Chapter 3

Commitment to Analysis and Feedback

Commitment to Analysis and Feedback: Consistently exhibiting data-driven strategies and dialogue and engagement, with a CEO who serves as a broker of ideas.

Remarkable associations make a practice of aligning their products and services with their mission and keeping members at the center of their universe. But how do they know whether they have hit the mark or missed by a mile? By asking over and over, again and again, in every conceivable way.

Associations in the study group were continually learning about the environment in which they and their members operate. They didn’t restrict themselves to formal research—which all did and did well—but looked for every opportunity to hold conversations with members and encourage dialogue between staff and volunteers. Then they actually did something with the information they had gathered, such as modifying a product, introducing a new service, or initiating change through board dialogue and deliberation. We also found that the CEO, in one way or another, took an active interest in making sure something happened.

Data, Data, Data

Measure 3: Data-Driven Strategies

If there’s one phrase that sets remarkable associations apart from their counterparts, it’s “data, data, data.” They gather information, analyze it, and then use it to become even better. Research—whether quantitative or qualitative, formal or anecdotal—is always put to use, not put on the shelf.

The third measure, data-driven strategies, refers to a continuous loop that remarkable associations tend to exhibit: They continually track member needs and issues as well as the wider environment, then collectively analyze the data to reach a shared understanding through asking, “What do we now know? What are we going to do about it?” These associations then incorporate the findings into their strategic and operational planning.

But the data collection doesn’t stop there. It continues through another methodical, disciplined cycle of gathering, analyzing, and making changes because of what was learned.

Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), for instance, constantly researches the societal trends that affect and influence its reason for being: the girls. Some fact finding is done through the Girl Scout Research Institute, a separate entity that focuses on informed public policy making. GSUSA’s market research function handles other projects, including data calibration with the U.S. Census office.

“How are the needs and experiences of girls changing?” Every time GSUSA asks that question, it makes a commitment to seeing the world with new eyes. The organization communicates research results vertically and horizontally, at the national and local levels, and to staff as well as volunteers. This process leads to the development of contemporary programs that appeal to today’s girls.

Over the years, GSUSA’s data-driven strategies have led to a variety of initiatives, including numerous programs aimed at helping girls develop math and financial literacy skills, a mentoring partnership to link girls with female scientists, and an antiviolence education initiative. Also, by keeping a close watch on census data, GSUSA was able to respond early on—with targeted, bilingual materials and special programs—to an increase in Hispanic girls in America.

In contrast, a comparison association did not do the research that would have opened its leaders’ eyes to coming population changes and their potential effect on the organization’s traditional membership base. Because it was slow to develop programs aimed at anyone other than its traditional members, the organization has struggled with membership attrition as well as brand identity. It lost momentum by not researching environmental and membership trends and examining how to adapt while remaining true to its mission.

“Having data to guide you, so you know when issues are coming up, is powerful. It ensures your organization is not only prepared ahead of time but also able to help members understand the context for the painful and hard decisions that may need to be made,” believes an employee of SHRM.

The value of being data-driven was confirmed for SHRM when the 2008 recession arrived. The association had identified early warning indicators among the many metrics it tracks and had prepared several contingency plans to implement, dependent on the severity of the recession and how it affected SHRM’s top-line and bottom-line revenues as well as operating income. “Because we are so data-driven, we weren’t flying by the seat of our pants,” the employee continues. “We had a very good idea of what direction we were headed financially and knew what we needed to cut back on if the situation worsened.” SHRM shared its various contingency plans widely so neither staff nor members would be surprised if the organization revised or even discontinued certain services, programs, or benefits.

Beyond the formal market research or environmental scanning done by associations in the study group, we found a commitment to mining data from just about every encounter with members.

The staff and leaders at remarkable associations are constantly listening to members and sharing the information they glean from those contacts. Remarkable associations also face the facts: They’re not so arrogant as to presume that they know better than what the data tell them. When new data demonstrate that the present course, no matter how well conceived, is in error, remarkable associations do not hesitate to make adjustments. An employee of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) put it this way: “We do market research, we do feasibility studies, because that way we can bring data to the board. We don’t just run with something because it sounds like a great idea.”

