The article I wrote entitled Why are so many of our strongest Association Executives getting Fired hit a raw nerve in our industry. With the existential threats real estate Associations are facing today, a strong CEO and Volunteer Leadership is more important than ever.
Today brokerages representing over 600,000 agents cannot or will not require NAR membership because of their proposed lawsuit settlements. Whether from litigation, DOJ rulings or the belief from brokerages (especially the $2 billion crowd) that NAR let them down, it is anything but business as usual right now. All Association leaders need to be open to new ways to doing business to be able to ride out this storm.
Forward-looking, strategic AE’s recognize these vulnerabilities. They are effectively partnering with their volunteer leaders to push the envelope, eliminating outdated or poorly attended programs and focusing their attention on preparing for future scenarios that may be foisted on the industry from lawyers, the DOJ or some other unknown threat.
The best voluntary Association leaders are focused on taking a hard look at their Association’s value proposition and are staying close to their members getting a good gauge on how much members believe their Association is an integral part of their success. They are working closely with their AE’s and asking the tough questions to ensure their organization is here for the long haul.
I have seen an alarming correlation, though. It seems those organization with the more progressive, passionate Staff executives are getting fired at a higher rate than those that are more passive. Why? My guess is that the volunteer leadership have not been trained to understand their true role and are scared or intimidated by the flurry or new ideas getting thrown at them. I have heard more than one volunteer say, “this is not what I signed up for.”
The best volunteer leaders are open-minded and objective, taking a hard look at every program every year. They recognize that programs that serve a very small portion of the membership may need to be discontinued to make room for programs and promotions that will help ensure the long-term viability of the organization. A renewed focus on advocacy, CE events, educational programming and education designed to help ensure the long-term viability of buyers’ agents, are a few examples of programs that may need to win out over poorly attended golf tournaments or chili cook-offs.
What’s our motivation to become a Volunteer Leader?
When considering a run for my current role as Chair of the National Small Business Association, the oldest, national, non-partisan advocacy small business organization in the country today, I had to ask myself the tough question. “What is motivating you to run for the position? Are you doing it to feed your ego or are you doing it to make a difference for small businesses nationwide?” I thought long and hard about running for the position because I knew it would take a ton of time and energy. If I didn’t admit that becoming Chair of the NSBA wasn’t at least a little part for an ego boost, I would be kidding myself. Ultimately though, if we, as volunteers, are not primarily motivated to support long-term success for our constituents and are not there to do our best to make a small positive difference, then we shouldn’t apply for the position.
Making a Meaningful Impact as Volunteer Leaders?
If we are truly in the seat to make a difference, then we don’t need lavish installation dinners or other types of personal ingratiation. We should want to simply roll up our sleeves and do the best job in the short time we are sitting in the seat. And while we need to do our best to work in sync with our fellow Board members and Association Executive, energies should be focused on making sure we retain members in this turbulent time and to deliver programs that will truly help REALTORS® be more professional and prepared to build life-long relationships with their clients.
Be Decisive
We also need to make decisions quickly. Our industry is changing way too quickly to ruminate on decisions and missed opportunities. We must remember that no decision we make will ever be perfect. We just have to jump in, make a decision, and course correct as we go.
Preparing Effectively as Volunteer Leaders?
While I believe that many volunteer leaders are in it for the right reasons, being an effective board member is a lot harder than it looks. Many REALTORS® have never managed a CEO, run multi-million-dollar budgets, built or been responsible for the well-being of their entire local real estate community. It’s a ton of responsibility. So where do you start?
You’re Invited!
We are hosting a live webinar on this topic on August 27th, 2024.
Keys to Effectively Managing the CEO
Creating a productive relationship with the CEO is a critical first step to success as a volunteer leader. While Boards of Directors often become friendly with their CEO, it is not appropriate to manage this important relationship as a friendship. It is a professional business partnership that needs to be managed as such.
In my view, no CEO should ever be fired because of a personality conflict or personal issue and yet this happens way too often today. So how do we avoid these missteps and ensure that as leaders we are helping to bring out the best in the CEO and create a cohesive, decisive, effective Board/CEO dynamic?
