Leadership Limerick: Leave No Media Behind

Every Monday, I offer a leadership limerick, highlighting an idea or strategy about effective leadership in limerick form. Searching for leadership limerick will identify previous posts.

Will they think it’s a trick or a treat?

When info comes only via Tweet

For some Twitter is fine

For others it's a bad sign

Balance both to avoid a defeat

We know one size doesn't fit all, nor does one medium effectively manage every message.  For some, Twitter currently holds a position of little value for them.  They just don't get it, and rightly or wrongly, have little interest in learning of its benefits or experimenting with its value.

Organizations rapidly embracing Twitter for member engagement, real-time updates, or customer service need to be careful of not moving all of the corresponding support and messages to this medium unless they are OK with potentially alienating people who prefer other options.

Message repetition across multiple media forms is nothing new.  We've done it before and will likely do it again.  A thoughtful and deliberate strategy to support members and customers via their preferred communication approach is almost always required.

Seven Questions to Move Things Forward

If a picture is worth a thousand words, some words combine to create very valuable questions, ones that consistently help a group get unstuck and make decisions leading to better results.

While the seven I offer from my facilitation experience may not have the sheen of Peter Drucker's The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization, each one has proven invaluable time and time again in helping people accomplish more.

1. What is it that we believe we are here to do today?
2. What's holding us back from what we know needs to be done, and how can we eliminate or minimize how it is constraining us?
3. What are the most important results we need to achieve (for this effort)?
4. What other perspectives or opinions might enhance our discussions and/or with whom do we need to share what we talked about today?
   
5. What is most important for us to discuss, but people might be unwilling or unlikely to bring up?
6. Where do we have agreement about what needs to be done, and how can we build on that to get in action and move forward?
7. What is the most significant commitment to act that we can all make with conviction right now?

I generally try to surface participants' responses in a transparent way with each individual sharing his/her own perspective.  In some limited cases though, the only way the answers can comfortably be shared is if the process is anonymous.   In those instances, I distribute index cards and have participants write their responses.  I then verbalize each one to the group.

While doing so gets the content on the table, it doesn't address the fact that people didn't feel comfortable sharing their opinions outright.  So I almost always engage the group in a discussion of that reality by posing an additional question  when the timing seems right:  What would need to change in order for everyone to feel comfortable owning and freely sharing their opinions instead of having to contribute them without attribution?

What other questions have you found really help a group with its work?


Note

If you are looking to enhance your facilitation skills (or know someone who is), I'll be doing another full-day workshop for the American Society of Association Executives in Washington, DC, on December 15.  It's a very hands-on event and we explore facilitation fundamentals, tools and techniques for meetings and discussions, and how to manage common group dynamics situations.  We had 45 folks in July, so a great community of learners gets engaged. Please join us if this event is of interest.

Leadership Limerick: Divide and Delegate

Every Monday, I offer a leadership limerick, highlighting an idea or strategy about effective leadership in limerick form. Searching for leadership limerick will identify previous posts.

They say the loneliest number is one

And while working alone may be less fun

Lots of ones becomes ten

And that quickly means then

A great deal of work can get done 

I facilitated a strategy conversation recently in which participants developed an action plan for more quickly welcoming and engaging new members of their organization.  One idea that excited them was having each new member personally welcomed within 72 hours of joining.  However, they quickly dismissed the idea because they could not envision how the organization's limited number of staff members could execute such an approach.

They probably couldn't, but they also weren't the only people available to do the work.  We are too quick to initially dismiss great ideas that seem impossible or difficult to execute.

Instead of fixating on the aggregate work involved, we should identify ways to break it into manageable chucks and to coordinate the involvement of a larger number of individuals in doing it.  While the initial recruitment and coordination efforts might be a bit cumbersome, the payoff can be significant: (1) the great idea gets actually gets implemented, and (2) more individuals make a meaningful contribution to the work of the organization and share in the pride of its accomplishment.

Many years ago, I was one of hundred of volunteers helping with recruitment for my alma mater.  We were each assigned to call 10 high school seniors admitted to the university, talk about our campus and career experiences, and learn more about their interests.  Training consisted of some brief reading material and an online video of a typical conversation.  We had 30 days to make our calls and to provide notes and suggested follow-up on an online form. 

It was one of my favorite volunteer responsibilities, and I felt like I made a very meaningful contribution.  And it didn't require that I travel to any meetings, and it gave me some flexibility for how and when I completed the assignment.  The only thing I would have done differently is to have found some way to connect all of us calling so that we felt a sense of community in what we were collectively achieving.

