The Politics of Dancing (and What If Ideas in Associations)

We got the message
I heard it on the airwaves
The politicians
Are now DJ's

The broadcast was spreading
Station to station
Like an infection
Across the nation

Well you know you can't stop it
When they start to play
You gotta get out the way

The politics of dancing
The politics of ooo feeling good
The politics of moving
Is this message understood - Re-flex, The Politics of Dancing

The Short of It

• I have been inspired by Acronym's Big Ideas month
• I've read a lot of great blog posts
• And marveled at the good thinking going into them
• But I find myself focusing on one thread
• In the eventual execution of ANY good idea
• We have to talk about the elephant in the room
• Which is the political environment we work in
• And the lack of will to get new things done
  

The Long of It

Once upon a time I had a brilliant friend who when brainstorming with our group would stop every once in a while, shrug and say, "Ah, once again we've arrived in the magical land of IF."  At first blush that appears to be a rather cynical statement, but what it was meant to do was to keep "what ifs" balanced against "what is" so that we didn't lose track of the sometimes dirty, political work involved in actually reaching our goals.

I have heard those words echoing in my head over the past few weeks reading all of the terrific "big ideas" blogs focused on answering, "What if...." questions.  Great blogs, great thinkers and lots of enthusiasm.  But at this point I am tempted to stop and ask, "What is?"

To my mind, the one recurring thread in any of these "what if" ideas, which is addressed at differing levels in each post and subsequent comments, is an acknowledgement of the political environment in which associations operate.  More important than the politics inherent in the association governance structure itself is the chief staff executive and the politics they personally choose to play.

We need to remain mindful of how the beast operates to give any "what if" a chance to see the light of day. No big idea can be implemented without a concentrated effort of all players with the chief staff executive in any operation holding the keys.  We can't lose sight of the fact that many of us due to the political environment we work in are programmed to avoid actually implementing the new ideas we say we are looking for.

The elephant in the room is this little piece of logic - Political environments are generally about protecting the status quo.  Innovation in the governmental and/or non-profit arena is generally seen as a threat to the status quo. Chief staff executives are generally seen as protectors of the status quo.  Ergo, innovative executives are generally seen as a threat to the organization.

Look at this another way.  One of the political tightropes any executive walks is the facilitative role between ensuring everyone is heard while not being seen as letting any one person unduly influence the outcome.  It's the skill of allowing every volunteer leader to contribute, but not promoting one contribution as any more or less valuable than any other.  It's the skill of allocating staff resources equitably to committees while not appearing to champion any one committee's work.  (It's "everybody gets a trophy" taken to its eventual conclusion).  Not one of these skills, seen as so valuable to survival in a political environment and so well practiced on a continual basis, translates well into executing a "what if" scenario.

Many executives who are immersed in these political games will not admit they are.  It's much like telling a fish that the water they breathe is really unduly influencing them and wouldn't they rather live on land?  The fish will simply tell you that you are being ridiculous.  (Hey, has that plastic castle been here the whole time?  Let's just get another one of those!)

The "what is" question we need to ask is this - in the political environment in which we operate, does the heart of innovation and "big ideas" really lie with the chief staff executive and how many of us are equipped to carry it out?

For the sake of politics perhaps it is problematic to direct all of our "big ideas" charges at the chief staff executives themselves.  Just by the nature of the beast, chief staff executives may not be the best persons to shoulder the banner of lead innovators.  Boards are uncomfortable with change being directed straight from the top and they have an innate suspicion of any executive who is "doing something new" because it seems like that executive is working independently from the board.  (Innovate = power grab in some circles).  Executives themselves become paranoid about making new changes for fear their operations might appear "unstable" and the predictability of hitting budget next year by doing the same old stuff year, after year, after year is almost irresistible.  Even budgets in DECLINE with programs that are on life support are maintained for the sake of predictability (and don't tell me you haven't seen this in action, I know you have).

Perhaps we need to shift our perspective. If chief staff executives are marginalized in directly leading change, maybe we need to leave the ego-centric position of control and learn to embrace "driving change" instead.

