Slaying Sacred Zombie Cows
Check out the commissioned cartoon and essay that builds upon this article at Orgpreneur.com!
Peter Drucker, in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, said that the most innovative organizations are those that are the most ruthless about killing programs that no longer provide value and couldn’t be turned around to do so. These organizations constantly assess what products, services and programs are deficient and they either whip them into shape or end them.
Innovation requires resources. The best source of resources for new efforts is to reclaiming them from other activities that are not valuable. Adding new programs with new resources can only go on for so long before you hit the expansion wall and begin to weaken everything you do.
Freeing up resources is paramount for creating new value for your members, subscribers and readers, especially in this environment where Boards are financially conservative and banks even more so!
This leads us to the sacred zombie cow. Sacred zombie cows are programs that, not only do not produce sufficient value for your constituents, they are impossible to kill even when their inherent constituency no longer supports them or doesn’t exist any longer. Most association executives don’t have to dig around too much to identify these beasts in their organizations, stumbling along because they always have.
Let’s face it: associations aren’t very good at stopping stuff!
Consensus driven decision making, which is how many decisions are made in our organizations, will often add programs but very rarely will they do away with one absent significant individual leadership on the part of someone with influence.
The good news is this: in this economic environment, you are now free to create massive change. Boards will consider things that were anathema to them a mere six months ago. The more existential the threat, the better chance you have to create change.
That program that was the darling of a beloved past president who has been retired for 10 years? No one will blink if you give it the axe these days, if you are going to redirect those resources into value producing activities aligned with the current needs of your constituents and the environment in which we are operating today.
Use the disruption of today to get rid of some bad cows. Kill programs and put those staff on more value producing activities instead of laying them off or cutting budgets 10% across the board. Fire a publication, a conference, a committee, a task force, a book, before you fire a person.
Chris Anderson, at the TED conference in February, mentioned something he heard from Craig Venter about pessimists and optimists. Venter didn’t know whether the pessimists or the optimists were right about the future, but he did know that the optimists were the ones who would get something done.
Be optimistic. Kill some sacred zombie cows and create some new value for your members, subscribers, Board, organization and staff. What have you got to lose?
C. David Gammel, CAE, is president of High Context Consulting, LLC. David helps his clients maximize the value of their people, processes and technology. You may reach David at david@highcontext.com or read his blog.
+1 (410) 742-9088 | david@highcontext.com
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