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This is the first of four posts on how associations can or should be thinking about innovation from members of ASAE's Innovation Task Force exploring how innovation can be fostered in the association community. This post is from Jeffrey Cufaude from Idea Architects.

Innovation in associations often starts down the same path as diversity and inclusion: as a freestanding separate initiative with its own designated resources or champions. It may be somewhat natural to go this route--let's focus attention and resources on something specific--but it postpones the inevitable. Success requires that innovation be infused in the association's DNA and integrated into all of its efforts--it's culture.

Volumes can be written on culture so let's just use the following definition from noted organizational development guru and MIT professor Edgar Schein in Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3d edition:

"A pattern of shared basic assumptions that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way you perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems."

In short, culture is defined by "just the way we do things around here" and the way we think about them. Culture is reflected in the stories you tell, the examples you champion, the language people use, the patterns of communication, the way meetings occur, and the lessons used to orient others. So perhaps the easiest way to get started on the innovation path--and get out of being stuck in neutral--is to infuse an innovation lens into the way you think about the things you're already going to be doing.

Have an interview with a prospective candidate next week? Include questions that assess their innovation potential. Staff meeting tomorrow? Include a few questions about how the value of a particular program on the agenda can be enhanced. Planning orientation for new volunteers? Build in a component charging them with upping the innovation factor in their efforts and discuss they key organizational priorities they should aim their efforts at improving.

While such steps alone won't completely transform your association into an enduring engine of innovation, they certainly move you in that direction while you engage in more significant overhaul of some of your major processes (idea management, budgeting, new initiative development, etc.). Culture is learned through what we do and what we say, so simply start talking the innovation talk better and walking it in every incremental way you can. Over time, looking to create new value will become the way things get done.

What are simple steps you've taken (or can take) to integrate an innovation commitment into your existing efforts?

Tomorrow: Kerry Stackpole, President, Printing & Graphics Association MidAtlantic, offers a perspective on innovation choices.