Tips for Preventing Possible Board Fires
Ken Doyle, CAE, FASAE, is a savvy and seasoned association CEO. He led the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America for thirty-four years and had many opportunities to manage association members’ needs of all types. Doyle believes strongly in what he calls “fire prevention” and has developed a five-part formula that should be used as a daily reminder:
1 No matter what the issue, proposal or plan, even if the board of directors heralds it unanimously, you must assume not all members will agree. There will be those who oppose it. Find them and recruit their support before they become dissidents.
2Better yet, vet proposals as broadly as you can before they are launched. Always seek out members who may hold other opinions. They may be hard to find, but it’s worth the effort.
3Members who are likeliest to become dissidents are the quiet ones who may be reluctant to share their opinions openly or may not be comfortable confiding in directors or staff but will talk with peers about their concerns. As CEO you must keep your antenna attuned to potential sources of discord. Reach out to probe members’ views and address concerns as completely and early as possible.
4 Know your board. Recognize the incredible power of peer pressure at every level of membership, including the board. There may be directors who may not be entirely onboard but will “go along to get along.” The CEO should take extraordinary measures to ensure that peer pressure is not masking a potentially troublesome fissure within the leadership.
5 Do not rely on e-mail. We have all sent an e-mail that reads something like, “Unless I hear from you otherwise, we will take action.” That’s a recipe for trouble. Just because you send e-mail doesn’t mean it will be read. If your e-mail message contains more than three sentences, Doyle says, “Use a different format to communicate. Write a memorandum, letter or, better yet, make a phone call.”
Last month’s column discussed the value of disruption for exhibitions and events, disruption in this context defined as breaking attendees’ routines by introducing new elements that force them to take notice (such as the radical trade-show floor plan introduced at the annual meeting of the International Association of Exhibits & Events). But what happens if a disruption occurs in other ways in your association? Imagine a disaffected member interrupting the adoption of new bylaws or the election of new officers. How would such an unanticipated disturbance be viewed at an annual conference? And how could the situation be avoided completely?
Nonprofit associations, especially, are vulnerable to the destructive effects member dissension creates, especially on association boards and committees. We depend on achieving consensus—it is absolutely vital if the organization is to grow and prosper. That is why it is so critical that we learn how to avoid dissent, and should our best efforts fail, we know how to manage dissension.
A range of dissent. Dissent is complicated—there is a broad range of things people might take issue with and all variety of dissidents. At one end of the spectrum are members who may hold sincere concerns borne perhaps only out of their intellectual curiosity and nothing more. They are likely just in need of additional discussion to assure them of the validity of a proposal or proposition.
At the other end of the spectrum are those very few who are either emotionally unbalanced, sociopathic or simply perpetual critics. These types are what Jim Low, former president of the American Society of Association Executives, famously observed in the early 1970s to be “the red ants who sometimes show up at your picnic. The only effective way to deal with them is to stamp them out and go on,” he said. (It should come as no surprise that Low, a talented and admired leader, ended up spending many years trying to explain what he meant by that metaphor.) Fortunately, “red ants” typically represent a very small minority of any general population, including nonprofit associations.
The vast majority of members fall somewhere in the middle. They are not chronic dissidents but are simply issue-driven, becoming disgruntled by decisions or policies they find to be personally objectionable. Because these individuals are by far the largest cohorts of any membership, they must be managed deftly and with great care.
Factors that contribute to dissent. The dilemma of many association boards and senior staff members stems from the need to make significant decisions without adequate time to ensure that all stakeholders will support the action. But in order to avoid dissent, members must be given information about key issues before it is time to vote on proposals. Members who are uninformed—or misinformed—tend to put passion before logic, and that’s when problems arise and storms begin brewing. The lesson is just this: Boards must recognize the necessity of leading members through sometimes lengthy and complex timelines or face the risk of creating dissension.
A limited time frame is the cause of many a dispute, but certainly not all. Some associations are often tripped up by dissent because they lack competent leadership. A case in point: homeowners’ associations. Anyone who has served as a director of a homeowners’ association knows that these boards seem especially vulnerable to turmoil and dissent. Why? I believe it’s because most homeowners’ associations do not spend sufficient time training and orienting their directors about good governance practices. While board members typically share a common and sincere desire to contribute to the welfare of their communities, their ignorance of fundamental governance processes often serves as the kindling of needless conflagrations.
It is almost universally recognized that most homeowners’ association boards will inevitably have to deal with angry property owners, so clearly, better-prepared board members are going to be more adept at avoiding needless conflict with disaffected members.
Creating credibility. The exponential expansion of social media channels means there are that many more possibilities for dissenters to promote their opinions and recruit allies to their cause. In his book, “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000,” Pete Blackshaw cites six characteristics that create the credibility necessary to increase member satisfaction: trust, authenticity, transparency, listening, responsiveness and affirmation.
Membership organizations that practice and hone these values will be much less likely to engage in behaviors that can promote member dissatisfaction. I believe that all six are crucial, but authenticity and transparency are perhaps the most important of the six.
Members who view their association’s board as sincerely dedicated to their welfare are less likely to stir up problems, and boards that openly share ideas, thoughts and proposals with their members before they become codified in new bylaws or rules are far less likely to wind up playing defense.
But let’s face it: When you are dealing with hundreds or thousands of members, over time it becomes virtually inevitable that some dissension will arise. What do you do then?
A new way of questioning to resolve conflict. There are many theories about conflict and resolution, of course, but I especially like the observations made by Joan Eisenstodt, a respected authority on nonprofit governance and event-management practices, that takes a cue from Jim Low’s red ant analogy: “When there is conflict, the ‘red ant’ usually is questioning the thinking or the movement toward a decision that, in the ant’s opinion, hasn’t been well thought out. When the group is not open to questions, when a decision is being railroaded through, the ant raises issues that are often done in a way that builds conflict.”
Eisenstodt is a disciple of a methodology called “Q-Storming,” which was developed by Marilee Adams, president and founder of the Inquiry Institute, a consulting, coaching and educational organization based in Lambertville, New Jersey. According to its definition, Q-Storming is based on the premise that “every question missed is a crisis waiting to happen.” To resolve possible conflict, Q-Storming posits a different method of questioning—one that resembles a kind of brainstorming—as the means of efficient conflict resolution.
“If Q-Storming/question-thinking is employed, it provides an opportunity for both the ant and others to question the input and the move toward a decision. It provides a platform for constructive question-thinking,” Eisenstodt said. “We work on moving from ‘judger questions’ to ‘learner questions,’ which, if they become part of the way a culture operates, allows the ants to be productive in their questioning and encourages others to do the same.”
Practicing peaceful resolution. It seems to me that, in general, if we abandon the traditional “judger” questions and routinely adopt “learner” questions, better outcomes are likely to follow. Given the stakes and the probability of having to deal with dissent at least once in everyone’s career, all association leaders could benefit significantly from honing their communication skills. Because, when conflicts arise, it is as the late actor Strother Martin so perfectly summed it up in the movie “Cool Hand Luke”: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”