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That’s because most of us approach projects in a straight line: Step A leads to Step B, then Step C. But collaboration rarely works like that—it’s more like a web of moving parts, where one tug on the strand changes the whole shape. Systems thinking is the practice of paying attention to those connections, not just the individual steps. It asks: How does one team’s action ripple through others? Where are the hidden dependencies? What balances or disrupts the flow?

And here’s the twist: if your systems thinking only tracks tasks and processes, you’ve missed the most important element: the people. Collaboration succeeds or fails not because the diagram was wrong, but because humans bring energy, hesitations, and interpretations that don’t fit neatly into boxes.

Feedback Loops Include Feelings

A well-run system has feedback loops, but so do people.

For example, for a major annual conference, registration, speakers, logistics, communications, and finance all depend on each other’s progress. If communications sends out the first promo email before the operations team has tested the registration backend, you get angry members and stressed staff. If the programs team hasn’t finished the speaker contracts, the communications team has to postpone the speaker announcement. Systems thinking says “build the feedback loop”—weekly cross-functional check-ins where dependencies are surfaced early. But the human layer matters too: people need to feel safe raising concerns, even when it’s bad news. Without that, the loop breaks down.

Multiple Perspectives, One Conversation

Systems thinking teaches us to map the whole, and in human systems, that means respecting the fact that each team sees the world differently.

Launching a new certificate program involves faculty, marketing, and admissions. Faculty emphasize rigor, marketing prioritizes clarity, and admissions needs accessibility. Seen narrowly, these perspectives clash. Seen through systems thinking, they’re complementary inputs. The key is translation: building conversations where faculty don’t feel their academic standards are watered down, while marketing and admissions ensure the story is actually compelling to prospective students.

Adaptation Beats Rigidity

Complex systems aren’t static, and neither are humans. That means “perfect planning” is often the enemy of good collaboration.

Say your association rolls out a new online learning portal or community platform. On paper, it’s simple: product built, tested, launched. But real systems thinking asks: what happens when adoption is slower than expected? Do you declare the project a failure, or do you bring together marketing to gather feedback, membership to listen to users, and IT to refine the portal? The healthiest collaborations are designed for adaptation, not rigidity.

Shared Purpose As the Anchor

When departments collide, the gravitational pull of shared purpose keeps the collaboration from flying apart.

The exhibit sales team may be driven by revenue, the program committee may prioritize scholarly integrity, and the membership team may zero in on engagement metrics. Each perspective is valid, but all ultimately orbit the same purpose: delivering a conference that advances the mission and serves members. Keeping that purpose visible in every meeting and decision helps turn turf wars into teamwork.

The Human System

Cross-collaboration is the ultimate systems challenge. Technology, workflows, and charts are necessary scaffolding, but the humans inside the system are what give it life. They improvise, translate across silos, and keep the shared purpose in focus when the process gets messy.

Forget the humans, and your system collapses under its own weight. Design with them, and cross-collaboration becomes not just workable, but alive.

The post The Secret to Collaboration: Think in Systems, Not Silos appeared first on Helen Mosher, CAE.

“Culture fit” comes up all the time in hiring conversations. On the surface, it sounds harmless. Who wouldn’t want someone who fits in?

But when it’s left undefined, “culture fit” becomes a catch-all for bias. It’s not about whether someone can do the job—it’s about whether they make the interviewer feel comfortable. Comfort is deeply subjective, shaped by personal experiences, assumptions, and unspoken preferences.

I’ve seen “culture fit” used to screen out highly qualified people for reasons no one wanted to name directly:

“She seems a little too set in her ways.”
“We’re looking for someone who can grow with us.”
“He didn’t quite match our energy.”
“They’re weird.”

Translation? Often: “They’re too old.” Or “too introverted.” Or “too intense.” Sometimes just… not us.

That’s how “culture fit” turns into a bias delivery system. It can hide ageism, ableism, racism, and discomfort with neurodivergence. It allows decision-makers to pass on candidates without ever examining whether the issue is really difference, not capability.

