The Association Innovation Blog by Jeff De Cagna

More on why best practices don't cut it...

Dave Snowden, internationally-recognized expert on knowledge, storytelling and social complexity, has given us more ammunition in the fight against mediocrity by best practice.  Speaking on Wednesday at an IBM event in Singapore, Snowden offered the following succinct yet powerful observation:

No company who has ever succeeded to be the market leader has ever done it by following the best practices set by the dominant leader in that space.

As I've been typing these words, I've been running a list of market leaders through my mind:  Apple, Google, Starbucks, FedEx, 3M.  Snowden is clearly correct.  None of these leading companies achieved its position by duplicating the work of others.  Instead, these companies focused their energies on advancing original ideas and built their continuing commitment to innovation as a prerequisite for sustainable success.

In his Singapore talk, Snowden also argued that necessity is the driver of innovation.  When the environment in which the organization operates changes dramatically, the pressure that people feel to try new approaches increases as the old ways of working become harder to sustain.  Apparently, Snowden isn't familiar with the association community, however, because necessity is precisely where we stand right now in our need for innovation.  So far, however, the pressure doesn't seem to have caused enough pain and discomfort for a critical mass of association leaders to induce them to make innovation a genuine priority.  I'm not that thrilled with the idea of making innovation happen due, in part, to a sense of fear.  But at this point, I'll take what I can get!

In any event, the next time someone in your association suggests that you look for best practices, tell them to seek out original ideas instead.  The former is almost certainly the road to being average, while the latter is the surer pathway to long-term success and realizing your association's full potential..   

Building the case against best practices

Michael W. McLaughlin of Deloitte Consulting has published an excellent article called "The Worst About Best Practices."  Like me, Mike is frustrated by the prevalence of best practices and the thinking they promote.  As he writes:

The problem with best practices is this: That approach lulls people into thinking that a best practice really exists that can be successfully transplanted.

I agree.  TAIB readers will recall that I selected "the impending death of best practices" as one of the Top 5 issues facing associations in 2005.  Great organizations do not create value for members, customers and stakeholders by copying the work of others.  They understand that in today's marketplace, creativity and originality are the primary drivers of value.  When association leaders try to replicate the experience of others because it seems expedient or efficient to do so, they surrender the opportunity to dazzle their members and give ground to for-profit and non-profit enterprises willing to embrace the challenge of innovation.  In this sense, then, whether and how our organizations use "best practices" is truly a question of leadership judgment, and one that association executives and volunteers cannot afford to get wrong.  To them, I offer the following advice:  let's dump best practices and focus on building better practice in our organizations. 

UPDATE:  I have added a new poll on best practices.  Please cast your vote.

New podcast on strategic planning at Associations Unorthodox

Just a quick note to TAIB readers that I have posted a new podcast on "the death of strategic planning" over at Associations Unorthodox.  This will be the first in an occasional series of podcasts around the shortcomings of strategic planning, as well as alternatives to it, that I will be recording in the months ahead.  I hope you'll check it out, and do let me know what you think!

March 15 Google session

This past Tuesday, I presented a free session on Google and innovation for the association community.  The session was hosted by the Special Libraries Association and I want to thank Janice Lachance, SLA's executive director, my friend and colleague John Crosby, and all of the staff at SLA for their great help and support!

I've led many sessions over the course of my career and I've grown accustomed to having my photograph taken from the back of the room.  But I've always wanted to take a picture of an audience from my vantage point, so we can see the learning experience from a new perspective.  It just so happens that we had a great group of association professionals and learners assembled for this session who were more than willing to participate in this small experiment.  Thanks to all of you for your participation and engagement, not only in this photo but in the session as a whole.

I'm looking forward to writing and talking about Google and innovation going forward, as well as to delivering more free learning sessions for our association community.  If your association would like to organize this kind of "thought leader" session for its staff or the community at large, please send me an e-mail.  I'd be happy to chat with you about it.   

New TAIB poll: Obstacles to innovation

I have posted a new poll on the blog.  Please visit and cast your vote.  The question is an important one and it will be interesting to see the results:

Which of the following is the biggest obstacle to innovation in your organization?

+The inability to conceive of new strategic options
+The inability to move resources away from decaying programs
+The inability to question what the organization currently does
+The inability to see a different future

BTW, in the last TAIB poll, Google edged out Apple as the company that readers associate with innovation.  3M was a distant third.  Many thanks to those of you who voted.  Please vote in our new poll!

