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The weather
is changing. It's getting cooler and the skies
are looking a bit clearer. The flying season
is winding down as winter approaches, and I'm
looking forward to working on some
model-building projects. That is assuming I'll
have some free time—an assumption that doesn't
always hold true. But hope springs eternal and
it gives me something to look forward to.
This
time is also a season of change for your AMA
staff. We're switching our focus from handling
summer chores—maintaining the flying site and
welcoming all of our competitors—to preparing
for next year's goals and objectives, and that
ever-popular task called budgeting. This is an
important time during which we make some key
decisions about where we will spend the
resources you provide us.
My experience with
the planning and budgeting cycle of most
associations is that it's cursory at best.
Human nature is such that we naturally repeat
what has worked and what we have done
successfully many times before.
For the most
part, this kind of learned behavior works fine
if all of the conditions remain the same.
Unfortunately that is not always the case, and
where associations fail in this process is not
recognizing a changing environment.
When this
happens, a disconnect can occur between what
the association does and what its members
expect it to do. That is why this planning
season is so critical. It will set the
direction and tone for next year's effort and
help prevent that disconnection from
occurring.
There are some important steps we
have taken to help us in this process. Earlier
in the year we held a strategic planning
meeting to discuss the issues facing AMA and
what steps we should take to address those
issues. The key conclusion was that we need to
grow the membership and improve our services
if we are to prosper and do the job our
members expect of the association.
Those
long-range goals in our strategic meeting are
what get converted into action plans during
the yearly planning and budgeting process.
Each AMA manager looks at how his or her work
contributes to our strategic goals and aligns
priorities accordingly, and that is really the
whole point of the strategic-planning
process—everyone working together toward a
common goal and focusing the limited resources
of the association for the common good.
In
theory the process is easy, but in reality it
can be difficult and even painful. Why?
Because it challenges conventional notions
about what we do for the members and sometimes
derails pet projects. It is particularly
challenging when you have a program that
provides some value to a small segment of the
membership but doesn't really conform to our
long-range goals. Terminating such a program
is perhaps one of the most difficult things an
association will ever do, and the truth is
that we are not very good at it. Ultimately,
it all ties into the "value proposition" I
mentioned in a previous column.
In addition to
the strategic planning meeting and the yearly
planning and budgeting process, we've added
another association "tool" to help us face the
future and stay focused on our goal of growing
the membership. I'm pleased to report that we
have our newly formed Membership Development
Committee working on this task and they are
helping us challenge the conventional thinking
about what we do and what kind of value we
provide our members.
The committee's first
meeting was in June—and it quickly identified
several areas of attention, including the need
for better data on our members' wants and
needs, strengthening our message about the
value proposition AMA represents, and
identifying programs that we should focus on
in the future to help us reach our growth
objectives. I anticipate this will be an
active committee that will help steer AMA into
the future.
All of these tools, the strategic
goals, the planning and budgeting cycle, and
the involvement of the committees will help
make sure we don't fall into the trap of
simply repeating what we have done year after
year. It's important that we look closely at
all of the things we do against the value they
offer our members.
The challenge for the staff
is in aligning the things we do on a
day-to-day basis with those strategic goals
and then setting priorities to make sure we
obtain those goals. It's a lot of work, but it
is a team effort using the talents of AMA's
leadership, the staff, and all of the outside
assistance we can muster through the
association's committee structure. It's also a
lot of work in the planning and the
implementation of our goals and objectives and
where we spend your money.
Come to think of
it, those ideas I had of spending time on some
model-building projects might be a bit
constrained. Oh well ... MA
Safe flying.
Don Koranda, Executive Director
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