I’ve been thinking about innovation a lot recently, in part because of a big client project that just wrapped up and in part because the tenth anniversary of Innovate the Lean Way: Applying Lean Startup Methodology in the Association Environment is almost upon us (and if you’re wondering if co-author Guillermo Ortiz de Zaraté and I are planning on revisiting and revising that monograph in honor of its 10th anniversary, the answer is YES!).
A lot of my focus lately has been on lean startup methodology and how to apply it in associations (the client project, and a few conference presentations and article pitches based upon it), and on the insights G and I have gained in ten years of working with the methodology. Spoiler alert: the hard part isn’t the tools. It’s the culture change.
Which has had me thinking about another component of innovation and culture: Who’s allowed to have an idea?
Associations are accustomed to acting on HIPO: the Highest Income/Influence Person’s Opinion.
That “Influence” bit? It’s key.
For-profits take direction from their CEO just like associations do. But we also take direction from our boards of directors, particularly from the chairs of those boards.
The problem is: Their experience is not typical. And by “their” I mean both your CEO and your board chair.
Whose is?
Your “rank and file” members and the staff members who work with them every day, providing customer service, answering their questions, helping them with their problems.
Does your association allow room for innovation, aka great new ideas, from the people who actually use what you produce on a daily basis (your members) and from the people who help them use those programs, products, and services (your “line” staff)?
- What mechanisms do you have in place to solicit their ideas on a regular basis?
- Once ideas bubble up from members or line staff, what happens next? Do you do anything with them?
- Regardless of the outcome (because not all new ideas are necessarily good), how do you let people know what happened and why?
The thing is, your members and line staff are a lot closer to what you’re doing and producing, ostensibly for members’ benefit, and to how it does or does not work for them on a day to day basis.
Why not ask them what they think about how you can make your offerings better for them, and then try to do something beneficial with what they tell you?
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