So the next time an idea gets set aside because it might overwhelm the existing resources for getting things done, look instead to ways to effectively distribute the workload among a greater number of volunteers.  Doing so allows more people to make a contribution and to deepen their connection and commitment to your organization and it efforts, and that's the ultimate definition of engagement.

Thinking Differently About Volunteering

There's an interesting post (and the beginning of a conversation) going on over at the Acronym blog, focusing on volunteer recruitment and diversity.

Here was the comment I posted.  I encourage you to check out the entire post and join the conversation.

I think we need to reframe the way many organizations currently view volunteers. They see it as something that only “some people” may do. But as The Decision to Volunteer noted, many members say they are volunteering in ways beyond how the board often defines volunteer involvement (positions, formal service, etc.).

What if we began to think of volunteering as something everyone should do because it is one of the most significant ways to build a strong professional network, to connect more to the professional community in general, and to receive more value from being a member?

That’s how most highly engaged volunteers would describe their experience: you get more when you give more.

If we start with this premise: everyone will want to (or should want to) volunteer, we would enact a very different method of invitation and engagement:

• The membership application would solicit your volunteer interests and the talents and time you have available to contribute. 
• You’d be contacted personally within a set time (say 5 business days) to extend an invitation to contribute. 
• We’d look for more real-time micro-volunteering opportunities during major events like annual meetings. 

In short, we would organize the enterprise for 100% volunteering.

Would we achieve it? Probably not. But in creating the system to enable and support it, we would most likely diversify the number and perspectives of people volunteering and the ways in which they contribute.

And we could also more intentionally engage non-members in connecting with and contributing to the community in limited, ad hoc, volunteer responsibilities as a means of diversifying our membership recruitment efforts and results. “Come initially to contribute to an issue you care about. Then join and stay for the community and content."

If we want to achieve radically different results, then we need to start with radically different premises and assumptions.

Leadership Limerick: Servant Leadership is the Way

Every Monday, I offer a leadership limerick, highlighting an idea or strategy about effective leadership in limerick form. Searching for leadership limerick will identify previous posts.

Truthfully it isn’t about you

But instead it's what you can do

Supporting others is the game

Servant leadership is its name

And doing so benefits you, too. 

In The Servant as Leader, former AT&T CEO Robert Greenleaf introduced the phrase servant-leader:

  

"The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature."

  

"The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?"

An underlying sense contributing to both Tea Party rallies and Occupy Wall Street protests is that people in formal leadership positions increasingly are in it for personal gain … or at least experience significant personal gain at the expense of others.  It's frustrating to think that elected officials and corporate officers might be more concerned about self-interest or a special interest lobby rather than our interests.  Citizens expect our government leaders to serve our needs.  Corporate stockholders and nonprofit stakeholders expect those in charge to act in ways that contribute to the greater good, not just their own pockets.

Too many people have lost sight of being servant-leaders.  They focus more on self-interest and self-promotion in ways that ignore, marginalize, or inhibit the growth and interests of others.  The irony is that by choosing to serve first, to do good rather than focus on making yourself look good, significant benefits accrue to one's self-interest as well.  When we are generous and contribute to others' well-being, we eventually find our well-being enhanced as well.

Facilitation: What would make the output more shareable?

Note:  Facilitation Friday is a periodic feature offering an in-depth exploration of a core issue related to designing great meetings and conferences (with an emphasis on meetings).  This is the 13th in the series.  Previous posts can be found here:

Meeting and Workshop Management: 15 Timeless Questions
1. What would make the conversation more compelling?
2. What would make the community more connected?
3. What would make the intention more worthy of investment?
4. What would make the process/pace more productive? 
5.What would make the environment more inviting?
6 What would make the presentations more powerful?
7. What would make the connections more concrete? 
8. What would make the experience more engaging?
9. What would make the usefulness more immediate?
10. What would make the presenters/panelists more provocative?
11. What would make the visuals more valuable?
12. What would make the meaning more memorable?

Facilitation: What would make the truth more transparent?

Note:  Facilitation Friday is a periodic feature offering an in-depth exploration of a core issue related to designing great meetings and conferences (with an emphasis on meetings).  This is the 14th in the series.  Previous posts can be found here:

Meeting and Workshop Management: 15 Timeless Questions
1. What would make the conversation more compelling?
2. What would make the community more connected?
3. What would make the intention more worthy of investment?
4. What would make the process/pace more productive? 
5.What would make the environment more inviting?
6 What would make the presentations more powerful?
7. What would make the connections more concrete? 
8. What would make the experience more engaging?
9. What would make the usefulness more immediate?
10. What would make the presenters/panelists more provocative?
11. What would make the visuals more valuable?
12. What would make the meaning more memorable?

