Associations and Components: Roles, Resources and Cautionary Tales

A succeed or fail factor for parent/component relationships is the way parent associations and components view their roles and resources.

For many, it’s all about 'family' funds.  The component view of the parent association is often one of parent-with-deep pockets.  As 'part of the family', components believe that the parent has an obligation to support them financially.  Conversely, from the parent association’s perspective it has its own resource challenges and sees its role as providing guidance and some level of information/tools assistance which enables the component to be self-supporting. 

Roles are another area of diverging parent-component perspective.  Parent associations often view their components as little more than a delivery pipeline for parent-produced services and programs.  Where that's the case, components usually appreciate having the goods to sell, but believe they get the short end of the stick in terms of financial gain.  Components often see the parent’s programs, for which they receive only some revenue, as competition with the component’s own where they can keep all the profits.  And in associations where the component is a delivery pipeline for parent-produced programs and services, components expect preferential pricing, exclusivity and first-choice calendar options over other delivery providers.  Acceding to those expectations limits parent association options.  Revenue sharing, program and service competition, roles and responsibilities for sales and support are often bones of contention.

There are increasing efforts to separate parent-produced and component-produced programs and services.  The idea is to ensure that they are complimentary rather than competitive, and that risk and gain are shared in fair proportion for collaborative program delivery.  And for parent-produced services delivered by components, associations are redefining roles, risk and revenue sharing schemes.   The end-game is a redefinition of the partnership for shared member value and delivery, with redefined ownership of the program/service mix, revised pricing schemes and adjusted delivery modes.  And all that needs to happen not to protect the parent, not to protect the component, but to bring value to the members sans bureaucracy, duplication and competition.

It requires sound critical analysis to honestly identify what actually ensures shared member value, to weed out what is counterproductively burdensome, to give up what is duplicative or competitive and to ensure equitably shared risk and gain.  That’s a tall order and a daunting task.  Volunteer leaders and their support staffs have biases – usually unintended but very real.  It takes a lot of honest and candid communication among parent and component players to figure out how much is too much administration/regulation/control and how each can independently but collaboratively guarantee value.

I’ll offer a couple of cautionary alerts, based on observations of associations which have undertaken parent-component relationship, role or programming adjustments.

·   It shouldn't be about organizational unit success, though hard working volunteer leaders and staff instinctively engage that way.  The general membership doesn't care whose program it is.  They don't want, nor should they have to foot the bill for bureaucratic compliance, duplicative programming or intramural competition.

·  All parties involved in the exploration of change options will tend to focus on structure and process because it is, frankly, easier.  Though it takes more work, all players must make sure that every conversation and every communication in the exploration revolves around a mutually agreed to description of desired or expected member value impacts/outcomes.  That must be the start-point, milestone-check and end-test for any discussion or decision on structure, process or programming.

·  The parties involved will tend to think of what’s needed/beneficial for now.  The long view is the only view that will ensure that changes create a parent-component relationship and interface that future generations will value and support.

·  The hardest hurdle is the realization that not all components are equally resourced; their needs and their expectations are divergent.  Solutions must be flexible enough to accommodate those differences if all are to succeed.

·  When a horse is dead, a smart rider gets off and finds another mode of transport.  There will likely be components which can never demonstrate member value, in spite of all their hard work, good intentions and local leader passion.  Although emotions will run high, if a component is dead implement the DNR order.  Merge the survivors into another component or substitute some other entity or mechanism that can deliver value and channel its leaders’ energy in that new direction.

The Value Equation for Association Chapters and Components

Last week's post looked at governance and oversight in the parent-component interface.  Yet another, even more immediate needs perspective is member value perception.

Note: Not all associations use the same terminology so to clarify; I've used the term component universally to encompass local, state and regional, chapter, constituent and component units.

Beware, or at least wary, of requirements.  Parent associations often set programmatic requirements for components.  These stem from a conviction that components should provide at least a minimum, pre-defined level of member value; and few would argue with that.  The method for achieving that, however, has often been parent-prescribed, minimum program service requirements for components, along with oversight reporting systems to ensure and prove that they do meet minimums.  While the intent is good, there are things to watch for and pitfalls to avoid.