I’m not saying team cohesion doesn’t matter. It absolutely does. But cohesion shouldn’t mean conformity. It shouldn’t mean hiring the person you’d most like to grab coffee with. And it definitely shouldn’t mean dismissing someone because they communicate differently, come from a different generation, or need accommodations to do the job well.

So what’s the alternative?

The good news is: business experts have been flagging this dynamic for years. And some excellent frameworks have emerged to help organizations find alignment—without defaulting to sameness.

Culture Add

Culture add is one of the most common alternatives to “culture fit,” and a quick search will turn up plenty of resources. It asks: Who brings something new that we’re missing? Here are a few cases I’ve seen play out in real time:

• A person with lived experience of disability might flag communication gaps or accessibility issues.

• Someone grounded in gender identity work could help refine language in member materials.

• Colleagues from different faith backgrounds may notice scheduling conflicts around major religious holidays.

• And sometimes, it’s as simple as noticing that a catered lunch accommodates allergies—because someone’s already lived the consequences of being forgotten.

When we build with “add” in mind, we build with intention.

Values Alignment

Instead of evaluating how much someone “feels like us,” ask whether they share your mission, values, and approach to collaboration. (That’s a fair question for a candidate to ask, as well.)

In one of my past roles, a shift took place over the course of a year or so: We went from emphasizing overall member value to elevating education as a key pillar of the organization in its place. As someone who approaches member engagement with a macro lens, that shift left me out of sync. The work didn’t change, but the values that guided it did.

Role Readiness

Can they do the work—or grow into it with the right support?

That’s the real question. Sometimes, especially with early-career professionals, the talent is there, but the scaffolding is not. Leadership means recognizing not just what someone brings to the table, but what they need to thrive.

If you’re using “culture fit” as a gut check after determining a candidate is qualified, ask yourself: whose gut are you listening to, and whose are you not?

Because if familiarity breeds contempt, then hiring for “culture fit” might be how we end up curating cliques instead of building culture. Real inclusion takes more than comfort. It takes intention.

The post Fit Happens (Except When It Doesn’t) appeared first on Helen Mosher, CAE.

The more I look around at the association space, the more I realize it’s exactly the concept we need. More organizations are creating roles with “Member Engagement” in the title, but they often recycle the same lifecycle-focused responsibilities: recruit, retain, and renew.

Let’s be clear: the membership lifecycle isn’t wrong. It’s just not enough.

The membership lifecycle remains a valid approach to managing systemic recruitment, retention, and renewal workflows. But membership as an association discipline that we are all careful stewards of is more dynamic than that. Examining how membership intersects with member value elevates this discipline to an ecosystem of how members engage when they encounter, enroll, participate, and then step up to lead within the organization.

The lifecycle model assumes a neat, linear path. A member enters, receives value, pays dues, and (hopefully) sticks around. But today’s member behavior is anything but linear. They come in sideways, through content or community. They show up for a webinar before they ever join. They lapse and rejoin two years later. They might never attend an event, but they’ll shout your mission from the rooftops (or on social media), advocating for your cause, sharing your impact, and bringing new voices into your orbit through their networks.

The lifecycle model frames members as data points in a funnel. The ecosystem model sees them as participants in a dynamic, evolving network.

What Do We Mean By “Ecosystem”?

Some organizations are already exploring member engagement ecosystems from a tactical angle, leveraging virtual events, digital platforms, and content strategy to create ongoing touchpoints. That approach has real value, and it’s part of the picture. However, when we begin to view engagement as a system that integrates all these tactical parts (not just coordinates them), something bigger emerges. The gestalt effect is powerful: a member experience that feels intentional, seamless, and deeply aligned with mission and identity.

An ecosystem is interconnected. It’s not just your recruitment campaign or your welcome email sequence. It’s:

• The member who joins your online community, then volunteers for a committee, and then shares your advocacy campaign on social.
• The staffer in communications who collaborates with the membership team to spotlight member voices, creating a loop of visibility and value.
• The partner organization whose resources help deepen your members’ experience and whose members may become yours.

