Category: leadership

Dream Big

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
"Dream Big" all in capitals, white letters on a black background

In 2011, an Ignite presentation inspired me to write:

Everything in our environment is whispering: “Protect your ass. Guard your turf. Trust no one. Rock no boats. Prepare for the worst.”

In other words: “Think small.”

At the time, I called out the economy, social media, generational change, climate change, changing models of volunteerism (and willingness and ability to volunteer), and the shift from information scarcity to information abundance as the forces that were pushing association execs to think small.

I also pointed out:

Sure – think small, and watch your organization die.

Your association has no inherent right to exist. And if you respond to the forces that are challenging us in 2024 – some of the same exact things I called out 13 years ago, plus political polarization, loss of trust in institutions and expertise, and, oh, climate change CLIMATE CHANGE CLIMATE CHANGE – with “duck & cover,” maybe your association SHOULD die.

Here’s the thing, also from that original post:

But if you do believe that your organization brings something useful and good to some group of people, now is exactly the time to think big, take chances, rock the boat, make change, and see where it can take you.

It’s easy to be afraid now – a lot of shit is going down. But if we can get past the fear and be courageous and willing to take risks, we have HUGE opportunities to do better by our members, our professions/industries, our audiences, and maybe even the world.

Joe Gerstandt, one of my favorite thinkers and writers and general all-around good egg, frequently asks: “Do you approach life from fear or from love?”

I know what answer I try to have every day. What about you? 

Photo by Randy Tarampi on Unsplash

Associations, Apprenticeships, and the “Toolbelt Generation”

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
leather tool belt with hammer, blue plier handles, adjustable wrench

Recently, I’ve noticed renewed attention to the role of non-collegiate post-secondary training in helping people find lucrative, productive, fulfilling work.

  • The Washington Post has reported on the need for “millions” of apprentices in careers that don’t require four-year degrees and has called for the federal government to take action, which is a very good idea and which would have significant returns on a modest investment.
  • NPR has reported on a trend in GenZ choosing trade schools over college, “skilled trades make a comeback,” and identified them as the “Toolbelt Generation.”
  • As his first executive order after taking office, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro eliminated the unnecessary four-year degree requirement for 92% of state jobs in the commonwealth.

Alternative training and career paths are, after several decades of an almost exclusive focus on sending young people to four-year college, having a renaissance.

You know who else has a major role to play in alternative career paths and credentialing?

Associations!

In 2016, Shelly Alcorn and I released a whitepaper, The Association Role in the New Education Paradigm, that predicted this trend, identifying a significant and growing gap between education and employment driven by several factors:

  • Massive disruption in higher education
  • Ballooning student loan debt (at the time, Americans held over $1.23 trillion dollars in student debt – it’s now up to $1.75 trillion)
  • Decreasing public funding for education, at both the K-12 and post-secondary levels
  • Significant disagreement about what a college education is supposed to accomplish, the value of a four-year degree, and whether or not college is properly preparing young people for the workforce

At the time,  one-third of employers reported struggling to find qualified workers. That situation has also gotten worse in the interim, with 75% of organizations world-wide now reporting that they’re struggling to find skilled workers.

Shelly and I believe that associations enjoy major advantages that make us uniquely suited to addressing these challenges:

  • Direct connection to and relationship with employers in our relative sectors
  • Experience with certification and credentialing, supplements or even alternatives to four-year degrees that are gaining popularity and respect
  • Speed and flexibility, at least in comparison to hidebound higher education
  • “Halo” effect of our nonprofit status in the marketplace versus the many shady for-profit providers
  • Experience with non-traditional students and educational settings

Want to learn more about how your association can help solve this critical societal problem while also earning non-dues revenue, doing well while doing good? Download your free copy at https://bit.ly/29CIquL.

Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

What Do You Believe In?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
The phrase "Passion Led Us Here" on a sidewalk with two people standing by it (you see their shoes)

I’m pretty much just re-upping this post, because it’s a good one.

