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Fall Leadership In Denver 2009
Fall Leadership Conference 2009 Denver, CO Highlights
Pump Up Your Publicity Excellent! Laurie Dodge advised to be prepared to answer questions from: media, potential members, community partners, donors, program recipients, and the community at large. Our members need to be well-versed on our mission, what we hope to accomplish with the function we are promoting, and the community impact it will provide. She stressed the power of the website! This is our league's "public face" and needs to reflect accurate up-to-date information. Public Relations is a constant effort and basically a crapshoot. Be persistent until you get a response - even if they aren't interested. Ask the medium what they are looking for to generate coverage. Tailor our "in" to what they want to report on. Does a particular reporter have a soft spot for an issue we are working on? One chapter established a relationship with local media by dropping off goodies on a regular basis! Be aware of potential conflicts of interest with a member promoting JL (free advertising) and their ties to paid advertisers. Add BB testimonials to our site. We may need to add a space for that on the feedback forms for next year. Let AJLI know about our cookbook/KITK event!
Revisiting Strategic Planning as a Tool for Effective Change The speaker, Janine Le Sueur, had some interesting worksheets that showed the layers of an organization that uses a Community-Centered Issue-Based Focus. The initial layer states your identity and how you want to be regarded in the community. The second layer focuses on recruiting membership as part of the Program Goals and Strategy. The third layer focuses on Communication, Marketing and PR Strategies. She said that most organizations tend to start at the second layer (recruiting members). If we get our focus on our community impact, the members will come. How do we get from "survival" mode to "thriving" mode? Go to the membership. Define who & what we want to be. Membership retention relies on enthusiasm for what we do & are! Do we need a facilitator from AJLI?
Navigating Change This workshop offered such a wealth of information! First and foremost: DON'T look at changing everything in one year. This needs to be an evolving process. Presenter Jana Daley suggested breaking every item into a rolling three year calendar. Tackle updates on each thing every three years. Stop talking about who we aren't. Focus on promoting who we are (or are becoming!) We did an exercise from Edward de Bono - The Thinking Hats. Each hat color represents a train of thought related to an issue. White - Neutral & objective. Concerned with facts & figures. Red - Emotion. The gut instinct one feels towards an issue. Yellow - It's all great! Sunny - positive. Black - challenges. The devil's advocate. Careful & cautious. The member obstacle I mentioned earlier. Green - Creative. The big picture - thinking out of the box. Very similar to the Yellow hat. Blue - Facilitator. Asks the questions to keep the dialogue flowing. The trick is to NOT slot people into their perceived colors. Make them think of an issue a different way. If they are wearing the yellow hat, they can't make black hat comments. Other key points covered in the materials included effective leadership and managing change. Effective leaders achieve goals by delegating. They must model the type of behaviors they want to see - "walk their talk." They keep the enthusiasm level up. Leaders must have ongoing accountabilities in place to ensure that actions are taken to accomplish the overall change effort. Key points to Managing Change: - Jump In! - A clear sense of purpose is essential. - Build a Team. Managing change isn't accomplished by "lone wolves." - Rely on minimal and informal reporting requirements. - Pick people with relevant skills and high energy levels! - Toss out that rulebook! - Plan and act in short intervals. - Set flexible priorities. - Treat everything as a temporary measure. - Ask for volunteers. - Find a good team leader. - Give team members the resources they need. - Concentrate disbursed knowledge - the site bulletin board? Want more info on anything you've read here? I have the complete notebook with all my class handouts available! Teri Gillen |
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