One-size does not fit all.  There are often significant differences among components in terms of member needs/expectations and there are nearly always differences in resource capabilities.

 

Component or chapter membership compositions frequently exhibit different demographic characteristics and their member value proposition is nuanced to those.  Although I still maintain it has little relevance to association governance, for program and service delivery geography can matter a great deal.  The traditional 'meetings' format for value delivery may work well in densely populated membership areas.  It doesn't carry the same impact and isn't even practical in sparsely populated components where meeting value is trumped by long commutes to and from.

 

Model programming that works well for some components is doomed to failure for others because member wants and needs aren't homogeneous in a world now geared to individualized, on-demand consumption.  And what’s affordable for some components to produce and deliver is impossible for more resource-challenged components.  No prescribed programming format will be equally workable, or equitably resourced for all components.  It takes local creativity and dedication, along with tools and in some cases resource assistance from the parent, to create and deliver local program value.

Parent Producer's Bias.  Parent associations are often well resourced with programming experts who can easily succumb to the belief that "Your members will love our stuff" and "This works great for us, so it will for you too".  Staff assigned to assist components in program development need to listen carefully and arm themselves with locale-specific information about needs, preferences and component capacities to pull off what the parent has on offer.

Unfunded or Unmanned Mandates.  When devising mandated program and service minimums, parent leaders used to a higher level of resources can fail to consider low dollar and workforce availability at the chapter or component level.  Those conditions can render what works at the parent level to an ineffective waste of time, money and effort when applied regionally or locally.

Skewed Focus on Policing.  Implementation oversight often takes on a life of its own.  Administering compliance directives can easily overshadow the value goal itself.  The parent association, component leaders and their respective staffs become so involved with administering the rules to protect value that they fail to actually produce value.

Some parent associations are ditching component programming mandates completely.  Components are free to undertake the level and type of programming that best suits their members’ unique needs within the component’s resource capabilities.  The surviving requirement is that component provided programs and services remain within the association’s permissible purposes, its mission and goals.  On the downside there is the danger that, when cut loose to program at will, weaker components may fail in value delivery.  Repercussions can range from membership dissatisfaction, to membership losses and possibly even the demise of the component.  Then there's the propinquity effect; poor value-delivery by the component can be perceptually equated to poor value across the board, causing dissatisfaction with and membership losses for the parent as well. 

The trick is finding the right balance of assistance/reliance, with a long term view that continuously adjusts for evolving member expectations.  Associations pursue a variety of strategies here.

 

Shoring Up.  Some parent associations offer extra help to struggling components to keep them alive.  Unless there is significant improvement in a short period of time, there's danger of succumbing to finger in the dyke syndrome.  It's often too little too late, or worse still, wastes resources working harder at what doesn't work.  It could be a smarter move to pull the plug sooner than later - something volunteer leaders are absolutely loath to do. Thinking with their hearts, they'd rather set the value expectations bar low enough to ensure survival of a struggling component.  But how long can an association afford continued component failures without ultimately failing the membership who pays for them?

 

Supporting Success.  Some associations go the opposite route, reserving parent resource support for the most successful value delivering components and those which show greatest potential for it.  Components that can't make the grade are sunset and members allowed to choose other component affiliations.  In this scenario, if a growing number of failed components continues to strand members too far from component services, the entire component approach probably needs a strategic overhaul (perhaps even along the lines noted in last week's post).

And When Components Outshine the Parent… It frequently happens that members see their local component as providing more value than the parent, resulting in a desire to opt out of membership in the less valued parent.  This is especially prevalent in organizations where the component provides the most programs and services while the parent focuses primarily or even exclusively on advocacy and governmental affairs.  Many members are non-participants and personally disconnected from national advocacy initiatives, which diminishes perceived value in that segment of the association value chain.  Altruism is a hard sell at dues time.  If it's what the parent hangs its value hat on, pushing compelling value-to-you outcomes images to members throughout the year is essential, keeping the value perception level high and ongoing.  I've less enthusiasm for approaches that some volunteer leaders advocate such as playing on the members' sense of fair play…the duty to help pay for initiatives that benefit all members, or the profession or industry in general.  I just don't see guilt as a very successful motivator when it comes to membership renewal.

