B2B without the BS

Stop Doing, Start Building

Posted by Robert Bell under Associations

In the last post, I wrote about a small association that is struggling to master change.  For over 25 years, this association has performed very valuable service in bringing together competitors who have to share an asset that is owned by the American people.  Only by sharing it, in accordance with rules set by the government, can those competitors stay in business.

The government regulations only go so far, however, so technical and operations executives at these competitors have to hammer out the details.  For more than a decade, they did their hammering-out in working groups of the association.  The compromises they reached then make possible services that you use every day.

But then, the activity began to fade away.  The big fights were fought to satisfactory ends.  Increasingly, the competitors contacted each other directly to work out small stuff.  Or they engaged consultants to help them, and the consultants negotiated on their behalf.

The association was left with the crumbs: minor issues that companies brought to them for resolution, updating past recommendations to the government regulatory authority, and putting on an annual conference that attracted fewer than 100 loyalists.

But here’s the strange part.  Today, there are lots of new conflicts among users of this shared asset, with billions of dollars hanging in the balance.  There are big hairy issues that need resolving.  An independent third-party – able to address the technical and implementation aspects – is just as important now as it was then.  But the association is not getting a piece of it.  Why?  Because the conflicts involve companies that are relatively new to the market and have never even heard of the association.

In other words, the market changed and the association did not change with it.  They have been losing money for a decade because their leaders have been devoted to doing – to understanding problems, defining solutions and crafting consensus.  That’s what they are passionate about.  Their passion has benefited the industries they serve – even ones that don’t know they exist.

But they have not spent enough time building.  What the association lacks is a structure that ties its technical achievements to financial success and that prepares it for a future of constant change.

It was the management consultant Peter Drucker who wrote that today’s business is the enemy of tomorrow’s.  Most of us are so wrapped up in solving today’s problems that we neglect the vital work of thinking about tomorrow and taking steps now to prepare for it.  The future of this small association hangs in the balance but these smart, dedicated people have the opportunity to build a truly sustainable organization – if they will just stop doing and start building.

Next… What we recommend

Renewing the Mission

Posted by Robert Bell under Associations

A Chinese emperor, so the story goes, once called together wise men from throughout his realm.  He charged them to come up with a statement of truth that would be unchanging throughout all of time.  After long days of work, the wise men finally had their product.  The eternal truth, they said, took just five words.  “This too shall pass away.”

It was probably not what the emperor had in mind.

Human beings are hard-wired to demand, in the face of all evidence, that things endure.  Which is why we tend to be bad at handling change.  It is also why organizations, including nonprofit trade associations, get into trouble.  In fact, nonprofits are more vulnerable than most, because so many of their leaders are volunteers who can only afford to give a portion of their attention to leadership.  It is a lot harder to be a part-time leader when everything is in flux.

We are working right now with a small association that is struggling to master change. It was founded in the 1980s to help companies deal with a large scale change in government regulation.  It became the go-to organization in the US for vendors and their customers to collaborate on implementing the new regulations.  Through that collaboration, association members were able to avoid the legal and regulatory battles that would otherwise have stymied development of new markets and blocked opportunity for all.

Two decades later, however, this is an organization in search of a mission.  The particular battles that threatened to disrupt the market have been settled.  The major players have learned to cooperate among themselves, and a consulting company has introduced services that make this cooperation fast and efficient.  The association has not issued a new regulatory recommendation for years.

Yet the association’s expertise still has great value.  The market faces new, complex and contentious issues that need to be addressed.  They are just different issues and involve different companies than the association is used to. Lead by very bright, capable people, the association has, so far, lacked the institutional capacity to pivot toward the new opportunities.

Our job is to diagnose the condition and recommend what to change.  There is no question in my mind that they can succeed – but only if they redefine what they do and who they do it for.  The market as they know it has passed away.  The market they will address – one that sooner or later will also pass away – has yet to emerge.

To be continued…