Archive for October, 2007
October 15, 2007
The Vision Is Clear, But the Path Is Not
Posted by Kevin | (1) Comments | Print This Article
Jamie Notter once again quotes from the Harvard Business Review, this time with a provocative statement about nation-building in the Middle East. The quote, though, is not really talking about nation-building, but rather asking the question, “What are we willing to put up with now, in order to reach the goal we want?”
While we association folk are (fortunately) dealing with issues of far less global importance than drug cultivation in Afghanistan, we all too frequently dodge issues of importance to our own organizational visions and missions. Associations often lay out “visions” of what they want to be while sidestepping political minefields that lay in the way. It’s a lot easier to create lofty-sounding “strategies” than confront the touchy issues that must be dealt with, in order for those strategies to ever become reality.
Jamie calls this “middle-level thinking,” but I prefer to think of it simply as flexibility. According to Jamie, Rory Stewart says of the difficult decisions he faces, “We’re not prepared to do any of those things–we want it all now. And, as a result, we generally end up getting none of it.”
I would suggest that in the association world, the people responsible for turning those lofty “visions” into reality WILL be “prepared to do any of those things,” and make the tough decisions, if they feel comfortable that their decisions will be supported, and don’t feel as if every decision has to be run through some random committee structure, as long as the decisions bring the goal closer to reality.
If an organization truly believes in a “vision” it has set for itself, it will not sweat too much the details between decision points, nor will it say “we want to be THIS, but only if we don’t upset these people, and don’t create this other unintended consequence, and don’t ignore this other constituency, and don’t make these other people start sending emails, and don’t …”
You either want to be THIS, or you don’t. Before you decide that’s what you want to be, you’d better be aware of who you’re going to piss off, and you’d better be okay with it. Otherwise you might as well resign yourself to being whatever you are today.