Transform Culture

At  IQ Solutions, a web strategy firm focused on healthcare, they pay close attention to leadership and staff development, and their technology coordinator, John Bobosh, was willing to share some of his thoughts on this with us. How are you customizing leadership development internally? My department at IQ Solutions has a really flat hierarchy. A […]

I have written a lot about the need to design our organizations around the needs of the employees. I see this as part of a digital mindset that we need to be adopting if we want our associations to thrive in the 21st century. The world has changed (permanently) and individuals expect us to run […]

Once a month, I’ll round up some links to posts from around the internet on our topic of the month. Here’s this month’s reading list on leadership development and culture. There is a lot on this subject all over the internet, but these picks have some newly relevant insights around leading from the middle, self-directed […]

One of the fundamental truths in the business world is that experience is a good thing. When we want to hire someone for a job, we demand it. When we look back at our own careers, we realize that once we have it, we are better at many things than we were before we had […]

I’ve been in the association world for a long time, and I hear a lot of complaints about silos. The different departments, while necessary, also cause a lot of problems because they don’t collaborate well. The “culprit” will vary by organization — member services, education, meetings — but at some point one or more ends […]

We’ve all heard the cliches, like “our people are our greatest asset,” but when push comes to shove, with budgets for professional development internally, I’m not sure that’s always the case. It’s expensive to develop your people. It takes them away from the jobs they need to do, and there are frequently fees involved for […]

I talked with Sandra Giarde, executive director of the California Landscape Contractors Association, to talk about a hot topic: Rogue board member. Sandra has presented at several association conferences about how to deal with a “turbo bully” on the board and this seems to be a topic that resonates with everyone. What in a board culture […]

We’ve been talking about the connection between association boards and culture, and most posts have been organized around concrete tips: The first set the stage on defining and maintaining a board culture, and then we got right into tips on orienting your board. Maddie interviewed AGU CEO Chris McEntee on some cool stuff she’s done with her […]

In case you didn’t know, I got my Master’s degree in conflict analysis and resolution 20-odd years ago from George Mason University. I studied conflict from all angles with some of the leaders in the field, and I can tell you, from the theory side, there is absolute clarity that: Conflict is a good thing. […]

After 35 years working as the staff guy in three different non-profits, serving on a variety of community boards and listening to stories from some of my colleagues in other organizations, I have to say 98 percent of people I have both worked with and for on non-profit boards are terrific people. They care, they do their […]