Executives have a "what if" responsibility as well as a clearly demonstrated business imperative to foster innovation within their staff and volunteer leadership. However, we have to change the "what is" environment first. The executive who wants to let their team take quantum steps forward must learn how to stay above the creative fray and fill three key functions - find resources, remove obstacles and sell improvements to the volunteers.  The chief staff executive must act as a translator between the creative elements of the staff and other staff members as well as volunteers who are responsible for implementing incremental improvements.  (Note: not one of those tasks includes second-guessing, re-working and bossing.)

Joe Rominiecki made some great points on his recent blog post - "Innovation with Boundaries" which are great ways to change "what is" to align a little more with "what if."  What IF boards set aside funds purposefully for new ideas and what IF time allotments were given a la Google to "new ideas?" Both of those actions would give an executive a "what IS" - political cover to actually encourage their pursuit.  What IF you appoint a "Chief Innovation Officer?"  This could provide a "what IS" to an executive who wants to "drive" the change they can't be seen as leading.  (Of course, if executives simply pay this idea lip service with titles and "amplified" job descriptions you will soon find an undermined Chief Innovation Officer curled up behind the recycling containers, picking arrows out of their back and slowly drinking themselves into oblivion.)

I don't mean to close out 2010 on a downer note here at Association Subculture.  I'm certainly not advocating that we stop generating "what if" scenarios.  But let's have some more "what is" discussion so we can see those "what ifs" actually happen......

Beware -

The politicians are now DJs.

The politics of dancing....the politics of oooo feeling good.....

Don't fall for it.

It's a Question of Your Honesty - ERC 2009 Ethics Report

All this machinery making modern music
Can still be open hearted
Not so coldly charted
It's really just a question of your honesty, yeah
Your honesty
One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity
And the words of the profits were written on the studio walls....
Concert halls....
And echoes with the sounds of salesman...of SALESMAN! Rush - Permanent Waves

The Short of It

• The Ethics Resource Center published it's 2009 Ethics in Business Report in November 2009. 
• It's the sixth in a series of reports that began in 1994.
• Apparently, workplace misconduct declines in turbulent economic times. 
• And rises again when the pressure is off.
• In other words, ethics are all the rage only when people are watching.
• Which kind of defeats the whole purpose doesn't it?

The Long of It

Morals. Ethics. Good. Bad. White. Black. Grey? Hmm....lots of grey apparently.

The Ethics Resource Center just published the results of their 2009 National Business Ethics Survey - Ethics in the Recession (click the link for the free download) and it has some extremely important information in it. This is the sixth in a series of reports that began in 1994 from surveys conducted on two year cycles. The sampling error is +/- 1.8% at the 95% confidence level (which makes us survey geeks swoon). I participated in a webinar held by the ERC last week (you can access the free webcast on their home page) and had the privilege of listening to the researchers and a few key panelists sharing their thoughts and observations on the new data.

Here's the good news:

• Misconduct at work is down - down to 49% from 56% in 2007
• Whistleblowing is up - up to 63% from 58% in 2007
• Ethical cultures are stronger - up to 62% from 53% in 2007
• Pressure to cut corners is lower - down to 8% from 10% in 2007

There are lots of reasons being bandied about for the almost counter-intuitive results. Perhaps companies under the microscope behave better overall, management refocuses on ethics when times are tough, hard times force a strategic focus "back to the basics" or people who are afraid for their jobs are just less likely to engage in risky behavior. I posited that perhaps whistleblowing was up as a Darwinian response of employees wanting to "look good" by throwing their fellow colleagues under the bus (a typical Gen X suspicion I guess...) The response by the panel was they didn't think so, although in other studies they have seen increases in reported incidences that seem to correlate with the timing of annual performance reviews as well as increases in reported incidences by people who were being laid off in sort of a "I've got nothing left to lose so take that" sort of context (so maybe my point about self-interest could have some bearing after all).

