“Management by anecdote” is a trap that most of us — probably all of us, at some point — fall into. It happens in all kinds of organizations, but associations seem especially susceptible. You know the sort of thing I mean:
- One member, who is either personally influential or knows someone who is, complains about a particular program, and suddenly we are reevaluating, spending a lot of time and energy conducting analysis, and often making changes, just to satisfy this one comment which may or may not be representative or accurate.
- A committee decides that a program or policy is important, and pushes it forward through the Board, without taking the time to determine if their opinion is widely-accepted or if their idea is appealing to a sustainable percentage of the association’s audience. Just because the committee’s members come from the industry or profession, they assume they are representative — but often they are not.
It takes a strong stomach and fierce political will to resist the power of this particular echo chamber. But mostly it requires real, actual data (collected on an ongoing basis, not just annual or biannual “surveys”) and the ability to use that data to counteract (or support) the anecdote. Many associations don’t have this data, or they have it and they don’t use it. (If you have a website that is more than a brochure, and if you communicate by email, and if you sell products or have events, then you are privy to an alarming amount of behavioral data, whether you realize it or not.)
As I’ve watched the development of an association social media space (generally from the sidelines, as I’m not a social media kind of guy), it seems that a lot of the “younger” folks get the problematic aspect of this, but they come at it from a slightly different angle: the length of time it takes for association people, be they staff or volunteers, to be “taken seriously” as leaders or to have their ideas listened to. The net result being that associations are listening primarily to the echo chamber of people who have been deeply involved for many years and whotherefore may not be the best source of new ideas, or truly representative of the membership.
Here’s the problem: by focusing their arguments on WHO the association SHOULD be listening to, as opposed to HOW MANY and HOW ACCURATELY, they seem to be advocating the exchange of one anecdotal echo chamber for another. The advice seems to be: “You shouldn’t listen to the old fogies who are out of touch, you should listen to ME because I TWEET and I can say SNARKY THINGS about you in a VERY PUBLIC WAY and therefore I’M IMPORTANT and you CAN’T IGNORE ME.”
So instead of looking at social media as an opportunity to develop new things, associations are seeing it as something that they have to monitor, have to get involved in, because wow, people might say REALLY NASTY OR SNARKY things about us if we don’t … except, if we do get involved, but we somehow do it “the wrong way” according to the social media purists, they’ll still say REALLY NASTY OR SNARKY things about us. Witness exchanges in the past over ASAE’s use of Twitter at a conference — apparently some people were offended that they didn’t know exactly which staffers were Twittering (?) — and more recently over ASAE’s public relations campaign.
Setting aside the fact that all these particular discussions strike me as kind of silly, they point to a basic truth: Some people are going to dislike some things that you do, and complain about it. Sometimes they have valid concerns, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they want the best for their industry or profession, and sometimes they are more concerned with personal agendas. So,as more of your members use Twitter or blogs or whatever, some people are going to say snarky things about you publicly, no matter what you do (assuming you actually do something).
But whether people complain by going to their best friend who happens to be chairman of the board, through a committee, or by posting a series of obnoxious tweets or blog posts, doesn’t make their opinions more representative or well-informed either way.
This doesn’t mean that they should be ignored or that their opinions aren’t valid opinions. Of course an association should respond, however the discussion originates. When it’s a member with an anecdote, and he or she is wrong, then respond with gratitude but explain to them the data counteracting their opinion. Same goes with the social media types. And if they have a good idea, or raise valid points (supported by your own data), then you respond that way. Most of an association’s best ideas come from random conversations with members, often in person but probably, going forward, through social media avenues. So listen to them, respond to them, and use them.
But don’t live in dread of criticism or get all frantic when it inevitably happens. Most importantly, don’t get caught in the trap of running your association just to make a particular subset of members happy — be they long-term volunteers, or angry consultants with a twitchy Twitter-finger. This isn’t about “what’s right” or “what’s fair.” It’s about the long-term success of an association. Any one member (or non-member) can come up with a greatidea for something new that the association can do. But no one member can determine that idea’s real worth, or success.
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