Eric Lanke

JANUARY 16, 2017

My association has a set of core values (long story there; check out this index of posts if interested in reading more) and we now consistently use them in our hiring and on-boarding process. But here's the thought that occurred to me. Time not as in weeks and months, but more likely time as in years.

Review 100

Review Process Organization 100

Eric Lanke

NOVEMBER 12, 2018

My hiring process has evolved over the past several years -- in part to make sure an assessment of cultural fit became an important part of the process. In other words, you've passed the skills test, but there more to this process than just skills. First a little background. But I'm no longer interviewing you for skills.

Process 113

Process Team Conference Organization 113

Eric Lanke

AUGUST 26, 2019

Knowing that they can't achieve their meeting's purpose without it running smoothly, they elevate the importance of a smooth-running meeting in all of their decision processes. Smooth running means automated processes, so let's forget about customizing the name badges too much.

Association Management 113

Association Management Process System Member Engagement 113

Eric Lanke

AUGUST 14, 2017

Putting the document together was a long and involved process, spanning many conference calls and a few in-person meetings. This is the third time we have updated the document after it was first published in 2009, and each time, the process that we use to accomplish it is improved and made more inclusive. Quite a bit actually.

Committee 100

Committee Report Industry Process 100

Eric Lanke

APRIL 24, 2017

In our process, this is a major pivot point for the organization, when we bring one operational plan to a close, and revise or refresh the strategy agenda around which the next operational plan will be built. We're beginning to rev up for our annual strategic board retreat. Not sure what I mean by those terms?

Proposal 100

Proposal Strategy Communications Process 100

Eric Lanke

JANUARY 28, 2019

Reviewing the planning process for the association's Annual Conference, or dues renewal process, or anything else that is easily and non-controversially budgeted for every year is a waste of the Board's precious time. There are no strategic decisions to be made in these spaces, only tactical ones.

Strategy 113

Strategy Review Resources Process 113

Eric Lanke

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Like last week''s rule on using your values as a filter in your hiring process, this is another recommendation that I entirely agree with. The behaviors are there to aid in this process, but I have been careful not to position them as the only way the values can be demonstrated.

Process 100

Process Recruiting Recruitment Course 100

Eric Lanke

APRIL 30, 2018

I already talked about one: The Process is the Product. Doing it with constraints on those resources forces fresh ideas and creativity into the process. What I'm doing instead over a series of posts is highlighting some the the new thoughts that occurred to me as I listened to the comments of my fellow panelists. Here's another.

Innovation 100

Innovation Project Resources Process 100

Eric Lanke

APRIL 21, 2014

Process it. You need to come out with a confident but simple description of the problem and tell people a simple three-step process for how we’re going to get out of the problem. If you''re interested in developing the leadership skills of the people under you, shouldn''t you be sharing part of your thought process with them?

Leadership 100

Leadership Process Tools 100

Eric Lanke

NOVEMBER 10, 2014

Rather, it often falls to staff to be the facilitator in the needed discussion and decision process. They are there to represent the process and outcome that came before, and to engage the necessary stakeholders in its execution. There were several other great takeaways that I''m in the process of bringing back to my staff.

Committee 100

Committee Leadership Process Communications 100

Eric Lanke

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

I mentioned last week that we were onboarding a new staff person at our association, and this sit down about our values with her and her supervisor is part of our regular orientation process. Recognizing this, we have tried to adjust our hiring process to screen for alignment with our values, but we haven't gone far enough.

Process 100

Process Team Organization 100

Eric Lanke

JANUARY 4, 2016

A few weeks ago I wrote about how Tracking Metrics Isn't Easy or Free , arguing that the process of measuring, analyzing, and acting on metrics is a set of tasks that deserves to be--and often isn't--recognized with an intentional allocation of a staff person's most limited resource: time.

Process 100

Process Resources Products Organization 100

Eric Lanke

JUNE 25, 2018

I ended the previous post with a comment that, after making two adjustments to the scripted Scenario Planning process we were using, I would discuss how we decided to frame our discussion of strategic implications at what is now our most recently completed Board meeting.

Review 100

Review Proposal Strategy Industry 100

Eric Lanke

APRIL 9, 2018

The fundamental premise of Step Four is that the association is now in a position to develop four separate contingency plans, one for each of the four future scenarios that the first three steps of the process has helped create.

Recruiting 70

Recruiting Recruitment Process Education 70

Eric Lanke

JANUARY 29, 2018

The first step in this process is identifying what we call the Megatrends. And two, the process would be best served by surveying the Board members in advance. A Megatrend is an external force acting on the industry our association represents.

Analysis 100

Analysis Survey Industry Process 100

Eric Lanke

OCTOBER 5, 2015

And doing something, even if It is not the right thing to do, is always part of the process of determining what the right thing is. But we have to do something, because doing nothing is an abdication of our responsibility. And that's why CEOs do It. + + + This post was written by Eric Lanke, an association executive, blogger and author.

Process 100

Process Leadership 100

Eric Lanke

MARCH 12, 2018

I ended the previous post with a comment that with our four future scenarios in hand, our Board was ready for Step Three of our process: Writing Snapshots for Each Scenario. In many cases, like this one, this process creates two simple and opposite statements about the possible futures.

Innovation 80

Innovation Industry Social Media Process 80

Eric Lanke

DECEMBER 9, 2013

image source Two weeks ago, in The Final Four , I continued writing about the process I used to create my association''s values statement, despite some misgivings about the value of values statements I''ve previously shared and still hold. We had put a lot of work into the process, and I was very satisfied with the result.