 
Value defined by data.  Satisfaction assessment and outcomes testing are far better expectation predictors and delivery satisfaction measures than evidenced compliance with programming mandates or hit and miss attempts to shore up eroding elements along the value chain.  There's big danger in parent associations and components failing to conduct routine gap analysis to assess value delivery at each and all organizational levels.  More than what is working, associations need to know what isn't and where there are gaps or broken links in their value chain.  Smart money is on better research.  An even bigger danger is focusing solely on input from members and member program participants.  Research data on value judgments of non-members and non-participants is a gap analysis must have. And a third pitfall is failure to recognize that national data findings aren't always totally valid at regional and local levels.  Components need locale-specific research to guide value delivery and outcomes assessment. 

Will the value equation be the death knell for bi and tri partite memberships?  That's a huge strategic question for associations with mandatory joint memberships.  Uneven value across multiple organizational units could be deadly to unified membership models.  There is tangible evidence that changing expectations and attitudes already threaten their demise.  Some associations are seeing members opt out entirely rather than pay dues for any segment of the whole that doesn’t meet their value expectations.  Other associations are seeing local groups abandon ship entirely in favor of affiliating/associating outside the association family, sometimes in new organizations of their own creation, sometimes defecting to competitor organizations.  It's happening because their value expectations aren't being met.

Bottom Line: If joint membership requirement models are to survive - in a world where members' loyalties to association altruistic endeavors are harder to engender and value expectations more difficult to meet - every segment of the partite will have to produce 'enough' of the 'right kind' of value to sustain itself - independently and as part of the whole.

Reinventing the Association Parent-Component World

Association trends assessment for the past decade lead me to believe that regions, districts and chapter components are, or at least should be, the next wave of significant organizational change for associations.  Most national and regional/local component relationships and structures were set up in the 19th and 20th centuries, based on the realities of those times.  I'm seeing increasing support for rethinking the whole approach to regional and local membership units, based on 21st century realities and attitudes about value propositions, economics, new service delivery modes, communication modes, human interaction style preferences and the way organizations partner and collaborate in today’s world.  In the next several posts, I'll explore some of the challenges and changes associations are exploring for parent-component relationships: governance, administrative management, member value delivery, roles/resources conflicts and cautionary tales.  First up is the governance impact.

• I’m seeing shifts in governance modes as some associations discover that geographic units aren’t the only - and sometimes aren’t the best - approach to governance and member representation.  Where that has occurred, parent associations are changing the way they compose governing bodies, which changes the parent-component governance relationship.  Governance relationship changes bear watching; I think we’ll see more of them in the future.

• I see a trend toward redefining “representation” which shifts the focus from geographic-component based, to membership-perspectives based representation.  Examples include representation based on business or practice type, size, specialty, economic condition, and individual diversity factors such as age, gender, ethnicity and experience which mirror the complete membership and/or the public it serves. 

• As representation is redefined, composition of association boards, councils and committees will likely change as well.  Regional and local components may remain the primary source of new leaders.  But the criteria for selecting leaders from them will tend to mirror new representation models which ignor participant zip codes and favor elective nominees and appointees representing a breadth of perspectives, experiences and specialized knowledge applicable to the governing unit's work.

• Redefined representation could eventually lead to an evolution away from geographic 'locals' and 'regionals' in favor of frameworks built around shared interest groups, practice types and industry segments.  The treasured 'proportional representation' could still be maintained, just with a differently based formula that counts numbers in the redefined frameworks instead of geography.  Geography would still likely be applicable for association units where success depends on maintaining association representatives' relationships with local and regional governmental/regulatory agencies. 

• Communications capabilities are enabling the shift away from reliance on component representatives at the table and more on direct, one-to-one member contact and more far-reaching and statistically valid profession/industry/member data gathering techniques.  That allows redirecting component volunteer time and effort toward more tangible member value producing initiatives.

• Associations experiencing thinning leadership pools will increasingly look to components for local-leader recruiting.  And parent expectations for leadership development and grooming at the local level will likely increase.  Components may well be expected to partner with the parent organization in providing leadership experiences and skills-development opportunities.

• As associations experience parent-component service gaps and overlaps, we’ll likely see more formalized, contractual arrangements between parent and component units for benefits and services delivery.