Back in 2011, Bisnow published an article that included this quote:

When you ask most people about their jobs, they tell you what they do and how they do it, but not why. “Why you do what you do is what makes people lean in closer,” Mary [van de Wiel] says. For example, Duarte, a company which creates presentations for many high-profile speakers, describes itself on its website by saying, “We love whiteboards, sweet design, vegan cookies, bacon cheeseburgers, the afternoon regroup, and the 4 am idea. We believe in the power of a great story to move an audience and the power of an audience to change the world.” It does not say Duarte is the leading PowerPoint design firm in the world. Mary says: “You get a sense of who these people are, and you say, ‘Yes, I want to work with them.'”

In our 2015 whitepaper Leading Engagement from the Outside-In, one of the keys to engagement Anna Caraveli and I identified was Organize Around Shared Purpose.

Sadly, far too many association mission statements are something along the lines of:

The Widget Association, a nonprofit membership association founded in 1954, is the leading voice for the widget industry. We represent and advocate for 9,000 widget professionals worldwide. We advance the profession through education, networking, and advocacy.

That is BOOOOOO-RING.

Contrast that to one of our case studies, the Society of Hospital Medicine: Revolutionize Patient Care.

Short. Succinct. Inspiring.

(They’ve complicated it somewhat since then, I would argue NOT for the better.)

As I originally wrote in 2011:

What is your association’s mission statement? Does it truly reflect what you believe in? Would it make anyone excited about joining your cause? If not, what can you do to change it to more truly reflect what’s great about your organization?

I believe those questions are even more pressing, more important now, 13 years later.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Pay It Forward

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
white ceramic mug full of coffee on a wood surface that reads "What Good Shall I Do This Day?"

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my 27 years in association management is:

When somebody hits you up with a request for a favor in a professional context, ALWAYS try to help them out, or connect them to someone who can.

Call it good karma, or ninja-level networking, or spreading the love, or paying it forward, or whatever, but people remember that you tried to help them and that you know people.

Someday, you’ll need help, and if you’re known as a person who tries to connect people with solutions to their problems, you won’t even have to call in chips – people will line up to help you.

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash

Who’s Allowed to Make the Call?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
Adult coach dressed in black on the pitch with a youth soccer team in red uniforms

Another observation that has fascinated me since my earliest years in associations is: Who’s allowed to make the call?

What do I mean by that?

Well, if you search for “stories of outstanding customer service,” all kinds of lists come up, compiled by HubSpot and Forbes and RingCentral and others, referencing all kinds of things from dentists to bicycle shops to yoga studios to rescuing a forgotten bridesmaid’s dress to creating a prayer room on the fly to implementing a great idea from a small child.

What do they all have in common?

The sentiment that provided the title of the original post I wrote on this topic in 2011: Be Human.

How does this apply to associations?

As I wrote in that original post:

…your senior staff can always make exceptions based on member needs and doing what’s right, but that’s totally unhelpful, since they are rarely the ones dealing with the immediate need in the moment. If your line staff members aren’t empowered to make decisions and do what they need to do in the moment to make things right for a member without worrying about being punished afterward for not following the rules, any statements your organization makes about being member-focused or providing excellent member service are so much bullshit.

Thirteen years later, I still stand by that.

In my very first job in associations 27 years ago, I stepped into running a membership department staffed by dispirited people for an association with declining membership. A big reason for ALL of that was that the association had a reputation for poor customer service that was a factor of staff who were NOT “empowered to do what they needed in the moment to make things right for a member without worrying about being punished afterward for not following the rules.”

So that was one of the first things I changed as leader of that team, with the promise that any blowback from anywhere else in the association for any decisions my team members made would stop with me. They were promised – and I delivered – 100% “the buck stops with Elizabeth” immunity.

Did it work?

Yes – by the time I left the association seven years later, not only had we arrested the slide, we’d grown membership by more than 50% AND fixed the cultural issues within the team.

Empower your people to do the right thing, to be the ones to “make the call.” You won’t regret it.

Photo by Adrià Crehuet Cano on Unsplash

Who’s Allowed to Be Honest?