In other words, it’s not just what *you* do for members. It’s what they do with each other, and how every touchpoint contributes to a shared sense of belonging, purpose, and progress.

If the lifecycle model is a conveyor belt, the ecosystem model is a coral reef (full of movement, mutual support, and surprising connections).

Why Language (and Structure) Matter

I’ve seen job descriptions for “Director of Member Engagement” roles that promise transformation in the title, but then outline responsibilities that are heavy on database management, KPI dashboards, and legacy programs. These are important functions, yes. But they’re not engagement in its richest form. They reflect a lifecycle mindset dressed in modern language. When we rely too heavily on data without weaving in the human element, we risk reducing engagement to just another marketing function, rather than seeing it as a deeply relational, trust-building practice.

When we call something an “engagement” role but measure it only by retention numbers, we’re sending a mixed message to staff and to members. Engagement isn’t a euphemism for dues payment. It’s about connection, contribution, and identity.

Yet too many “Member Engagement” roles are structured to manage transactions instead of steward relationships. They’re siloed from marketing, left out of strategy, and overburdened with administrative tasks that make genuine connection nearly impossible.

To truly center engagement, we need:

• Integrated strategy across communications, membership, programs, and events
• Cross-functional visibility (because engagement is everyone’s job)
• Metrics that measure meaning, not just movement: referrals, community participation, advocacy action, volunteer satisfaction

A Call to Reframe, Not Just Rename

I’ve worked in and alongside enough associations to know this shift is underway, but uneven. Titles are evolving. Structures, less so. If we’re serious about engagement, we have to do more than retitle our staff. We have to rethink what these roles are truly responsible for—how they’re empowered, what impact they’re expected to have, and whether they’re positioned to build meaningful, lasting connections with members.

This isn’t about throwing out what works. It’s about layering in what matters. Recruitment, retention, and renewal will always be part of the picture. But they’re not the whole story—and if they remain the *only* story, we’ll keep losing the plot.

The member engagement ecosystem is already here. The question is whether our organizations are ready to nurture it.

The post  From Transactions to Touchpoints: Why Member Engagement Needs an Ecosystem appeared first on Helen Mosher, CAE.

During times of crisis, associations often experience a surge in membership. The COVID-19 pandemic, government shutdowns, and most recently, the rise of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) all triggered waves of new members seeking clarity, advocacy, and community. For NARFE, the earlier moments hinted at its potential to rise as a powerful voice for federal workers. That potential came into full focus when DOGE began its sweeping workforce changes, and NARFE responded with energy, urgency, and purpose.

But as the smoke clears and the headlines fade, associations are faced with the harder task: retention. This post examines how to sustain the momentum that emerges during a crisis and what it truly takes to convert a surge in interest into long-term member loyalty.

Crisis as Catalyst

Crises clarify value. When the pandemic disrupted nearly every sector, associations stepped in with webinars, advocacy updates, and shared solutions to support their members. When shutdowns and policy threats emerged, members turned to the organizations they trusted for real-time information and a voice in the fight. NARFE saw this firsthand when DOGE eliminated 16,000 probationary federal employees and attempted to expand its access to personnel data. Thousands joined in response—not just to stay informed, but to belong to something bigger.

The First-Year Retention Cliff

The challenge isn’t getting them to join; it’s keeping them engaged and getting them to stay. The first year is make-or-break for many members. If they join the organization out of panic, confusion, or immediate need, they may not see the ongoing value once that need subsides. This is where most associations lose momentum and why many organizations struggle with that first-year retention rate.

Too many onboarding experiences are transactional: “Welcome to the association. Here’s your login.” Instead, these moments must be transformational: “Welcome to a network of peers who have your back and an organization that never stops fighting for you.”

How to Keep Them: Strategies for Sustained Engagement

1. Begin With Belonging
Crisis joiners need more than a newsletter: They need a welcome. You can automate onboarding journeys, but personalize them as much as possible. Invite them to member-only discussions, encourage them to share why they joined, and introduce them to the broader mission.

