Principled Innovation LLC

Lessons from Firefox (LONG POST)

March 11th, 2007

Inc. Magazine is one of the very few business-related publications I don’t read on a regular basis, which explains why I missed this excellent article by David H. Freedman on Mitchell Baker and her approach to stewardship as CEO of the Mozilla Corporation, and around the increasingly-popular Firefox browser in particular. But I’m delighted I found it (hat tip: Stewart Mader), because the article offers many powerful insights for association leaders on building and sustaining the vibrancy of communities, inspiring the pursuit of innovation and the changing nature of 21st century leadership.

By way of background, it is important to understand that Firefox is an open source application, the success of which relies heavily on the active engagement of a global community of volunteer developers and marketers. In her official role as “Chief Lizard Wrangler,” Baker must constantly strike the right balance of organizational agility (Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation) and community involvement in decision-making around the Firefox product. (Sound familiar?) Freedman describes Baker’s view of the nascent Mozilla project’s potential when she was first asked to lead it back in 1999:

…Mozilla was a chance to help shape a new kind of organization that existed outside the bounds of corporate governance and of many of the ordinary rules of work. Most of the contributors would be volunteers, and the coin of the realm would be not salary or title, but respect, accomplishment, camaraderie, and challenge. It would not be an uncoordinated free-for-all; the community, for the most part, would need to agree on the direction the project would take and on who would be given responsibility for a task. Mozilla would be a meritocracy. If you proved talented and diligent, you’d get more important tasks and ultimately acquire some level of project leadership, sidestepping much of the politics and bias of traditional corporations.

Despite experiencing some setbacks over the last eight years, Baker and her colleagues have been remarkably successful in making this vision a reality, while learning much along the way that undoubtedly will be quite helpful to association leaders who are struggling with the new dynamics of distributed and distributive organizations. Here are seven principles from the article, as well as some implications and questions for associations:

• It’s the community, stupid–While association leaders often find it appealing to describe their organizations as communities, very few associations actually operate in a way that reflects a true community ethic. In the case of Mozilla, the buy-in of community members into decisions is more important than immediate profitability, and yet the CEO trusts that the “the social fabric” underpinning the organization’s inclusive decision-making process will result in better choices than could be achieved by managers alone. How would your association be different if it operated in this way?

• Just ask–Mozilla seeks to unleash volunteer engagement and energy by asking them to do simple, yet meaningful things that make a significant impact when taken together. Associations can model this approach not only by asking for involvement, but also by simplifying and streamlining traditional volunteer activities to make them more easily accessible to anyone who wants to play a role. In addition, associations need to achieve greater clarity around how they will enable non-traditional forms of participation, such as the use of social media tools, to advance organizational goals. How can your association more effectively engage its members on their terms?

• Lead by following–In a Web-enabled world, associations should seek to decentralize more of their activities. To do that, however, senior leaders will need to adopt a new default position: less control, more influence. Embracing this way of thinking will be a particularly acute problem for board-level volunteers, who tend to be extremely comfortable with the prerogatives and perceived benefits of hierarchy. But the very process of cultivating this mindset shift will be a valuable experience for association leaders if it challenges them to closely examine and adjust the deep-seated assumptions they hold about the future of their organizations. What can your association do to give up control in order to exert more influence?

• Nurture renegades–The willingness to encourage rule-breaking isn’t a characteristic you expect to find in most associations, which actually transforms it into a potent strategic advantage for those organizations that embrace it. To do it well, however, association leaders will need to display the same kind of deep trust in their volunteer contributors that Mitchell Baker and her team do in Firefox volunteers. How can your association identify, connect and leverage renegades throughout the organization?

• Think hybrid–Associations can smartly experiment with open source approaches by marrying them to current strategic outcomes. For example, the entrenched and often dysfunctional committee bureaucracy found in most associations is a ripe opportunity for prototyping new forms of organizing that make richer and more rapid collaboration possible. In We Have Always Done It That Way: 101 Things About Associations We Must Change, I advocated for the elimination of all association standing committees, in favor of joint member-staff working groups with a focus on quick and creative action. By road testing new structures such as these in the service of their actual work, associations will learn what works and what doesn’t. In what areas can your association link new ways of organizing with on-going organizational work?

• Think globally–Associations need to act decisively to develop global strategies that will connect them with new volunteer communities. And in much the same way that Firefox offers its volunteers “the freedom to adapt [the] product…to their own needs,” associations must be willing to innovate their membership and other offers based on a deep understanding of local political, economical and cultural factors. One-size-fits-all approaches will not succeed in a “flat world.” How will your association engage with the global marketplace of potential contributors?

• Shut up–There’s nothing more to say! Just as Firefox’s executives do a great deal of listening to their volunteers, so too do association leaders need to pay close attention to both what their contributors are saying, and how they are saying it. What are our members telling us that we are unable or unwilling to hear?

This first decade of the Mozilla/Firefox experience is an extraordinary source of fresh ideas and insights on building a different kind of organization, one that capitalizes fully on the human imagination without sacrificing either strategic coherence or the ability to act on great ideas. I strongly encourage all association leaders to read the Inc. article, as well as to more fully explore the Firefox example through the links in this post, for the benefit of their organizations in the years ahead.

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Entry Filed under: Principled Innovation Blog, What's New?, Social Media, Innovation, Associations, Extreme Makeover, The Association Innovator, Simplicity, We Have Always Done It That Way