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE | 1 Comment on Who’s Allowed to Be Honest?
fallen tree in a pasture

One of the observations that has fascinated me the most over my years of consulting is this question: Who’s allowed to be honest?

What do I mean by that?

Well, let’s flip it around.

Have you ever hired a consultant for your association?

The answer is probably “Yes.”

So then you’re likely familiar with the phenomenon of: In her report, the consultant includes something that you or someone else on your staff has been pushing for months, maybe years, and it’s been like the proverbial tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear. But all of a sudden, when the consultant recommends it, there are all these people standing around saying, “Hey! Did you just hear that tree fall down?”

And there are reasons that The Powers That Be in your organization are more willing to listen to the consultant. She has experience with multiple association clients. She’s done research. She’s “objective” (well, none of us is truly objective, but she at least has no vested interest in a particular outcome).

But it’s still frustrating, right?

I know, because I’ve experienced it myself as staff and even written about it previously.

As I wrote in that post:

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?

What I meant by that was: When staff does tell leadership, particularly volunteer leadership, the truth, when they give their most accurate assessment of a situation and their best recommendation for a course of action, what happens?

Who’s allowed to tell the truth? And, perhaps more importantly, who does your leadership (paid and volunteer) actually listen to? And if staff are repeatedly ignored or even punished for sharing those assessments, particularly when it’s bad news, and providing those recommendations, what happens?

Remember: Whatever behavior you reward is what you’re going to get more of.

Alternatively: Show me what you reward, and I’ll tell you what you value. 

I’m not trying to put myself out of a job here, but your staff members at ALL levels know things leadership doesn’t, see things senior leadership isn’t privy to, and have good ideas. But if you’re constantly shutting them down, don’t be surprised if they disengage or decide to take their talents elsewhere.

Photo by Andrew Yu on Unsplash

Don’t Stop Thinkin’ About Tomorrow

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
hand holding a crystal ball up to a sunrise, showing a reverse image within

Fourteen years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a futurist session held in honor of the 50th anniversary of the CAE program.

After a dense presentation by facilitator Marsha Rhea, we broke into 10-year, 30-year, and 50-year discussion groups. I found myself in the 30-year group (2040) and discovered that my fellow discussants could not seem to wrap their minds around things like sea level rise and the encroaching crisis in fresh, potable water. In other words, climate change.

At the time, I was thinking a lot about generations, and posed, as a final thought:

We will need someone to lead us, and nonprofit organizations could fill that leadership vacuum.  Assuming we survive the larger global forces at work.

I still believe that associations have significant role to play in addressing climate change, as evidenced by my latest collaborative whitepaper The Time Is Now: Association Adaptation and Resilience and the Anthropocene Climate Disruption.

We *could* have led on this 14 years ago. We *must* start leading on this now, today. There are SO many ways associations can play a significant role in addressing climate change:

  • On operations of our organizations as businesses: making choices about office space, commuting, work from home, LEED certification (not just of new builds, but also retrofits), and investment of reserves that reduce or eliminate carbon emissions.
  • On our member-facing work: reducing the carbon footprint of our in-person gatherings, building resilience through greater localization (aka, build up your components, whether those be formal or informal groups), and communicating information about the effects of the climate crisis appropriately with members and other audiences.
  • On our outward-focused work: making different  lobbying choices and leading on concepts like thinking vertically and the circular economy for the professions and industries we serve.

If this all sounds like a good idea to you – and I hope it does – come join us at the Association Climate Action Coalition and our free Community of Practice around climate education and solutions (thanks, Breezio!).

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

Focus in a Distracted Era

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
Two people sitting next to each other on a bench in a lovely nature setting, both looking at their phones

I recently had the opportunity to attend my first Prometheus Retreat (more on that in a minute), and it got me thinking about the concepts of connection, distraction, unplugging, and focus, issues I’ve written about here before.

Twenty association executives (CEOs and EDs, AMC leaders, and consultants) gathered at a lovely resort in Pennsylvania to ponder some Big Issues together: AI, DEI, nurturing the next generation of association leaders, the role of voluntary membership associations in an increasingly polarized society, and, of course, boards boards boards.

