I’ve been very lucky in that my Board sees the value in this program and commits the funds for three of us to attend this, or a similar program, each year.  What I value most is the time outside of the Boardroom or at an Association of Water Technologies (AWT) meeting, where I can bring up sometimes difficult conversations, be it a leadership issue or industry challenge.  Each year is different because at least one of the players change.  But it is exciting to watch a President-Elect the first year and then see the changes that happen the next year when that person is now President.  They tend to be more confident and more strategic-minded.

This is just one way to develop leaders.  Some other things my Board and I are doing are conducting an expanded and enhanced leadership program for all Committee Chairs, Subcommittee Chairs and Related Trade Organization Liaisons.  It’s a meeting of over 30 people where we get to talk about our priorities for the year ahead.  It also gives us time to do some training and development with these key people within AWT.

Something else we enhanced this past year was our New Board Member orientation.  And before we rolled out the new program to the actual new Board Members, we did the entire session with the Board, so they received a great refresher on their duties and responsibilities.

It’s important to remember that for many volunteer leaders this is a new role for them.  They may not be familiar with association practices and may not have the leadership skills required of their position.   As association professionals, it’s our job to give them as much help as we can in making them a success.

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The panel included four women who have all served on both for-profit and not-for-profit boards.  Their experience included serving on boards of publicly held companies, privately held companies and not-for-profit boards.  As they reviewed their own personal stories and the lessons learned, I was struck by the overlap between for-profit board service and not-for-profit board service.

My experience in working with, and serving on, not-for-profit boards dovetailed with all of the points the panel covered.

The discussion included the role of being a director; the differences between non-profit, private and public board service; the board selection process; being an effective board member; and positioning yourself for board service. An important point was matching your skill set and credentials to board service.

All four women talked about the time commitment involved in board service. And, all four also talked about the risks and rewards associated with board service.  One panelist also provided insight into exit strategies.

After the program, there was a brief meet and greet. It provided an informative overview of the many talented women who made up the audience and were interested in board service.  It left me wishing for more time and looking forward to next year’s program.

Strategic opportunities and crises are both blissfully unaware of our calendars and how busy our elected leaders are.

You need to change your mission at the precise time you need to change your mission.

The question isn’t how often you talk about it. The questions is how would you even know that your mission is no longer cutting it?

There are parts of a strategy process that can be scheduled, but understanding the core value you deliver to members, customers, or clients has to be continuous, because it is constantly evolving. And it’s not just understanding the value you delivered yesterday, it’s also figuring out what the value will be tomorrow. The fact that this work must happen all the time is precisely why you can NOT limit it only to the elected leaders or the top of the org chart. Big decisions can be centralized, but deepening our understanding of strategic value must happen everywhere, or we’ll end up missing opportunities.

We should change our organizational habits in ways that more information to flow to all parts of our system about what is valuable, what is working, and why. We can still make strategic choices and implement programs based on a plan, but questions of strategic value need to be addressed as we choose, do, and, learn, rather than at the beginning or end of an x-year cycle.

But when I get neck deep in the work, I forget it. I send the emails out, or we have the Board meeting, or I have the conversation, and then it’s out of my head. I have checked that box. I did my job communicating. I forget that in a week or two I need to send the same message out. I forget that my staff will perform better when I share more information than I think is necessary.

It is particularly important when an association has a decentralized committee structure. A lot happens at the Board level that is assumed to have been communicated down to the Committees. And it was, it just wasn’t communicated enough. We need to remind our leaders (both staff and volunteer) that when you get to the top positions, the decision-making responsibilities are often dwarfed by the communication responsibilities.

Then we should tell them that again.

It’s a lot to juggle, but the bottom line is there is no other way for me to really understand this organization. I’ve read their strategic plan, bylaws, and conference manual. I’ve read the newsletter (okay I haven’t read the Journal; sorry it’s just not my field. But I promise to read it eventually). I read the Board minutes, business meeting minutes, and I even had phone conversations with various Board members. But you don’t really know a client until you see them in action and watch them talking about what really matters to them.

I imagine the same goes for them to some extent. Until they see how I react to them in their context, they’re still guessing about me. They’ve read my resume and maybe even some articles or blog posts I’ve written. But they won’t really know what to do with me until we are able to interact over some time in a context with which they are familiar.

I think we tend to over estimate how well we know the “other” simply by gathering non-experiential information about them.

So what do you think? Is this “wrong”? I will admit my initial reaction is a wrinkled brow–why would you need all those editors on the Board? Doing the work of the association (publications) and the ultimate decision making authority (the Board) are two different things. Though I know enough about associations to know that there are probably examples in the industry of every “strange” composition you can think of. I’m not sure there is a “best practice” here (not to mention my general issue with the concept of best practice).

So here’s my advice to this client. Make sure you are answering the right question. The question is not how many editors should have voting rights. The question is, what structure will enable the Board to do its job most effectively. Form follows function. You have to decide what the function of your Board truly is, because only then will you be able to determine the appropriate composition. Like much in association management, our current systems, structures, and processes exist simply because that’s how we’ve always done it. That doesn’t mean they are bad, but they might need to be re-examined.

Does your Board set a direction for the organization, or does it manage competing interests of functional units? Does it make strategic choices, or does it manage the implementation of programs. Depending on how you answer these questions, you could compose your Board in a variety of different ways.

Personally, I think most associations would benefit from a strategically focused Board of directors. For this particular client, publications are very important. But I think there are plenty of ways to ensure the strategic importance of publications is reflected in Board decisions–outside of changing the bylaws and adding permanent director positions.

What I forgot from my stint as a volunteer Board member was that as much as I needed to know all of that info, what also mattered to me was the nitty-gritty of how to navigate the meeting. It took the Board’s president-elect to remind me. He filled in the pieces he found difficult at his first meetings. Which airport should people fly into to get to our office in Rockville? What’s the best way to get from the airport to our office? What social events/dinners are usually planned? Are they dressy or casual? What if they want to bring a guest? Who pays for dinners? Who pays for drinks? How do people dress for the meeting? Will breakfast be served? How much time should they allow to make a flight on the way home, etc.

When he added those items to the agenda, it reminded me that for new Board members it’s as much about navigating the system as knowing all of the background that will make them an informed Board member. Once there’s a comfort level with how to get it ‘right’, a new Board member can then focus on the strategic issues before the Board and feel safe in participating at a fully-engaged level.