While there is some movement in adjusting the parent-component governance interface, the most pervasive trend is toward change in the administrative and programmatic aspects of the parent-component relationship.

 

The first level of change has to do with different perspectives on administration and control.  Component leaders complain about unnecessary, unfair or too costly administrative burdens.  They see administrative controls and reporting requirements as onerous, bureaucratic paperwork.  Conversely, parent association staffers say that “if component leaders did what they were supposed to do, we wouldn’t need so many rules and reports”.  Both sides make valid points to be addressed with equal vigor.

 

Differences over control levels are often driven by the degree of autonomy.  When components are not independent, separately incorporated organizations, the parent association has significant legal and financial risk exposure and accountability.  That's significant in areas such as permissible purposes for component activities, appropriate use of funds, taxable income and tax reporting requirements.  The component sees administrative controls and reporting requirements as burdensom; the parent association sees them as due diligence against liability.  While the parent's liabilities are reduced when components are separately incorporated, they still exist to some extent, though the focus tends to be on shared liabilities for member and public perceptions of organizational image and reputation.

 

The most favored change is to seriously hack away at administrative and reporting requirements.  The idea is to cut controls and reports to the bone, retaining only the minimum required to adequately address liability issues and to simultaneously refine and simplify reporting, reducing frequency and complexity.  The goal is to reduce administrative work and compliance oversight for both parent and component, freeing time and attention for member-value producing endeavors.  Successful implementation is a resource freeing win-win for parent and component, and an even bigger win for their shared membership.

Next week I'll post some thoughts about the member value aspects of parent-component relationships.  Any ideas or issues you'd like me to include?

Visioning is how you concieve, then create a better future for your members

A compelling vision for the future can be a major focus for membership recruitment and retention efforts.  It can help forge relationships with external organizations with similar visions or compatible vision components. Properly positioned, the vision can become the linchpin of a public relations program to engage public debate in favor of association policies, facilitate public understanding of the industry or profession and promote public awareness and support of association programs.

Visioning has been a popular but not always fruitful exercise for associations.  I've seen a wide range of vision statement styles, from a single sentence that resembles a mission statement, to multiple pages of text that read like a detailed policy statement.  Although the vision should be the driving force for strategic plan content, integrating the vision into the strategic planning process hasn't always been a smashing success.  Vision statements are too frequently passive text instead of the driving forces they can and should be.

Why settle for predicting a likely future, when you could create a desirable one?  A vision should be a picture of the future we intend to build, not the one we think we're stuck with.  While strategic planning deals with the realities of the near term future, visioning should seek to project a new set of realities for the long term.  Rather than the passive exercise of predicting a likely future within which the industry or profession will exist, visioning becomes the first step in a process that creates a future; one that the organization works toward achieving in the years to come.  The idea is to create a vision that is a stretch to achieve, but that over time materially improves the condition of the industry or profession through association action.

A carefully planned visioning process ensures an outcome that moves the association toward a future of its own creation.  A visioning session should result in creating a portrait of the industry or profession that is new and different, better and compelling.  The vision is tempered by realities of the uncontrollable forces that will influence the industry or profession and the association it serves.  It’s most important purpose, though, is to guide association activities toward influencing, directing and countering forces that can be controlled.

Successful visioning can be conducted with small or with large groups, as a single meeting or as a series of meetings with refinement steps between them.  Larger groups bring a more widely varied source of ideas and viewpoints and create a more broadly based support group for the vision.  Longer length, single meetings get the job done more expeditiously while shorter, multiple meetings allow for refinement and research between visioning steps.  Scheduling problems for larger groups and more geographically distant participants tend to favor the longer-length, one-time meeting.  Each association needs to identify the best approach given its chosen scope of participants and their tolerance for meeting frequency and length.

