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A PROGRAM OF THE U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE FOUNDATION
 

IOM Blog

October 1, 2014

CTRL+ALT+Believe: Reboot Your Organization for Success

Let me guess, your organization has survived year after year by doing the same thing over and over again.  Now suddenly, as if by magic, those “same old” programs and benefits are falling flat or even diminishing in value.  Do you ever wish you could simply hit a magic keystroke and reboot your organization for success?  Now you can!

The good news is that rebooting your organization does not have to be hard.  In fact, it should not be.  It is a simple matter of leaders and members agreeing to embrace change in small steps and become dedicated to create a more efficient and effective organization. 

CTRL+ALT+Delete

What do we do when a computer freezes up?  When no matter how much you try to get it to open a new application, it simply does not?  We hit the keystroke combination CTRL+ALT+Delete.  How do you reboot many computers or start them up each day?  Press CTRL+ALT+Delete. Holding down those three keys reboots the computer and enables us to become productive.  Could this work for organizations also? Yes, it can!

Today many organizations are frozen with fear, doubt, and lack. Many are struggling to get something new started, but are not able to. As a result, they do not work at highest efficiency or effectiveness. Organizations need to reboot themselves using a technique as simple as CTRL+ALT+Delete. 

Delete Becomes Believe

As you will recall, the magic computer reboot was not complete until you hit the last key: “Delete.” What I have learned working with volunteer based organizations is people do not like to delete anything.  Now is the time to surpass old beliefs and bring forth new ideas. That invites us to evaluate what do we believe about our organization?

Do you believe your organization has limited resources both in time and in money?  This constraint requires us to shift our belief.  When facilitating strategic planning retreats with organizations and meeting professionals, this is biggest thing I find organizations struggle with. Learn to know your organizational beliefs.

With the onslaught of new business challenges from technology, globalism, and generational changes, we must adapt.  Many organization professionals and boards of directors must realize it truly is survival of the fittest.  We do not have the bandwidth to do both an awards gala and create a new awards event.  We need to delete our old beliefs and step fully into something new. 

CTRL

What are the policies, procedures, and rules—both spoken and unspoken—that govern and influence your organization? Are they enabling you to rapidly adapt and innovate, or are they holding your organizations and events back from what it could be?

The first question I ask all leaders is, “What is the vision and/or mission of your organization? What are the goals, objectives, and desired results?” Less than one percent of organization leaders can tell me the answer.  A few leaders know where to go to look it up, while many can tell me they know it’s too long to be useful.

This statement—or more often than not the lack of it—is a place of control that you may want to look.  Your vision/mission and statement of goals should be the foundation for each and every decision you make.  Without a clear goal, you experience the ever-revolving door of new leadership choosing what direction to take your organization in and that will control you.

ALT

As your beliefs become clear and you remove what controls you, you want to look at creating new and exciting alternate solutions to the problems you experience in your organization.  “Innovation” is a hot buzzword in every organization these days, but few organizations know how to encourage innovation, or even know what innovation is.

Often organizations design their work by tradition and habit.  To reboot you have to create new ways of doing things.  Which immediately creates fear—fear of change and fear of failure.  Look at things in terms of ALT, or an alternate solution makes change easier for most leaders.

One way to hit the ALT key in the face of fear is to start small. Have you ever purchased software with the words “BETA” on the box?  Beta—by definition—is a limited release of a product with a goal of finding bugs before the final release.  To decrease the fear of doing something new in your organization, create one or two new event concepts and launch them in Beta. (If it’s good enough for some of the world’s largest companies, don’t you think it could work in your organization?)

To further hit the ALT key in your “reboot,” work with your attendees to co-create new event benefits, communications tools, revenue models, and event experiences that meet—and even exceed—the needs of your new audience.

The Rebooting Process

Implementing the CTRL+ALT+Belive reboot for your organization and events is a careful process.  It should be done as a conscious choice initiated by the senior staff and/or board of directors and supported by the participants.  An organization’s reboot process should be a co-created process requiring the board and member participants to examine the beliefs, thoughts, and actions they are making as a collective community.

Take time now to step back and look at what negatively controls your organization.  Create opportunities for dialogue about what you can do to change these things.  Get excited about all the new alternate solutions you can create.  Then work together to prioritize what will engage participants in the best ways. With a compassionate heart, delete the projects and programs that no longer serve your participants. 

You don’t honor your founders by doing what they did. You honor them by keeping organization business and events alive, and that requires adaptability and change. Make the process easy and fun: CTRL+ALT+Believe.

 

Avatar photo
Holly Duckworth, CAE, CMP, LSP
Faculty, Institute for Organization Management
CEO, Leadership Solutions International

Holly Duckworth, CAE, CMP, LSP is a coach and consultant to CEOs and executives. Author and international business columnist, her award-winning book, ‘Ctrl+Alt+Believe: Reboot Your Association for Success’ guides leaders to create a new belief system about how their organizations work, so they can forge a new future NOW. For more information about SpiritStrategist, please contact: holly@hollyduckworth.com, 503-217-4112, or visit her website at www.hollyduckworth.com.

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