Alignment - The Worst Kept Secret Behind Successful Associations 

What does success look like for your firm? When I ask a leader what success looks like, I often get an answer along the lines of “we will exceed our goals”.  

Every association has goals; it is embedded into the constitution as written objectives. Almost all have a clear purpose on an about us page, setting out their vision, mission, and values. Many have a three- to five-year plans with broad goals. It gets a little less common to hear how the above translates into how those goals are to be hit, whose responsibility it is, and where the funding or resourcing will come from.  

Successful associations have an aligned clarity from top-down strategy supported by a ground-up tactical plan. It all starts with a solid governance structure, which has no shortage of books and articles written about it. We can simplify the top-down, ground-up alignment into three groups: Paperwork, Purpose, and Plan. The paperwork or reference material guides and keeps us on track and includes items such as the constitution, charters, and bylaws. This flows down to our purpose, visualised often as vision, values, and mission statements and infographics. 

It is when we try to move from concepts to concrete plans and contextualising this to the stakeholders that it can get a bit subjective. It sounds straightforward, write the objective to meet the mission and have a team deliver them. In practice, many leaders, after a week of back-to-back committee meetings, reflect on the 19th-century quote from Helmuth von Moltke, who coined the term “no plan survives contact with the enemy.” This was later refined by Mike Tyson, world champion boxer, to “Everyone has a plan ‘till they get punched in the face.” The worst-kept secret to alignment is the importance of collective effort and a shared vision of success to keep your strategies connected to the vision while ready for the occasional scuffle. 

You might think, “We are aligned; everyone in our business knows the vision and goals.” You may have held a leader’s retreat, staff day, and board and committee meetings, setting clear plans for the coming year. A recent Harvard Business Review article stated that leaders felt strategic agreement within their companies was at 82%. However, upon analysis of the detailed written explanations from those same employees about what their company’s strategies were, it was found that actual alignment was, on average, just 23%. 

Goals 

If you set goals, you will achieve them, says every influencer. Aside from unrealistic Instagram feeds, clear goals are a must for any association and team. There are several popular methods for setting and managing them. The tried and tested is SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals, a strategy that often relies on intuition and experience. They can be a little limited by a lack of knowledge, assumptions, or the mindset of “we have always done it this way.” 

Key Performance Areas (KPAs) can also be referred to as critical success factors. Like SMART goals, they need to be clear, specific, and measurable so you can determine exactly if the result has been achieved and how well. A KPA should also be completely under your control. This means that if you do not do it, it will not be done by someone else, and lastly, it must be an essential activity of the business. 

At a more grounded level, another version is Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which focus on specific strategic objectives. When measured and reported back, they give the leadership team or board an “indication” of whether the organisation is making progress. 

Benjamin Laker was published in 2024 in MIT Sloan, focusing on Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) with his argument that this model of goal setting is more action-oriented, providing inspirational goals that are strategically aligned with the organisation’s vision. 

There is no doubt many other ways to set goals that leaders and consultants love to group into something like the five R’s or three P’s. What is commonly witnessed across most projects is that it doesn’t matter what method you use, just use one that works for you and your association. 

Capacity 

The inaugural Digital Transformation Leaders List, an initiative of The Australian Financial Review and Boston Consulting Group, identified six key success factors in determining whether a strategic digital transformation execution would be successful. These include an integrated strategy with clear goals, commitment from leadership, high-calibre talent with resources and capacity, and a fail-fast-learn agile governance mindset. This is monitored by a business-led, fit-for-purpose, effective, modern, scalable, and seamless technological ecosystem.

For many in the not-for-profit world, the above is a dream due to a lack of human and financial resources. So, we then must ask, where to start?

Start Small 

Don’t try to do it all at once. When alignment works, you have cultivated a culture of transparency and continuous improvement. You can allow for ongoing adjustments and fast response times to changing conditions. Be ready to celebrate successes and be open and honest about setbacks. Take a moment and evaluate what would make the biggest impact on the business and your members or clients. Then weigh that against the resources you have. Choose - don’t procrastinate. It is better to have the mantra of “Ready, Fire, Aim” than to miss an opportunity. 

Launch a small project regularly, aligned with your purpose, that will create a surplus in funds or another value proposition. This will force live feedback and an update or iteration. No number of surveys will give you the direct feedback that comes from launching a new program, service, or product. Iteration leads to inspiration; what else could be done, and how? This change in mindset leads to innovation and next-generation thinking, acting, and leading. 

To close the loop, we have invention, or as Plato famously wrote in The Republic: “Our need will be the real creator,” which was moulded over time into the English proverb, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” 

Fail Often 

We are often measured as leaders by how we deal with problems or address challenges far more than by our wins and successes. Be ready to fail, encourage it with your team. Have safeguards in place to ensure you don’t put at risk what you can’t afford. Failure is a necessary part of success. 

There is a Japanese proverb “Fall seven time, stand up eight”. As leaders we need to ensure that from the board level down, innovation, and the failure that potentially comes with it, is acceptable. 

Have Courage 

Alignment isn’t a new concept, but it is, of course, harder with a smaller team, division, or not-for-profits with limited resources. Yet it is so important. If your available resources aren’t aligned, then you are not as effective as you could be. Inefficiencies and cultural issues will arise, causing increased workload and burnout. You may have to make an active decision to stop and reset. 

Get your hands dirty; learn or apply a new skill to see what needs to change. Have the courage to challenge yourself first, then those above and below you, to make the necessary changes. Lead up and down to get everybody on the same page. Alignment brings clarity of purpose, which will attract others who are like-minded. You now have a team working together with momentum, looking for others to bring in and help you toward your goals. 

First Published in Associations Evolve 2025 & Beyond. P8-9 
https://www.answers.net.au/associations-evolve-journal