What good is governance without influencers?
I've been mulling over the topic of "influence" for a couple weeks now, ever since I read Maggie McGary's blog post, "Influence in the Context of Associations," on May 31.
She raises a point that traditional influencers in associations—board members and other volunteer leaders—are being supplanted by thought leaders whose influence is sown in the digital realm:
"[A]s time goes by and more of your members begin interacting in the online community, a new group of influencers will grow out of those interactions. Meanwhile, traditional influencers—board and committee members—will become less visible and, therefore, less influential and important, at least to members. Will you know when this change occurs, or will you be stuck in thinking the wrong people matter the most?"
I agree with her on this point. The rise of online influencers started years ago, and they're here to stay. Maggie and I traded some thoughts in the comments, but I want to take her "are you missing the revolution" question and discuss it further, because I think it challenges the association governance model itself.
From a basic perspective, association governance is a structure through which a large community organizes its members' beliefs and goals and channels them into action. In the past, this structure created influence and bestowed it upon those within it (volunteer leaders) just by virtue of the association's position as the sole arbiter of networking, advocacy, and knowledge exchange within the industry. There was simply no other game in town.
But, increasingly, members can now share their beliefs and goals—and can influence and be influenced—without the formal structure. So where does that leave governance?
I see three options, but each one raises more questions:
- Keep the traditional system, but bring new outside influencers into the system (i.e., nominate your online influencers to be real-life board members). Sounds good, but do these people want to participate in that role? Or, if they do, will they lose what influence they had?
- Ditch the governance system. Can an association without a governance system still even be called an association? Relying on leaders and influencers to arise "organically" seems to me like a Wild-West scenario. I just don't see how collective action on a large scale can occur without some sort of organizational system emerging.
- Develop a hybrid. Hybrid is a nice word, but I have no idea what this would look like. In some way, it would mean creating better connections between traditional leaders and outside influencers.
In any case, the dilemma Maggie highlights is a significant challenge for effective governance. If governance is supposed to be the method for gathering an industry's collective goals and channeling them into action, it's going to have to evolve the capacity for capturing influence that's now arising in a greater variety of places.
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Comments
I really enjoyed your article and the Blog as a whole. As a newer AMC and industry vet, we continue to see this online influence play an increasingly larger role in our discussions and operating decisions. We must always debate whether these 'influencers' are true stakeholders before lending much weight to the direction being lent. It's very easy to consult from a far without accepting any personal stake in leadership. Anyways, thanks for the info, Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Alan Davies | June 17, 2011 10:28 AM
Thanks Alan. Indeed, sharing ideas and viewpoints online is a lot different than taking on a commitment to a traditional leadership role, esp. one that requires specific duties and responsibilities and in-person meetings. My guess is that a lot of people doing the former could do the latter well, too, but not always. I'm curious what you see as the qualifications of true stakeholder. Does that have to do with commitment, involvement, perspective, or perhaps something else?
Posted by: Joe Rominiecki | June 17, 2011 1:10 PM
Clearly each member is a stakeholder in this realm, but perhaps commitment would be best to describe true stakeholders in my scenario. There are those that seem most comfortable with a more passive involvement, from a distance so to speak. However, these same individuals are often quite silent when "the rubber meets the road". Willingness in accepting the responsibility that comes with governance positions separates the true leaders and influencers from the pretenders. I believe this conventional form of leadership will be what keeps the traditional system strong and effective in the long run.
Posted by: Alan Davies | June 17, 2011 2:40 PM
Hi Joe,
Great post--for some reason it makes me think of 60's hippies and other better-organized, purposeful movements dedicated to social change. If someone wanted to effect social change, they either had to work inside or outside the system--inside, you may be better at achieving incremental change but be accused of selling out; outside, you often had to join with others but still run the 'risk' of having to compromise and co-opt some of your principles. Now that we have media and audiences who respect free agents who are relatively unaligned with others, influencers can pop up whose legitimacy stems from the quality of their ideas and/or their ability to self-promote. I'd bet in many professions and industries that their is a small colony of these people and they probably tend to cancel each other out with differing opinions. Actual leaders (i.e. in formal positions) may listen to them and find their logic compelling in certain circumstances, but it seems to me, at least, that these additional voices tend to support leaders more than they undermine--they provide a more robust source of intelligence and help test more radical ideas than the leadership was probably willing to contemplate on their own in a Board room or a committee conference call somewhere.
Posted by: Kevin Whorton | June 18, 2011 9:24 AM