2. Make the Long Game Visible
Your new members may not be aware of your mentoring programs, advocacy successes, or leadership opportunities. Tell those stories often. Show them how the association has been there before and will be there again.

3. Build Moments of Connection
Host “new member check-ins” a few months in. Send personalized messages from staff or member ambassadors. Spotlight new members in newsletters or social media. Let them know they’re seen.

4. Anticipate the Off-Ramp
Not everyone will stay. That’s okay. But leave the door open with an exit survey, a “we’ll miss you” message, and occasional updates for former members. Some may return when the next crisis hits—or better yet, before.

5. Adapt the Value Proposition
What mattered during the crisis may not be what keeps someone around afterward. Refresh benefits and messaging to reflect ongoing professional development, community, and collective strength.

Closing Thought

Crises remind people why associations matter. But your true test isn’t in the surge; it’s in the sustain.

Thousands joined NARFE because they were scared, angry, or uncertain. They stayed if they felt seen, heard, and represented. Retention is never just about benefits. It’s about trust. And that’s something you have to earn every year.

So yes, they’ll join you in a crisis. The real question is: can you keep them?

The post If You Can Keep Them: Sustaining Crisis-Era Membership Gains appeared first on Helen Mosher, CAE.

When I read the recent news from Virginia Humanities, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.

A $1.7 million cut in federal funding—gone. Staff layoffs. Program closures. An uncertain future for an organization that has been a cornerstone of public culture and civic life in the Commonwealth.

If you don’t know Virginia Humanities, you should. They’ve spent 50 years nurturing Virginia’s cultural landscape: documenting Indigenous history, supporting HBCU fellowships, celebrating literature and the arts, elevating overlooked voices, and building community through storytelling of the highest caliber.

That work is now at risk because of sweeping federal cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities. Not delayed. Not debated. Gone.

As someone who grew up in Virginia, studied the liberal arts, and built a career amplifying underrepresented stories, I feel this loss personally. My childhood was shaped by public libraries, small-town museums, historic centers. I attended festivals, read local histories, and benefited from the kind of curiosity-driven programs Virginia Humanities made possible. I know the ripple effects of these cuts won’t just be felt in Charlottesville; they’ll echo in rural schools, public libraries, and underfunded communities across the state.

This isn’t just about one organization. It’s about whether we believe culture matters. Whether we value the human stories that shape our democracy. Whether we understand that investing in the humanities is investing in the future.

The team at Virginia Humanities is making impossible decisions with grace and resolve. They’re reorganizing, rethinking, and holding onto what matters most. But they shouldn’t have to do it alone.

We need to speak up—for public humanities, for storytelling, and for one another.

Democracy demands wisdom. That was the guiding idea behind the founding of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in 1965. It still is.

And wisdom, in case anyone needs reminding, doesn’t flourish on its own. It’s cultivated. Let’s keep cultivating it.

Read Virginia Humanities’ full statement here:

Announcing Changes to Our Organization: A Letter from Executive Director, Matthew Gibson

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I didn’t stop thinking about the work. I just stopped writing about it here.

Now feels like the right time to return. This space isn’t a personal archive or a polished portfolio. (Although if you want that, it’s here.) It’s a place to reflect on leadership, association strategy, and the human side of mission-driven work—and to think out loud while the ideas are still percolating.

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I risk dating myself somewhat by posting this, but this was one of the biggest achievements of my life. Thirty years ago, I graduated from Lord Fairfax, now Laurel Ridge Community College in Middletown, VA, summa cum laude. I was named Outstanding Graduate of my class and was one of two recipients of the Beulah McGovern Science Award.

I had struggled with school after graduating from high school, and the rollercoaster twists and turns of the next few years meant that I would not finish college until 2004 at Temple University. By the time I graduated from Temple (with honors in my English major), I had 180 undergraduate credits and the equivalent of minors in classical studies, history, and religion, as well as all the foundational courses in life sciences; biology, microbiology, anatomy and physiology, chemistry, and (gasp) organic chemistry, which was the class that finally did me in for science as a career path.