13. What would make the output more shareable?

Are You Running a Factory?

In We Are All Weird, Seth Godin writes, "I've started using the word 'factory' to define any organizational effort that's built around repeated interactions and mass.  If you need a map and a manual, it's probably because you're creating a business or a campaign that's based on a factory.  If exceptions are a problem, it's probably because you're doing factory work."

In many associations, the word community is used as if it is interchangeable with organization.  Any group of people working together is called a team.  But using the right words doesn't create the meaning behind them or the emotional or cognitive connections that give them value. 

We talk as if we are creating robust interactions of interpersonal relationships, but approach doing so like a factory assembly line.  We embrace individuality so long as it looks like sameness or fits into one of the member engagement categories we've pre-defined.  We say our meetings and conferences are about learning, yet a more accurate description would be "cost effective transmission of information to the greatest number of people possible" by volunteer presenters who may or may not know anything about adult learning.  We really do want to meet member needs, but tend to approach doing so through mass aggregation of marketing data, not the facilitation of individual connections and value being made and received. 

In general, it has worked for a very long time without too many complaints.  But the expiration date on the factory approach to associating is starting to come due.  It will occur at different times in different organizations, but a "not to be joined after ______" label will be inescapable unless the association has some indispensable hook of value that individuals can't access in any other way without significant cost or inconvenience.  And that is less and less likely for many organizations. 

And even if you are able to retain members and generate sufficient revenues operating a factory instead of creating a community, you may find it increasingly difficult to attract top talent to come and do the work.  What rock-star professional or volunteer wants to focus their talent on doing factory work for an organization when they can be architects and artists of remarkable things in collaboration with their own tribes of like-minded individuals?

It's been more than 15 years since Don Peppers and Martha Rogers wrote The One to One Future yet so many associations (and quite honestly, corporations as well) still operate with a one to many factory mindset.   It's all about efficiency and too little about effectiveness. 

But try this on instead: Instead of treating me as a target market to advertise your factory work to, treat me as an individual looking for targeted meaning, meaning I will likely help co-create for myself with a little support.  Instead of doing things to me or thinking you have to provide everything for me, create the eco-system in which I am able to do what I need to get done and access the provisions I value.  Yes, going beyond targeting mass is messy, and if there is one thing many managers don't like, it's messiness.  But that's your problem to solve, not your members' issue.

Godin has it right.  We are all weird.  And if you continue to do treat our relationship like factory work designed for the masses, don't be surprised if one day the masses are missing.

Facilitation: What would make the learning more actionable?

Note:  Facilitation Friday is a periodic feature offering an in-depth exploration of a core issue related to designing great meetings and conferences (with an emphasis on meetings).  This is the 15th and final in the series.  Previous posts can be found here:

Meeting and Workshop Management: 15 Timeless Questions
1. What would make the conversation more compelling?
2. What would make the community more connected?
3. What would make the intention more worthy of investment?
4. What would make the process/pace more productive? 
5.What would make the environment more inviting?
6 What would make the presentations more powerful?
7. What would make the connections more concrete? 
8. What would make the experience more engaging?
9. What would make the usefulness more immediate?
10. What would make the presenters/panelists more provocative?
11. What would make the visuals more valuable?
12. What would make the meaning more memorable?

13. What would make the output more shareable?
14. What would make the truth more transparent?

Leadership Limerick: Make it Easy to Share

Every Monday, I offer a leadership limerick, highlighting an idea or strategy about effective leadership in limerick form. Searching for leadership limerick will identify previous posts.

Getting people to share can be tough

Our systems for doing so aren’t enough

Make it easy for them to tell

What they know all too well

And soon you will have a lot more stuff 

One benefit of being involved in a community or association is the informal learning that can come from peers.  Organizations often try to capture this knowledge in the form of case studies, lessons learned, or models and samples.  The problem is these collections rarely attract more than a small percentage of the ideas and insights individuals possess.

Organizations would be wise to set clear goals and metrics for the number and quality of the contributions they hope to receive annually and then develop a detailed action plan for soliciting, curating, and archiving individuals' contributions on an ongoing basis.  Instead of simple emailing a request for submissions, build the opportunity to contribute into other appropriate forums.  Example: when people register for a conference, capture an idea or lesson learned related to the conference content (maybe even incent those who contribute with a nominal discount or enter them into a drawing for a free registration).

