be more comfortable.

What did I learn about taking criticism?

  1. What’s the source? Does this person have my best interests at heart? Do I trust him? Is she being objective? Some people are just ill-intentioned or have an axe to grind, and over-reacting to their feedback doesn’t help you.
  2. Have I heard this more than once? The more frequently you hear something and the more people you hear it from, the more likely it is to have some degree of truth.
  3. How can I reframe this in a neutral/objective way? Try to take the judgement out and concentrate only on what’s at the root of the critique. And remember that the critique is always from a particular perspective.
  4. What’s the critique versus the purported cause? Try to separate the feedback itself from any attribution of cause, since your critic might have correctly identified a symptom, but might very well be misattributing what’s driving it.
  5. Who can help me? Ask people who know you well and where you can trust what they think. The people around us often see us more clearly than we see ourselves.
  6. Finally, take everything you learned from this process and apply it to how you can improve in the future.

I’ll admit, it’s a lot easier to brush off criticism with a, “What an asshole! What does SHE know?” And it’s totally acceptable to START there. The key is what happens next.

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 Is Your Real Mission?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

Last fall, I had the opportunity to participate in The Boondoggle. Organized by Joe Gerstandt and Jason Lauritsen, it provided an opportunity for 10 people who didn’t know each other to sit in a cabin outside Omaha for 2 1/2 days and think and talk deeply about the future of work.

By the afternoon of day two, we’d pretty much all gotten past the posturing, and we were finally getting real. We had grouped all the previous day and half’s work into key themes, then we did an exercise where teams were assigned to facilitate a discussion around each of the key themes.

My partner and I were assigned to facilitate a discussion around finding meaning in your work, which led us into talking about organizational mission, and how that aligns – or doesn’t align – with personal values.

Now I’m not saying that everyone has to find deep meaning in her work. I think it’s completely acceptable to “just” a job that pays your bills, and find your meaning in your family and friends or your religious community or your volunteer work or your avocation.

But I do think that if you want to find meaning in your work, that option should be available to you. And everyone doesn’t have to find the same meaning. If your meaning is saving puppies or teaching kids to read, that’s great. But your meaning could be a fat title and a fatter paycheck. It could be amassing personal power. You should’ve have to “greenwash” what’s really important to you.

The problem is, every organization – for profit or otherwise – has a mission statement. But most of them are so much sunny bullshit.

If you want to know what an organization really values, look at what they reward.

Do they say they value customer service, but their default answer to everything is “that’s against policy”?

Do they claim to value teamwork, but reward kingdom building and territoriality?

Do they say they provide quality products and services at competitive prices…and don’t?

Do they say they want innovation, then automatically shoot down every new idea anyone proposes?

And even when what the organization actually values isn’t in direct conflict with what the organization claims to value, mission statements are often nothing more than empty platitudes that sound nice and mean nothing.

Why not be honest?

If your organization will do ANYTHING – exploit low-skilled workers, pollute the environment, skirt taxes and regulations – to make your widget 5 cents cheaper than the other guy’s, admit it.

If you really do value excellent customer service above all, live it, and tell people.

If what your organization really wants is to never, under any circumstances, rock the boat in your industry or profession, say so.

If you aim to change the world in some tangible way no matter what the cost to the people involved, let people know.

Brand authenticity drives brand loyalty. If you’re open and authentic about what life is really like inside your organization, you’ll find yourself doing business with staff and customers who are truly of a like mind and can align themselves with what your organization is truly values, not some nice, sappy-sounding thing that’s on your website that is patently false.

There really are people who would love to work at a place where the profit motive is the most important thing. There really are people who want to change things so badly, they will not count the personal cost. It’s not everyone, but if, as an organization, you can be honest about what you really value, the people who do choose to do business with you will be choosing that from an authentic place and will, ultimately, be happier.

Be authentic, warts and all. Someone will still love you and want exactly what you’re offering.

 

“Just Do The Next Right Thing”

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE

January means resolution time, and whether you go the traditional self improvement route or follow my advice and take the “fun resolutions only” path, there’s a good chance you’ve set yourself some big goals for 2013.

Which is awesome. And really daunting.

Where do you start?

At this time of year, I’m always reminded of my good friend Vinay Kumar‘s advice: “Just do the next right thing.”

Your resolution may involve 100 steps. You don’t have to know step 99 right now. All you have to know is step 1.

To quote Neo:

I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin.

What step will you take today to start your journey?