The Association Renewal Blog

More of the Same on Generations

I “attended” a virtual seminar today put on by ASAE & The Center titled “The Other Side of the Story: Career Stages vs. Generational Issues.” The seminar was okay. The material seems to be the standard around this issue: generations are different, Boomers and Xers see the world differently, and this will show up in different behaviors by both association members and association staff.

One interesting tidbit from an audience poll during the session caught my eye, however: of those listening, 40% have created generation-specific marketing or promotional materials. That’s a bit higher than I expected.

But I’m also concerned with the pattern I’ve noticed in these generational presentations. This one says “yes, generations are different, but you must also look at career stages.” The Smith Institute report said life stage is a bigger driver than generations. One of the people in the seminar today asked “what about gender?” Now that we conclude generations are different, are we then going to pit generations against every other facet of identity to conclude generations are not important (or as important)?

Generation is only one element of identity, and while I do think the generalizations and trends that we’re noticing are valid and important, they don’t “solve” anything for us—any more than knowing a generalization about women or about white people would “solve” anything. It’s useful information, but it is not the essence of the capacity that will help us effectively deal with the information.

Musings on Leadership Development

I’ve been thinking a lot about “leadership development” lately. Several people have posted questions about training the next generation of leaders on ASAE’s executive management listserver. I’ve also seen a few articles that get into it: one of HBR’s 20 breakthrough ideas for 2006 was “peer-to-peer leadership development,” and Jeffrey Pfeffer’s column in the Jan/Feb Business 2.0 magazine was titled “Why Employees Should Lead Themselves.”

The peer-to-peer concept described a program in the U.S. Army where junior officers created a learning community where they could get answers to questions they had or problems they faced in the field. There were three elements of the program that struck me:

• conversations provided emotional as well as practical support;
• the focus was on context-specific rather than broadly applicable advice; and
• they realized that knowledge accumulate by experts over the years may no longer be relevant in a rapidly changing environment.

These points go against much of the conventional wisdom on leadership development, and that’s why I like it. Another big differentiator is the fact that the “top” of the world’s most command and control organization doesn’t really control this program:

“Despite the Army’s oversight of [the program], junior officers run the show, facilitating conversations and setting the agenda. Many organizations wouldn’t feel comfortable placing this kind of trust in their people.”

That point is huge, and a critical one for leadership development. As blogger Amy Smith put it recently, associations need to “get over the control issue.” The perceived need for control is holding a lot of associations back (and other organizations, for that matter). I think they are holding back leadership development by demanding too much control as well.

Consider Jeffrey Pfeffer’s article. He highlights an orchestra that literally does not have a conductor. They do have a managing director, but everyone in the orchestra shares responsibilities for many functions—not only keeping time during the performance, but also fundraising, staffing, etc. They’ve found that by distributing leadership in this way, people are much more engaged in their work (and effective). There are downsides—practices take longer, as does auditioning new members—but one of the reviewers of their music described a “liberating intensity with which these musicians listen to one another.”

I challenge you to present me with an association where staff or members listen to each other with “liberating intensity.” Moreover, is the way you develop leadership encouraging that kind of listening throughout the system?

Headlines don't tell the whole story...

In 1948, Harry S. Truman confounded expectations and won a term of his own as president over New York governor Thomas E. Dewey.  Unfortunately for the Chicago Daily Tribune, printing this famously erroneous headline big and bold on the paper's front page didn't make it one bit more correct.

In recent weeks, we have seen the results of a research study on generational participation in associations sponsored by the William E. Smith Institute for Association Research presented with assertive large-type headlines such as the following:

Contrary to Popular Belief...Gen X and Y Are Joiners!

Poor Tom Dewey must be rolling over in his grave.  (Don't we ever learn?)  Of course, Jamie and I are delighted that our community now has this research to consider, and we congratulate Dr. Arthur Brooks, the study's principal investigator, on completing the project, as well as the Smith Institute for providing financial support to it.  But we should all be skeptical of the suggestion that this single study "dispels myths" or settles once and for all the question of whether Generations X and Y will find our associations sufficiently valuable to join them.  We believe there is much more to this question than any statistical analysis can ever reveal.  The notion that this study is definitive in its conclusions is very much open to debate.  Still more troubling in a world in which people often pay attention only to headlines is the real possibility that association leaders will deny or ignore the real dimensions of this critical issue, creating a potentially very serious problem for our community.

In the coming days and weeks, Jamie and I plan to explore some of our concerns around what we've read in this report, including the analysis it presents and the underlying strategic issues of generational shift and renewal that it cannot answer.  We've already begun this process in a few of our prior posts, and we have more on the way.  We hope you'll share your thoughts with us.  We're looking forward to the conversation! 

The Long Tail

Please take a look at the article Jeff and I wrote in this month's Associations Now magazine. It is titled "Associations in the Age of the Long Tail," and it is one of several articles on Innovation in the issue (we're honored to be in the company of Frans Johansson and Tom Kelley!).

You can read the article online (if you're a member of ASAE) by clicking here.

Jeff and I have continued our thinking about this topic since writing the article, so we are planning to start some discussion here on the blog in the coming weeks. Also, for anyone planning to be in San Diego for the Great Ideas conference, we'll be planning an informal discussion of this article at some point during the conference, so let us know if you're interested.

Uncertainty and Choice

HBR does an annual list of “Breakthrough Ideas.” It is definitely worth reading. The ideas come from every direction and every discipline—which is one reason why I like it. As Ben said in a recent post, it is critical to step outside your usual environment in order to learn.

Of course some of the ideas are developed by folks who write for HBR anyway, like Nitin Nohria and Thomas Stewart, who do a nice piece on Risk, Uncertainty, and Doubt. I call attention to it because of the work Jeff and I do around strategy. It is amazing to me in that work how much I keep reinforcing to people the imperative of making clear choices—and then get hit with resistance. Part of this could be attributed to what is effectively an unproductive fear of uncertainty. As Nohria and Stewart say:

The raison d’etre for organizations and their leaders has long been to increase control and predictability. Dealing with uncertainty involves growing comfortable with ambiguity and trying to build robustness into choices. Tools such as scenario planning can help, but one must be careful not to assume away uncertainty or conclude that one of the imagined scenarios will play out. Indeed, the flight from uncertainty and ambiguity is so motivated, and the desire to reduce what is fundamentally unknowable to probabilities and risks so strong, that we often create pseudocertainty….

Confronting doubt, by contrast, involves coming to terms with differences in values. How does one choose between two valued objectives: safety versus liberty, scientific discovery versus the sanctity of human life, individuals versus groups? Sometimes we overcome doubt with faith, sometimes we privilege one set of values over another, and sometimes we just live with the burden of making choices when there are no easy answers.

“Just living” with that burden is easier said than done, and it goes beyond simply stiffening your resolve and pushing forward. The fear of moving forward in an environment of no easy answers is deeply rooted in most organizations (and most individuals), so changing that pattern will require some serious attention.