Learning from peers is indeed one of the great benefits of affiliating with an organization, but if the collection of insights and resources is paltry then the received value will be insignificant.

Five Lessons for Diving Into Innovation

Diving is one of the Olympic events that has me glued to my television set.  Some of the elements of the sport seem useful for anyone thinking about diving into innovation.

It’s a long climb before you actually dive. The dive itself is over in a few seconds.  Climbing the stairs to the diving platform takes far longer.  The release or introduction of an innovative program or service is similar, requiring a significant investment of time in the development stage. For efforts involving volunteers with short terms of service, we need to help them understand upfront the timeframe for an innovation to be developed and the envisioned results to be realized.

Splash upon entry is undesirable. The highest scores are awarded to divers who enter the water cleanly, leaving no wake as they do.  If we call too much attention to the rollout of a new product or service the splash becomes the story instead of the value of the innovation.  Sometimes it is beneficial to make a big deal about introduction of something new, while in other instances a less overt rollout (like the soft opening of a new restaurant or hotel) might serve us better.

Multiple dives are performed in a meet.  While the number varies based on the competition level, a diver performs many dives during the course of a meet.  A single dive rarely determines whether or not they win a medal.  It’s the cumulative score.   Divers sequence their dives strategically, usually starting off with dives the consistently perform well and that are comfortable for them.    

Similarly, a successful organization needs to innovate across multiple programs and services.  No one initiative is usually sufficient to gain or lose favor with a critical mass of members or customers.  It’s the value/innovation mix.  And if you're trying to decide where to innovate first, you might look to a program or service where you are most confident of your ability to initially execute well.  Then move on to opportunities with more uncertain outcomes.

The high and low scores are thrown out. In a competition the highest and lowest judges' scores are eliminated and the remaining ones are combined.  Feedback on an innovation you introduce is likely to be mixed, so don’t get overly discouraged by the loudest naysayers or overly encouraged by the most ardent champions.  Instead look to the range of remaining feedback to see what can be learned.

Raw scores are multiplied by a dive’s degree of difficulty.  The judges’ initial raw scores are multiplied by a dive's degree of difficulty to produce the final score.  A well-executed dive with a lower degree of difficulty therefore might earn roughly the same final score as a more difficult dive poorly performed.  The results an organization achieves with its stakeholders may be similar.  Depending on the brand identity stakeholders associate with your organization, members or customers may be more likely to forgive initial flaws of a huge innovation, but punish a less than flawless execution of minor incremental improvements.  So if the idea you're introducing isn't a "wow" in and of itself, your execution of it better well be if you want a great final score.

Image credit: Copyright (c) G.Livaudais. Creative Commons license.

Leadership Limerick: Be Sensitive to Climate Change

Every Monday, I offer a leadership limerick, highlighting an idea or strategy about effective leadership in limerick form. Searching for leadership limerick will identify previous posts.

In San Francisco, August is quite cool

Which in Texas would not be the rule

The climate that is the norm

Doesn’t come in the same form

Assuming such makes you a fool 

Life might be so much easier if everyone's experience mirrored your own, but it would be so much less interesting.  As Seth Godin noted in a recent blog post, "Discernment is the hardest part of marketing--seeing the world as it is, instead of how you experience it." I suggest that's accurate for more than marketers.  Despite the fact that sameness seems to be spreading globally (you can get your Subway foot-long in more countries than you might imagine), tremendous diversity and difference still exists.  This is as true between countries or cities as it is among various departments within the same organization.

Connection, community, and conversation require people to perceive a safe climate for their contributions. The definition of safety will vary for individuals, and is not a permanent state we can create once and then never attend to again.  Just as our outdoor climate changes during the day or depending on your location, so does our "indoor climate" (within our own homes, relationships, and organizations) change regularly.  Safety may have to be refreshed or recreated based on the current conditions and how individuals are experiencing them.

And if we want to truly connect with other individuals, we need to listen to their story as they present it, not try to impose our narrative on their reality or make their uniqueness fit within our pre-conceived boundaries of "normal."  This can be incredibly difficult as our brains seem almost hardwired to translate what others describe as their genuine experience into something similar from our own frame of reference "Oh, that's just like ... "

We need to resist the temptation to respond to others that way.  Their experience is most like … their experience.  It stands on its own, full of meaning and value.  Making it anything other than that risks marginalizing both the experience and the individual who claims it.