Best Board Practice Yields the Best Associations
By Philip Lesser

The adage that “change is the only constant” is just as relevant in the not-for-profit world as it is in the forprofit and government sectors. Successful associations learn how to accept change as an ongoing fact of life and adapt their planning and management processes to accommodate it.

In the best associations, board members and staff executives seize change as an opportunity. They establish a process for scanning the environment for change and studying it; they work to identify trends that might affect their associations and incorporate that analysis into their planning; they take actions to benefit from the trends by adapting their associations quickly; and they conduct the above activities on an ongoing basis.

Association leaders who know how to adapt to and benefit from change are applying best practice in their roles as board members and staff executives. As a result, their efforts almost always result in a “best” association—one focused on meeting the needs of its members well into the future.

‘TRANSITION ALIGNMENT’ HELPS LEADERS RESPOND TO CHANGE
While change is constant, some periods of change are more serious than others and require the focused attention of the board and staff executive to address the subject at hand. Examples of serious change might include: the organization faces a crisis (e.g., a dramatic loss of members), a change occurs in the association’s environment and creates the need to “jump to the next level” (e.g., a new regulatory requirement), or the association engages a new chief staff executive.

This process of providing focused attention to serious change is referred to as “transition alignment,” and includes three inter-related best practices that help leaders create thoughtful, strategic response to change:

1. Leadership development. Dealing with change requires that the board and staff have a clearunderstanding of their unique roles and responsibilities. These include the board’s role as thebody that sets the mission and establishes the goals and objectives for the association, andthe staff’s role of creating operational plans for implementing the goals. Without this basicunderstanding of roles, no one in the association will have a clear picture of what “serious change” is required, and what objectives and tactics will be employed to address it.
   
   This understanding begins with orientation of new board and staff members, and continues withongoing development in the skills needed in each role. Board members, for example, must learntheir fiduciary responsibilities and the role of the staff, while staff executives must develop skills for effective staff leadership, planning, expense control and member relations.
2. Organization assessment. You cannot effectively deal with change if you do not have a goodhandle on who you are today (i.e., a baseline from which you can measure future actions.)Therefore, you have to assess yourself periodically to know the strengths and weaknesses of your organization, and have some idea of how you stack-up against “best practice” in not-for-profit organization management.
   
   An assessment can look at the entire organization by objective (i.e., analyzing how well each part of the organization helps achieve the strategic objectives established by the board.) It can also include comparisons to best practice in board and staff activities, including such areas as governance, structure, volunteer leadership and membership, financial management, staff and facilities, technology, programs and services, etc. Organization assessment also generates excellent information for the third and most important best practice of transition alignment, strategic management.
3. Strategic management. Planning has to accommodate change and, as such, cannot just beabout a long-term, big-picture view of the organization. Effective planning—known as strategicmanagement—begins with creating a big-picture view (i.e., mission statement, goals and objectives) and then continues on with managing, monitoring and enhancing the plan throughout the entire year. This process is often referred to as “planning your work and working your plan.”

As an ongoing process, strategic management easily incorporates change and ties-back all organizational decisions to it. Thus the plan becomes a living document and part of the fabric of the organization by helping accomplish measurable results in the short-term. Some boards even remind themselves of the "living nature" of their plans by structuring their board meeting agendas around the content of their plans (i.e., specific goals, objectives, etc.).

It should be underscored that planning is an ongoing activity of the board, and involves two main activities:

Strategic positioning—the board identifies the big picture, including the organization’s mission and the key goals that must be achieved to accomplish the mission.

Operational planning—the board details how the big picture will be achieved, including measurable objectives for each goal and precise outcomes and indicators of success. With this direction, the staff identifies specific responsibilities, work plans, budgets and timelines needed to achieve the stated outcomes.

BEST PRACTICE IS COMMON SENSE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR
It’s worth repeating that the same practices are also ‘management common sense’ and should be part of the ongoing governance and management of the organization. By making them part of your governance, the organization will be in an excellent position to identify and deal with day-to-day changes as they come along. B-school libraries are full of case studies about organizations that survived serious set-backs by having a plan in-place for dealing with "the possibility of just such a set-back." Conversely, there are countless case studies of organizations that had no such plans—and which didn’t survive the set-back. It’s the job of your board to use the best practices outlined above to make sure you become one of the former.

SUMMARY
An association’s ability to identify change and incorporate it into its planning process is vital to its ability to respond to member needs and achieve continued long-term success. This requirement is particularly vital when the association faces periods of serious change or challenge. Three best practices—leadership development, organization assessment, and strategic management—can prepare an association to deal with change in an efficient effective manner, and minimize the risk that a serious crisis will cripple it. The same best practices are also ‘common sense’ for any organization and should be part of ongoing governance and management.

Philip Lesser, PhD, CAE is a Vice President of Bostrom Corporation.