May 8, 2008
6 Tips for Growing Your Association Career
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
Since time immemorial (or, well, at least as far back as when I was a fresh-from-college entry-level association guy all the way back in 1992), ambitious young people have entered the association world and thought, “The world is very different from what these old fogies are used to. Things are moving faster. Communication methods are changing. People want more. Nobody’s joining associations just because they think it’s the right thing to do, they want real value. These old dusty procedures and programs and organizational structures are too rigid and irrelevant and we need to do new, innovative things that break through the false barriers.”
Yes, it’s true; some people actually thought those things before there was a “Web 2.0.” In fact, they thought those things before there was a web at all.
Even back in those pre-millenial days, the fact was that:
– Some young people entered the association world and leapfrogged to new areas of responsibility, new positions, new leadership roles, new salary rungs at a rapid pace.
– Many young people didn’t.
– The distinction between the two groups had less to do with the organizational traits of the association they worked for, and more to do with the personal traits of the individuals involved.
In short, to grow your association career, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to let your generation define you. Your success does not depend on your generation’s success. Only you can own your own career.
Based, once again, only on my own experience, here are six quick tips for building a career that you can love.
Pick the association you work for, don’t let it pick you. You may have wound up in association management by accident (as most people do) but from Day Two it’s YOUR CHOICE to work for the same association. If you know you want to work for associations, but you feel the culture in the association you are in is too stifling, then seek new ground. In my personal opinion, the best opportunities for rapid growth actually lie in smaller associations. Not TOO small and not TOO big — if there are only 2-3 staff people in your organization, you will almost never have the possibility to break free of the mere drudgery of daily work. More than 50 or 100, they may have so many strict levels in their org chart that you will be just as trapped. Seek organizations that have 5-30 employees and a solid record of black ink.
Find people who have worked in the association world for 30 or 40 years or more and listen to them. Ask them questions and then actually listen to the answers. DON’T ask them how you can get ahead. DON’T ask them for answers to specific management question. DO ask them for STORIES. Don’t just listen to their stories — ABSORB their stories. One of the best things I ever did was meet my first boss’s mentor, at that time already retired, with decades of experience in associations. Not only were his stories funny and engaging and filled with wisdom, but his willingness to share — indeed his delight in sharing — lent me a grounded education that would have taken me years to gather on my own. (If your response to this point is, “What could I possibly learn about associations from the way someone did something in the 1960s?” then you are not ready to grow. You cannot possibly advocate for CHANGE if you have only the glossiest understanding of how things got to be the way they are now.)
Become an expert generalist. Your particular professional field notwithstanding, get to know association management as a general field. Seek out someone else’s back issues of ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT magazine and read them cover to cover. Follow the pertinent ASAE listserves (perhaps even some of the association blogs). Read — absorb — listen. Avoid the impulse to respond to everything or post every thought that pops into your head. Instead, learn from the other people who are out there. BUT, that said …
Speak up! When you have ideas, speak up. Don’t sit there in a meeting and wait to be called on. You do NOT need to wait until some artificial date passes to feel like you have something interesting to say. If you’re smart, and you’ve developed a solid enough grounding to distinguish between “an interesting insight” and “restating the obvious,” then the ONLY WAY to distinguish yourself from others in the organization is to speak up. The biggest mistake is to simply show up and do your work — even if you do it really well, if you are just sitting around waiting for other people to notice it, they probably won’t except when it comes around to annual review time. Then they’ll probably give you a decent review and maybe a small raise. If that’s all you want out of your career year after year, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Take charge of your own ideas. The best way to “grow in responsibility” (and thereby leadership and position and salary) is to offer new ideas and then take charge of them. As I said in the last point, opening your mouth for its own sake and stating the obvious is not a way to endear yourself to leadership. At the same time, opening your mouth with ideas for other people to implement is even worse. It’s not enough to throw out ideas — throw out the plans. “I think we should do X — it would offer Y benefits — in fact, here’s a plan, and it won’t really cost us any money [key point there] and I can take charge of this RIGHT NOW.” Then do it.
Take charge of your boss’s ideas. Your boss muse about something that he or she thinks would be interesting? Grab it and take charge of it. Make it happen. Become the go-to person for “getting things done.” Become the person that the boss (or his or her boss) knows they can dump something on at the last minute and get outstanding results. If you think that sounds degrading or like too much work, then you may not be ready to grow an association career. Because, while nobody wants to spend ALL their time doing stuff that OTHER people feel passionate about, doing so is the only way to get approval to spend time (and maybe a little money) on the things that YOU feel passionate about.
Ultimately, if you are to grow a career in associations, “other people” make the determination as to your growth rate. But they make their decisions based on your personal credibility — not your talent, not your intelligence, not your creativity, but your CREDIBILITY. And only you can control how credible you are.
And finally, going back to my first point — you choose your workplace. It’s possible you work for a jerk, in which case none of my other tips will have much impact. And in which case, don’t bitch about it on your blog or your MySpace page or whatever. Get a new job. (BTW, the more you bitch about your job on a publicly-accessible website, the longer you are likely to stay stranded there.)
This is a masterpiece! I’m going to send out the link to 3,000 association executive colleagues on my industry’s listserve.
Well said, Kevin. I doubt that there has ever been a generation that didn’t think they were unappreciated and held back by their parents, teachers, employers or other peer groups. Art history, for example, is full of examples of generations that believed they had to make a new mark, and refused to follow the path of their predecessors.
There’s not a thing wrong with this. It has lead to important new ideas and development. But “generational new-think and new speak” certainly isn’t new or different from any other time in history. As new as social media may be, it will become status quo and traditional as any other cultural norm or technology becomes (assuming it lasts long enough to be widely adopted before being superceded by what follows).
My children enjoyed challenging my wife and I. Today, my grand-childen challenge and test their parents. It’s the way it should be. But it helps to keep perspective.
This post was really inspiring, Kevin, thank you. There are definitely things I need to work on…
Sometimes the basics are overlooked, thank you for laying them out!
I’m grateful for this advice. Your comment that “some people actually thought those things before there was a Web 2.0″ resonated with me.
My mother taught the third grade for 35 years. Every 3-5 years a new technique would come along that all the new, idealistic teachers would herald as the future of education. In fact, the new techniques had mostly been recycled from other ideas that had come around before. Mom was always gracious and would share how she had “done something similar” with the group. I learned from her that it’s always wise to listen to the people who have the experience, like my mom, and those who don’t are likely to have 30 unruly kids with lower test scores to show for it.