Association Comfort Zone
Leadership

Thursday Buzz: Is Your Association Stuck in Its Comfort Zone?

When the good times are rolling, should you be willing to shake things up? Also: how to properly pitch your bosses.

Steven M. Worth, president of the Plexus Consulting Group, has an interesting blog post citing a survey conducted by the American Society for Public Administration that interviewed city managers who had served their communities for at least 20 years. The survey touches on the impact of introverts leading organizations, but the implications stretch beyond city management.

“It also reveals a tendency, particularly in associations, to stay within comfort margins by working with smaller groups of people and staying with what is familiar rather than venturing into something new,” Worth writes.

He asks whether this leads to a divide within the association community. On the one hand are organizations sticking with close-knit communities that focus on the familiar with long-standing leadership. On the other are the innovation-focused upstarts experiencing unpredictable growth and change.

There are pluses and minuses to both. The big question: Which category better describes your association, and how should that inform your strategic outlook?

Tweet of the Day

The latest step in Twitter’s efforts to grow its user base could change the way you interact with audiences on the social media platform. As some users have recently noticed, for some accounts the retweet button has been replaced with “share with followers.” Add that to the site’s new photo functions and you have a brand new 140-character ballgame.

Other good reads

Looking to pitch a new project or idea to your association’s bigwigs? Author Scott Berkun has a useful run-through of how to persuade your boss that your ideas are the right ones.

These headlines just don’t succeed like they used to. The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal pulls out a key point from a recent New York Magazine profile of Upworthy. The startup’s oft-lampooned headline structure is losing traction, and the company is moving on.

It’s a familiar story in Silicon Valley: Technological darling nears prominence and is acquired by one of the biggest players in the industry. But as Mashable notes, angry early Oculus Rift supporters on Kickstarter expected something other than a Facebook acquisition and are reteaching the lesson to always keep your most loyal fans in mind.

(Fuse/ThinkStock)

Morgan Little

By Morgan Little

Morgan Little is a contributor to Associations Now. MORE

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