By Barbara A. Bailey, PhD and Gary Bishop, MA
(© 2003 Bailey and Bishop)

You have been in your executive position for a while now. Things are going well; the Board smiles at you during your monthly meetings. You have no staff turnover, there are no major crises, and you go home at night feeling pretty confident that you are performing the job you were hired to do. However, “[t]oo much past success, a lack of visible crisis, low performance standards, and insufficient feedback from external constituencies” (Kotter, 5) may result in a false sense of security. In a word, complacency…the kiss of death for the 21st century association executive.

Why should you take your pulse, more than once, during the year? Two reasons that are being played in the workplace of today, over and over again. Boards couch most terminations in the cape of financial productivity, specifically, the lack of productivity. You may be doing the job, but you might not be as productive as the position requires. You may be putting the organization on the map, so to speak, in your community. However, you might not be obtaining the financial results, such as receiving those grants that others do. You might not be helping your members be the best they can be. And, you might not be helping others (your staff members) grow into the practitioners that your profession will value and reward.

Does this sound like you? “Most of us, most of the time, think we have enough challenges to keep us busy. We are not looking for more work.” (Kotter, 41) If so, you may be holding the chair, but not earning your keep. And, if it bothers you that you aren’t as productive as you know you can and want to be, so much the better. Taking your business pulse, at least once every six months, needs to be done through the eyes of your own productivity.

Second, how marketable are you? What if you decide it’s time for a change? Or, worse, what if your Board decides it’s time for a change in leadership? Are you prepared to mount an employment search? If your skills aren’t current or are non-existent in the areas that are necessary in today’s association circles, your decision or the decision by your Board equals the same result. You are not going to be marketable.

Often, we get into a position and forget about training and development. You might say that your training and development is on-the-job. And, you’d be right. However, there are times that on-the-job training is not the best thing. You might not understand budget preparation very well. You have the skills in the profession you now represent, but you don’t have the overall business skills that are necessary in an executive management position. Learning about budgeting when you make a major budget mistake that costs your association hard dollars is not the time to learn about budgeting.

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The Checklist for the Healthy Executive
(© 2003 Bailey and Bishop)

Fingers on Pulse…Go!

1. Read - Develop a reading list and maintain your professional reading library, which might be one shelf in your office of the really “good stuff.”
   
2. Network - Build a network of experts and contacts that will share some of their best practices. Build a network of peers and colleagues for support, partnerships, and mutual gain.
   
3. Add to your formal education – Pursue another value-added degree or professional designation.
   
4. Pursue continuing education - Continue to get your professional Continuing Education Units (CEUs).
   
5. Associate – Become an active member and leader in your own association. (GSAE rocks!).

The information about change is well known. What often is forgotten is the subtle but important message about change. We often think that it happens to others. Changes that bring great results are those we wish would happen to us. Changes that bring or are brought about by error and negative experiences are those we hope are few and far between. However, “[e]very person’s life is filled with error and negative experiences.” Failure happens and so does success, but generally not without a trip “through the land of failure.” (Maxwell, 17-18)

Minimize your failures by taking your pulse. Take your pulse often and honestly. Ask others to take your pulse with you. And, then, go about the business of taking care of your business. Develop you and be an example for others to develop themselves. As a result, your productivity and marketability will be enhanced. And, you will be the leader that your association cannot do without!

References
Blanchard, Ken and Bowles, Sheldon. Raving Fans, William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1993
Kotter, John P. Leading Change, Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
Maxwell, John C. Failing Forward, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000.