Integrated Systems

Here are additional data-driven examples culled from the study group:

• ACC has two groups that do environmental scanning. Each member of the internal (staff) group focuses on tracking trends in one of five major areas, such as demographics or economics, that ACC has deemed essential to its future. Members forming an external group periodically review the trend information to add insights from their perspectives. ACC’s chapters also provide trend observations. All the results contribute to the development of annual initiatives and long-term strategic goals.

• In addition to ongoing focus groups and surveys, including consumer opinion polls, the American Dental Association (ADA) relies on its 11 councils to study and report on issues relating to a specific area of interest. Recommendations are forwarded to the board of trustees. Given its history of refining internal and volunteer structures to better align to strategic needs and opportunities, ADA seems to adapt its structure to fit needs rather than try to fit issues into its existing structure.
• The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) routinely conducts readership and advertising surveys, member needs assessments, member perception surveys, research about the workplace environment, and analyses of website usage, as well as product evaluations and informal discussions with members.

• Associated General Contractors (AGC) posts surveys on its website that ask members a variety of questions about potential products and services: Are you interested in this product? How much would you pay for this service? What format would you prefer? Is this important for your business? The results are analyzed to determine the costs and time involved, whether an author or someone else is needed to develop the product, and a production timeline.

We also noticed that employees at remarkable associations usually can clearly articulate who their competition is and often recite precise percentages of any membership overlap between their organization and the competition.

The Ohio Society of CPAs (OSCPA) even has a group of members who volunteer to attend the courses offered by competitors and report on their experiences. “They tell us what they saw, the differences between our programs and others’, and how we can be better or more effective,” said one staff member.

In short, remarkable associations continuously and vigorously do their homework.

Ongoing Conversations

Measure 4: Dialogue and Engagement

Although remarkable associations have developed an expertise in gathering information, they know that’s not enough. They also nurture a culture in which the information is analyzed and shared throughout the organization. Everyone, not just senior managers and elected leaders, is expected to use that data to figure out what actions the data are demanding of the organization.

The fourth measure, dialogue and engagement, is characterized by a close-knit, consistent culture where all employees not only receive the same script, in the form of the same information, but also see the potential to contribute to a blockbuster production. Whether they have lead or supporting roles or work behind the scenes is not relevant. Rather, they all share equally in the responsibility to contribute and add value to the association.

This culture is the natural outgrowth of what numerous interviewees described as “constant communication.” Many within the study group would no doubt echo the employee at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) who said, “We all discuss decisions openly with each other. We have a desire to collaborate with each other, and we do it in mission-driven ways.

“We aren’t competitive here with each other,” continued the same employee. “We are here to serve the same people and do what’s best for the profession.” That desire to always put the organization first, before individual or departmental gain, was displayed repeatedly in the study group.

Demolishing the Silos

Remarkable associations generally do not exhibit what’s typically referred to as the silo mentality—organizational fragmentation by department or responsibility. When asked about signature products, for example, employees of great associations usually gave the same answers no matter what department they worked in or what their supervisory level. They shared a common view of who the association was and how well it served its members.

Contrast that clear understanding of organization identity and purpose with the confusion often displayed among employees of associations in the comparison group. Within that group, staff in different departments typically identified different signature products—usually the ones in their own area. At one association, for instance, a senior staff director said, “[The association]’s signature products and services and the ones in my area are very different.” Another employee at the same association responded, “The signature products and services are different depending on whether you classify them by revenue or by the customer.”

Remarkable associations avoid this type of segregation. For them, everything is about the members. Therefore, they ensure internal dialogue continually takes place throughout the organization about its direction, priorities, and reason for being (serving members). Here are some examples of how they do that:

• Within five weeks of their starting date, new employees of OSCPA meet with the CEO, who explains the organization’s vision and goals. Periodically, the entire staff assembles for a review of OSCPA’s annual goals and a progress report.
• The National Association of Counties (NACo) regularly holds “County 101” sessions with its national staff (and vendor members, too, if requested) to help ensure that everyone is clear about what its members do.

• As at many associations, the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM’s) employees gather once a month to welcome new hires and celebrate employment anniversaries, but they also hear an update about the state of the association. During this all-staff meeting, the CEO reviews overall goals and discusses what SHRM is doing as an organization to meet those goals.
• At the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), informal meetings between the CEO and small groups of employees (10 to 12 staff members of varying tenure) revealed that, due to rapid membership growth, newer employees did not fully understand the organization’s mission nor communicate well across departments. To remedy the situation, RSNA launched an intranet accessible by all staff. Updated weekly, the intranet summarizes activities throughout the society and serves as a conduit for widespread sharing of information. In addition, RSNA periodically hosts brown-bag sessions where employees gather for lunch and an informal discussion of various departments’ responsibilities and activities.

