The Association Renewal Blog

Easier Done Than You Think

Thanks to Jeff Cobb for pointing to a couple of our posts on his Mission to Learn blog. He was applying what we've been saying about strategy to the issue of experimenting with Social Media (since that's been the topic of the month over on the Acronym blog). Here's what he said about us:

Notter and De Cagna’s approach to strategy, at least as far as I understand it, is a much more iterative approach than has been used traditionally by associations or most other organizations. For organizations that want to successfully embrace social media, an iterative approach is essential. Start with a clear set of strategic assumptions and a commitment to learn, dive in and experiment with the social media tactics that seem to make most sense strategically, and then adapt strategy, tactics, or both as needed.

(I know--easy to write, much harder to do)

Amen, Jeff, except that I disagree with the last line. Okay, most things worth doing are easier said than done, but I don't think doing what you are saying is as hard to do as people think it is, particularly among associations.

That's why I have been trying to broaden what our "approach to strategy" is, because I think where associations get derailed is in where strategy and implementation overlap. They typically have not designed their organizations in ways that empower the kind of experimenting and (most importantly) learning you are talking about. My last post about the "empowered association" talks about that.

You will have to make changes in processes, roles, expectations, etc. if you want to have your people both run with new ideas AND tie the results back into ongoing conversations about strategy. But once you make those shifts, I think it's actually pretty easy to do. When people are not limited by the way things have always been done, I think you'll be surprised at how willing and able they are to have experiments and better learning conversations as part of strategy development and execution.

The Empowered Association

On my other blog I linked to Maddie Grant’s great quote about a strategic plan perhaps getting in the way of thinking and acting strategically. I said I would write more about it here. Really what I want to write about is some thinking I have been doing about the whole "strategic planning is dead" debate. I've been frustrated with it for some time now, even though I've been an active proponent of "dead!" Jeff and I have been trying to get our thoughts down on paper about it—beyond the Strategic Capacity article that we wrote two years ago. We're making progress, but it hasn't completely come together yet.

I am now thinking that perhaps the whole dead/alive debate is more part of the problem than the solution. The following is a brief piece I wrote as part of the book that Jeff and I are working on. As such, it's not written in typical blog style. It's also longer than most blog posts, so you may have to click through to read the whole thing.

Application of Blue Ocean Strategy

Paul Pomerantz has an article in the October Forum magazine (here, but I think you need to be a member) that discusses an application of the ideas from the book, Blue Ocean Strategy in an association context (Paul is EVP of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons).

Jeff and I have used the concepts in Blue Ocean Strategy in our strategy work as well, and I am encouraged to see more association executives adopting the ideas.

I've reviewed the book here, but the basic premise of the book is that organizations who can figure out how to change the rules of the game will be able to find "blue oceans" where they are effectively without competitors ("oceans" with lots of competitors become "red" from the feeding frenzy. I know, it's kind of gross.).

What is required is a new and clearer view of what will drive success. This allowed Southwest Airlines to become the biggest in the world while other major airlines languished—they defined themselves as a mass transportation company. They decided not to compete with other airlines, but with your car.

The article in Forum talks about the challenge of doing the same thing in a membership organization for plastic surgeons. They, too, are struggling with clarity about what will really drive success—shifting from being the most skilled, to forging lifetime relationships of care.

That kind of clarity is rare, and I agree that the concepts in Blue Ocean Strategy can help leadership groups think differently about it. It’s that "middle level thinking" I keep talking about. It led the Plastic Surgeons to create a "strategic positioning statement." Pomerantz notes:

This statement, in our opinion, differs from a vision or mission statement, which in many respects are primarily inspirational. A positioning statement tells our members, staff, and the public about who we are and what makes us unique.

Strategy and Culture

I came across an interesting post about organizational culture on the Kitetail blog, and it makes an important point about strategy:

Your strategy and culture are joined at the hip: Lets face it, your culture has a big influence on how your company does things. This influence certainly extends to your strategy. Just think about different generic strategies: cost leadership, differentiation, fast follower, … Each of these require a different set of cultural characteristics to be successful. Along the same lines, for any change in your strategy, you will need to identify the cultural behaviors that need to be changed and managed.

Strategy is jointed at the hip of other things too: structure and leadership just to name two. So how is it possible to have a stand-alone strategy making process that does not tie into these other things?