Don’t Veto a Great Idea
Laying on the bedroom floor this morning doing crunches, I heard the new chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts on NPR. Rocco Landesman, the 10th chairman of the NEA, is a Broadway theater producer, responsible for such mega hits as The Producers and Angels in America. He’s used to getting things done. Running a nonprofit is proving more frustrating. “Here, when I want to do something,” he said, “there are three or four people who immediately tell me why I can’t do it.”
Associations are often rightly criticized for being slow moving but that starts with obstructionism. Lots of organizations run on consensus decision making but move faster than associations. Lots of organizations have boards that insist on signing off on everything but they move faster than associations. Lots of organizations (most these days) have limited resources both financial and human but they move faster than associations. None of the reasons cited for associations moving slowly hold water. They’re excuses, not reasons. What’s really going on is the obstruction of good ideas—maybe any ideas.
A few years ago, I spoke at ASAE’s Marketing and Membership Conference (where I’m scheduled to repeat next June). An association executive I met there and got to know pretty well afterwards complained about her own staff, “They wouldn’t know a new idea if it hit them between the eyes.”
It’s not the inability to move quickly that hampers associations, it’s the unwillingness to do anything outside of the status quo.
More than 10 years ago, I was part of the test group for an initiative called LifeDesigns. The program was intended to help women take control of their lives and included people like Suze Orman (before she was the Suze Orman). One of the exercises was how to react when a friend or colleague came to you and said, “I’ve decided to quit my job and move to Borneo,” or “What if everyone wears a costume to the 11 o’clock meeting,” or “I think our strategic plan is totally off-track and this is what we should do about it.” The appropriate answer is not “here’s why we can’t do that.” The appropriate answer is, “Great idea!”
Starting from that point changes everything about the conversation that follows. Maybe there is something truly worthwhile going on in Borneo. Maybe the 11 o’clock meeting is such a snooze that an injection of creativity would really help. Maybe you don’t want to hear it because it will mean going back to the drawing board but your strategic plan really is off track.
Not every idea is a great idea. Not every idea is even worth a whole lot of conversation. But within many of them is the kernel of something that you need to think about and maybe act on—act on really quickly. “We can’t do that” is not the place to start. Be open to the great idea and, next time someone has one, you’ll be better able to move on it.
