To: ASCLS Board of Directors

Re: Root Cause Task Force Interim Board Report 2018

Prepared by:Rick Panning, Task Force Chair

Date: March 3, 2018

Task Force Membership:

Rick Panning, Chair

Maddie Josephs, Board Liaison

Kathy Doig

Kristina Martin

Linda Smith

Mary Ann McLane

Ian Wallace

Carol Rentas

Charge: To determine the cause of the "lack of leadership - either in experience or volunteers - that leads to vacancies or recycling of individuals". There is not an expectation for resolution at this time.

Activities:

  1. Conference Call February 2018. Purpose:
  • Finalize task force project report and recommendations to the Board of Directors of ASCLS.
  1. Update executive summary
  1. Distribute survey results to each constituent society that participate. In addition, distribute appropriate state results to each Regional Director.
  • Kristina Martine to send to Rick Panning, who will distribute (March 2018)
  1. Prepared recommendation document for Board of Directors
  • To be presented at BOD Planning Day on March 17, 2018 @ 10:45-11:15. (Rick)
  1. Initial thoughts to be presented:
  • Members feel isolated from what is happening nationally
  • Former board members feel particularly isolated
  • Communications: Many options. Confusing. Need to delineate for members and constituent societies what each option is and how to optimize communications.
  • Communities: clarify the different levels
  • Emails
  • Open Forum
  • Bring back the Society News (under Susie Zanto’s presidency). Jim Flanigan has communicated that the upcoming ASCLS Today preview will fill this purpose.
  • Need pushout of requests of members and state societies with more notice.
  • Improve training for committee chairs and constituent society presidents.
  • On line modules now exist
  1. Prepared executive summary of the Leadership Root Cause Task Force Survey – Quantitative data
  1. Developed presentation of task force recommendations for the ASCLS Board of Directors planning day on March 17, 2018.

Isn’t the root of the root causes that we don’t have critical mass to draw on?

  1. Our recommendations focused on strategies to improve engagement and support leadership, but our most recent membership numbers from Karrie Hovis show the following (February 2018)
  2. We have fallen below 7000 members (6651). Drop of 14% over 3 years!
  3. 2209 are students
  4. Only 3867 are PF1/PF2, which is the talent pool we have to draw on for committee and constituent society leadership and participation.
  5. There are only 79 PF1 and PF2 members per average state society.
  6. Most recent membership numbers (February 2018) show thefollowing.
  7. 37 societies have less than 100 PF1/PF2 members
  8. 15 societies have less than 50 PF1/PF2members
  9. A significant portion of our members are “Mailbox” members. These members are essential but not “active” members.
  10. Future potential. Opportunity squandered: High number of students, but poor conversion to FYP and poor conversion of FYP to PF1/PF2 (Note: new membership proposed categories should address some of this).
  11. How effective are the recommended tools if we are lacking in raw material?

Recommendations included the following:

Building constituent society leadership

  • Use appointed positions to orient and develop new leaders.
  • Invite promising members to chair or assist in non-critical positions so they can learn. (SA chair, NMLPW chair)
  • Identify which positions on your board are critical to society operations and the failure to execute can have significant repercussions (e.g. president-elect, treasurer, finance, nominations, conference chair). Be sure than those are filled with experienced leaders
  • Aim to invite about 25-30% new leaders to the board each year.
  • Conduct a new board orientation (NBO) annually on topics everyone needs to know – Robert’s rules, getting reimbursed, how to write a board report.
  • Use job rotation to develop leaders with broad knowledge of the organization.
  • Rotate leaders into new positions at least every third year.
  • Provide formal and deliberate opportunities for out-going chairs to advise in-coming chairs.
  • Develop a culture in which accepting a new role is celebrated and supported.
  • Be hospitable at board meetings - greet everyone and welcome new members.

Infrastructure, leadership development practices, appreciation

Create basic template of job descriptions and timelines for constituent societies.