Here's the not so good news:

• Retaliation against whistleblowers is up by 3% points
• 55% to 60% of those retaliated against experience hazing, exclusion and verbal abuse or attacks
• 22% of respondents agreed the recession has negatively impacted the ethical culture within their companies

Here's the really not so good news:

Many companies have been forced to employ tactics to cope with the recession such as adjusted work schedules, layoffs, compensation or benefit reductions, hiring freezes, early retirements or buyouts, production slowdowns and plant closures. Of the companies who employed even ONE recessionary tactic, reports of misconduct have increased by 26% and non-reporting of observed misconduct has increased by 15%.

Now, add in the fact that 78% of respondents in this survey said they or a colleague have been affected by one or more of these tactics to weather the recession.

Uh oh.

And here's the weird news:

On page 14 of the report you are going to see data that suggests that reported incidences of misconduct at work almost directly mirror the S&P index. As reported incidences of misconduct go up, so does the S&P. As the S&P declines, so do those reports.

Fascinating.

Whatever the reasons for the overall positive news on the ethics front, the researchers have boiled the data down to two major conclusions and a series of recommendations for executives, managers, boards, policy makers and ethics professionals.  

• Major conclusion #1: "We are experiencing an ethics bubble" - and as business conditions improve, ethical behavior will decrease.
• Major conclusion #2: "Executives who don't elevate culture to a priority risk long term business problems" and emphasis on the culture within the organization must take precedence over emphasis on profits to ensure long term stability within a company or industry.

Please download the report for more specific recommendations that range from ways to reinforce culture, to establishing ethics committees and linking compensation to ethical behavior.

Association executives and senior staff are in the perfect position to distribute the results of this survey to their respective memberships. In times like these, continued emphasis on ethical behavior is critical for you and your members. I encourage you to use this report as an excuse to remind your members of the codes of ethics they may have adopted and give them this report to mull over as they move into 2010.  This is particularly critical for those members who have had to use any recessionary tactics such as reduced work hours, etc. to cope with the recession and may now be at higher risk for unethical behavior on the part of their employees.

I realize I dipped back into the Rush pond for the song for this post. I usually space bands out a bit. But thinking about this blog post and hearing this on the radio seemed like kismet - "glittering prizes and endless compromises - shatter the illusion of integrity....."

Let's get the glue out - we've got some shattering to fix......

Peace Sells....But Who's Buying - Association Membership?

What do you mean I don't support your system?
I go to court when I have to...
What do you mean I couldn't be President
Of the United States of America?
Tell me something, it's still 'We the people,' right?
If there's a new way
I'll be the first in line
But, it better work this time.....Megadeth, Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?

The Short of It

• Eliminating membership dues is a popular topic
• One of Acronym's "big ideas" questions
• I like the thinking going into the continuing debate
• Good points on both sides 
• But what if we take a purely ideological look at "pay to play"
• Maybe it's bigger than just us
• And maybe it's time associations did something about it
  

The Long of It

I really like the discussion that has been occurring on the topic of eliminating membership dues in associations.  I think a lot of good points are being made on both sides of the debate.  To read more check out these blog posts - RIP: Membership by Scott Briscoe from ASAE's Acronym   and to prove the idea has been around for a while check out a great post from Jason Della Roca - Free Association .

I would like to add my voice to the debate from my personal perspective.  Before we go down this road let me quickly identify what I am not: I am not anti-profit, I am not above paying a significant price for value and I am a realist.  I also believe associations have immense value.  I am also firmly in the no-dues camp because it is my belief that (drum roll please).....

"Pay to play" is stifling innovation, undermining progress and damaging our democracy.

Yes, I am taking a shot across the bow at the philosophical concept of "pay to play."  It's a bedrock value in the society we live in. It's the reason our political system is populated with only those who have the funds to run, the reason brilliant minds are locked out of the "right" educational institutions and the reason why corporate America is winning the fight on even the most basic of regulations in spite of their roles in the recent financial disaster.  The heart of the current health insurance debate comes down to pay to play - if you can afford it, you can have coverage and if you can't then you just didn't try hard enough.  (We all know how the game is played....those votes were bought in a campaign long ago in a Congress far, far away...but I digress.)