Open those doors and bring on the boat rockers!  In selecting participants for traditional planning groups, there is a tendency to avoid perceived extremes; people who are too "far out” in their thinking and those who are considered too negative or myopic.  In a visioning group, it is important to include a balance of both types.  The dreamers create wonderful new ideas for the future.  The more careful and problem-sensitive folks help keep ideas within the realm of possibility.  A broader base of member participants beyond the current leadership generates ideas from a wider cross-section of members and may enhance member-at-large buy in for the resulting vision.  It can also be useful to include key staff members as active participants in the visioning group.  They bring to the process a depth of knowledge and can be a valuable resource.  Outsiders can also bring new and fresh perspectives to the process.  Options include non-members from related organizations, people of some standing in related industries or professions and community leaders who can influence the environment in which the industry or profession operates.  

Old and familiar surroundings tend to foster old and familiar thinking.  Visioning sessions should take place at a facility that removes participants from the typical settings used for the association’s meetings.  The idea is to free people to think in completely new and different terms by placing them in a new and different environment.  Ideally the schedule allows plenty of time for creative thought, full discussion and eventual consensus building.  A two-day retreat is probably the optimum approach.

Don't make 'em start in a vacuum.  Some preliminary research is advised before the first visioning session.  It helps to predetermine a point in time for achieving the vision; one that is at least ten years into the future.  This sets the stage for more far reaching thought processes.  It also provides a more realistic time span to plan and realign resources toward programs which vision achievement.

It's also a good idea to accumulate a list of recent and anticipated developments that could impact the industry/profession, the members and the association.  The list can be a catalyst for discussion.  At the beginning of the visioning session, an hour or two should be devoted to discussing the anticipated developments and their potential impacts.  This helps to conceptualize how the industry or profession might look in the future.

Channeled creativity.  After the initial discussion, participants are asked to create their own ideas about the industry or profession. They are guided by instructions to create a verbal portrait that tells how the future might be made to look in ways that are new, different, better and compelling.  As ideas are offered, discussion must be carefully guided.  Using an outside facilitator can help to encourage and objectively guide creative discussion to consensus outcomes.  Through discussion, ideas are eventually massaged into short, preferably one sentence, descriptions that become the key components of the vision.  As they are drafted, key components should be displayed for the group as a constantly available reference to facilitate fine-tuning as the session progresses.  A very effective method is to have non-participant facilitators taking notes on one or more laptop computers for simultaneous video-projection.  This facilitates immediate updating/rewording, makes the content available in real time and eliminates the back-end transcription of flip chart and hand written notes.

Eventually participant creativity begins to wane.  When the ideas stop flowing, the group should move toward prioritizing the components.  The number of components for the vision can vary from half a dozen to twenty or more depending on the size of the group and their level of creativity.  This is a great opportunity to use electronic an voting system if you have one, especially if the group is large the the key component list is long.  An alternative might be to ask that each participant select and rank the five components they consider most critical to vision achievement.  Collect the results, give the group a break and tabulate overall results to report back to the group.  Ranking the components sets priorities within the vision, which should eventually drive priorities for organizational objectives and strategies.

Turning the vision components into action.  If you conduct visioning as a stand-alone exercise that will feed later strategic planning, this exercise can be a part of the initial visioning session or a follow up event at a later date.  Using ranking data the visioning group can begin with the highest ranked component of the vision and develop objectives for achieving it.  Objective in this context means a one-sentence description of a specific type of activity, a timeline for achieving it and a measure of how achievement will be recognized when it happens.  A variety or combination of techniques and exercises can facilitate this activity.

• One approach is to analyze what will interfere with a component becoming a reality within the vision’s stated time frame, then develop some objectives and strategies for working around the interference.
 
• Another technique is to brainstorm some of the factors that are currently facilitating or that are projected to positively impact achieving the component and develop objectives and strategies to exploit those factors.

• A third technique is to analyze the components, creating “to do” lists or things that will probably need to be done if the component is to be realized within the stated time frame for achieving the vision.  The "to do" list can then be used by the visioning group or by other association governance groups to create objectives and strategies.

If the visioning group does not include all members of the association's primary governing body, the resulting vision needs to be taken to that body for refinement and adoption.  That done, the vision driven objectives and strategies need to be folded into the association's strategic plan.  Existing strategic plan goals may need adjustment to incorporate the vision-generated objectives and strategies.  Vision-generated objectives and strategies may compliment or may replace those previously contained in the strategic plan.  It is important that the strategic planning body review older plan elements to cull and phase out those that conflict with or are superseded by vision oriented ones.