Analysis 100

Analysis Leadership Examples Process 100

Eric Lanke

AUGUST 6, 2012

This has been an evolutionary step to our process more formally codified over the past few years. As the process repeats in future years, we anticipated that a complete set of demographic information across the membership can better assist the Board in this important task. This is seen as a key component to the process.

Member Engagement 100

Member Engagement Recruiting Recruitment Committee 100

Eric Lanke

JANUARY 1, 2018

It was inspired by the take-down of strategic planning in Humanize , and in it I pledge to stop using that term to describe the messy, constantly evolving process my association uses to determine our direction and set our objectives.

Guidelines 100

Guidelines Course Team Process 100

Eric Lanke

JUNE 24, 2019

Why, in this day and age, is the process of renting a car anything other than the "preferred" experience? Before becoming a "preferred" member I had stood in that interminable line myself, and am still occasionally subject to it when traveling with someone else. One big question I have is why.

Products 113

Products Process Conference Member Engagement 113

Eric Lanke

JANUARY 6, 2014

image source Four weeks ago, in Making the Rubber Hit the Road , I continued writing about the process I used to create my association''s values statement, despite some misgivings about the value of values statements I''ve previously shared and still hold. Inevitably, some of these examples were good ones, but others seemed forced.

Committee 100

Committee Proposal Project Examples 100

Eric Lanke

SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

Create a process for sunsetting programs. We're all being crushed under the weight of legacy programs and out-dated processes. Find one that will work in your organization and bring it to the attention of your Board. If you do nothing else, please do this one.

Innovation 100

Innovation System Newsletter Process 100

Eric Lanke

APRIL 4, 2016

One of the participants (someone who was joking with me at dinner the night before) told me that he believed me being a non-technical-expert actually helped the process. When it was done, I got a round of applause. And you pushed us, making us answer questions we hadn't initially considered."

Atlanta 100

Atlanta Technology Industry Process 100

Eric Lanke

AUGUST 11, 2014

As you may know, we recently went through a process to define a set of core values for our organization, and I''ve been blogging here about the peaks and valleys that we''ve encountered on that journey. It seemed a little intimidating--and even more risky--to reveal that many shortcomings in a public forum.

Recruiting 100

Recruiting Recruitment Course Process 100

Eric Lanke

DECEMBER 26, 2016

It was inspired by the take-down of strategic planning in Humanize , and in it I pledge to stop using that term to describe the messy, constantly evolving process my association uses to determine our direction and set our objectives.

Guidelines 100

Guidelines Team Process Video 100

Eric Lanke

FEBRUARY 10, 2014

Smart people with different perspectives, but all committed to the mission of the association, offering their thoughts and allowing the process to find the consensus that is needed to move things forward. But a Board chair that does this risks being perceived as a tyrant.

Leadership 100

Leadership Process System Team 100

Eric Lanke

MAY 6, 2019

The phone interview has always been a key part of my screening process. My association is hiring again, and this week I spent a lot of time doing a series of phone interviews.

Process 113

Process Organization 113

Eric Lanke

MAY 5, 2014

image source I''ve been writing a lot about the process I used to develop a values statement for my association, and even more about the experiments we''ve been running to try and make the values and behaviors it describes a more active part of our day-to-day interactions. Our latest experiment is one of the simplest in its construction.

Examples 100

Examples Communications Process Organization 100

Eric Lanke

JUNE 10, 2013

It was a subject I was going to study anyway, but by working through the association, I would be able to leverage their resources to assist me in my learning process. Is there an approval process such an idea it would have to go through? From my point of view, it was an ideal bargain. Why is that?

Member Engagement 100

Member Engagement Wisconsin Committee Project 100

Eric Lanke

JANUARY 11, 2014

Subtitled “5 Strategies for Competitive Associations,” it instructs association leaders in how to help their organizations by: (1) building on strengths, (2) concentrating resources, (3) integrating programs and services, (4) aligning people and processes for efficiency, and (5) abandoning services and activities when necessary.

Case Study 100

Case Study Strategy Resources Process 100

Eric Lanke

AUGUST 4, 2014

When I started doing this seven years ago, it was a time-consuming process that I didn''t enjoy and which I wasn''t very good at. Thinking in terms of the Powerpoint presentation that would eventually get built, I would estimate that the entire process took about 30 minutes per slide--two entire working days for a 30-slide presentation.

Communications 100

Communications Leadership Process Conference 100

Eric Lanke

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

In terms of what we plan to do with these responses at the Board table, it's important to look at our next step in the Scenario Planning process: Creating Scenarios Based on Megatrends. All in all, a good response rate (20 responses out of 24 people polled) and a lot of common ideas.

Analysis 100

Analysis Survey Technology Industry 100

Eric Lanke

JUNE 11, 2012

Prahalad, she dissects the good and the bad of traditional strategic planning processes. For me, the big takeaway comes near the very end: Do not expect your organizations direction to emerge from a formal process all at once. But looking at the retreat as part of an on-going process, the need for closure dissolves harmlessly away.

Leadership 100

Leadership Innovation Process Member Engagement 100

Eric Lanke

SEPTEMBER 2, 2013

image source Two weeks ago, in Mental Rules for the Staff Retreat , I continued writing about the process I used to create my association''s values statement, despite some misgivings about the value of values statements I''ve previously shared and still hold. Stay tuned. I''ll continue this story in future posts.

Leadership 100

Leadership Survey Process Organization 100

Eric Lanke

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

We live in a world where the pace of technology development in the marketplace is running faster than any centralized association process can hope to move.

Innovation 100

Innovation Tools Technology Content 100

Eric Lanke

MAY 27, 2019

The factors are always taken into account when setting goals for the future, but the process of explaining why a light is red should never lead to changing the color of the light or the substance of the goal in question.

Innovation 113

Innovation Review Resources Process 113