The Association Renewal Blog

PI Skypecast tomorrow

I don't usually cross-promote events pertaining to Principled Innovation LLC, my other consulting practice, on this blog.  But I thought I'd make an exception this time since what I am doing tomorrow is both new and extremely cool!

You may have heard that Skype, the VOIP provider that is now a part of EBay, is making it possible for any of its users to schedule a  Skypecast, which is a real-time VOIP and chat conversation with up to 100 people around the world.  So, in the spirit of trying something new, I am doing my first Skypecast tomorrow, May 31 at 2 pm EDT.  (Click the "my first Skypecast" link to get more information.)  The subject will be on the necessity of freedom and discipline in innovation.

Anyway, I just wanted to make readers of the A.R. Blog aware of this learning opportunity, which will be the first in a continuing series of PI Skypecasts I'll be holding at regular intervals.  I hope you will consider participating; to access any Skypecast, you must be using Skype on your computer.

Whether you are able to participate or not, please submit any questions about the topic to me by 1:30 pm tomorrow.  I do hope to hear and see you online!

Where Strategy Meets Leadership

Business 2.0 in June also has a story about leadership and succession planning (p. 52), arguing that companies tend to be more successful when replacing their CEO from within, rather than going to an outside hire.

In terms of tips for succession planning, I liked this one the best: “talent-identification programs need to be woven into a company’s overall strategy.” Managers at all levels need to understand the strategic value of developing leaders, thus those activities need to be built into performance management and operational planning. Leadership cultivation needs to be “embedded in the very fabric of the business.”

This advice works for ten-person associations as well as Fortune 500 companies (although the application is obviously different). But it requires some discipline in defining what leadership really means in the organization and how that connects to strategy.

Living the strategy at Staples

When you think of Staples, what comes to mind?   For me, it is the love of everything to do with office products.  Personally, I really enjoy going to Staples every once in a while to see what new stuff they have, but in recent years that level of interest in the company has not been widespread. 

The June 2006 issue of Business 2.0 (not currently online; page 43 of the print edition) explores the five-year effort Staples has undertaken to rebrand itself after losing ground to competitors such as Office Depot, Target and Wal-Mart during the mid-to-late 1990s.  Staples effectively created the idea of the office-supply superstore in 1986, but by 2001, the company's sales stagnated because of customer dissatisfaction with an overly complicated in-store shopping experience.

Staples made a strategic decision to simplify the customer experience and rebuild its brand identity around the tagline, "That was easy."  But, as the article explains, the company's leaders understood the on-the-ground reality in its stores had to match its new rhetoric:

The slogan...was kept under wraps until the company could give its stores a major makeover.  Staples removed from its inventory some 800 superfluous items...that had little use in the corporate world.  Office chairs, which had been displayed in the rafters, were moved to the floor so customers could try them out.  Staples also added larger signs and retrained sales associates to walk shoppers to the correct aisle.  Since customers revealed that the availability of ink was one of their biggest concerns, the company introduced an in-stock guarantee on printer cartridges.  Even communications were simplified--a four-paragraph letter sent to prospective customers was cut to two sentences.

What Staples has accomplished with this effort is far greater than simple rebranding.  The company recognized its core strategic need and acted to internalize it by building a broad-based organizational capacity for execution, all before talking about it publicly.  Staples lived (and is still living) its strategy, showing some remarkable results in the process.  The company is once again the clear leader in office retail, posting an 18% increase in profits in 2005.

Association leaders should take a page from what Staples has done:  when developing a strategy, make sure the association can actually live it everyday.  It is not enough for the CEO or chief elected officer to simply announce that the organization is about advocacy, customer service, learning or any other potentially valuable strategic priority.  Pronouncements can motivate in the short term, but they must be backed up in the long term with the kind of capacity building that makes action possible.  No matter the specific focus of an association's strategy, its leaders must accept shared responsibility for ensuring the organization has the capabilities it needs to execute consistently around its stated priorities.  To do otherwise, is a missed opportunity to deliver extraordinary new value to members and customers. 

Credit Cards are Not Community

In the May issue of Forum (Association Forum of Chicagoland), there is a brief article about membership retention. Strategy number two, in the article, is “promote community.”