In associations, we routinely promulgate the idea of pay to play.  Our members pay a fee to gain entrance to our club.  If an individual doesn't have the money then we choose not to grace them with the pleasure of our company. On the other hand, we will take small bribes in the form of "non-member rates" to allow prospective members to come in and take a look around.  At that point we attempt to herd them into belonging and haze them if they don't (see, if you were one of us, you could have that nifty "member" ribbon for YOUR badge, instead of the "NONmember" ribbon which we admit, should probably just have a target painted on it instead).  

We salve our conscience with the idea that the member is paying us in order to subsidize all the fabulous things we do for them and the collective contribution is a way to equitably distribute our costs of doing business amongst those who choose to bask in all of our long range strategic planning objectives glory.

But isn't this question bigger than all of that?

Humans affiliate in an attempt to find like-minded individuals.  Filling that psychological need in a positive and just environment is one pathway to sociological and institutional stability.  What if associations took a larger view of their ability to impact society and decided to open the gates to all?  Suddenly, the ability to pay to play no longer plays a role in fulfilling our members desire to find each other.  At that point, the artificial barriers lose the attributes of just or unjust.  Affiliation becomes less of jumping a hurdle and more a matter choosing to purposefully participate.

When we were younger, we didn't have to "buy" our way into a group of like-minded friends. We naturally affiliated with those who shared our values and interests.  That did not mean there weren't financial rewards to be had from our individual groups.  We invested time and money into the outward trappings of whatever group we were in.  We bought music, watched movies, or disavowed movies and read books (or did both so we could grouse about how the movie butchered the books), we went to theatre, paid high prices to obtain bootleg recordings from overseas and (more importantly) wore the uniform.  Did we pay a lot of money and invest a lot of resources to identify with our people?  You bet we did.  We paid for concert tickets, we bought a lot of pizza at all-night talk fests, we raided refrigerators and camped on couches.  The authenticity of those interactions is what many of us continue to look for even while juggling families, kids and the occasional dog, cat and/or fish. 

Now that we are older, we are asked to "buy" our way into a group of like-minded professionals, some of whom we are told may actually become friends in our "network."  Just by the very nature of the transaction, we are forcing financial considerations to play a role in the human desire to affiliate.  That does one of two things: makes people feel welcome only if they pony up and/or makes people feel like the cover charge was enough and $6 per drink just isn't fair.  I wonder how many people we have missed who chose not to use the toll road but found another way around?

When members are forced to pay to play we are really asking them to support every, single thing we do, however diverse.  In an increasingly customized world, that concept is becoming increasingly challenging to sell.  We are spending money by the fistful on communications and marketing pieces trying to justify the value of membership to each individual person, hoping they pick just ONE out of the huge list of reasons why they should be a member without seeing the look on their faces when they look at the list and instead realize they don't actually care about half of what we say we do for them.  #FAIL

Pay to play gives our members the opportunity, every time they see that dues renewal, to walk away and purposefully disengage from our community. What if we don't make them feel like they have to make a conscious decision to walk away from us?  What if we can create opportunities to "see other people" for a while instead of breaking up entirely?  A dues system does not allow that kind of flexibility.  As Heidi says, "You are either in, or you are out."

By forcing people to pay to play we end up with the weird, unintended consequence of encouraging them to use social shorthand in order to identify themselves to others.  They begin to see knowledge of the organization as a sort of secret that they paid for and others shouldn't have unless they pay too.  I am a "member of" can actually depersonalize a person's commitment to our organizations while they use a cryptic "insiders" vocabulary only other members recognize and non-members only learn once they pay to gain entry into the system.  When people learn to identify each other based on an artificially created line between "member" and "non-member" the subject of "why BE a member" rarely comes up at all.  What if we eliminated the line between "member" and "nonmember" and simply identified ourselves as fans of an organization's professional development programs or their lobbying team? Suddenly social interaction becomes based in active support for the values the organization embodies not the passive act of paying to play. It's different, it's more personal and it's not exclusive to only those who paid the money to be "in the know."

