It is important to understand the motivations behind someone’s request, concern, advice, or opinion. If you give five of your close friends the same information, their worldview will color those facts and each of them may come to a different conclusion. The same happens with our board members, our co-workers, and our staff.
It is important to remember that each profession also comes with worldviews and the various disciplines do not always align.
Membership wants more members. Marketing wants to grow profitably. Finance intends to look for efficiencies. Communications wants to publish great content with journalistic integrity. Tech wants the technology to work properly with zero downtime. Event planning wants to put on a great conference. Other departments are focused on clean data. Or publishing web pages with no typos. Or eliminating risk. Or shipping on time. Or meeting deadlines. Or testing out the newest technology.
With these motivations in mind should every department get an equal voice for every strategic decision? What happens when one department or person always gets an outsized voice? Is this holding the association back?
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