FUTUREtakes (ISSN 1554-7744)

Building Vibrant Organizations – Tips for Success

            In today’s “chronologically challenged” (not-enough-hours-in-the-day) societies, there is substantial competition for one’s already limited disposable time, particularly among people who have diverse interests.  If a professional society or interest group is to inspire sufficient interest to be viable, the imperative for its leaders is to make the organization a priority for enough people.

This has been no small task even for FUTUREtakes.  However, as our publication is quite a success story in its own right as an international magazine and educational resource, we have determined that you may benefit from some tips for success that have served us well:

1.       Ensure a continual infusion of new ideas, new energy, and new vision to keep your organization ever vibrant and to build and leverage the “contagion of enthusiasm.”  Otherwise, at some point your organization will become stagnant. 

2.       Develop and share a vision for your organization.  Think and dream big – in terms of your organization being all that it can be, and then follow through.  One approach that some leaders find helpful is to identify what people really want and provide it.  Find a niche that needs to be filled, and then fill it.  There are too many exciting possibilities for your organization, and you will not want to seek contentment as a “caretaker president.”

3.       Set goals that support your organization’s vision and that motivate you and your team to do the necessary “legwork” for goal achievement.  As we have observed elsewhere – you can’t talk your way there, you can’t vote your way there, you can’t “policy” your way there, you can’t “oversight” your way there, you can’t “org chart” your way there, you can’t “advise” your way there, and you can’t spend forever planning your way there!

4.       Continually question hidden assumptions about what your organization must be and how it must operate.  For example, do your officers consist of a president, a vice president, a secretary, and a treasurer because these are the officers that other organizations have?  Periodically ask yourself and your team some “outside-the-box” questions.  Also remember that the winning hand for today is not necessarily the winning hand for tomorrow.  If it were, there would be little or no need for futurists!

5.       Be willing to make bold moves when appropriate.  It is leadership – not tinker-at-the-margins management – that generally wins the “hearts and minds” that will bring you members, participants, and volunteers. 

6.       Be observant!  Remain alert for weak signals, even during periods of outward vibrancy.  If unheeded, they often amplify with time.  Eventually they will get your attention, but perhaps in a way that is not to your liking.  As we have done in FUTUREtakes, also learn from your observations of other organizations – their successes as well as their lessons from the “University of Hard Knocks.”  (It is our own such observations that have made possible these tips for success that you are now reading.)  Otherwise you risk enrolling in this “university” yourself.

7.       Here are two time-tested and proven ways to destroy a good organization and push away the builders and leaders whom you need as volunteers – ways that you will want to avoid:

1. “Majoring in the minors” – in other words, thinking and dreaming big but then acting small, focusing too much time and energy on administrivia and trivialities.  Matters such as trinkets for speakers, the book or CD to be raffled at an organization activity, or whether you refer to your governing body as a board or a council are not the things that will make or break your organization. 

2. Thinking, dreaming, planning, and talking big – forever.  Visions and dreams are essential first steps toward your organization being everything that it can be, but (to borrow computer parlance), endless discussion buys you a “don’t loop” of endless discussion that keeps your organization goals at the proverbial starting block and again drives away good volunteers.

Some volunteers may indeed remain, but when they observe that endless talking and planning is acceptable behavior, they will themselves become “tainted.”  There is one type of volunteer whom you do not need – the one who has no time to do legwork for your organization between board, council, or committee meetings but who invariably finds or makes time to attend meetings to talk about doing things. 

8.       You are ill-advised to have “advisors,” including former organizational officeholders who contribute nothing beyond words or who otherwise overstay their value-added.  With rare exceptions, such arrangements almost invariably benefit the advisor far out of proportion to any benefit that accrues to the organization.  By definition, advisors are talkers, not doers, and at least implicitly, they volunteer other people to do things.  You know where this usually leads – nowhere.  Indeed, it is generally not a shortfall of good ideas that limits organizations!

9.       Above all – lead, don’t merely manage.  Being a leader is knowing when not to be a manager.

We invite you to give these principles a chance and to share your resulting experiences.  It is to these principles, and to our own vibrant team, that FUTUREtakes owes its continuing success. 

Chapter Activities Session 2006 -- revisited

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