A Return to Blogging - and "Most Obvious Lessons"

The past few months have been filled with personal and professional transitions - left a job (and membership) I loved after 24 years due to a relocation, changed states, consulted, participated in a lot of association executives meetings, interviewed for a new job, facilitated a search for a new CEO, started a new job, bought a new house, and more.  Which means I have lots of association management blog topic content; so it's time to return to blogging.

My first post has to be a highlight of my good friend Judith Lindenau's blog about what she learned as an Interim Association Executive.

Here are Judith's top 6 "most obvious lessons" for association execs:

1.  It's not 'them or us.' (Cindy adds: that includes treating boards and their staff like partners!)
2.  It's also the AEs job to provide perspective.
3.  Have a good, memorable (by everyone) mission statement.
4.  Only spend money on things that enable the mission statement.  Notable quote: "Be brutal about eliminating the programs and services which don’t serve the members. One heads up trick is to divide the total expense of a program or service by the number of real, live members who actually paid money to get it." (Cindy adds: Amen!)
5.  Get the association governing docs together.
6.  Teach leadership skills.  Notable quote: "Unfortunately, most 'Leadership Conferences' don’t teach the practical aspects of leadership ... The techniques of managing meetings, setting work goals, forming communities - those essential skills are often neglected and volunteers are left untrained and uninformed."

And ... "what a wealth of knowledge and support Realtor AEs are to each other."  Judith is a wealth of knowledge and support!

Read her entire blog post here.

What I know for sure is there are hundreds of things to learn or know as an association executive.  Judith's "most obvious lessons" are crucial ones.