Don't get me wrong.  As idealistic as I can be, there is a rational, pragmatic side to me as well.  If implemented on a wide scale, this will truly revolutionize the association community and eliminating membership dues does not come without a clear, daunting and somewhat frightening mandate to innovate in a thousand other ways to successfully implement the change.  This issue is complex.  We can't simply eliminate what may be our largest source of revenue and still do business the same way we always have.  We may have to look at other radical business innovations in order to accomplish such a goal.  Lowering our overhead by establishing virtual offices (with all of the hair-raising management issues that would represent), moving into the cloud and away from brick and mortar, eliminating staff members, etc.  We may need to start publishing our operating budgets (gasp!?!?) and asking members to financially donate to specific programs in order to keep them alive.  Our boards will have to get real in a hurry if they see programs can't attract enough donations to keep them in play despite their assertions regarding said programs vital importance.  (The dirty little secret may be they never really were!)  What do you do about the member you must expel due to bad behavior if they didn't have to pay to be there in the first place?  Work through your bylaws.  What do you do about revenue streams being shared in a national/state/regional association structure?  Renegotiate affiliation agreements.  The point is, just because it would be challenging and complicated, doesn't mean it can't be done.

Before we all collectively freak out over the type of monumental institutional change elimination of dues will require, let's talk for a moment about the real possibilities of eliminating pay to play and see if the positives seem compelling enough to continue the conversation.....

• Availing ourselves of an enormous talent pool, regardless of income status
• Including people who, for whatever reason, chose not to pay to join but have valuable contributions they are willing and able to make
• Bringing an influx of energy into our current organizational models
• Encouraging students to join creating life-long affiliations  
• Accelerating innovation in science, technology and the arts by focusing on the knowledge itself
• Sharing ideas becoming paramount over being part of an "exclusive group"
• Exclusivity becoming based on talent and skill set
• Competing organizations focusing on program content instead of  bodies paying dues dollars
• Events feeling more like communities and less like Tupperware parties 
• Stopping local, state and national affiliates from undermining each other in competition for dues dollars  
• Getting real and very transparent about what we do because we are no longer depending on a passive influx of money
• Embracing the totality of our professions, good actors and bad and being forced to talk ethics every day
• Creating legions of fans who think we're "cool" instead of customers who coldly evaluate us purely on the basis of ROI
  

And can we talk?  By eliminating membership we may eliminate "membership" lists which some of us don't want to be on anymore anyway.  We connect with our peers in ways that make the membership directory a thing of the past.  It seems like the only people who are using membership lists are people who are trying to sell us stuff we don't want at a members only discount we don't need. (Competition caused by economic conditions has eaten into members only discounts for years now, and they are rarely competitive enough to get members fired up and excited).  Now I realize how dangerous it is to be in these waters since endorsed vendor relationships may very well be the next, largest revenue source off of membership and events.  However, renegotiating endorsement contracts could include evolving from "price per item sold" or "number of members enrolled" model to a flat fee endorsement model like a sponsorship model.  There is still cha-ching to be had, we just need to be creative about it.

Eliminating pay to play?  It's democracy.  It's community.  It's free and open.  It's welcoming. It's the spirit membership promises but can no longer deliver on.  It tolerates new ideas and innovations.  It expands our reach.  It makes us different.  It's hard.  It's difficult.  It's worth it.

Yeah, if there's a new way, I'll be the first in line.

But it better work this time.

