B2B without the BS

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…