by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Aug 16, 2022 | Board Culture
“Is That So?” – a Zen Parable A girl in the village was pregnant. Her angry parents demanded to know who the father was. At first resistant to confess, the anxious and embarrassed girl finally pointed to Hakuin, the Zen master whom everyone revered for living such a...
by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Aug 12, 2021 | Board Culture, Governance
The founding or startup phase can be one of the most exciting times to be a part of an organization – for those who thrive on chaos, have an entrepreneurial spirit and a dream. For those who like stability. process and clear direction, not so much. Startup operations...
by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Jul 30, 2021 | Governance
The beginning of governance improvement is to start where you are by identifying where your board stands on an evolutionary continuum. In our work, we’ve identified six stages of board evolution. Every board, regardless of how long the organization has been...
by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Jun 5, 2021 | Board Culture, Governance
Building Volunteer Bench Strength One of the biggest challenges all associations face is building volunteer bench strength. An item included on the Leading Associations Board Health Assessment is: “We have a deep volunteer leadership pool to draw from for future...
by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Dec 16, 2020 | Board Culture
As many as half of all associations at the local, state, national, and international level – don’t fit the standard governance model that is treated as “gospel” by governance experts. Some of the so-called “best practices” in governance are not practiced by a...
by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Jan 11, 2020 | Governance
A common theme we’ve observed in leadership literature in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors is an “institutional” focus. In the for-profit sector, most management and leadership best practice frameworks are built on the study of large...
by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Dec 5, 2019 | Board Culture, Strategy
There are great books on governance that tell big boards to downsize; shift to competency-based, rather than constituency or geography-based selection system; be nimble, responsive and strategic; and select the best people for the job, not just those who “worked their...
by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Nov 6, 2019 | Strategic Planning, Strategy
The Challenge of the Traditional Strategic Planning Model Perhaps the greatest strategic challenge most association/nonprofit organizational leaders face is translating strategy from the boardroom to the receptionist’s desk (or to the committee chair’s agenda)....
by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Oct 3, 2019 | Board Culture
In part three of my series on Board of Director’s dysfunction, I want to discuss identifying the root cause of the issues within a board. The first thing to recognize is that the health of your Board of Directors is systemic and every domain affects the others. (What...
by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Sep 12, 2019 | Board Culture, Board Training
There’s a perception among some that association/non-profit CEOs are less sophisticated than their corporate sector counterparts because they aren’t as highly paid. The belief is rooted in the idea that the true rock stars only go for the big bucks. I believe the...
by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Aug 6, 2019 | Board Culture, Board Training
Strategic planning is a standard exercise at many, if not most, associations/nonprofit organizations. So much so that many smart people mindlessly use it as a prescription for all organizational ills: “Having problems, eh? Do you have a strategic plan? If you do, when...
by Jeff Arnold | President, Leading Associations | Jun 3, 2019 | Board Culture, Strategy
I am going out on a limb, as I’m delving into a leadership topic that, outside of religious or spiritually-centered leadership, is generally avoided: namely, love. Certainly it’s nothing new from a human resources perspective to state that sincere praise, recognition,...