At our closing circle, one of the other newbies mentioned that an experienced Promethian had, upon seeing her take out her phone to respond to email early in the retreat, advised her to put it away. My fellow newbie expressed her deep gratitude for that advice, which she chose to follow and which she felt dramatically improved her experience.

As I wrote back in 2009:

The thing about being “on” all the time is that it can seriously interfere both with our actual face-to-face relationships (and our ability to form and nurture them) and with our ability to really *think* about stuff. We’re not multitasking mavens – we’re just distracted…all the time.

“Connection” is ubiquitous today. We all always have a tiny super computer in our pockets that lures us with games and amusing (or infuriating) videos and the infinite scroll of social media platforms and “I’ll just take 30 seconds to answer this email right now and get it off my plate.”

But that doesn’t come without a cost. We’ve all seen – or been – the distracted spouse, parent, friend scrolling our phones rather than paying attention to the person in front of us. We’ve all experienced the Pavlovian response to the new email notification that “is just going to take 30 seconds” and yet interrupts our focus on whatever it was we were doing before it arrived for FAR LONGER than 30 seconds – that “switch tasking” (a more accurate descriptor than “multi-tasking”) can consume as much as 40% of your productive time.

How do we ensure that all this wonderful tech serves us rather than the other way around?

Some of the practices I follow include:

  • Turning off nearly all notifications on both my computer and my smart phone
  • Using time blocking for tasks that I know will require significant uninterrupted focus
  • Confining work, to the greatest degree possible, to my actual physical home office (I am fortunate to have a dedicated room)
  • Not keeping my phone on me at all times (a privilege of not having school-aged children)
  • Resisting the siren song of false urgency (just because someone wants something right this second does not necessarily mean that they need it right this second, aka “A lack of preparation on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.”
  • Identifying a few trips each year where I am NOT working (and letting clients, partners, and my various volunteer gigs know that WELL in advance)

What practices have you found to be helpful in preserving your ability to focus in a distracted era?

Photo by Gigi on Unsplash

Becoming a Leader

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
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

2: Strategic Planning v. Strategic Thinking

Posted on | by Elizabeth Weaver Engel, CAE
silhouette of a person wearing a hiking backpack hiking in the mountains at sunrise

We’re almost at the end of the revisiting of the top ten all-time Spark blog posts in honor of Spark’s tenth anniversary!

Coming in at the #2 spot: Strategic Planning v. Strategic Thinking.

In the original post, I highlighted Henry Mintzberg’s well-known Harvard Business Review piece “The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning,” in which he encourages us to focus on creating dynamic, flexible visions of the future that accommodate disruption and allow us to rapidly respond to emergent trends.

In other words, do 100% the opposite of what we usually do in strategic planning.

Now, I mostly do *membership* strategy for clients. But every once in a while, I have an organizational strategy project. When I do organizational strategy, I use Appreciative Inquiry methods to try to help my clients switch from a strategic planning (static, rigid, episodic, fixed) perspective to a strategic thinking approach. And it is generally a HARD mental and organizational transition for them to make, because we’re all so accustomed to the “traditional” way.

But as so many of us saw during the pandemic, the traditional way of planning fails us, and it fails us SPECTACULARLY when a crisis hits.

One of the things we learned is that we CAN rapidly gather information from our members and other stakeholders and use that to create minimum viable product style tests, then take what we learn from those tests and use it to create the next iteration of that MVP, or to change directions entirely. And the world doesn’t end if the original thing isn’t perfect, or if we do have a make a small – or big – change in the next round.

Now this mostly happened in the context of events and professional development, where all of a sudden, our traditional way of going about the business of associations was unavailable to us. But we can apply those lessons we learned, about focusing on the journey, about becoming deeply curious about our members’ and other audiences’ daily challenges, about being inventive and responsive in providing solutions those challenges, both outside event planning and outside a global pandemic.

If we’re willing to change “the way we’ve always done it.”

Are we?

Photo by Mukuko Studio on Unsplash