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August 14, 2005
The Elephants in the Room
More from Betsy Boyd-Flynn, after her session...
Eating the Elephant, One Bite at a Time.
The biggest surprise of the session: the synergies between our issues. The challenge and threat of self-forming groups; the need to recast diversity efforts as inclusivity efforts; and the opportunities we have to pursue social responsibility in our industry all offer real relevance to associations; all demand our attention and creative energies.
Participants discusses questions and scenarios around these three topics. As a group, the 45 or so attendees reported back what they found. One key: "Any of these topics would be excellent for my BoD discussions in the future."
Some pearls:
- When groups self-form within our associations, we must look first at their motivation - is it because the traditional group lacked content for the disgruntled, or because the sub-group wanted more power?
- Can the new group and the old group leverage each others' strengths for more powerful collaboration, while still validating and preserving why the small group formed in the first place: PASSION!
- We must be genuine when we engage these groups - or they'll be even more alienated.
- Can we cast some scenarios for our boards to discuss how this might happen?
Diversity/Inclusiveness (K. Donovan):
- Diversity means more than a checkbox on a form. There are many different angles to explore beyond gender and race - ranging even to physical abilities.
- We have to respect differences, but not focus on them to the exclusion of what else a person/member needs from us; not all members of a minority will want to be pigeonholed as such - or even identified as such at all.
- We can use data in different ways to get more nuanced information about diversity. If you have decent representation of a minority in your organization, deep analysis of data might show they are all in one sector or level, and show you what work you have yet to do.
Social Responsibility (B. Boyd-Flynn):
- Social responsibility really begins at the level of our mission - we can't incorporate it into the work we do without rethinking our most core principles.
- Staff have a responsibility to start the dialogue with their volunteers and among themselves, to ask the hard questions.
- What's needed is a spirit of inquiry with our stakeholders (who we must also reconsider to be a larger group than we've previously considered) - and then truly listening to what needs to happen according to those within, and without.
One way to think of it is stewardship - and it's important to consider that this is an opportunity to elevate our profession.
What a fabulous high to start of my first Annual Meeting with ASAE and The Center. If only all public speaking were this easy.
Posted by X-Blog Contributor at August 14, 2005 07:32 AM
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