This intrigues me! I’m hoping to find some examples of how associations are building community among members who are dispersed around the country. As an example, the article uses the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), which has a great retention rate of 98 percent. They attribute that, in part at least, to promoting a sense of community—of veterinarians helping veterinarians. Sounds good so far, but the only examples they gave were an insurance program and a credit card! I guess when they market these programs, they focus on the “we’re helping vets” theme.

Okay, it’s great that they market to the community “feeling.” But that is not the same as building community. You build community when veterinarians actually do help other veterinarians. I assume that this indeed happens at AVMA, but I would rather have read about that in the article.

It's official!

Yes, my friends, it is official.  I am now an associate member of AARP.  I received the notification letter on the left this weekend, confirming my membership in "America's leading organization for mature people."  I don't know about you, but the whole "mature" thing sounded pretty impressive to me.  Almost makes me want to stop listening to really loud music on my nano, while playing air guitar as I walk down the street.

Almost.  I'm a Gen Xer after all, and having my superior 80s tunage is absolute requirement!

In the months ahead, I occasionally will post about the first year of my AARP associate membership to give you a feel for what actually happens.  I'm sure the magazine will produce some interesting perspectives that I'll want to share here as well.  Let me know what you might like to hear about and I'll try to post something.

The Power of Frame

There’s an interview in this month’s Associations Now with Paul Begala, former Clinton advisor and an expert on how to “frame” a debate. The frame, he argues, has more to do with you getting your way than the specifics of what you say in the debate. Framing sets the “parameters of choice.” It defines in big picture terms what we’re talking about here.

Begala’s application is in the world of politics, Presidential debates, and the like. But the concept is obviously important to organizational leaders, particularly in terms of strategy. Although the article doesn’t talk about strategy, I think what Begala says is critical. Consider the following quote about how hard framing is to do:

It’s much easier to get deep into the arcana and deep into the technicalities than it is to step back and present big, bold, fundamental choices. That’s number one. Number two, it takes some courage because you’ve got to abandon certain lines of reckoning, argument, and attack.

You have to choose, at a somewhat “big picture” level, what will make you successful. Then you focus on that, which means not doing a whole host of other things that, when looked at individually, might make sense. This is the essence of effective strategy.

Begala presents three keys to framing

1. The frame offers a clear choice
2. The frame leaves a lot out
3. The frame resonates with people.

Where he says “frame,” insert the word “strategy.” That piece about resonating is key, as well. Obviously you need to resonate with people if you are working on a presidential campaign. Organizational strategy isn’t about winning people’s votes, but your strategy has to be clear enough and resonate enough with your employees, stakeholders, etc. that when they hear it, they actually know how to respond. They know what to do next. Detailed strategic plans that break it down by department into individual task-based deadlines don’t provide that resonance.

As Simple as Possible, but No Simpler

There is an interesting post on the 37 signals blog that starts off talking about a poor-tasting beer made by Anheuser-Busch, but eventually morphs into a lesson about exclusivity. Here's the relevant quote:

Everyone knows too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the pot. Everyone’s opposed to design by committee.

Yet when it comes to building software, there are still those who argue for including as many voices as possible in the decision-making process (e.g. companies where a huge team tries to write a spec together or ones that feel like they must obey every feature request that comes in). Sure, input from diverse sources can be helpful. But sometimes you need to exclude.

A lot of the Getting Real ideas are based on exclusion. Keep teams small (more people doesn’t bring you closer to the “perfect” product). Start with no. Reject most feature ideas (you can value someone’s opinion yet still say no). Don’t try to appeal to everyone (you often have to piss off some people in order to create passionate devotion in others). Exclusion leads to focus.

This gets criticized on the 37 signals blog as being elitist, and it seems in contradiction to ideas I really like (think Frans Johanssen’s intersection of ideas—that’s not about exclusion).  When Jeff and I do strategy work with clients, we always argue in favor of including “external” voices into the process.

So is this a conflict? I don’t think so. This illustrates a critical issue, actually. I like 37 signals and the Getting Real book because they are so clear. Less “bloat.” But beware of oversimplification. In the quote above, they explain why they need focus. In order to create passionate devotion in others, they need to exclude, focus, and piss some people off. If you oversimplify their point (exclusion is good; it leads to focus), you’ve gone too simple. Exclusion isn’t always good, but given what they are creating and how they will be successful, they need to exclude.