Megadeth disables embedding codes on YouTube.  Despite my annoyance at this fact here is the link to the video if you are dying to watch it.  :D 

Where No Association Has Gone Before - Lessons from Star Trek

Space
The final frontier
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise
It's five year mission
To explore strange new worlds
To seek out new life and new civilizations
To boldly go where no one has gone before.....Star Trek Opening Sequence

The Short of It

• Battlestar Galactica?  Of course....
• Star Wars? Certainly.....
• Lord of the Rings? Obviously.....
• Matrix?  Duh....
• Doctor Who?  Indeed.....
• But Star Trek?
• That's bedrock

The Long of It

I have spent a considerable portion of my life honing my nerd street cred.  The evidence is overwhelming and includes the four Star Trek action figures that I eschewed Barbies for and still have to this day proudly displayed in my ever-so-grown-up oak and glass cabinet.  (However, I must admit that Doctor McCoy fared the worst of the four and his legs and arms have been rubber banded onto the torso portion - ah the irony.)

I refused to watch Star Trek - The Next Generation for years because I was "affronted" by the producer's audacity to "remake" the original.  I have since seen the error of my ways (mea culpa!) and TNG has become a fundamental anchor piece in my sci-fi lexicon (as well as a valuable lesson about pre-judging something I knew nothing about).  Alas, other series such as Deep Space Nine and Voyager may have been of lesser interest to me but I can live and let live.

So when I heard the new Star Trek prequel was due to hit theaters in 2009 well....boy. It was a must-see. Bearing in mind the lesson from my earlier TNG boycott, I decided not to be a hater without actually seeing the product. Even though I was "keeping an open mind" I have to admit I was admittedly pre-disposed to not like it. I mean really.  Portrayal of the earlier iterations of our beloved?  Haven't we been down this road before?  Was this to be a miserable "Muppet Babies" experience?  A Phantom Menace debacle? (I mean come ON - WTF was Lucas thinking?  Jar Jar Binks?!??!).

The day came. I saw the movie.  And waited with bated breath for the DVD to come out.  And then rented that DVD which I watched almost incessantly while waiting for the gods of Amazon to deliver my own personal, shiny new copy to my very doorstep.

And here's the point.

Management book after study after thesis after white paper on leadership has never even come close to detailing what an organization could or should be like the fiction of Star Trek does.  I have been cursed by a sincere (albeit eccentric) desire to create that level of passionate narrative in my day-to-day professional life and suffer from a mild, yet continual level of disappointment when it doesn't seem to work out that way.  Sure, the lessons are essentially the same in every episode or movie (and there is a Joseph Campbell-esque comfort in the ritual voice over detailed above) but I find the narrative so incredibly compelling because it represents an ideal scenario of what humanity could and should be.  The hope of a future that had to be better than wherever I was at the moment whether skulking in the hallways of high school or making copies and stuffing conference bags or calling that emergency Executive Committee meeting about the budget.  There still HAS to be something to accomplish that is bigger than what we can do alone.  Quite frankly, I believe the mythology of Star Trek has grown so great over the years because it demonstrates several key principles that we are supposedly experts in but seem to have trouble organizationally achieving.  Key principles that if they can be imagined should NOT be so far out of our grasp as to be unreachable.

Clear mission and vision.  Voyages....five year mission...explore....seek out new life and new civilizations....boldly go....no one has gone before.  Key phrases from the mission and vision for the Starship Enterprise. Clear, simple and compelling.   Downright inspiring.  Fans can recite it from memory and even those of you who never watched the show are probably loathe to admit that it sounds very familiar to you.  Starfleet does not spend time complaining about last years conference dinner or micromanaging its captains.   Here's what we do.  Go do it.  Should your real world association mission be less powerful?  Why does it have to be?