  • Locate, vet and consolidate training materials for constituent society leaders – fill gaps and make it easily accessible
  • We believe there is a good start to this with the constituent society leadership modules implemented in summer 2017.
  • Promote best practice: Develop a catalog of strong constituent society leadership development practices. Can we find a way to reward it? ASCLS Today series of articles on how to do it.
  • Appreciation: Highlight for leaders the need to recognize and demonstrate appreciation to society contributors apart from Keys to the Future. Provide examples of how this can be done.

Welcoming environment, invitations, finding a “spark plug”

  • Help leaders develop a welcoming environment in their societies, especially their boards, so that members are willing to step up.(remember the perception of cliques, closed groups)
  • Highlight the need for social interactions beyond society business and offer suggestions.
  • Develop strategies for how to make this happen in virtual meetings.
  • Train leaders in how to invite leadership participation and committee formation.
  • Regional Leadership Development committee members, Regional Directors or strong society leadership to reach out to states to provide rejuvenating help or find an individual who is a “spark plug”. A form of “peer review”.

Organizational simplification

  • Perhaps ASCLS needs to think about flattening the organization and simplifying it.
  • Can we work without regional level or can the role of regions be changed so it does not sap energies/time of members who could otherwise serve constituent society or national levels?
  • Do state societies need to simplify their organization for rejuvenation?
  • Create a template of the most basic structure of a constituent society as a model with bylaws? Be sure to include junior members in rejuvenation plan.
  • Right now we are all over the map. We have strong regions, states and leaders, but we also have the opposite and a range in between.
  • Inequity in terms of the size of the regions and geography covered.
  • Hand in hand might be a redefining the BOD if it is no longer regionally oriented.
  • As a smaller organization, spreading leadership out across so many different levels (national, regional, state, branches) no longer is practical or makes sense.

Mentoring

  • How is the committee to operate?
  • What is its charge?
  • How is it supposed to relate to LDC?
  • Does it stay as a separate committee or should it be a subcommittee of LDC?
  • If separate, how can these committees communicate?
  • What is the infrastructure for mentoring?
  • What about supporting informal mentoring?
  • We have ebbed and flowed with this. With a strong leader, the mentorship program was amazingly strong for two years and right now perceptions are that it seems somewhat non-existent.
  • Do we need a jump start?

Communications

  • Answer the question “What is ASCLS doing for me?” Legislative advocacy isn’t enough. This may be most pertinent for membership committee, but is still pertinent for all leaders. Are we answering our value proposition? Value
  • Communities: We have a lot of activity and good interaction, but it still doesn’t really tell members what is going on strategically and what impacts them.
  • Are we really reaching our members? Does “activity” = “engagement”?
  • Seed and reorient the Leadership Community – constituent society leaders to ask questions and get help from each other and former leaders.
  • The communities have the potential to be great tools, but in some ways they need to be managed and seeded.
  • Up-front personal contact – the social aspects of society participation need bolstering in the digital age.
  • First-timer reception – invite other leaders to create connections so there is greater likelihood of connecting on the state level.
  • What is there for new professionals that could be done similarly?
  • State membership chairs call new members (create a script) that introduces them to how their organization operates and how to set up their ASCLS communities.
  • Within state societies with lower membership being spread out over large state geographies or multiple states, it is harder to pull off this social aspect on a regular basis.
  • At the Regional level, again geography becomes a barrier.Once strong regional meetings, becoming regional versions of state meetings with much lower attendance.
  • Members feel isolated and do not know what is happening.
  • If former board members feel this way, how do you think rank and file feel?
  • Society Updates - periodically from national with an update on progress on projects and strategies. We had this under Susie Zanto.
  • We need better and more frequent communication from leadership on the society’s work and accomplishments.
  • We have many tools – emails, communities, newsletters, web sites – but are we using them effectively?
  • We have to find ways to create community in a digital geography.
  • Recently we have been lacking in basic communications – ASCLS Today, Society News
  • Out of sight, out of mind. We often come across as slow to react or communicate. People need time to process and follow-through.