In most organizations, there is a clear hierarchy. The associate answers to the manager, who answers to the director, who answers to a VP, and so on. Most entry-level or midcareer employees simply won’t have a direct line of communication to the people at the top.

Over at the Rasa.io blog, CEO Bryan Kelly points out that “one of the great features of an online community is that it gives members the opportunity to be on an equal footing with each other.”

He adds, “Everyone is much bolder, more honest in the relatively anonymous realm of the internet—which can sometimes be painful, but it’s also a good way for leadership to find out what members and employees are really thinking.”

Association execs should make sure to be active participants and leaders in their online communities. “He or she knows they’re more likely to get the unvarnished truth online—something they can’t be certain of getting when they meet members face to face.”

Kelly encourages leaders to ask questions of their members and staff to gain valuable insights from entry-level employees who can help guide the association.

Check out Kelly’s blog post for more.

Look to the Past for Inspiration

Sometimes the past can provide the best insights for leading change in the future. @TalentCulture @royosing https://t.co/FaEb3Xwtmy pic.twitter.com/fR8xn9gjex

— Nonprofit HR (@nonprofit_hr) February 3, 2017

Chances are, your organization has no problem brainstorming a bunch of “big ideas.” But great ideas don’t turn into action easily. So many of them last only as long as it takes for someone to erase a conference room whiteboard.

Roy Osing from TalentCulture says change management is overly based on the future. “It focuses on what needs to be done differently in order to meet expected new environmental and competitive shifts.”

But Osing warns that “the risk here is the implicit internal message that can be sent that somehow the past (and by implication the people who were there) is ‘bad’ and is responsible for the jeopardy leadership says the organization faces.”

Osing offers up a fix here.

Other links of note

Easier email: Looking for a Gmail template solution? Try this Chrome add-on.

Don’t be afraid to try video: Association Success offers up a beginner’s guide to creating video content.

Data visualization: Business 2 Community tells us how to be better data storytellers.

(iStock/Thinkstock)