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State of the Association: 2010 vol 1

03/11/2010, 1:56am CST

By No Author

Although I’m too young to remember FDR’s Fireside Chats, I have read many of the manuscripts and studied the historical significance of FDR’s strategy. President Roosevelt’s idea was simple and elegant: Tell the people what’s happening and why. In extremely uncertain times, the immeasurable benefits of regular communication comforted a worried nation and secured a place in history for FDR as one of the greatest American presidents.

The United States Fencing Association is at a critical juncture. Although our issues pale in comparison to those faced by FDR, those of us passionately committed to the sport and to success of the USFA take the current state of affairs seriously and very personally. I recognize and respect the consternation of all stakeholders in this wonderful sport. It’s my job to let you all know what we’re doing and why. In order to keep you better informed, I have made the decision to begin publishing a bi-weekly report on the state of the association.

Quite frankly, I would prefer to be sitting at a local coffee shop with you, discussing the state of the association, while enjoying an espresso. However, since there are over 23,000 USFA members, individual meetings are impossible. But, your voice is crucial to our collective success, so I’ve set-up an email address that will allow you direct access to me. I welcome your comments and questions, for better or worse. I feel strongly that this is an important way in which I can ensure that all US Fencing Stakeholders' voices are heard.

Please send your messages to: ideas@usfencing.org. As I receive your ideas, rants and hopefully, raves! I will read every message to gain insights and ideas. I believe great ideas can come from any source, at any time, and from any level within the organization. I have instituted a constant quest to raise the bar in order to provide an increasingly efficient and greater level of customer service. I am confident, that if I could speak directly with each member, I would learn many ways in which I could do my job better, and be a more effective leader for US Fencing during this difficult time.

For this first installation, I’d like to spend some time discussing our greatest asset - our people. We could not function without our dedicated group of volunteers and the professional staff in the National Office. I’m repeatedly asked, “who is in the National Office, and why have so many changes been made?” While, there are a numerous business variables that we’re unable to control, like market conditions, fluctuations in variable costs, like airfare and lodging, staffing is completely within our control. The quality of our people is our greatest differentiator as an organization.

Think about where we’ve come from. Was the change we witnessed from being an organization that hovered around the breakeven point from 2001-2005, to one that lost $2 Million from August of 2005 through July of 2008 the result of one person? Doubtful. Some have attempted to point fingers, but that doesn’t help. The good news is we’ve successfully stopped the bleeding. But, while the Executive Director who oversaw this sub-standard performance is no longer here, elements of the culture that contributed our poor performance were evident when I took the reins. This is what I have been diligently, intentionally, and patiently working to change.

Many of our staff and stakeholders have asked why I didn’t make major changes when I accepted the position of Executive Director. Well, that’s double-edged sword. I could have made wholesale changes, but since I didn’t know the people, the likelihood that the right changes would be made is small. Plus, I knew it was necessary to both assess the actual state of the office, as well as start providing the staff with the necessary tools to do their jobs effectively. Upon my arrival, I quickly realized the existing job descriptions, lacked the clarity and measurability to actually hold people accountable. This situation made it nearly impossible to establish a standard of operations that would be based upon our core values. Obviously and necessarily, defining roles and responsibilities and rewriting job descriptions became job 1. Here is a description of the process I used:

· Step one – assess job descriptions to provide clear direction for each of our staff in accordance with our values of Service, Communication, Trust, and Excellence.

· Step two - begin pruning our staff based upon performance in accordance with those core values. This has been difficult, but is a vital part of the process.

· Step three - address our organizational model as a whole. What we’ve done for this past year – is to attempt to make minor tweaks here and there. We recognize that a complete overhaul may still be necessary; we haven’t witnessed improvement in performance at the desired rate. I know we plan on keeping the internal “tiers” to a minimum.

· Step four - evaluate the choices that have been made regarding changes over this year. We will make mistakes - that’s ok. What really matters is that we’re willing to address the mistakes in a timely manner.

That’s what we’ve been doing regarding our staff to BUILD capacity as an organization. But the process is not finished. There are still two steps remaining:

· Step five – establish a reward system that accounts for overall performance and value integration. Essentially develop small ways to reinforce desired values and behaviors.

· Step six – evaluate our staff according to clear performance objectives – not according to a “general feel” as the culture had dictated in the absence of a true evaluative system – and train, coach, and hold our staff to accountable as necessary.

Peter Drucker once commented that it takes YEARS to build an effective management team, and I fully agree. I am excited to see our Executive Leadership Team stepping up and taking ownership of building their respective teams, for our leaders must be completely committed to the people process. In some cases, there’s an internal battle going on to acquire the top performers, knowing that the level of customer service we now expect is still greater than what is being provided. It truly is an exciting step for us as an association – one that I believe will bear much fruit in the years to come.

I hope to hear from you as indicated above, and look forward to picking our conversation back up in a couple of weeks.

Tag(s): News