But I had discovered that I had a real passion for writing in addition to a tremendous appetite for learning.

That day in Middletown was more than just a graduation: It was a turning point. I had clawed my way back from academic mediocrity, personal upheaval, and the kind of early-twenties detours that my Gen X pals know a lot about and that don’t fit neatly into a résumé. Community college wasn’t Plan A, but it became the bridge to everything that came after.

I remember standing in my cap and gown, feeling a mix of disbelief and pride. After struggling so hard to find my footing, it was surreal to hear my name called for top honors.

By the time I crossed the stage at Temple a decade later, I had followed a winding path through disciplines and campuses. I had become, as one advisor gently joked, “a collector of credits.” But what I had really become was a lifelong learner. Someone who knew how to adapt. Someone who finally understood that finishing doesn’t always mean following a straight line.

And that little college in the Shenandoah Valley? It believed in me first.

Community colleges open doors and transform lives. Laurel Ridge did that for me and for hundreds of other students trying to find their way. It gave us a place to start anew, to build momentum, to believe in ourselves.

Years later, my older son, who had been an ever-present toddler scooting around the floors of the college during my time there, would spend a year at Laurel Ridge before transferring to the University of Mary Washington—ironically, the same place where I first stumbled through college a generation earlier. He finished his degree in a third of the time and with far fewer detours. But neither of us would have gotten there without this incredible springboard.

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Hello, Numan

Gary Numan didn’t really go anywhere, but he’s back all the same.

by Helen H. Thompson

Rise and shiner: Dark lord Gary Numan.

“Ohh, Gary Numan,” nods one of the uninitiated. “Didn’t he write that ‘Short People’ tune?”

Nah. Different Newman. But this Numan is also largely remembered for one song, his coming from the early days of MTV: “Cars.” It was one of the original pieces to bring British New Wave to the American mainstream. It had fairly simple synth hooks, with rich, sweeping pads and a beat that still passes muster on a synthpop dance floor. But one song does not merit an entire North American tour some 20 years later.

Or does it?

Numan’s back, with a vengeance. To some, he never left, with some 17 albums to his name. To others, he’s drifting back into the collective musical consciousness as a godfather figure to many artists in the hard dark electronica genre — from Carfax Abbey to NIN’s Trent Reznor. Still others just remember that he’s that man-machine thing from “Cars” and have no idea that he spent most of the ’80s trying to recapture that success.

“It’s just as well, in my opinion,” says Numan, almost apologetically, taking a breather from post-production work on his latest video, “Rip.” “I’m not saying it was bad music; it was done with good intentions and done as best as we could. But in terms of style, whether or not it was the sort of thing I should have been doing? It just wasn’t.” Of his vast catalogue, he has released only three full-length original albums since 1993. To Numan, these three albums — Sacrifice (1994), Exile (1999) and most recently Pure (2000) — represent his strongest work. To his fans, they’re darker, more mature and more intelligent. To critics, they speak of an artist who’s finally figured himself out.

Numan, now 43, credits Depeche Mode’s 1993 album Songs of Faith and Devotion with being the adrenaline jolt that pushed him past his previous limits. “I thought that was a great album. I just loved what they were doing, and it just made me realize how misguided my own music had been in years prior to that. It was a real wakeup call for me: as soon as that came out I just loved it 10 times more than anything I’d written.”

Since then, Numan has been doing his homework, immersing himself in the very work he inspired. You can hear the admiration dripping from his voice as he talks about how mainstream industrial completely changed his perspective on writing music. “More recently, I like Deftones, Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, that sort of thing. When I toured America in ’98, I got to hang out with Trent Reznor a bit, and I was exposed to music in various industrial clubs. I was listening to brilliant stuff that I had just never heard.”

It comes shining through on Pure. If Numan is the godfather of post-punk electronica, then the godsons have taught him quite a few lessons. He’s not afraid to be at once melodic and menacing. The music creeps and slithers, with a cathartic lyrical tapestry flowing amid the densely worked synths and guitars.

