Guest Editorial:
Reflections on leading a volunteer professional organization
James C. Johnson, Past-President
When asked to write on this topic, my first reaction was to decline. I was uncertain about what to write, or what you might want to read after you made it through nine president's messages in preceding issues of ACN. But I understand the intent of the idea--among my random thoughts there might be one which you'll find useful as an IPMAAC member. So here they are.
Being Big, Busy, and Volunteers
We started as a small band of people who mostly knew each other twenty years ago. We've since grown from perhaps a hundred or so members to nearly 700, and we continue to grow. One consequence I came to understand last year is that we don't know each other as we did twenty years ago. We're also doing a lot more as an organization than was true even five years ago. We could do even more if the officers, board members, and committee chairs were paid salaries and did their "jobs" for IPMAAC full-time. But, of course, they aren't. We're a volunteer organization. These three facts - being big, doing a lot of different things, and relying on volunteers - have important implications for us.
Largeness has created more of a "hierarchy," in which the president is the day-to-day administrative officer handling (or trying to handle) matters big and small. The committee chairs actually do the work of the organization, usually (but not always) through active participation and contributions of a least some of the committee members. And the board members, at meetings twice a year and through communications (usually initiated by the president's requests for advice or policy decisions several times between board meetings) make the formal decisions they are required to debate and decide under our by-laws.
The committees actually do the work of our organization (and all other large volunteer professional organizations). The single most important job of the president is thus selecting committee chairs. The incoming president doesn't know most of our members, many of whom would surely be outstanding committee chairs. He or she thinks about possibilities (sometimes "recycling" former chairs and officers), and relies heavily on observations and advice from others. Increasingly, as our organization matures and we are able to do more, the work of committee chairs and committee members becomes more important.
The fact that we are all volunteers may be more significant today than it was twenty or even five years ago. Most of us are extremely busy, and sometimes stressed - more so than ever, if current writings about the demands and stresses on HR professionals (especially in public organizations) are accurate, and I think they are. Paradoxically, the busier and more stressed we are, the more we need IPMAAC and other professional organizations! The rapid changes in technologies, human resource management strategies, management philosophies, political philosophies, and scientific and technology-based changes in assessment, require us all to be knowledgeable, to be "experts." Who among us has the time to carry out the various tasks of our professional organization?
The limits of formal organization
On paper, the structure of volunteer professional organizations differs little from that of public or private employers. The obvious difference is that professional organizations are "staffed" by volunteers. There are other, less obvious differences that I won't describe, but instead will point out an important similarity - top-notch people, regardless of their "formal" roles, are critical to the functioning of all organizations, including volunteer organizations. Somehow, excellent organizations succeed, often despite problems which may exist in their "formal" hierarchies. Among employers, that fact has led to varying "theories" of effective management for many decades; currently, an important buzzword is "empowerment." For volunteer organizations, that concept is especially significant.
One of the great things about volunteer professional organizations, despite their "formal" nature, is that they are ultimately driven by their members, not by stockholders nor by politicians. Members are both "customers" and "managers and employees" of IPMAAC. The "power" of the president of IPMAAC is entirely different from the "power" of a supervisor, manager, or executive. So, too, does the "power" of members differ from the that of an employee. I received great ideas from many members about things IPMAAC could do to enhance its services to us. Most of the time, when I responded, "Great idea...can you do it?", the response was, "No, I can't, but I just wanted to pass on the suggestion." While many of these ideas were excellent and sometimes got incorporated into our actions, more often they could not be acted upon. Your ideas are and will continue to be critically important to us all. More striking are ideas people have, and carried out more or less independently. Which leads me to a personal philosophy which has somehow served me well in my professional and personal life...
Just Do It
In employer-employee relationships, it is sometimes "threatening" to managers when lower-level employees (mid-level managers, supervisors, or front-line employees) have a new idea. Even worse, for insecure managers, is being presented a fully-developed plan to carry it out! We've never had that problem in IPMAAC. In fact, we depend on it!
It is a mistake to confuse IPMAAC with an organization which employs you. With few exceptions (such as activities funded from our budget), you don't need the "permission" of the president, a committee chair, or anyone else to do something you think important. In fact, that's largely how many of the most important things we do got started. A excellent recent example is our "home page" on the Internet, created by Bill Waldron. I didn't ask him to create it, and he didn't ask for "permission." It somehow evolved as we got into electronic communications through ECN. Through his knowledge of how to do so, personal interest, and recognition of the limits which then existed in the capabilities of commercial on-line services, he did it, and the rest of us thought it was great.
Given the new possibilities which exist in Assessment Council News (ACN) and the Electronic Communications Network (ECN), you're empowered as never before. Our core service is information. Many telephone and e-mail communications are excellent topics for wider discussion, both on-line and in ACN. A profound issue was recently raised by Jean S from a small town in a southern state, on ECN, about the role of assessment in her context. I hope she'll raise her question in ACN, perhaps with a pseudonym if that's more comfortable. ACN is now published every two months, and has more pages per issue.
ECN, though in its infancy, truly "empowers" you. Through it, you can easily raise a question, debate issues, solicit opinions, download documents, upload documents for others to read or offer suggestions, etc., etc. At the risk of sounding like Bill Gates, it's our future. It's immediate, and inexpensive. It enables us to become active in our organization, even if we're busy and "stressed." It makes life much easier for committee members, chairs, and officers.
To know more about the plans our president has initiated, download a copy of the '96 strategic plan from our home page. If you see something that interests you, e-mail or call the committee chair. The benefits we receive as members are the cumulative result of the efforts of a hundred or more volunteer members, and many of these tasks can be carried out in a few hours.
President-elect Paul Kaiser is beginning to develop plans and think about committees for 1997. You can help him by letting him know your interests. I'm sure he'd especially like to know of your interest in becoming a committee chair. A good way to start is by joining a committee which interests you this year! You're empowered!! Just do it!!!
© Copyright 1996 by the IPMA Assessment Council. All rights reserved.