EMA RIP - Feeling a little guilty

Yesterday I saw the announcement declaring the end of the Enterprise Management Association. The founders are no longer able to fund its operations and the volunteer model has struggled in this period of economic downturn.

The concept was ambitious and it is a shame that it has demised. I think there are some lessons that can be drawn, both personal and more generally.

I do have some pride in being involved from pretty early on, having been invited onto their Advisory Board and from contributing some materials, but at the same time I wonder if the outcome might have been different had I done more? Of course my time alone is unlikely to have been the deciding factor, but had everyone given a bit more.......well, who knows?

As I understand it this was the brainchild of Jim Carras and Terry Doerschler, two experienced change professionals who saw a need to join up the increasingly fragmented functions/disciplines used to run modern enterprises. They conceived a global group of interested individuals driving this and supporting a growing community, largely on a voluntary basis. They looked for sponsorship to help fund core services such as the website and I know Jim put a lot of effort into developing webinars, guest blogging etc.

As I have said I think the idea was a good one, but I would be lying if I did not say I had concerns which I shared with Jim. My concerns fell into two main areas. The first was the sheer breadth of its intended appeal, both globally and professionally. My experience suggests that you need more than a good idea to glue people together naturally, it requires a common and closely linked interest. In trying to appeal to strategists, planners, change agents, etc there was a rather diverse kirk that would require strong and rather directive approach at the start.

Indeed as I write this I am reminded about situational management models which generally require a rather directive style in the formative period of a team. The team also has to allow itself to be led. In hindsight I can see Jim endeavouring to be directive, but that is hard in a widely distributed, volumtary team.

My second concern was the difficulty in pulling together that globally distributed, virtual group. While technology makes many aspects much easier and accessible these days, it does not change the impact of cultural differences and global time zones. Trying to pull people together in their discretionary time and across a spread of  hours, some at home, some in ther working day and others in their sleep period makes for a very mixed contribution, at least in my experience.

It is also dangerous to underestimate the cultural issues. These affect individual contributions and corporate-style priorities. Establishing and supporting a single behavioural norm is also difficult.

I am not sure how many of those involved actually met face to face, but relatively few I think. This is one of my key tenets in leading distributed teams ie I need to meet them face to face as early as I can. This moves subsequent interactions to a higher level.

Before I look at the lessons we could draw I should say I am not trying to be a smartass in doing this. Instead this is more a recording of some self reflection.

On a personal level, I would admit that I could have put more time into EMA. The reason I didn't was that the timing of meetings conflicted with more personal needs, in part eating into family time, in part looking for commitment when my primary concerns were to secure work and at a time when I felt a need to remain flexible.

What I did do was write some blogs for EMA and deliver two webinars. I also contributed thoughts to some of the strategic planning.

I guess there was not enough in it for me to give more.

I can also see that should I find myself trying to lead a similar endeavour I need to consider a more directive style. I can see the fear that volunteers will not respopnd to the directive style, but this may well be a mis-direction. Better a small group of committed and directable people, than a diffuse, disconnected and only partly committed group. If you cannot find that initial small group then maybe there is a lesson in that.

On a more business level, I think that the key lessons are the difficulty in trying to appeal to a very wide audience. I think that a more focussed (less ambitious) start up phase might have worked better. That focus could have been functional ie look at just planners or just change agents. Alternatively the focus could have been geographical, building on existing bonds.

A geographical restriction would have helped with second aspect being that of linking and leading virtual global teams. There is nothing as powerful as proximity. Had EMA started as priamrily US, then maybe people could have met in-person more easily and would probably have shared more common experiences and interests. Once a base was established it could have looked at expansion.

I think that even for a voluntary network one needs enough funding and personal time to seed the group dynamics, probably more than one would like to think.

I could go on, but I won't. My key takeaways are two fold. The first is to be selective in where I decide to invest my discretionary effort, looking to maximise both my contribution and indeed my return (what is in it for me?). The second is a caution against over ambition. It is good to have dreams and aspire to greater things, but a degree of pragmatism is often needed if one is to establish the initial undertaking so that it can expand.

As I said at the start I do feel a little sad and a little guilty and that is something I will have to live with. Well done Jim and Terry for trying, I hope in time you will feel good that you gave it a real go and maybe something will rise from the ashes.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad