Non-Profits Embracing New Structure and Organization going into 2010

In his blog in December, Jeff Hurt recently declared “Associations must begin to consider and embrace new models of structure and organization or risk becoming obsolete and irrelevant.”   Quite a thought-provoking statement.  Needless to say, there are indeed critical issues facing association leaders in this digital age.  Nonprofits are seemingly aware of technology’s potential but for the most part, seem somewhat mystified as to how to bring it into play to produce a positive outcome.   

With dramatic change in mind, Scott Oser started a discussion - What If Associations Abandoned Hierarchies on ASAE's Acronym Blog.  Jamie Notter responded with The Trouble With Hierarchies. It was great to see the Association blogging community’s willingness to participate in ASAE’s  -  Acronym - Big Ideas month.

Now, on the subject of Associations Abandoning Hierarchies,  Scott says, “we shouldn't hate hierarchy--we should hate the lack of leadership from people at the top of the hierarchy.”  Now,  take a look at some other ideas and comments:

• “I suppose the goal of less hierarchy is to increase innovation and freedom? That is a great goal  … but there needs to be some control in place, which I think is       inherent in things like budgets and strategic plans … I think the best way would be to work in teams, as discussed, and establish things that any project/team CAN'T do up front, which is much easier and less time consuming than some type of manager telling them what they can do, does that make sense?”

• I think a group that does not have at the very start a clear, designated way to make decisions is an outrageous waste of time and is a grossly negligent way   to try to operate. Hierarchy is one way to make this clear from the start. Sure, there's other ways, but I think they are even messier than hierarchy.”

• “Hierarchy is simply a prioritization system. We tend to talk about it in terms of rank or positional power. But we can also have a hierarchy of decision-making  processes, values, priorities, etc.”

Personally, I really like  Jamie Notter’s  post, “..I think Scott and I have more overlapping thoughts on this subject than conflicting ones. Hierarchy serves a real purpose, as does open collaboration and problem solving. Organizations have both because they both are in service of the enterprise getting things done and being effective. But I push back against hierarchy because in general its reality is falling WAY short of its intention, and not just because of ineffective individuals. Hierarchy in organizations was designed in a completely different era. We don't have to get rid of it, but we need to address its weaknesses in a deep way, not a "tweaking" way and not in a "but a new individual leader will do it differently" way.”