Innovation Starts with Nonprofit and Association Culture with Elizabeth Engel and Jamie Notter
11/18/2025
“...We fall into the trap, particularly in associations of: the ideas come from the board. The problem with that is: their experience is not typical in a couple of ways. One is... because they’re in this extremely responsible and involved volunteer position, they tend to be quasi-insiders.
They know too much about the inner workings of the association. And the other thing is just from the perspective of the profession or industry that you’re in. They tend to be more prominent people, more powerful people, or more senior people.”
In episode 136 of Nonprofit Mission: Impact, Carol Hamilton, Elizabeth Engel, and Jamie Notter talk about their new white paper Lean at 10: Culture Eats Methodology for Lunch. Ten years after Engel first explored Lean Startup principles in the nonprofit and association world, she and Notter revisit what’s changed—and what hasn’t. Carol, Elizabeth, and Jamie discuss:
Why the tools of innovation are accessible, yet the real challenge in adoption lies in organizational culture.
how competing commitments, fear of failure, and rigid silos can quietly sabotage innovation efforts
what leaders can do instead to nurture learning, empathy, and experimentation.
For nonprofit and association leaders navigating rapid change, this conversation offers a candid look at how to build cultures that support innovation—not resist it.
Episode highlights:
[00:06:00] Revisiting Lean Startup, 10 Years Later
Elizabeth reflects on why she revisited Lean Startup methodology for associations and nonprofits. While the tools remain effective, she and coauthor Jamie realized the real barrier to adoption wasn’t the method—it was culture change.
[00:010:50] Defining Lean Startup and Design Thinking
Lean Startup as a way to test ideas for new programs and services quickly and with minimal risk. Design thinking complements it by centering empathy—understanding your audience’s needs before designing solutions.
[00:011:50] Culture: The Invisible Barrier
Jamie defines culture as “the collection of words, actions, thoughts, and stuff that clarifies what’s truly valued in an organization.” Leaders may talk about innovation and agility, but the real culture shows what’s actually valued—whether it’s control, perfection, or avoiding mistakes.
[00:014:40] When Culture Undermines Innovation
Even when organizations say they value innovation, competing commitments—such as always appearing competent or never failing—hold people back from experimenting. Innovation requires admitting “I don’t know” and learning from failure, which many cultures quietly discourage.
[00:19:00] Insight Over Perfection
Lean Startup doesn’t guarantee success—it guarantees insight. Success isn’t that your idea made money; it’s that you learned. Failure isn’t having the wrong idea—it’s ignoring the data and pressing on anyway.
[00:22:00] People Don’t Resist Change—They Resist Being Changed
Resistance often happens when change feels imposed rather than co-created. Leaders must double down on the why—helping staff and volunteers see how innovation makes their work better, not just different.
[00:24:40] Low Fences, Not No Silos
Instead of “busting silos,” make them more porous. Silos and hierarchies aren’t inherently bad—they just need lower fences and open visibility so collaboration can flow across departments.
[00:27:00] Listening Beyond the Boardroom
Audience insight often lives with frontline staff, not the board. Boards tend to be more senior, powerful, and atypical members. Without listening to staff and typical members, organizations risk building solutions no one wants.
[00:30:40] Volunteer Culture Matters Too
Association volunteers bring their own culture—often unexamined. Healthy governance also means managing the culture of committees and boards, including how they debate, make decisions, and handle conflict.
[00:31:00] The Role of Healthy Conflict
Managing conflict and change are the two cultural capacities most tied to innovation success. Avoiding conflict leads to bad decisions and wasted resources. Constructive disagreement, handled early, saves time and builds better solutions.
[00:37:35] What a Culture Supportive of Innovation Looks Like
Cultures that embrace innovation value learning over perfection, empathy for audiences, and openness over control. Leaders model curiosity, transparency, and the humility to say “I don’t know.”
[00:41:20] From Reactive to Proactive Transparency
Most people in organizations only share information when asked. True transparency means building systems that proactively share information—so staff can see what’s happening without needing permission or control.
[00:44:35] The Questions Nonprofit Leaders Should Ask
Elizabeth: “How do I know? What assumptions am I making—and how will I test them?”
Jamie: “What is my culture, really?” Not the aspirational values on the wall, but the real, everyday patterns that drive behavior.
Guest Bios:
Elizabeth Weaver Engel, M.A., CAE, is Chief Strategist at Spark Consulting. For more than 25 years, Elizabeth has helped associations grow in membership, marketing, communications, public presence, and especially revenue, which is what Spark is all about. She speaks and writes frequently on a variety of topics in association management. When she's not helping associations grow, Elizabeth loves to dance, listen to live music, cook, and garden.
Jamie Notter is a speaker, author, consultant, and culture scientist. His career spans 30 years, with more than a decade of research and practice in the culture field, as well as deep experience in areas like conflict resolution and generations. He desperately wants to make work suck less for everyone, and has written four popular business books, including the award-winning Non-Obvious Guide to Employee Engagement, and his latest release, Culture Change Made Easy. He holds a Master’s in conflict resolution from George Mason and a certificate in Organization Development from Georgetown, where he served as adjunct faculty.
Important Links and Resources:
https://www.getmespark.com/blog/
https://jamienotter.com/research-books/
Related Episodes:
E 58 Building a feedback culture
E62 Healthy culture highlights part 1
E63 Healthy culture highlights part 2
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Carol Hamilton: My guests today on nonprofit Mission Impact are Elizabeth Engel and Jamie Notter. Elizabeth, Jamie, and I talk about their new white paper Lean At Attend Culture Eats Methodology for lunch. 10 years after Engle first explored Lean Startup principles in the nonprofit and association world, she and Nader revisit what's changed and what's haven't, hasn't.
And what's ha and what hasn't. I was actually part of the original paper a decade ago. My work, bringing the design thinking methodology to my association in my role as leader of innovation, was featured as a case study, and my longer term experience mirrored exactly what Elizabeth and Jamie argue in the paper.
While the approaches, whether lean startup or design thinking are pretty accessible and are relatively easy to learn, they will not get integrated into the way the organization does things. They will not get integrated into the way the organization does, or the way the organization does things if they do not match the culture.
They will not get integrated into the way the organization does things if they do not mesh with the culture. And as Jamie describes, culture is about what's valued. There are many aspects common and many organizational cultures that get in the way of innovation. It's not okay for me to make mistakes, for example.
It's not okay to say, I don't know. Or if feedback is only listened to from those at the top of the H hierarchy, if knowing is more important than learning when these and other things are the things that are actually valued, regardless of what the value statements say, the organization will not be very innovative.
And this also holds true despite how often the CEO and board chair claim that the organization is very agile and innovative. At the organization where I was working, there were several of these aspects at play, so it meant that I was trying to roll a rock uphill, and unfortunately it eventually rolled back down and took me out.
Now I certainly learned a lot through that experience and we tease apart a number of those lessons. In this episode, we also talk about competing commitments. For example, fear of failure or rigid silos can quietly sabotage innovation efforts and what leaders can do instead to nurture learning empathy and experimentation for all of us navigating rapid change.
Right now, this conversation offers a candid look at how to build cultures that support innovation instead of undermining it.
Well, welcome Elizabeth. Welcome Jamie to nonprofit Mission Impact. It's great to have you both.
Elizabeth: Have you both?
Jamie: It's here.
Elizabeth: always.
Carol: Yes, Elizabeth, thank you for coming back, and Jamie, glad to have you on for the first time.
Elizabeth: first
Carol: So I often start out with a question around the why behind the work that you do.
Elizabeth: you
Carol: I think this today, since we're gonna hone in on the the white paper that the two of you recently worked on,
Elizabeth: worked on,
Carol: Love to know a little bit more about why that white pap white paper and why now.
Elizabeth: Now.
Carol: It's one that, that
Elizabeth: that,
Carol: dealt with a topic that you dealt with about 10 years ago. So literally the title is Lean, no Lean Startup. 10 10.
Elizabeth: 10.
Carol: and.
Elizabeth: and
Carol: I was especially interested in it because I was actually one of your case studies when you did the original white paper. So all about innovation,
Elizabeth: Novation,
Carol: lean startup design thinking in associations.
But now what, what, what does it look like 10 years later?
Elizabeth: years later? Yeah, which is a, that's a pretty good summary of what's going on with the, with the white paper. So 10 years ago as, as you mentioned, Carol I had co-authored a white paper with Guiller Ortiz from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards about. Lean Startup in associations, and it was, it was called Innovate the Lean Way. and the methodology was still, I guess, relatively new at that point. And it was certainly pretty new to both of us. You know, and we were both really fascinated by it and its potential applicability in the nonprofit space because, you know, one of the things that. Associations and nonprofits more broadly share with startups scarce resources.
So the whole idea behind the methodology is how can you do a new program, new service, new product development in a way that. Reduces the risk of investing money working on the wrong thing. And that's, that's what kind of got the guy who originated the methodology, Eric Reese, going on this whole thing in the first place, right?
Like, you know, the most important thing is to figure out as early as possible whether or not you're going in the right direction. And that's, that's what the methodology is designed to do. So anyway that was 2015. Flash forward to about a year ago at this point. And g and I were having lunch. I should point out to everybody.
Guillermo goes by g in the association space, but G and I were having lunch and he said, you know, it's 10 years coming up that we, since we've, we've released this, this white paper, it'd be really interesting to revisit the topic and see what's changed. What. Progress has been made, what progress hasn't been made, maybe like why we think that might be the case. And so, you know, we talked about it a little bit, and said yeah, we definitely, we definitely wanna do this. And as we got talking about what we've learned in the 10 years of working in associations with clients, et cetera, with the methodology, what we realized is that. It's not the methodology itself, it's not the tools, it's not the techniques.
It's not the concepts that are the hard part. I mean, it's pretty easy to understand and you have to put some work into it to develop the skill to actually use all this stuff. But like that, that part can all be done, right? That's not that hard. What we realized. The challenge that that associations have faced and why we think probably it hasn't been more widely adopted culture change. And that was when we were like, we gotta talk to Jamie because that is, that is definitely his bag. So yeah, we ended up bringing in Jamie and then he and I ended up co-authoring the kind of, you know, lean at 10 subtitles. Culture eats methodology for lunch. That's kind of the spoiler alert here about what's really going with the white paper.
But yeah, we brought in, we brought in Jamie and he and I ended up co-authoring the white paper. And then g was one of our case studies.
Carol: Yeah, and I mean,
Elizabeth: I mean,
Carol: experience. Totally mirrored mine because
It was a cultural issue.
Elizabeth: That.
Carol: Got in the way of the organization fully embracing using the methodology. I'm not there anymore. I haven't been there for a long time.
Elizabeth: time.
Carol: but there are aspects that that stuck in terms of
Elizabeth: in
Carol: things that we developed through using.
And we used a design thinking with kind of some lean part through in, but it was definitely the cult culture elements that got in the way.
Elizabeth: in the way.
Carol: Can we just define briefly what a lean startup is? What is design thinking? And then well we, I've talked a lot about organizational culture on, on the podcast, but I think
Elizabeth: but I
Carol: a definition of that would be helpful.
Maybe we start there, Jamie.
Jamie: Sure.
Carol: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. So.
Elizabeth: I'm actually, well, I, I'll actually jump in with what is Lean Startup, because I think that's, that's a little bit my, more my piece of it. And then we can get over to, you know, what is culture and how does culture impact all this. So lean Startup very, very briefly is an innovation methodology. So then that begs the question, well, how do you define innovation? And the way we define it is, it's. that unlocks new value for one or more of your audiences. So you are trying, and particularly in the association and nonprofit context, right? We're looking for alternate sources of revenue.
You know, perhaps in the association space, non dues revenue in the more cause oriented space revenue, that's not, that's not dependent on a donor. You know, it's, you're, you're looking for additional sources of revenue and you've got. Audiences that you serve and you've got ideas for things that you could do for them and, and ideas of, of the problems that they're facing and the solutions you could potentially provide. Lean Startup is a methodology to help you test out your ideas for new programs, products, and services. an organized and data-driven way. And you know, so the idea is you wanna find out as quickly in the development of your idea as you possibly can, whether you've identified the right audience a problem for them, that is both a real problem and also a significant problem.
And whether the solution that you think is going to fix that problem will work for them. At a price that they're willing to pay. And price can mean money. It can mean time investment. It can mean attention. Like, you know, it's, it's not just money, right? But like, you know, they are willing, learning curve, et cetera, right?
Like, are they, you know, is it a price he provided at a price that they're willing to pay? Design thinking helps you in, in brief, kind of understand the audience and their problem better. You know, the big focus there is on developing empathy with your audiences and kind of developing that, that empathetic listening and understanding of where it is they're coming from, the problems they're facing.
That all helps you come up with better ideas for solutions. And then there's the culture element.
Jamie: Yeah, so the, the basic idea that culture is getting in the way of lean startup, like
Elizabeth: like,
Jamie: Elizabeth and I have had this conversation many times. Culture gets in the way of everything.
Elizabeth: the way of everything.
Jamie: Can get in the way of everything.
Elizabeth: it?
Jamie: And so if you wanna go to definitions, my definition of culture that it's the collection of words, actions, thoughts, and sorry for the technical term stuff that clarifies and reinforces what is truly valued inside an organization. Culture is about what's valued here.
Elizabeth: Here.
Jamie: what's valued drives behaviors. And that's how it gets in the way. It's like
Elizabeth: It's like
Jamie: A lot of the time we say we have values. But everyone knows in the organization what's really valued is x.
Elizabeth: Is it
Jamie: I know you told me I can make my own decisions, but what's really valued here is to check in with the boss before it goes out.
So that's the behavior you're gonna get. Words, actions, thoughts and stuff is where your culture lives. That's how you understand it and know it. So it's what we say we do. Then it's, then it's the behaviors inside the organization. It's like underlying assumptions and beliefs get wrapped in there, and then the stuff is just the tangible aspects of work. Equipment we use, the way our office is designed, that's,
Elizabeth: that's,
Jamie: stuff also clarifies what's valued, right? So
Elizabeth: So
Jamie: a little messy culture in the sense that it's words, actions, thoughts, and stuff. And, and it's, it's dynamic and it's moving, but
Elizabeth: but
Jamie: it's, it's really simple in the sense that
Elizabeth: That.
Jamie: you
Elizabeth: you
Jamie: told people or not, and whether you realize it or not, you have made it clear to everybody in your organization what's valued.
'cause that's the behavior you're getting.
Elizabeth: You getting it?
Jamie: So
Elizabeth: So
Jamie: terms of lean startup
I've been researching culture for, for 10 years now, and there are some really common patterns around innovation and agility, around silos, around strategic clarity around managing conflict. That, that exists, they're really common.
They're not in every culture the same way. Right? Cultures are all sort of unique, but,
Elizabeth: But
Jamie: these things are really common and they're the specific behaviors that will thwart
Elizabeth: fork
Jamie: lean startup
Elizabeth: Startup like,
Jamie: agility. One of the reasons associations in particular can't be
Elizabeth: can't be
Jamie: as they say they want to be, is because when things are broken, they don't fix them.
Elizabeth: fix them.
Jamie: And when things are no longer adding value, they don't stop them.
Elizabeth: They don't stop them.
Jamie: And if you don't stop things and you don't fix things, you're dragging that weight with you.
Elizabeth: with
Jamie: Like you can't do lean startup and not stop things. That's the whole point is you learn a startup, you realize, wow, this is not what we thought it was.
We need to stop this and do something else. And that very action is not supported in most cultures. It makes you look bad.
Elizabeth: you look bad,
Jamie: Right. It's something you wouldn't do. So that's, that's really the, how it gets in is these embedded patterns that we don't often see or talk about are generating these behaviors to make it hard to do the work.
Elizabeth: the
Jamie: Yep.
Carol: I think a lot of times, leaders, they, they, we, we've all learned the language that we're supposed to be agile and we're supposed to be innovative, and we're supposed to bust all the silos. And, you know, how many, how many conference sessions have you gone to about that? And,
Elizabeth: That? And,
Carol: I, I, I appreciated the point you made in the, the paper is that,
Elizabeth: is
Carol: I know.
Elizabeth: You know.
Carol: The organizations have to organize the work around different,
Elizabeth: different,
Carol: could be functional, it could be geographic, there could be lots of different ways that you organize it, but you're going to have teams. It's more like the whole bust of silos thing. I've often seen it
Elizabeth: seen
Carol: show up in terms of, okay, well we're gonna
Elizabeth: of, okay, well
Carol: reorganize, and that just reshuffles the silos.
What are you, were starting to talk about kind of some specific behaviors or kind of
Elizabeth: or kind of
Carol: practices, assumptions that get in the way of being able to
Elizabeth: to
Carol: really live into what people are aspiring to or what they're feeling like this is needed now, given how uncertain and how,
Elizabeth: and how,
Carol: You know, how fast things are changing.
We need to be able to do that too.
Elizabeth: That too.
Carol: And then there are things that are assumptions, ways of being, ways of working, behaviors that you're talking about that are just
Elizabeth: are just
Carol: gonna be a barrier to that.
Elizabeth: to that
Jamie: One,
Elizabeth: one.
Jamie: and I, I, I don't even remember if I mentioned this in the paper or not,
Elizabeth: or
Jamie: but what drives these culture patterns in
Carol: I.
Jamie: Something called competing commitments.
Elizabeth: commitments,
Jamie: And we don't realize, and this is a,
Elizabeth: this
Jamie: Every human being has competing commitments. Like, I wanna do well at work, but I want to have a nice home life.
Elizabeth: life.
Jamie: And those are competing commitments and we have to balance it. Right? And you know what happens when you don't balance it? It just gets ugly.
Elizabeth: ugly.
Jamie: So in organizations, we have those commitments, like
Elizabeth: like,
Jamie: I think most including associations, but I think
Elizabeth: but I
Jamie: organizations across the board. a commitment to unlocking new value, right?
The innovation piece. Like they know, everyone knows deep down, I can't just do what we've always done forever and succeed in today's environment. I gotta go to new places, I gotta unlock stuff. So they are
Elizabeth: they
Jamie: legitimately and a hundred percent committed to that.
Elizabeth: to it.
Jamie: What I also find though is they have a commitment to looking competent all the time.
Elizabeth: of them,
Jamie: To being the smartest person in the room and to not showing board members something that they might get unhappy with.
Elizabeth: with.
Jamie: And to not say, I don't know, and to not say I learned that my hypothesis was wrong and I thought this was gonna be brilliant for us, and it's not going to be.
Elizabeth: to be.
Jamie: That is really hard behavior to get because we have a commitment to being the smartest person in the room.
Elizabeth: in the
Jamie: That's how we got where we are, particularly at the senior level. Right.
Elizabeth: Right.
Jamie: we just, you don't show up and say, I don't know.
Elizabeth: I don't know,
Jamie: I'm not sure, or this isn't working. So
Elizabeth: So
Jamie: That commitment is strong. It's too strong in the organization, so we don't realize what that is. So changing the culture around that is about specifically naming some of those behaviors, some of those statements that you make and saying it is okay to say this,
Elizabeth: this.
Jamie: right?
And educating board members and other people in the organization, this is how this works. If you want that new value, you gotta tolerate some of these behaviors. It's how one works with the other.
Elizabeth: with the other. Yeah, and I think one of the things that's really interesting about Lean Startup, particularly to all of that, is that if you're going to use the methodology successfully, it asks you to think about some standard. Concepts a little differently. Like you've gotta think about what productivity looks a little differently? You've gotta think about what success looks a little differently. You've gotta think about what failure looks a little differently, you know? And so one of the things that I'd like to do. to people when, when they come to me to, you know, do consulting around Lean Startup is, lean Startup methodology is not going to guarantee that your idea is the right idea and like whatever thing that you wanna build is gonna be wildly financially successful. That is not the point. The point is, and it, and it's not gonna, it's not gonna that, you know, you're gonna court kind of. You know, build the thing following Lean Six Sigma principles and you're gonna be, you know, agile and reduce waste and use your talent well and all that. Like, it's, it's not guaranteeing any of that stuff. It's guaranteeing you insight. It is up to you what you do with that insight, but it's guaranteeing you insight into what's going on with your audience, their problems, what your solutions look like to them, et cetera.
And so, you know, success isn't my idea, I made a million dollars. Success is what I learned , failure isn't. My idea was the wrong idea. Failure is when I ignored the data and continued anyway. Yeah, so it's, you, you gotta think about these things a little differently. And
Carol: Yeah, and I, I, I'm going back to my you know, this giving me a few flashbacks to this, the, the rooms that I was sitting in when I was trying to bring this methodology and I was very excited about it. And so probably naive politically in some ways, as I was kind of rolling this out, he was new.
Elizabeth: it
Carol: Role for the organization to have someone in charge of innovation that was outside of the structures that had, that had
Elizabeth: that had,
Carol: typically been there to create new things.
Elizabeth: new
Carol: So there was a lot, there was a lot going on.
Elizabeth: on.
Carol: And the one thing that you said is it gives you insights, but the organization has to be willing to listen to those insights. And that was definitely one of the ones that I ran into doing things cross-functionally was a new way of doing things.
And you know, I think looking back on it, I, I, I tried to do too many.
Elizabeth: too many,
Carol: Make too many changes at once,
Elizabeth: Once.
Carol: in rolling this out. And so
Elizabeth: And so
Carol: essentially, the organization kind of had a immune reaction and
Elizabeth: and
Carol: two years later I was gone.
Elizabeth: I was gone.
Carol: So.
Elizabeth: Well, and I, and I, and I will say that very much reminds me of Arlene Tranton, who is pretty well known in the association space. She used to be the CEO of the American Speech Language Hearing Association for many years. But one of the things that she was really fond of saying that has really resonated with me over years is people don't resist change. People resist being changed. And that, you know, Carol, to your point, when it, when it feels like, you know, this is all rolling out really quick. Quickly, and I kind of don't understand what's going on here, and it feels like it's happening to me rather than happening with me. You start getting a lot of pushback, even, even if it's not or you can start getting a lot of pushback, even if it's not somebody standing up in a meeting and saying, you know, I, I'm not gonna do this, or whatever. You know, that you can get some of that sort of I don't wanna use the term passive aggressive, but that's really the right one, right?
Like, you gotta get that,
Carol: Or if the person is in a position of power and you bring them news that they don't want to hear, it could
Elizabeth: Right. Like
Carol: Be different.
Elizabeth: You know, or just, or just you know, resistance to using these new ideas. And, and you know, it's, it's interesting. One of the case studies that we have in the white paper is of the American Association of Veterinary State Boards. The woman's name is Chrissy Bagby. And I did a project with them. And one of the things that I think has made application of Lean Startup inside their organization so successful is that we spent a lot of time building. Understanding of how this all works, building sort of their own flavor of it as a group. You know, building an understanding of how this all works and why at the staff level, at the senior leadership level, at the board level and, and making sure that everybody. Like understood the tools and had familiarity with them, with the tools so that, you know, again, it was, we are, we are changing together. Not because they're trying to change, they're trying to force change on me that I'm not a part of and I don't understand.
Jamie: We'll add, by the way, I agree with Arlene's that statement from Arlene. I have a slightly different version of it, which is that people don't resist change. They resist doing things they think are stupid
Elizabeth: Yeah,
Jamie: and, and they,
Elizabeth: Too. Sure.
Jamie: resist, they resist doing things that they think are not in their interests. So it, the, this is one of the things that, that I talk about,
Elizabeth: about
Jamie: in both cultures change, but I think it's applicable in the lean startup is like, you gotta, you gotta double down on the why. You gotta show that, that we're doing this for these reasons and your life will be better because when we do this, we will have more revenue to do X or we will have more time to do y like whatever it is.
Elizabeth: is.
Jamie: That y piece is important. And, and
Elizabeth: And, and
Jamie: I know the other thing, and I
Elizabeth: thing, and I,
Jamie: I think this applies in some of the case studies too.
Like
Elizabeth: Like
Jamie: when you're doing, and this is.
Elizabeth: and this is
Jamie: About, for me, about innovation more broadly. When you're doing it, you need to create containers within which it happens so that it does not feel to everyone else, like the whole ship is going down with this new thing that we're doing. You know what I mean? Like to be able to say, Hey, we've got a process for this, a structure that says we're gonna do this. And like,
Elizabeth: like.
Jamie: It's not everybody who is doing this all the time now and your whole world has been turned upside down. But
Elizabeth: But
Jamie: those boundaries I think can be really helpful in terms of,
Elizabeth: of
Jamie: lightening that resistance.
Carol: Yeah, and I think for me, one of the places where
Elizabeth: places where
Carol: innovation had lived within individual departments, especially those that worked around, delivering a particular type of product or serving a particular audience. And so those middle managers were really in charge of leading that.
Elizabeth: leading
Carol: And so suddenly I'm thrown in the mix and, you know, kind of
Elizabeth: kind
Carol: getting in their lane from their point of view.
I wanted to do it collaboratively, but I think
Elizabeth: I think
Carol: It didn't necessarily get seen that way.
Elizabeth: that
Carol: And so. Yes. I think, you know, that middle layer can be so important to
Helping people understand what their interest is, in using something like this to create better value for the constituency that they're trying to serve.
Elizabeth: to. and, and Jamie, I think this really relates to the stuff that you talk about with regards to silos and like one of the concepts that you've, that you've brought up, which I, you know, hopefully you'll elaborate on it as soon as I mention it this whole idea of like low fences.
Jamie: Yeah, so, and I, I think, I think Carol, you were, you were referring to this earlier, like the whole bust, the silo.
Elizabeth: to the silo
Jamie: Narrative is misguided. It's like you need silos. I don't, I don't want to
Elizabeth: to
Jamie: everyone in charge of marketing,
Carol: Right.
Jamie: Like, you know, I don't wanna be in charge of marketing. I'm really bad at it.
Like, so let the marketing people do that. Like we want to be around people with deep expertise and have those conversations that we can't have. So the existence of silos, it's kinda like the existence of hierarchy. Hierarchy is not a bad thing either.
Elizabeth: thing either.
Jamie: It's just, you need to manage it better, right? So we don't want it to be all flat.
So I want silos, but I want the boundaries between them to be porous. To be accessible. Like, it's like you can have
Elizabeth: have
Jamie: foot high fences in between your, your departments, and I can step right over the fence. I know where the fence is and I'm not gonna just wander in there accidentally, but I can get there if I need to.
And what the metaphor and organizations is, we have these, these departments and there's nine foot razor wire, you know,
Carol: Right. There's a moat, there's a dragon in the moat,
Jamie: Like, you know, so, and, and.
Elizabeth: flaming archers.
You know, triche,
Carol: The whole thing.
Jamie: No windows. I can't see anything that's going on in there. Like, you know what I mean? So if you can create some visibility and some access to it, it, it, it reduces that negative impact of silos that people experience. It's like,
Elizabeth: like
Jamie: and actually we wrote about this in our, in our
Elizabeth: in
Jamie: recent book, like
Elizabeth: like
Jamie: one of the case studies in our book, used basic project management stuff to make the silo competition go away.
Elizabeth: away.
Jamie: Now I can see what's going on.
Elizabeth: on.
Jamie: I know, I know you're not ignoring me 'cause you're a jerk. You're ignoring me because it's the busy season for you.
Elizabeth: you.
Jamie: And I can see all that in Crystal, you know, clear, right? So it changed the way they, they interact with each other,
Elizabeth: other
Jamie: by adding that layer of visibility which made the collaboration more possible.
I mean, I think that sort of connects to
Elizabeth: to
Jamie: startup in the sense that you gotta be doing that work, you gotta be sharing it with people. Like
Elizabeth: Like
Jamie: don't want that to be a mysterious black box either.
Elizabeth: Neither.
Jamie: Like, oh, that's what those weird innovative people do.
Elizabeth: people
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Carol: Yeah, and I was trying to.
Elizabeth: I, I also wanted to jump on one thing with regards to, I think it's the same thing that happens with hierarchies, right? You, you need hierarchy, you need to have structure, you need to have, you know, supervisors and, and PE people who manage, and people who are managed and people who make decisions, all that kinda thing. But one of the other things that I think. You know, is, is a cultural thing that needs to happen for Lean Startup to be successful. Those layers have to be porous too. A lot of times it's the people who are, you know, your, your lowest level staff, people who are in the most direct contact on a regular basis with your audiences who are actually going to understand what their problems are. And, you know, and we, we fall into the trap, particularly in associations of, like the ideas come from the board, but the problem with that is their experience is not typical in, in a couple of ways. One is they tend because they're, you know, extremely responsible and involved in volunteer positions, they tend to be quasi insiders.
Like they know too much about the inner workings of the association. And the other thing is just from the perspective of the profession or industry that you're in. They tend to be more prominent people or more powerful people, or more senior people. I mean, like you don't have, you know, Joe or Josephine marketing coordinator who's been at the job for two years at, at, you know, small company member on your board, but your typical members probably a lot more like that person than they are somebody who's, you know, the long-term CEO of one of the largest and most prominent companies in your field.
Right? And so because of that. You get the wrong idea about who the audience is and what they're experiencing. Meanwhile, your, you know, your customer service staff, they can tell you right away what people's problems are, but nobody listens to them.
Jamie: Movement.
Carol: Yeah, and we actually saw this play out because I had one project where we had done some testing of some pilot ideas with a cross section of members, and then we, we also piloted or did, did the same testing
Elizabeth: testing.
Carol: committee, the volunteer committee that was responsible for that
Elizabeth: for
Carol: role, and it was.
Elizabeth: And
Carol: Diametrically opposed in terms of what was prioritized. And it was for exactly the reason that you're naming
Elizabeth: naming
Carol: folks on that committee were just not
Elizabeth: not
Carol: representative of a typical member that we were trying to, you know, for that segment that we were trying to build this thing for. So it was, and it was, it was.
Elizabeth: And it was, it was.
Carol: You know, I think that's been the typical shortcut of we have all this volunteer structure in order to get that feedback and they can play a role, and there also needs to be more direct feedback. But as you, as with the culture piece, the organization needs to be willing to,
Elizabeth: willing
Carol: look for, listen to
Elizabeth: to
Carol: act on that feedback.
Jamie: I'll also add. Because this comes up in culture conversations in the association space all the time. What about your volunteer culture? Right. We have governance structures and processes and we tend to think of it in terms of that, of the governance and, and the duties of loyalty and care and all that stuff that we have to, they have to do.
I'm like, that's great, but
Elizabeth: great, but
Jamie: Do you push back against each other in a conversation at the committee level?
Elizabeth: level,
Jamie: Do you have your conflict?
Elizabeth: conflict?
Jamie: Do you what? What sources of information do you bring in?
Elizabeth: bring
Jamie: As data to have the conversation. There's a lot of cultural practices within the volunteer structure that evolved organically over 150 years
Elizabeth: and
Jamie: really been managed as from, from a culture point of view. So. The volunteer culture is different from the staff culture, right? They're, they're not the same thing. but the culture piece is the same
Elizabeth: same
Jamie: and, and needs to be managed. It's something that,
Elizabeth: that,
Jamie: I rarely see organizations actively managing it. Even if they're managing their staff culture, they don't always apply those principles at the volunteer level, and that can, that can bite you as well.
Carol: Yeah, for sure. And you mentioned
Elizabeth: mentioned
Carol: What role does being able to engage in healthy conflict
Elizabeth: conflict
Carol: in being able to be innovative?
Elizabeth: Be innovative?
Jamie: So, well, a couple things. In in, in my research, I've got 64 different measures for culture,
Elizabeth: culture.
Jamie: two that have the highest correlation are managing change and managing conflict. Like you are not going to change. Without there being different opinions about how this should be or how we're gonna do it.
And so if you do the classic approach, which is ignore it,
Elizabeth: it.
Jamie: push that conversation to the side, say, we'll get back to, oh, we'll talk about that offline. And then, which means we'll never talk about it, right? So end up either, I mean, particularly around innovation.
Elizabeth: innovation,
Jamie: You often end up solving the wrong problem, which is what Lean is designed to address, because you never actually say, well, I
Elizabeth: Well, I
Jamie: Hey, are we all on the same page about what problem we're solving?
Yeah, we're not.
Carol: No, I'm gonna have a meeting with Joe on the in the hallway to say that I don't agree
Jamie: or I will tell you
Elizabeth: Here. Yeah, but
Jamie: Actually. worse is you all say yes and you think, Hmm, I don't think so. you're there. 'cause you don't wanna be the someone to say, you don't wanna be the
Carol: naysayer.
Jamie: the skunk, the skunk to the picnic, right?
Like you don't like, so, but then like then the rubber hits the road, you're starting to implement and you stand up and say, I can't do this.
Elizabeth: Do this.
Jamie: does not work for my department and our, and our processes, and this is gonna cost us a ton of money and time. Like you should have had that conversation six months ago
Elizabeth: ago.
Jamie: And our, our reluctance to have a conversation, would that make people feel uncomfortable or think that, that people might get emotional about it or be unhappy with me?
It goes back to sort of that wanting to be competent piece as well,
Elizabeth: Well.
Jamie: Because we miss those conversations or delay them too long,
Elizabeth: Long.
Jamie: That's where it comes back. To bite us that, that we,
Elizabeth: leads.
Jamie: and it costs a, it costs so much in terms of opportunity costs and time wasted by not having those, those tough conversations early on.
Elizabeth: on.
Carol: And I mean people are swimming, swimming in, in a wider culture that is generally pretty conflict avoidant, even though we are in so much conflict. But as a dominant culture,
Elizabeth: culture,
Carol: avoiding conflict is.
Elizabeth: is
Carol: The right way to do things,
Elizabeth: things.
Carol: oftentimes. And so those are skills that people have to develop and, and, and doing them in the workplace where your job may be on the line can feel very, very risky.
Elizabeth: risky.
Jamie: I will, well, I know Elizabeth wanna say something, but I'm telling you right now, I almost every organization that I work with to do culture change, one of their plays in their playbook is to do conflict resolution
Carol: mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.
Jamie: Everyone's doing it because they, it, it applies not just to
Carol: Sure.
Jamie: it applies in so many ways that if we don't have this, we can't move quickly.
If you're, if you slow down 'cause you don't do your conflict, there's so many things that people want in their cultures that rely on our ability just to give each other feedback effectively, to negotiate and solve problems without the drama, that kind of stuff. And so, and there's a billion programs out there too, to learn that stuff.
So I highly encourage people to do it.
Elizabeth: a place that I see that plays out specifically with regards to the, the whole concept of, of Lean Startup is when it comes to the problem that you're trying to solve, what I, what I see happening. I won't say frequently, but I will say often that people have identified a problem that is in fact a real problem, not significant. And nobody, you know, nobody wants to say. Yeah, I don't think that's an important problem. Right. Like, you don't, you don't wanna even, even more so like, you know, the, the place you always tend to think about this not playing out is the whole, your baby's ugly thing. Like, like, I don't think, I don't think your solution is a good solution. And I, I feel like we're actually a little bit more willing to say that than we are to say, know, I, I get it, but I don't think that, I don't think that problem actually matters to our audience.
Carol: And I had that.
Elizabeth: Again, you're
Carol: I feel like I've got a case study for every single one of your points,
Elizabeth: Right. And then
Carol: But.
Elizabeth: off down the wrong road, spending all this time, money, and energy building something that'll solve a problem that nobody cares about.
Carol: Yeah, we had one where it was a strategic priority of the board, and it was important for the field to be able to move in this direction. It was not a critical need for day-to-day members, and so they were not going to pay for it.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Carol: The organization could choose.
Elizabeth: revenue, you know
Carol: So the organization could choose to continue offering it and make it as usable as possible to encourage people down this road.
Elizabeth: this
Carol: But the, the, the idea that they were gonna also pay for the privilege of something that wasn't critical
Elizabeth: critical.
Carol: Their day-to-day was the challenge.
Elizabeth: was the challenge. I'll say this is another level of complication on using this methodology for mission-driven organizations because sometimes we decide that we're going to do things. For mission reasons rather than money. Me reasons now, I mean, obviously no money, no mission, right? Like you, you have to have you. Not everything could be a loss leader, just
Carol: Right.
Elizabeth: didn't realize that not everything could be a loss leader. Some things are going to have to generate some revenue. But we do make decisions about. Stuff that we're going to provide to our audience is based on this serves our mission. And so there fortunately they're actually folks who create lean startup tools are aware of this. Like they are aware of the existence of mission-driven organizations and there's sort of a whole whole line of tools that help you still use these concepts when the goal of whatever it is that you're trying to build isn't to make money, but. For mission-driven organizations, that means that like right on the front end of starting this process, it's incumbent on you to figure out, we doing this because a mission reason where, you know, maybe money's not so important or, you know, are we doing this because it's one of those things that can't be lost or that has to make some money, and you need to figure that out right up front because it drives very different decisions about what you're going to do with feedback you're getting.
Carol: Yeah, exactly. So we've talked a lot about the things that kind of get in the way. What are some of the mindsets or behaviors that really support an organization in being, in having a culture that, that, that will be able to
Elizabeth: able
Carol: pull this in and bring it in and, and, and use it effectively as a methodology for innovation?
Elizabeth: innovation?
Jamie: I'll, I'll jump in. Because Elizabeth already said this, but it's a, from a culture point of view, anything related to innovation is about valuing learning.
Elizabeth: learning
Jamie: Like,
Elizabeth: like,
Jamie: right? It's like,
Elizabeth: It's like,
Jamie: It's like I work with organizations to develop metrics, to track the progress of their stuff, like their culture change.
And they're like, well, what if we set a target and then we don't hit it? I'm like, then you learn something.
Elizabeth: something.
Jamie: What if you set a target and you exceeded it?
Elizabeth: it?
Jamie: I hope you're learning something there too. Like the idea that we do things and we learn and improve is for me, like the core mindset for doing this work.
And it's not as, not as prevalent as I wish it were. You know, like it's,
Elizabeth: it's,
Jamie: people like results, they like hitting the targets, that kind of thing, and
Elizabeth: of thing, and
Jamie: They don't emphasize the learning as much. So organizations that put learning first from a culture point of view are ones that I see
Elizabeth: See.
Jamie: to do this.
Elizabeth: And Carol, back to your experience using the methodology and building in that design thinking piece. I think also that developing empathy is a, is a really strong indicator that you're likely to be successful because this is, this is all driven so much by having that sort of deep understanding, audience focused, member focused, customer focused, understanding of their world, their operating environment, what they're dealing with on a day-to-day basis, the problems that they're facing, how you might be able to help them with solutions, et cetera, like that. All depends on having an empathetic understanding of, of what's going on with these, with these folks. I would say the other thing, and this also I think reflects your experience, is you have to make the methodology your own. So this isn't like you go to the store and you buy the Lean Startup box and you pop it open and you know, out it comes fully formed and you just, you just go, right?
You're gonna have to figure out how this works in your organization. And there are lots of tools and techniques and training and books and classes and this and that and whatever. And you're like, and, and folks like me who can come in and help you do this stuff, right? But you've, you've gotta make it your own and figure out which pieces of it and which approaches to it and which tools.
For implementing it are actually going to work for you. You have to make it, you have to make your own version of Lean Startup.
Carol: Yeah, and I think that comes with, you know, starting out small, doing, getting some small wins. 'cause seeing people, having people see that. It's interesting. I mean, one of the things that we did that I think was very successful was in that empathy piece where,
Elizabeth: where,
Carol: a, a small team had done a bunch of in-depth interviews and then we invited a much wider, probably about half the staff to come and help us basically theme those interviews.
So.
Elizabeth: So
Carol: We got that task done that needed to get done, but that meant that we also shared this information and what we were hearing from folks
A much wider group of people and they were able to like,
Elizabeth: to
Carol: play with it and, and come to their own conclusions. And so then I, that's gonna continue to inform them of their work.
So, but I think Jamie, what you said at the very beginning about that kind of stance of, you know, it kind of embedded in professionalism, right? I know my stuff. I, you know, I can, I can be persuasive. All of this sometimes can create that barrier instead of that more porous, like, I'm open, I'm curious, I'm willing to learn,
Elizabeth: willing
Carol: I'm willing to admit when I don't know.
And all of that can be very challenging.
Jamie: There's,
Elizabeth: being willing to, to share information broadly, internally. You know, not, not hoarding information, not viewing it as like, I'm protecting my power by keeping this to myself. Right? That's all critical to developing that kind of member-centric, audience-centric perspective.
Jamie: Yeah, there's a, there's a pattern around transparency in cultures, which is we value reactive information sharing more than proactive.
Carol: Say more about what you mean.
Elizabeth: what you
Jamie: So if you come to me and say, Hey, can you share this information with me, Jamie? I'm like, absolutely. 'cause we value transparency here. Here you go. But I waited for you to come to me.
Elizabeth: to me.
Jamie: I didn't. We're not good at creating systems and processes that put information in the hands of people before they even know they have to ask.
Carol: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jamie: So the pattern is called lagging transparency because we definitely share and we definitely are committed to sharing. It's usually too little, too late.
Elizabeth: late.
Jamie: what's interesting, and I, I mean I made this piece up,
Elizabeth: up,
Jamie: so like,
Elizabeth: like,
Jamie: But the competing commitment that I think exists is we do value. Sharing information we're like, in the old days it was, information is power. Knowledge is power. I'm not gonna share it.
Elizabeth: it.
Jamie: We've, we've given up on that. We think it's good to share. Just want to control what we share
Carol: And package it very nicely.
Jamie: information that is out of my control makes me very nervous. So I can't give it to you before I know who's gonna get it
Elizabeth: it
Jamie: or what you're gonna do with it.
But if you come and say, I need this, I'm like, oh, okay, then I'll give you this little, as you said, packaged piece. So that control piece is one that we don't acknowledge that we want that so much with information which is why it doesn't, that pattern doesn't go away.
Elizabeth: away. And then we, you know, you also run into the challenge of like, how do I even know that this exists to ask you for it?
Carol: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah, I mean, honestly, I got, I got the answer on this one. Okay. Folks build systems that put it all up there. Like, I mean, I,
Elizabeth: I,
Jamie: is a case study from when millennials take over. So this is, this is from 2015 and it's a software company, but their entire project management system is up on the wall of the one room where all 50 people work. I can see what everyone's working on, and I can see if they're behind or ahead of schedule.
Elizabeth: of schedule,
Jamie: make my own decisions about when to go help them or when to ask for help or what to do. I don't have to have a meeting about it or a project status update,
Elizabeth: updates, like
Jamie: when you make things visible, there's a million way, and that was not even using technology this is,
Carol: An analog.
Jamie: That was before Slack, you know, probably wasn't. But anyway, it was like they, they were,
Elizabeth: they were,
Jamie: they were intentionally using a non-technological solution, but we have all these solutions and so it takes some effort and some change management to like make, make
Elizabeth: make
Jamie: people do the things they need to do to get all this stuff visible.
But it is.
Elizabeth: it is,
Jamie: It is, it's, it's just necessary and we gotta let go of control and, and, and put that out.
Elizabeth: out
Jamie: you won't get speed without that. That was my quote from,
Elizabeth: when.
Jamie: from that book as well, from Mario Andretti. If the race car driver, if everything appears to be going under, if everything appears to be under control, you're just not going fast enough.
Elizabeth: Enough.
Jamie: Right?
Elizabeth: Right?
Jamie: Like, you want speed, you gotta let go of control.
Carol: Well, I'm sure we could talk about this all day and I certainly could. But just to close this out
Elizabeth: this
Carol: From each of you, what's one question that you would have association and nonprofit leaders ask themselves? When, when thinking more strategically about innovation and, and organizational culture, or how those two intersect.
Elizabeth: For me, I guess this goes back to the thing that sparked the original white paper in 2015 in the first place, which was working on a previous white paper around evidence-based decision making. The big question that I would like association executives to ask themselves more often and truly, I mean like Lean startup methodology is, is a type of evidence-based decision making. What are, what are my assumptions? How am I going to test them? And so really what that comes down to, to, you know, put it in an even simpler way is how do you know, just ask yourself, how do I know? How do I know this? I think this is the case. How do I know that?
Jamie: For me, the question may be a statement. Well, I'll, I'll try and get it as a question. You should be, all leaders should be asking themselves, what is my culture actually?
Elizabeth: Hmm?
Jamie: What is it?
Elizabeth: it?
Jamie: Well, not what I think, not what I want it to be. Not the ideal, not the core values. You can have those things, those are fine, but if you don't know what is. Then you're gonna get tripped up. And again, the secondary questions are like, and when you look at what is, be aware that there's gonna be these contradictions. There's gonna be these things where it's not like you thought it was and just accept that. Like that is, that is what it is.
And, but, but most people, when they start thinking about culture, like we need a culture of innovation. Let's do that. Let's put some posters up and let's talk about innovation, and let's measure our innovation. Let's innovate. And they're like, go, go, go.
Elizabeth: go.
Jamie: And it's well intended. But if you, if you don't have the Yeah, but no one's gonna admit they're wrong.
Carol: Right.
Jamie: So
Carol: No one's allowed to make a mistake
Jamie: no one's gonna run an experiment that doesn't succeed,
Carol: right
Jamie: which is not experimenting. Right. So,
Elizabeth: an experiment.
Carol: It's not an experiment.
Jamie: So anyway, the, the, what the piece is, is the missing piece for me.
Elizabeth: I think it means.
Yeah.
Carol: Yeah. Yeah.
Jamie: So I would get people to, to think more, more diligently about that.
Carol: Well, thank you both. Thank you so much for coming on. I love this conversation.
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