Getting the most mileage out of the vision.  The final element of the visioning process is the leadership's job to communicate the vision for the future and use that vision to steer planning and programming.  The vision should be widely communicated, both internally and externally.  Boards, committees, councils, task forces and staff use the vision to guide program development and implementation.

A well crafted vision takes time and effort, but produces an enormous return on that investment.

Why is association content still departmentally fragmented?

I think the problem is systemic in the nature of our restrictive organizational structures. Outmoded strictures like departments inhibit free movement of people and ideas and create duplicative and conflicting strategies and operating processes.  Cross-departmental collaboration on content seems to be the current curative trend, with hopes that it will eliminate or at least refashion functional silos.  Success rates would indicate that it's a band aid more than a cure.  I'd like to see associations go way beyond that concept with a wholly different approach.  We could maximize our human resources deployment if we dumped familiar department structures.  No departmental loyalties, controls, structures and processes; just talent, moving at need, from one outcomes-defined effort to another.  As I suggested in an earlier post, it might also break down barriers to free-ranging talent if we changed peoples' titles from descriptors of where they belong to descriptors of what they know.  Probably never happen in my lifetime, but oh what a change it could make in how we view and use our human resources.

Given the typical association aversion to sea change, a more likely accepted approach would be to have a consultant or a special project team do an organizational assessment. The goal would be to identify specific strategic, content and operational disconnects, duplications, overlaps and conflicting processes, and define changes to eliminate them.  Consultant assessments have more credibility since they are objective, without internal biases.  Internal assessment teams need to be highly cross-departmental and have total support from management, especially the CEO.

Regardless of who identifies change options, there will be big barriers to adopting them. Departments have their own metrics and little incentive to coordinate outside 'their stuff'. Ownership issues over content and processes are tied to perceived power and compensation rewards.  And as everyone knows, until you change the compensation system to reward new behaviors over old ones, old behaviors will continue to win out.  Managers have to learn entirely new methods of deploying people and managing outcomes achievement; an idea they often embrace conceptually but struggle with in practice.  Most pervasively, people like the comfort that comes from familiarity; doing things their own way, the way they always have.  Change threatens that comfort level, and forgoing the safety net of departmental structure downright scares some. Then there's the required commitment to tolerating the missteps that are inevitable when people change the way they do things.  It takes CEO level commitment, over a period of years, to push for and achieve meaningful change, and many just don't want or have the time or energy to tackle it.

If you believe you can work through the barriers, job one would be convincing everyone that it'll be worth it.  You can make a case for how bad things are and how much we'd gain by fixing it (emphasis on the gain bits).  Hard to get traction with that unless a lot of folks agree it's true.  Alternatively, depending on the nature of the outcome you hope for, demonstrate how the change would result in innovation, excitement and bigger programmatic successes, making it all worth it.  It's a harder case to make, but also harder for C-Suite staff to resist.  For help in making your case, look to stories about companies where the free-ranging, less restricted talent approach has resulted in tremendous organizational success, huge sales revenues and the highest levels of customer satisfaction.  Pixar and Apple come immediately to mind.

Away on leave

You may have noted a gap in postings here.  I've been away on medical leave.  Will be posting again soon.  Regards to my followers...there'll be more coming soon.
Linda

So many opinions, so little consensus. What's in your strategic plan?

I see dozens of online discussions focused on strategic planning.  Many are 'how to' discussions, though few develop any consensus.  Which comes first, vision or mission?  What's the difference? Is a goal an action or a result?  Every consultant and every CEO appears to have their own way of defining the planning process and plan components.  So I'm going on record with my own take on what makes up a strategic plan; each component a logical progression of the one that precedes it.

A VISION STATEMENT is a word-portrait that describes a new, better, more compelling world the organization hopes to create for the industry, profession or public it represents.  For example, a child advocacy organization’s vision might be “…a world in which all children are safe, healthy, and have access to quality education.”

A MISSION STATEMENT is a description of the organization’s purpose; it states the reason(s) why the organization exists; describing its role in realizing the vision.   Mission statements may also include a list of the groups the organization exists to serve (its own members, others in the industry or profession, clients/customers, various publics, etc.).  The mission to fit the above vision for example might be "We are child advocates working with education entities and government agencies worldwide to ensure that quality education is accessible to all children."  This delimits the organization's role to the educational component of the bigger vision.

A GOAL describes a circumstance or condition to be achieved.  NOT a to-do or action list but a statement of the final outcome to be achieved.  It describes what we get for the doing. All goals should be measurable. If properly worded, a goal will be stated as an outcome, requiring no further metrics at this level.  Goals should be assigned general time frames for achievement and should include relative priority rankings, each goal relative to the others.

A STRATEGY is the method or approaches we will use to achieve one or more goals.  These are the 'how' descriptors such as create...partner with...enhance...reinforce.  All strategies should have measureable outcome descriptions, specific timeframes for implementation and resource allocation priority rankings.  Strategy rankings should be in line with goal priority rankings.  The higher the ranking of the goal, the higher the strategy ranking.

And that's the strategic plan which directs the content of the operating plan for programs, projects and initiatives.

A PROGRAM/PROJECT/INITIATIVE with its accompanying budget is the tactical implementation of one or more strategic plan strategies. This is the to-do list, budget and workforce allocation level; essentially the components of the operating plan.  Program and project priority rankings should be aligned with strategy rankings.  The higher the goal/strategy ranking, the higher the program/project priority.

Failure to have the strategic plan directly feed and drive the operating plan reduces the strategic plan to a useless pile of paper.

Which do you do most often - direct for the now or coach for the long term?

I've been working with some execs on solutions to our shared, chronic time deficit. Discussions recently focused on the extensive time required for helping the staff with problems. We all agreed that was an important part of the job, but as we dug deeper into the whys of the time commitment, it seemed to several of us that there are more and more people entering the workforce who just haven't been taught problem resolution and decision making skills. And beyond lack of skills, fear of 'getting it wrong' fosters knock on your door, plea for help behaviors. Which got us talking about directing and coaching and which is better from a time use standpoint.

When you are busy, the temptation is to direct rather than coach because it is easier and faster. But directing or telling people what to do or how to do it is a deadly trap because you keep them forever dependent on your direction. They chronically can't do their jobs without you and you can't do yours because you're too busy helping them do theirs.

I personally prefer at work coaching over outside training.  Classroom experiences are certainly useful but they don't come close to the depth of learning you can offer with from real time on-the-job coaching. The best bosses I ever had sent me back to problem solve and make decisions on my own, but only after a substantive face-to-face coaching session with them. From those experiences I learned Socratic style coaching; asking questions that teach - less how to deal with a particular problem or decision - more generically how to solve problems and make good decisions. What's the source/root cause of the problem or challenge? What are the desired/likely outcomes? What are the key factors to consider? Who should/did you talk to - players and stakeholders, experts, possible allies and resources? What sources will/did you use for research? How will/did you array the findings? With whom did you share the findings and seek reactive input? It's often a struggle at first, especially the long silences between your questions and their answers. It's especially hard to resist giving them the answers, or really strong hints to end the struggle. But questions they must answer themselves, with your own reaction/next question, teach better than listening to you describe how you would do it. All of which helps them actively internalize problem solving and sound decision making.

Another technique is to have them watch you or another skilled individual in action dealing with a problem or decision making effort in a group setting, followed by a private debriefing session that engages them in articulating - not what they observed - but the problem solving or decision making concepts and lessons learned.

From a few sessions of real time coaching your employees ultimately gain the self-confidence and skill sets that eliminate the need for your help. If after multiple coaching sessions they are still dependent or chronically make poor choices or decisions, it's time to reconsider their position on the staff. Rewarding chronic non/poor performers with continued employment not only makes your own job harder, it sends a terrible message to the rest of the staff.

All of which takes us back to the exec's time deficit. Coaching like that takes a whole lot more time than just giving them the answers and letting them get on with execution. But which produces the best overall outcome? Taking the time to coach for skills building? Or taking your time to direct - time, after time, after time.

Too Much To Do?

I've got four levels of dealing with too much to do.