The album, as a whole, would put his earlier work in the hospital for being just too darn fluffy.

Numan is very taken with the notion of writing a soundtrack for a horror movie, and cited his wife’s miscarriage as being the emotional punch behind Pure. But overall, Numan, amiable and chatty, delights in his darkness. His own private renaissance, borne of that symbiosis between what his past inspired and his voice in the present, has made the 20-year journey to a quieter success that much more fulfilling. “I’m still learning, getting on top of various studio techniques and learning to understand my own limitations,” he says of his songwriting. “I don’t really have a voice which is suitable in many ways for [industrial] music. If I shout, I sound like a schoolgirl having a tantrum — it doesn’t sound very intimidating or frightening. So I have to learn what I can do well and what I can’t do well, what to avoid and what to adopt more thoroughly. I’m having more fun making music now than I have in 15 to 20 years.”

(Republished February 27, 2024, from the now defunct Philadelphia City Paper; original available on archive.org at this link.)

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(originally published at AdvisorToday.com, November 2006)

Whether you’re dealing with mail, email, voicemail, memos, forms, or any other physical or virtual “pile-able” materials, the best filing system in the world will not help you if you can’t get the information from that email, voicemail, etc., into those files.

So how do you get that information moving? Productivity consultant David Allen provides a comprehensive how-to in his best-selling book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. He opens the book with the startling assertion that “it’s possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control.”

That may sound too good to be true, but the key is using your in-box wisely. “If you want to go for the gold, what you need to do is get your in-box zeroed out every 24 to 48 hours—paper as well as electronic,” says Allen.

What does it all mean?
Information that comes into your in-box is staged until you can assign it meaning, Allen explains. “You have to consider what I call the mighty meaning of ‘might-mean,’” he says. “Everything you receive might be something useful, might be something funny, might be something cool, might be something you don’t need at all—but you can’t tell right away.”

Here are some tips to help you discover that meaning and get your in-box moving:

1. Set aside a time to go through your in-box. Remember, it’s a processing station, not a storage depot, so you should be clearing it out regularly. But emptying your in-box doesn’t require that you complete everything in it. Rather, your goal is to figure out what everything is and how you’re going to deal with it.

2. Handle it top to bottom. If you handle the top thing first, and diligently process each item until you get to the bottom, then you’ll have an empty in-box. Jumping around tends to make you want to put things back in your in-box, and that’s a no-no.

3. Ask the right questions. As you process your in-box, evaluate it using the following series of questions:

• a. Is this something you need to keep or something you should throw away? If you can throw it away, do so immediately.
• b. For things you need to keep, is it something you need to act on or information you need to store? If you’re going to store it, put it in the appropriate place immediately.
• c. For things you need to act on, is it something you can do in less than two minutes or something that will take more time? If you can do it in two minutes, go ahead and do it. If you can’t, add it to your “to-do” list, or whatever system you have for reminding you of actions.

4. Know when to pile. Sometimes you need piles, notes Allen, so that you can visually connect with the problem or project you’re working on. But don’t let unprocessed piles stack up. If you have several stacks of things to deal with, process all of them with the same diligence.

5. Create a “tickler” file. If you have to submit a form by a certain date next year, where do you put the form? The tickler file! Use 12 monthly folders and 31 daily folders to create a perpetual filing system. You can arrange your longer-term tasks by filing them into these folders. Each morning, retrieve your action reminders so that you can complete everything on schedule. Every time you empty a daily or monthly folder, move it to the back of the bunch so it becomes “next month” or “next year.”

Keep it flowing
It takes practice and determination to manage your in-box, but once you master it, you won’t drop details. “Your in-box is really just a holding station,” says Allen, who also has a free e-newsletter packed with productivity tips available at his website, www.davidco.com. “As long as you’re going to see the bottom of it in a reasonable amount of time, you can throw anything in there and let your brain relax until you can get to it.”

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