What If An Association Member Complains About Change?

I can't believe I just caught myself saying that we should change digital to fit the print mindset. It's true, I'm guilty. I'm working into the wee hours because I want change and change doesn't usually fit into the typical 40 (or even 35 work hour week of some associations) hour week. Change is an investment, it's a discipline and it has a voice all its own--even to the change agent. 

My current endeavor is to put a new proposal system in place ASAP so we can stop using Word documents because even though we have a template, no one seems to really get the concept of a template. A template means that you make a version of the template and go from there. This is the case for Word documents, PowerPoints and email. However, humans being humans, we somehow skip over the genetic definition of template to mean clone and instead, go with the good old standby which is to copy something that we've already created and then make changes.

There goes the concept of DNA. Instead, we're going straight for copying all of the aberrations, anomalies and errors that have been introduced and continuing to pass it forward. If you ask our Client Care department, the majority of the calls we take with clients are either to reset their password or fix email formatting that they've messed up because they copied from where--a template? of course not! They've copied from a sent message that already had an error introduced and they moved the error forward into the new email.

Now while in the human world, these types of abnormalities or "adaptations" might coincide with Darwinian survival of the fittest concepts, this isn't the case in email. Unfortunately for email, email doesn't evolve on its own and it becomes an equivalent of a victim of a virus--it just gets sick and keeps getting sicker. 

Isn't this the case when we resist change and we succumb to the pressure to condone a person's resistance to change? Don't we just prolong the copying forward of mistakes and not start from a clean set of premises? Isn't this how we've ended up with ridiculous event registration processes, membership join processes and AMS customizations that cost us a fortune and leave a future staffer baffled at why a customization was critical? 

Here's the internal battle I just fought against copying bad ideas forward. Our new proposal system is all online. I can populate the proposal content management system with content, pricing and examples. I can then add in formatting and my designer, in keeping to his digital viewpoint, immediately designed the online document with a light blue background to keep with our cloud theme and to provide some entertainment pop & pizazz while plowing through a proposal (when in fact, you just want to get to the pricing page). Seems a harmless situation, right? Right. Right up to the point where I start envisioning an anti-vendor association executive receiving our proposal.

As soon as I saw the light blue background, I immediately thought, "that has to change to white because some association exec is going to print this out and want to study it on paper and get all irate and disqualify us because it's light blue background and will use up their printer ink" (anyone remember that run on Magenta ink in the early 2000s? there were some angry association people where evidently, I picked up some scars over printing). My knee jerk reaction was "change it now because They Might Complain". I had the thought, said it aloud and then said "wait, let me think about this for a second". 

When I call for back-up to think about an idea or to give myself a pause so that I can think through what I want to say, I go get water. I feel like it's a win-win--I get to hydrate while I situate. During my self-imposed water break I had the following conversation literally out loud and it went like this: "You know someone is going to complain and then they might not pick us as their Vendor" and then I retorted, "But wait a minute--we're a digital agency and if they need to print out the document, call us a Vendor and disqualify us because of our blue background...doesn't that disqualify them as an association professional that is ready to embrace what it means to be online and focused on a digital first audience?".

I decided with the second voice that yeah, I should push this envelope and not give into the cranky type of Print People who Just Don't Get It. If they are going to disqualify us and treat us like a Vendor with a capital V, then so be it. In fact, they're helping me because I just don't want any association as a client--we want the Good Ones who participate, engage and pay us (same criteria usually holds for being a Good Member or Citizen). Our target market and our potential great fit prospect is one that would appreciate the light blue background and the flexibility that digital can bring to them. I decided to use this aspect of the Digital Divide as a qualifier to who is a good candidate for being a client of HighRoad. 

I urge associations to start having this same conversation on your own water breaks. Ask yourselves why you are continuing to kowtow to people that refuse to change, or worse, why are you trying to go after Digital Prospects using Print People methods and expecting them to work? The Digital Divide is real and maybe we should start using it as a qualifier to understand if we're finding our Right People that have real goodness of fit. If we're out of a quantity game and into a quality game, then certainly we should put a stake in the ground and say "all the crybabies on this topic go to the left and the ones who don't give it a second thought go to the right" and then use this indicator to point us to the group that isn't going to get caught up on colored backgrounds or printing online materials or being able to login to an online learning course.

Maybe it's time that we take on that parental stewardship role and realize that if you spend all your time placating the crying baby that the baby will never stop crying. Members, prospects, sponsors, exhibitors, employees, volunteers--doesn't really matter. Establish your values, your program and your approach and then apply discipline to stick with the change management plan.  When you shift your focus and support it by unwavering confidence and discipline, you create purposeful momentum. Momentum creates energy and energy tips the balance to action.

Let the crybabies find ways to self-soothe and give yourself the support you need to stay laser focused on the people that are a good fit for your culture and mission. Steel yourself to not give into the cries of a few that hold back the forward progress of the many. Question your decisions and the premises on which they rest. Push yourself to align your decisions with your desired target market and fiercely guard your time. We are in a great time of change and every minute is needed to move our organizations forward--we do not have time to waste in getting consensus (or total buy-in) from each member. Remember that all of your members are big boys and girls and that part of being in a community, an organization, an industry is to support the greater good and to more importantly, stay relevant to the greater good. 

Upon finishing this idealistic rhetoric, I have to get real and know that someone is going to complain about the blue background--you just know it's coming. I have a proposed solution that is more modern than printing to move this market forward and yet is certainly not cutting edge--save it to PDF and go wild with comment sticky notes.

Still crying? Call the wambulance--they can focus on your indivdiual current pain, but we're busy focusing on our collective future health.