Prepare in advance, clean up afterwards
Acronym friend Bob Van Hook shared an idea on the Executive Management listserver about replacing a board dinner with a cooking class, where the board breaks into teams and cooks its own gourmet dinner. (If the idea interests you, you should be able to log into the ASAE website, go to the EMS listserver and search for "cooking.") It's a fun idea I'd urge you to consider, but it's not what I want to write about.
Bob added, as a joke I'm pretty sure, "We also learned... how great it is to have things prepared in advance and someone to clean up after you're done." It might have been whimsy, but that's an interesting statement. I take two points away from it.
First, if you want to build value for your members, what are things that you could do to prepare things in advance for them or clean up after them - literally or figuratively? Believe me, I know what's it like when too often, your members want you to do their job for them, or have that exact right answer for them. In a rare case, maybe you'll have that for them, but most of the time, it's about getting them prepared for it, or helping them figure out how to assess it afterward. So what could you be doing in these spaces?
A second thing I take from that is completely different. I don't want to give the idea that the CEO is on a pedestal to be served by staff, because that's not right. However, in a significant way, our job as staff is to ensure that things are prepared in advance and that things are cleaned up afterward. Our job is to make the CEO successful. Now if there's an ethical or moral issue, that takes precedence. But outside that, the staff's job is to serve the mission of the organization as directed by the CEO. It's to ensure that things are prepared and cleaned up - and yes, to participate too.
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Comments
As a small staff executive, I think it is the other way around. The CEO/CSO's job is to serve the staff and to make sure THEY are successful. This isn't to be confused with direct reporting and so on- but a good exec serves. And if the attitude of "staff" was similar--- wow.
Posted by: Matt Helms | February 1, 2011 6:23 PM
Scott,
Good points. I too enjoyed reading Bob's post and idea for an altenative boad dinner venue and already adapted the idea, mentally, to consider a as a staff retreat venue. And I read between the lines as well and chuckled at the thought that we all like things already "prepared in advance" and "someone to clean up after you"--or take care of all the details. That's what we all ook to leaders to provide, whehter they are memership organizations, business partners providing services, or consultants sharing their expertise. LIfe is complicated and messy and it's always nice to have others you can count on to deliver. Good message for all of us to keep in mind.
Posted by: Anonymous | February 2, 2011 7:14 AM
Allow me to remove my maid's hat (Get it? Clean up?) and post this query: Shouldn't our efforts be directed at making our staff as a whole successful, and not just our CEO. Granted, I come from a Small Staff situation where there are only 5 of us so our team has to be very united, but if the team is successful (and empowered) does that not result in a (at least outwardly appearing) successful CEO?
Posted by: Ashley Hodak | February 2, 2011 9:46 AM
Thanks for the comments!
Matt - I think a good exec leads. Leading by way of service is a tactic, as is leading with vision, leading with charisma. My personal favorite and what I like to see is leading with focus. Leading with power is another tactic, one I think is ultimately unsuccessful. In actuality, I think it probably takes a mix of all of these kinds of ways to lead--including the power, distasteful as that might be--for an exec to be good.
Ashley - Good points. I think the staff as a whole is successful if the CEO is successful -- really by definition. My premise here is that the membership elects a board to guide the organization who hires an executive to run the organization who hires a staff to help him or her run it. What your comment makes clear to me is that one of the points I'm trying to make in the post is that the staff has the mission of the organization as the heart of their work, but they are responsible to the CEO first. The board or members or other constituents only after that. Again, this is with the caveat that CEO must have motives that are not ethically or morally questionable.
Posted by: Scott Briscoe | February 2, 2011 2:30 PM