Thanks to such ongoing dialogues, staff members at remarkable associations not only understand their own roles but also understand and appreciate the roles of their colleagues. All employees share a strong commitment to the notion that “We are here for the members.” Departmental boundaries and petty turf wars give way to a shared drive to deliver high quality products and services that address member needs and deliver on the mission.

Moreover, remarkable associations effectively maintain a class-less structure. Rather than focusing on distinctions between executive and staff or profit centers and service areas, these organizations reflect a neighborhood culture characterized by shared values and a unified purpose.

Remarkable associations often extend dialogue and engagement to their relationships with members. As an example, the Ohio Society of CPAs (OSCPA) literally takes to the road to hear what its members think. In addition to conducting a “listening tour”—visiting the 100 largest employers of its members in the state—the association sponsors professional issues updates in both the spring and the fall. Typically presented by the CEO, each 3½-hour session provides the society’s perspective or interpretation of a pressing issue or two and features an extended and unstructured question-and-answer period with members. The programs, which attract as many as 500 attendees per location, rank among the top membership benefits on OSCPA’s member satisfaction surveys.

The Great Go-Between

Measure 5: CEO as a Broker of Ideas

No matter how good the script, an interactive dialogue among all the players is unlikely to occur without a director—in this case, the association’s chief executive officer. The association leader must not only understand the organization’s vision but also be able to engage others in defining, refining, and responding to that vision and all it entails.

While CEOs may certainly be visionary leaders, what’s more important is their ability to facilitate visionary thinking throughout the organization. What sets the study group apart from the comparison group is the fifth measure of success: the CEO as a broker of ideas.

To CEOs of remarkable associations, what matters is not their vision for the association but rather the members’ vision. To be sure, the CEO plays a key role in creating a vision for the organization. That role, however, rests with gathering consensus around a member-generated vision rather than forcing buy-in into a personal vision.

All the associations that participated in the study, no matter which research group they were in, had transitioned away from an autocratic, controlling CEO at some point in the preceding 20 years. Stories were told of former CEOs who edited every communication sent by the association, pitted department directors against one another in mean-spirited competition, played favorites among staff and members, and even hand-picked which flowers to plant at the association’s headquarters. Those days are gone—although not necessarily long gone.

Virtually all the CEOs whose associations participated in the Measures of Success project were described as fostering a “team” or “family” environment within the association and as being willing to listen to others’ ideas. Yet having the ability to listen and be open to others’ ideas isn’t enough. The CEO must also stimulate energy and engagement among and between staff and volunteers and be willing to step aside at times to facilitate a discussion of ideas without dictating an outcome.

In remarkable associations, the CEO helps both elected leaders and staff think in terms of what is possible and enables things to happen rather than decreeing what will happen. Staff input is both welcomed and respected, with no apparent class distinctions giving more weight to some employees’ ideas over others’.

An example from the comparison group helps put this measure in context. One association made a concerted effort to dismantle a longstanding bureaucracy in which ideas had to work their way up through the chain of command. Many ideas died along the way, which had dampened further creativity. Despite the introduction of cross-functional teams, staff continued to believe that senior managers would block innovations, so they took new ideas directly to the CEO.

Rather than open an organizational dialogue, the CEO primarily communicated with the employee or member who had brought forward the idea, bypassing input from other staff and members. As a result, the CEO actually undermined any efforts to foster innovation and teamwork. Distrust among staff and departments was the norm—to the point where employees were reluctant to attend meetings on other departments’ “turf”—so sharing ideas did not occur easily. Perhaps not surprisingly, the association introduced few new products and services.

In this association, as in several other comparison associations, the CEO seemed isolated and had a different view of the organizational culture than most of the employees who were interviewed. In contrast, CEOs in the study group generally avoided being isolated by themselves, with senior staff, or with a group of elected officers. They took pains to clarify the roles and responsibilities expected of everyone—board, staff, and CEO—in the association partnership.