Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending the March luncheon of the Georgia Society of Association Executives. It was actually my first GSAE event (other MemberClicks team members attend quite often), and I had a fantastic time.

The speaker, M. Kirk Pickerel, has been the president of American Builders and Contractors for almost 10 years. ABC has 79 chapters and 25,000 members — quite a huge organization! He talked about ABC’s participation in the study that eventually led to the book, “Seven Measures of Success: What Remarkable Associations Do That Others Don’t.” Unfortunately, ABC wasn’t identified as a “remarkable” organization; it was one of the “good” ones paired up with a remarkable one for comparison!

However, Pickerel’s speech was a fantastic example of an association leader who saw room for improvement — and did something about it!

The seven measures are as follows:

1. A customer-service culture
2. Alignment of products and services with mission
3. Data-driven strategies
4. Dialogue and engagement
5. CEO as broker of ideas
6. Organizational adaptability
7. Alliance building

Pickerel said ABC’s biggest problem was something I’m betting a lot of organizations have trouble with: Organizational adaptability. Because ABC is such a large organization, it was difficult to institute any kind of sustaining change.

However, I think even smaller organizations can have trouble with adaptability. When you have so many things to take care of and so many hats to wear, it’s easy to get caught up in your everyday tasks and not reflect on how adaptable your organization is. Do you find it difficult to step back and identify positive changes your organization could institute?

How has your organization adapted to new technologies, processes or structures? What obstacles did you have to overcome?