There was an incident in Massachusetts some years ago about a state government commission that hadn’t met for 12 years. No one noticed it was dormant until a reporter pointed it out. Then there was a push in some quarters about getting it going again. Why? Wouldn’t that agency meet the textbook definition of irrelevance?

That made me think of Jim Collins. I love his work. His two business classics, Built to Last and Good to Great, cut through the noise and nail it. Decades later, his work is still relevant.

What does this have to do with communications strategy? Plenty.

Lots of big challenges abound in both of Collins’ books. I’d say that the biggest one for associations and communicators is the “stop doing list.” The meaning is straightforward. But doing it is really hard, especially for associations which are not necessarily good at being results-driven.

When I worked at for-profit companies, the ultimate test was whether a project or product would make us money. Either it does, or we think it will, or it won’t.

In associations, we talk about “mission.” We ask whether it creates “member value.” If we’re sloppy about defining these terms, then anything can be rationalized. The impact to the association are lost focus, and frazzled staff are pulled in a million different directions.

Communications is one area where this can be especially challenging.

In the end, members always notice. They will see that things happen slowly, or not at all. Or they will notice that things are done sloppily just to get them done. Or the VIPs will notice that they have to be the squeaky wheel.

None of that’s good.

We all have these kinds of projects or products. If we stopped doing X, would anyone really notice? Continuing to do X may be the greatest barrier to greatness in associations.

How do you stop doing things? That’s a topic for a future blog post.