- Measurable Strategic Plan
The first step to building an objective and professional CEO relationship starts with the right type of Strategic Plan. Unfortunately. many Associations do not have strategic plans that can be used to hold the staff and the board of directors accountable. I call them the “Forced Family Fun” sessions. Everyone gets in a room, talks about all that’s wrong in our industry, sings “Kumbaya” for a few hours, and then absolutely nothing changes. There are no specific, measurable goals set, no action plans or timelines articulated and no methods for measuring progress. Lofty goals like “Become the voice of real estate” or “Deliver meaningful services to our members” are not specific or actionable enough to truly mean anything. A pretty poster is made, hung up in the board room, posted on the website and then the strategic plan is never referred to again.
These kinds of strategic plans are outdated and are not going to help your organization survive. To make the strategic planning process effective, it must be a lot more specific and measurable. Board meeting discussion must center around the successful execution of the strategic plan. The budget must align with it as well.
As someone who led strategic planning efforts for a Fortune 100 company and has facilitated hundreds of strategic plans in real estate, I strongly believe we need to lead with the strategic priorities and initiatives outlined in a strong strategic plan.
A meaningful and effective strategic plan needs to include the following:
- Asks the Tough Questions – Discusses existential threats and faces them head on.
- Forward-looking and Brave–Identifies new opportunities to increase member loyalty, assuming on-going and ever-increasing challenges
- Clear –Includes well-articulated strategic objectives and goals
- Specific – Includes specific action plans, timelines, budget and responsibilities
- Measurable –Includes specific metrics referred to often by the staff and Board to measure progress and course correct as needed?
- Manage the CEO with the Strategic Plan at the center
Once the right type of Strategic Plan is constructed, it becomes the center point of managing a CEO objectively and effectively. I have heard horror stories about AE’s getting fired because of a non-specific, poorly articulated conflict between the Board and CEO. I have never gotten a call that says, “my board released me because they did not believe I was achieving the specific and quantified action items articulated in the strategic plan.”
By evaluating the CEO based on the priorities and program goals articulated in the strategic plan, the Board is using an objective and quantifiable method for providing a rationale for a bonus, salary increase or for a discussion about the areas where the CEO is falling short. The best relationships also encourage the CEO to provide suggestions about the best ways for the Board of Directors to work together with the CEO as well. Ideally, the conversation will be open and honest all with the goal of doing the absolute best to help local REALTORS® benefit significantly from the organization.
- Set and Review Progress Quarterly
At WAV Group, we recommend breaking down the strategic plan into quarterly goals, action plans, and deliverables. Outline the action items and benchmarks to monitor progress and then create a document to monitor progress to the agreed to quarterly priorities. Have the CEO provide a report on progress and have each of those on the Compensation committee also complete an evaluation.
Bring the CEO and the committee together to discuss progress and what areas need to be improved on. Sometimes training can be suggested or a re-shuffling of priorities based on changing market needs. Monitor member engagement and satisfaction with member satisfaction surveys and participation in programs.
If there is anything seriously wrong or not being addressed, this is a time to document concerns and to outline a “Performance Improvement Plan.” No CEO should ever get fired without feedback and suggestions about how to improve their performance except of course in the case of fraudulent, illegal, or other inappropriate activity, even in At Will states. Your membership needs stability and focus to help them succeed. They don’t want to see their organization churn through CEO’s like so many do today.
If you would like an example of what a quarterly review document might include, feel free to reach out and I’ll be happy to send you one.
- Annual Review with Results of 4 Quarterly Reviews
Armed with the 3 quarterly reviews and the final 4th quarter review, ideally performed after year-end financial results are tabulated, the committee can work again with the CEO to do a year in review and, if there were concerns articulated, discuss how well the CEO address the critiques. At the 4th quarter review the CEO can also articulate the following year’s annual objectives to continue to chip away at the multi-year strategic plan.
Since a productive relationship between CEO’s and Board leadership is so critical, I hope that you consider the process outlined above and bring it to your organization. Our industry is at a critical crossroads right now. Naysayers are everywhere. We need to find effective ways to work together. The future of our industry depends on it.
You’re Invited!
We are hosting a live webinar on this topic on August 27th, 2024.
Everything you say here is spot on. Sadly, at least at the local level, the volunteer Dirctors, and Leadership rarely get involved for anything but their ego and the ability to advance to the state and national levels of the organization. In fact, the qualifiactions for advancement is a certain involvement at the local level. This has the unintended consequence of altering theior motivations for involvement at the local level, and the local association becomes simply a filter for those wanting to advance. Also, the quality of volunteers is extremely low — they are mostly practioners with the least amount of active business (speaking mostly about the local level). They consider themselves “Queens” and “Kings”.