Deep Conversations

In my last post, I promised to talk about deep conversations, but ended up describing a brainstorming session.

Brainstorming is a great tool and can lead to new ideas. It's one of many tools (God bless the Memory Jogger) that help groups work together.

To have a deep conversation with your members, you must really be present in the meeting. Rather than being preoccupied by your own opinions on the topic, your hopes for the outcome, your prior experiences with this person or group, you need to be open to what is happening in the moment.

If you can, stop the pattern of your thoughts, your comments on what you hear. Instead, be curious about what you hear. Why did they ask that? Why is that important to them? Listen and investigate. Treat everything as very interesting. For most suggestions, the best response is normally a question: how would that help you? Why is that so important? How would the project be impacted if we didn't do that?

The key is listening. Letting go our own desires for a moment and focusing on theirs. More than just active listening, which includes techniques such as acknowledging and paraphrasing, this is more of an state of mind. We drop our own opinions and listen without judgment. We consider everything we hear interesting, even the obnoxious comments, if we are unlucky enough to have one or more such members present. Strong input indicates strong feelings and that's interesting. Why do they feel so strongly?

It is almost physical. Find the tightness inside your chest that is your holding onto your own opinions and your own view of life. Let it go. Soften inside, become vulnerable and open.

Then you can be focused on others.

This is not easy to do, though experienced facilitators are pretty good at it. As a first step, when you find yourself defending a certain point or stance, when you find yourself debating with a member what they said instead of asking questions about it, then drop those defenses. Remain open for the new idea, and ask a question that helps explore the topic raised.

If you must present your own or the association's viewpoint, present it as another aspect of the issue, without being defensive or vested in thew viewpoint. It's another interesting factor. How does that impact the discussion? How might it impact the decision?

When your members feel listened to, when your conversations with your members go deep into their experiences and their needs, then you probably are getting to the heart of the matter and you are probably understanding your market.

Creating Momentum using Advisory Committees

For most associations, creating successful revenue-generating services is founded in truly knowing the needs of your members.

There are many ways to ask them. The most traditional is a survey. Well designed surveys do collect member input that will inform and direct action (especially if you get the help of people like SurveyGuru). Badly designed surveys still give you something to think about and data to mine.

But the best method of bringing out deep needs is deep conversation. In the commercial world, they may call them focus groups. In the association world, we convene an ad hoc advisory group.

Once a 'good idea' is floated, it can expand to be all things to all people, unless firmly scoped and pointed in the right direction. To do that, a great starting point is to bring together a group of people, no more than about 12, who represent as many different viewpoints as possible. Have the most people from those constituencies whose opinions you wish to understand the most. Bring them together for at least a full day.

Once there, start with the biggest questions first: What are the goals of the new service? Why would we provide this product? What benefits would this program generate? For whom?

Brainstorm a list of anything that smacks of being a goal, rationale or benefit. Write everything up, without editing or censoring.

Then do some clarification by rewriting them as goals. As you go through each one, prioritize them into primary and secondary goals.

Try to stay open to new ideas, new goals which surface late in the process. Keep asking questions: why that goal? What would that do for you? What would happen if we didn't do that?

At the same time, try to keep the meeting moving. Anything which becomes a topic of discussion that is not resolved within the group within a reasonable time, put aside for now in a 'parking lot'. These are questions which may need to be asked of the wider membership and thus will form the basis for your well designed survey later.

Once you have your list of goals, all other decisions should be matched against them: will doing it this way this help us meet our goals? Now you can move onto questions of scope, financing, outsourcing, collaborating and such.

You have described the end-point and that is the start of momentum. Because now you are moving in the right direction.

It's about the People

I once took a great course titled The Five Day MBA (thanks, AMA ).

The course started with accounting and finance, and moved on through topics such as strategy and leadership. The first instructor asked us where we worked and what was the primary purpose of our organization. Given that it was the financial portion, it's not surprising that he brought all of our fancy visions and missions and activities down to one common denominator.

He said "It's about the money".

He was wrong

It's about the people.

Working for an association, I really like that we can say that out loud. We are about service and members and doing the right thing.

At the same time, I was responsible for bringing in millions of dollars in revenue for an association. I can see how revenue drives the activies of even non-profit organizations.

But in every endeavor, be it for-profit or not-for-profit, it will not succeed if people are ignored in the financial pursuit. The people who create the product or program, the people who use it, the people who support it, the people who regulate it. Some of whom may be motivated by money, but certainly not all. And until we understand the needs of, and pressures upon, all those people, we don't truly understand our market.