Level 1: I'm relentless about seeking out and destroying wasted time.  I regularly go through everything I do and figure out what I can stop doing.  That report nobody reads? Stop preparing it. If they really miss it they'll say so.  That meeting I sense will be a waste of my time...don't attend. If they need me they can call. That task...does it really have to be me that does it? If so, how can I make someone else capable?  Who is interrupting me too often and how can I help them not need to do that anymore? Anything that gets in the way of my best work gets assessed for discontinuance or adjustment.  The trick is to make this a regularly scheduled management activity. Nothing I do escapes my monthly "MUST I really do this?" assessment.

Level 2: I'm equally relentless about prioritizing.  Any new assignments from the Board are accompanied by adjusted priorities to accommodate the change.  I make sure the staff also gets priority rankings from me.  What doesn't get done, by me or the staff, gets labled "Back-burnered due to other priorities".  Anyone, board or staff, can look at the back-burnered list and request a formal priorities adjustment.  No-one ever has.

Level 3: I work ahead - at least a week.  By the time I reach a board meeting week, I'm well past preparing for it and onto other things.  Reports and articles I have to write are finished at least one week before they are due.  Reports and work products I get from others are assigned a deadline of at least one week before I need them so I have fewer last minute cramming sessions, time to ask for do-overs and time to actually think about the contents before I must act on them.  I can comfortably accommodate surprises and unplanned events in my schedule because I'm already ahead of deadlines.

Level 4: I remain organized.  If I'm feeling overwhelmed, I stop and take time to reorganize.  And at day's end I do a close-out/clean-up and think about/prep for tomorrow exercise.  Takes about 30 minutes and saves me countless hours of juggling over the week.  That exercise is also invaluable for mentally closing the day and opening myself to the rest of my life.

e-pubs: What A Consumer Wants

I hold several association memberships and I read their e-pubs.  But I want so much more than a reading experience.  What's the hold up causing the slow rate of e-pub innovation?  I'm told that boomers who often make up the membership majority reject e-pubs, so there's no perceived rush, at least until boomers have retired out.  As a boomer and association e-pub consumer I reject that argument completely.  There's also a whole cadre of print publishers and print purveyors out there who swear that print will always be the preference.  I used to hear people say things like that about fax during the transition to email.  So if history is any indicator, I'm betting they'll be proven dead wrong.

One way or another I think e-pubs will eventually be the preferred medium, with no age boundaries.  It's just a matter of time.  The technological capability is becoming ubiquitous and publishers are, albeit very slowly, figuring out how to make really useful interactive publications.  Some association publishers, though, still focus on navigation as interactivity.  I'm looking toward the day when the interactivity standard is less on navigation through static content, more genuine interaction by the user WITH the content.  And I've got a wish list.

Truly interactive e-pubs would layer information for me within the publication, without making me jump out to other sites for the interactive goodies.  There'd be print for in-depth storytelling, imbedded video and audio, slide shows, animations and multi-dimensional diagrams for top-line summaries, embellishments and value-added extras.  Instead of the usual printed author attribution, I want to click and activate a video of the author telling me about him or herself, or see an interview between author and publisher discussing the story's background or intent.  I want to engage with quick-tips and sidebars as imbedded, author recorded video, interactive diagrams and animations instead of static print.  I'd love puzzles and instant quizzes to test my knowledge before and after I've consumed the content.  How about instant opinion polls to compare my reaction to the author's postulate with those of others.  And as I engage with the content I'd like the capability for spontaneous posts to multiple social media sites.  When I hover over a photo, make it zoom out and enlarge 3D-like from the page.  Even better, make that zoom and activate video (like the newspapers in the Harry Potter movies).  When it comes to advertising there's also a world of consumer engagement opportunity.  Static ad print and photos, however beautiful or clever, don't draw my attention much anymore.  Interactivity with the ad content could actively engage me with the product/service/pitch.  Let me see demos, descriptive slide shows, zoom and rotate capable animation.  Let me click to activate a video or participate in a progressive information/sales path, a contest, an online chat with a representative.  And I want to do most of these things without having to exit the publication for content that's fragmented among multiple blogs and websites.

Publishers, please don't think of me as a 'reader'.  I do love to read, but I want more.  The current incarnation of e-pubs is just the first baby step in the journey from a mirror image of the print publication designed for readers, toward a truly interactive, multi-layered consumer engagement medium.  As a boomer/consumer I'm more than ready.