So the real question for associations is, how much of your success is dependent on having “passionate devotion in others” and how can intentional exclusion help you focus in a way that generates success?

Millennials Speak!

In the April issue of Forum Magazine, published by the Association Forum of Chicagoland (I just joined), there is a brief story about Generation X and Millennials. I like that the title was "Not Another Generational Marketing Article." Instead of waxing on about whether or not Generation X are joiners, they actually got three young association people together and let them talk! Research is fine, but when you're dealing with your actual association, you can get much more information by simply asking your people. I like that the article had three authentic voices in it.

That being said, the article was a bit disappointing because much of it simply turned around and asked these people to give their generalizations about the generations (sigh). It's good to know the generalizations, but knowing them does not solve your problems.

Oh, and if you get Forum, also check out David Gammel's article about RSS.

I joined AARP

That's right!  I paid my $12.50 and joined AARP last night, right on the association's web site.  I'm actually pretty excited about it!

Now, you might be wondering why I did this.  I mean, I know I'm getting up there in years, but I'm not that old yet, right?

In all seriousness, it has nothing to do with being old.  (And by the way, I'm not old, so just you never mind about that.)  I was inspired to join by a brief article in the May 15th issue of FORTUNE describing the experience of Jim Aley, a 40-year old editor at the magazine.  Jim mistakenly received an application to join AARP in the mail, possibly from a flawed direct-mail list.  Still, he decided to complete and return the form, and he received confirmation shortly thereafter that he was made an "associate member" of AARP, which apparently is how the association tags under-50 types like us.

The FORTUNE article was the impetus for my decision to join, but it is not the reason.  I chose to join, in part, because I'm looking forward to receiving my subscription to AARP the Magazine, which is likely to be my only direct membership benefit for the next decade or so.  I expect it will be a very interesting read, and provide excellent fodder for all of my blogs, especially this one.  Also, my mother is an AARP member and while I won't receive all of the mail she gets from the organization (she's a full member), I'll be better informed than I am right now about what AARP offers her.

One other aspect of my thinking here goes back to a session I attended with AARP executive director Bill Novelli in the fall of 2001.  At that time, I asked him what AARP was doing to lay the groundwork for Generation X members to join the organization since, if you use the 1961-1981 timeline for Gen X, the front edge of my generation turned 40 that year and was only ten years removed from AARP membership.  He said flatly that the organization wasn't doing anything, and I'm curious to see if and how the organization's thinking may have changed in the last five years. 

I certainly hope it has.  The FORTUNE article provides statistics revealing that while the 50-and-over population in the U.S. has grown by 14% since 2000, AARP's membership has increased by only 7% during that same time.  Jim Aley's and my associate memberships won't be the basis for growth at AARP to be sure, but perhaps our interest is a sign of things to come.  Regardless, I'm willing to invest $12.50 to get a better view.

Totally.

Survival of the Adaptive

The front section of this month’s HBR is a depressing (but important) look at how to prepare for a pandemic (the Post business section picked this up today as well). By the way, if you need something to give you a little “perspective” on your current problems, as many as 50 million people died from the flu outbreak in 1918-19. Fifty million!

Nitin Nohria has a great piece in there, though, that talks about disaster plans and risk management teams in organizations. I like his conclusion: being adaptive will help you more than a having a plan:

We know from complexity theory that following a few basic crisis-response principles is more effective than having a detailed a priori plan in place. In fires, for instance, it’s been shown that a single rule—walk slowly toward the exit—saves more lives than complicated escape plans do.

Even when you are dealing with a crisis that is more complex than a single burning building, a series of contingency plans is not nearly as effective as an organization’s capacity to “evaluate ongoing changes in the environment and develop responses based on simple principles” Nohria said.

The same concept is applicable to broader organizational strategy, and Jeff and I apply that in our “building strategic capacity” projects. It’s not only about clarifying the few simple principles (which is not easy work, by the way), it is also about building the capacity to actually put those principles to work in responding to your environment, even it means doing something—gasp—different than what you had planned!