--- title: "Lunchtime Links: Embracing the Counterintuitive" id: "13348" type: "post" slug: "lunchtime-links-embracing-the-counterintuitive" published_at: "2012-09-19T19:28:19+00:00" modified_at: "2026-03-17T17:12:42+00:00" url: "https://associationsnow.com/2012/09/19/lunchtime-links-embracing-the-counterintuitive/" markdown_url: "https://associationsnow.com/2012/09/19/lunchtime-links-embracing-the-counterintuitive.md" excerpt: "Sometimes, the answer to your pressing issue is the very thing you weren't expecting." taxonomy_category: - "Marketing / Communications" taxonomy_post_tag: - "AssociationsNow" - "Communications" - "content strategy" - "Leadership" - "Marketing" taxonomy_content_format: - "Article" taxonomy_role: - "Director" - "Executive Team" - "Manager" - "VP" taxonomy_persona: - "Association Professionals" --- [Home](https://associationsnow.com/) » [Articles](https://associationsnow.com/format/article/) » Lunchtime Links: Embracing the Counterintuitive Some days feel like Opposite Day. Up is down, left is right, and the thing you were expecting to happen one way worked out the other. But rather than freaking out, just roll with it. A few examples of going counterintuitive gracefully: > Organizational politics often lead to staffing patterns that make little sense in terms of true talent. **Our message is unspoken, too:** Writing on Steve Drake’s SCD Group blog, executive coach David Scruggs [discusses what he’s learned from working with politicians (opens in a new tab)](http://www.scdgroup.net/2012/09/lessons-association-executives-can.html) . He also writes: “Our communication style and our delivery often begin the process of building trust and credibility with our listeners. If we don’t listen well, if our tone of voice or body language is not in alignment with our words, our message will be incongruent.” Bill Clinton is a master of this, he says. **Virtual events take a different kind of work:** Your audience may not be in the room, but you still have to get them there if it’s going to work. “A physical event obviously takes a higher commitment level than a virtual event. Once registered for a digital event – especially if it’s free – it can be easy to skip it,” [Engage365’s Donna Sanford explains (opens in a new tab)](http://www.engage365.org/2012/09/18/marketing-your-digital-eventtiming/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Engage365+%28Engage365%29&utm_content=Google+Reader) . “You’ll need extra time to continue building excitement and desire to attend.” **“Content marketing” doesn’t always mean staying on message:** Explaining the success of his company’s blog, Movoto Real Estate’s Chris Kolmar says you should [stretch your niche content to a wider audience (opens in a new tab)](http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/getting-down-to-basics-building-a-blog-from-the-ground-up) , too. “People on the Internet want to be entertained,” he notes. “So give them what they want! Write something that is tangentially related to your niche, but is interesting to the mainstream audience.” As associations learn how to market their message, they might gain a little from this approach, too. **You may not be utilizing your workers correctly:** Writing in a guest post for the Affiniscape Blog, Jeffrey Cufaude explains how organizational politics [might lead to poorly utilized talents (opens in a new tab)](http://affiniscapeblog.com/2012/09/seven-beliefs-we-need-in-the-workplace-guest-post-jeffrey-cufaude/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AffiniscapeBlog+%28Affiniscape+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader) : “I’ve seen too many talented individuals in one job get promoted to management positions when they would have been better left as a doer. Organizational politics often lead to staffing patterns that make little sense in terms of true talent, but seem to succeed at keeping individual foes far from each other in the organizational chart.” How do you handle “Opposite Day”? [Ernie Smith](https://associationsnow.com/author/ernie-smith/) Ernie Smith is a former senior editor for Associations Now. 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