Associations Unorthodox Launches Today!

I am incredibly excited to announce that today I have launched my brand new podcasting blog, Associations Unorthodox!  What makes this blog different is that all of the posts (with the exception of an occasional informational post perhaps) will be in an audio format.  You'll be able to listen to the posts online and, even better, you'll be able to access a podcasting feed so you can download those posts to your iPod or MP3 player.  My first podcast in online right now!

As a reader of TAIB, I hope you will also take a listen to Associations Unorthodox.  I'll be using this new communications medium to engage our community in a conversation that challenges the conventional wisdom and prevailing orthodoxy of the association community.  My goal is to create new strategic options for associations that can help our organizations not simply survive but thrive in the 21st Century.

Spread the word about Associations Unorthodox to your friends and colleagues in the association community.  We're entering a new phase of the discussion so get ready to be a part of it.  And remember to always listen carefully! 

Dan Pink in February Wired

The Phoenix edition of the Center's Great Ideas Conference is coming up in just about two weeks (February 13-15, 2005), and former Fast Company writer and Free Agent Nation author Dan Pink will be delivering the Monday keynote presentation, "Giving Your Organization a New Brain."  (Dan also spoke at the Orlando edition of Great Ideas in December 2004, and I thought he was great.)

Anyway, Dan's presentation is based on his forthcoming book, A Whole New Mind:  Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, which will be available in March.  An excerpt from the book appears in the February 2005 issue of Wired magazine, and so I thought I'd bring it to the attention of TAIB readers who may be attending the conference or know people who will.

Throwing out the box

Joyce Wycoff of the Innovation Network is conducting an online survey in search of a replacement for the hackneyed old cliche, "think outside the box."  (Long overdue in my opinion.  It isn't a phrase you ever hear me say!)  You can complete the survey at http://surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=17959827411.  It will only take you a few minutes to scan and select your preferred alternatives, and you also will have the opportunity to propose your own ideas.  I suggested a few including:

• Freely contemplate the extraordinary
• Consider what's beyond the world of your own assumptive design
• Think through the intersections and beyond the boundaries

If you offer any of your own ideas on the survey, please also post them here in the comments section.  While you're at it, and if you're so inclined, please post other innovation-related phrases that you think should be jettisoned in favor of new options.  Thanks!

Heard at PCMA

"Turbulence is inevitable, but misery is optional."

These are the words of former Southwest Airlines CEO Howard Putnam at PCMA's Annual Meeting yesterday. Putnam ought to know. His resume includes a stint at the failed Braniff Airlines and his insight includes years of working with Herb Kelleher, the irascible chairman of Southwest.

When someone in your association asks you why innovation is so important, tell them what Howard Putnam said. Southwest's critical insight that it was truly in the mass transportation business was an innovation that has made the company profitable for some 26 years and the dominant player in the airline industry.

What if you, your colleagues and your board could develop the kind of insight for your business. What could you create?

T5/05: Innovation (#1 and #100)

Happy New Year from The Association Innovation Blog! I want to wish everyone who reads this blog, everyone in the association community and everyone, everywhere for that matter a very happy 2005.  I hope those of us who really care about the future of associations and who share a concern about the way things are going can find a way to work together to make 2005 a remarkable year for this extraordinarily important community of ours!  I look forward to using TAIB as a vehicle for advancing those efforts.

Before I get to the actual post, let me just add a quick plug for my 100th post to TAIB.  Tomorrow, I will have been blogging for exactly 16 months (my first post was September 2, 2003) and I am going to keep on blogging in 2005.  In fact, I hope I will spend more time writing (and recording...sorry text lovers!) this blog, because it is something that I genuinely enjoy.  Thank you all for reading and listening.  I greatly appreciate your continued support. 

I don't think anyone will be shocked by my choice of innovation as the top issue for the association community in 2005.  Perhaps the first four issues--the (impending) death of best practices, competition, new science and technology and intangibles--were actually clues designed to guide you toward this final choice.  (Hmm...am I that clever? ;>)  And I suppose it might seem like a bit of self-serving choice, since innovation is "my thing."  I might even willingly plead guilty to that charge.  But I know deep inside that this is the work we must do and that we're meant to do.  I know that in the 21st Century, associations are destined to transform the landscape of society for the better, and our only hope for seizing the initiative and setting that agenda is devoting ourselves to the whats, whys and hows of innovation today.