Principled Innovation LLC

Is this right?

May 31st, 2006

In my e-mail inbox today, I received the latest edition of a newsletter from a well-known consultant who is outside the association community. He does considerable work through associations, however, thus he is very familiar with our organizations. Here is how he describes associations in his newsletter:

“…many professional associations are little more than 12-step support groups…”

I was a bit taken aback by his words, but only a very little bit, because of his well-known reputation for frankness. What I’m wondering is if he’s right and, if so, what that means for this community. I’m also concerned that he might be wrong, in the sense that we’re we may not be helping people break their addictions to things that are bad for them professionally, such as reflexive denial and excessive nostalgia. Have we taken the “safe harbor” notion of associations too far, or are we giving it short shrift? Are we doing all we can to challenge our members to recognize the realities of paradigm shift, or are we operating largely at the periphery of their workplace lives, doing good, but largely uncontroversial things that don’t make much impact?

I have many questions, but fewer answers. I look forward to reading other views.

UPDATE: In comments below, David Gammel asked me to share the name of the consultant who motivated this post. His name is Alan Weiss. Ben Martin asked me to provide more context for Alan’s statement. Below is the entire article from today’s newsletter. I have added the emphasis below.

2. The human condition: Generalizing from a specific

The coordinator of an association for which I spoke in San Francisco asked me if she could offer some “constructive feedback.” Before I could gather the oxygen to say, “No, thanks,” she proceeded to do so.

“You ought to cut back on the satirical comments,” she opined, “since that New York humor doesn’t play all that well here in California.”

“Really?!” I responded, having spoken in California for a decade and having lived outside of San Francisco for two years. “What is your evidence of that?”

“Well,” she lowered her voice to confide, you received a perfect score of “10″ on 198 of the feedback sheets, but only a “9″ on the other two, and both of those respondents said you were too sarcastic.”

I then decided to release the dogs. “If you think I’m changing my style based on 1% of the audience feedback, you’re out of your mind. Maybe those two need a better sense of humor.” As I departed, she was having trouble closing her mouth.

Two weeks ago I gave someone some advice about an idea he ran past me, telling him that it wouldn’t work and giving my rationale. He said that he knew it would work, and just wanted some ideas from me as to how to refine it.

“Why are you so sure it will work when you’ve never done it, I can’t think of an instance where this has been successful, and I’m more expert in this area than you are?”

“Because,” he said, “two human resources people at the ASTD meeting told me that it was a great idea and I should pursue it!”

“With that kind of endorsement,” I pointed out, “you’d probably be safe taking a second mortgage, selling your possessions, and risking everything on it.” He smiled, Now my mouth was wide open.

Merely because one person has told us something is yea or nay, one group has said up or down, or one experience has been terrific or terrible, is not sufficient evidence or validation to make any final decisions. Add to that the fact that friends try to insulate us from bad advice, many professional associations are little more than 12-step support groups, and we tend to hear what we want to hear, then non-validated, isolated positive or negative feedback is about as substantial as a line drawn in the sand below the high tide line.

Don’t let yourself be romanced (or discouraged) by singular feedback. It may be accurate or it may be asinine. How can you tell? Test your ideas, approaches, and methodology frequently, in front of diverse audiences or responders, who have nothing to gain or lose in terms of their feedback. Otherwise, you risk over-committing, over-investing, or arch-conservatism.

There are a lot of negative people in the world, frustrated by their own lack of progress, hounded by their own demons. They are excellent at critiquing everything and can find fault with most. Fortunately, there is a simple antidote.

Ignore them.

I find it interesting that both of the examples Alan uses to make his point involve associations. I look forward to continuing the conversation.

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