Clear values.  The Prime Directive (General Order #1).  To paraphrase - members of Starfleet are not to interfere in the internal affairs of other species and must not contaminate the social development of other cultures by direct intervention or the revelation of higher technology.  The Prime Directive is the most important values statement in Starfleet and must be upheld even at risk of life and/or ship.  (Fellow nerd alert - I'm not going to get into a technical argument about all of the plot lines that involve running up against the Prime Directive in order to create dramatic tension - I'm making an observation here about the clarity of the values themselves! We can argue the finer points later in another venue).  The point is - the Prime Directive is clear. We value other civilizations.  We value other cultures.  We are humanitarian but do not feel compelled to play God.  These values are deeply embedded in Starfleet culture and the Prime Directive supercedes all of the policy underneath it.  Execution of the directive may, in some instances, be dependent on individual circumstances, but if you are part of the group - you believe in it.  You get it.  If and when circumstances dictate a departure from those stated values it entails a nuanced and thoughtful decision. Am I going to get the same sense of clarity and purpose in a morass of "internal" and "external" value statements in so many strategic plans these days?  Am I going to be fired up enough about values that discuss "providing a customer service culture for members" to the point where I'm willing to blow the association up if we can't achieve it?  Ah, no.  (Not me personally - although you might be).  Does your association have a clearly, simply stated set of values that people "get," are held accountable for and are willing to self-destruct over?  Are your values in the real world less powerful than the ideal world?  Why do they have to be?

Clear policy. There are general orders under the prime directive that lay out policy for Starfleet personnel such as rules of engagement, rules for responding to requests for assistance or help, rules on negotiation, general statements regarding avoidance of the Neutral Zone and other regulations.  The general orders are clear while at the same time acknowledging that some actions trump others.  There is a (dare I say it?  You bet your ass I do) LOGIC in their order of priority.  Should the responsibility to uphold the prime directive necessitate entry into the Neutral Zone, the prime directive wins.  Does your association have policy that is rational, logical and prioritized correctly so your staff can execute those policies in the field where circumstances sometimes dictate a certain level of creativity?  If not, why not?  Rewrite them.

Clear roles. Starfleet is Starfleet, the Captain is the Captain and the crew is the crew.  Symbiotic but clear.  Certain matters are handled in certain arenas.  And speaking of the Captain and the crew, the characters who populate the original Star Trek crew are very clear on who they are.  They are, in my mind, the ideal staff.  They also have certain qualities in common.  Here is a list of characteristics that make those staff members particularly appealing to me and what I want to see in the people I work with.

• They want to be there.  They are well aware the Enterprise is the queen of the fleet and they are proud to serve on the flagship.  They aren't biding their time until they make enough contacts to get the hell off of it.
• They are at the top of their fields.  They specialize.  They are the best of the best and actively work to stay at the top of their fields.  They aren't phoning it in.
• They are content in their roles.  They respect and support each other in their roles.  James T. Kirk is the Captain because he HAS to be.  He has the perfect combination of skills.  Spock is the first/science officer because he's a brilliant thinker. He can command when necessary but recognizes Kirk as the Captain. Spock is not feeding information to Starfleet over drinks after a meeting and angling for Kirk's job.
• They are collaborative.  They problem solve.  They bring their perspectives to the table and then devise a solution. They also try things that don't work and then try something else.  What great lessons in not giving up.  You aren't going to see the group saying, "Well, I guess we're out of options," shrug, sigh and head down to the bar for a drink.
• They are rebellious.  They have egos and they have a certain disregard for the rules.  It makes for good fiction but more importantly, it shows character.  We could use a little more rebellion these days.  You can't have innovation without it. "Well trained" "good managers" abhor rebelliousness and that is precisely why they suck.
• They fight with each other.  Yeah, I said it.  They argue.  They debate.  They stick to their guns.  They aren't willing to give in until somebody else makes some sense.  But once they move, they move together as one.  Nobody is sitting around saying, "Whatever you think is fine with me..."
• They care about each other.  They actually care.  They may argue, but it's all in pursuit of the higher goal. Urging each other on their way to higher levels of accomplishment.  Learning about each other and the universe that surrounds them.  They are willing to risk and achieve more simply because they give a damn.
  

So, yeah.  Star Trek has many more management lessons than a lot of books I've read.  Clear mission, clear values, clear policy and clear roles.  Star Trek also has a lot more to say about ethics than any ethics course I've ever been to. I will continue to be a fan as long as they stay true to their mission and I am able to identify with it.  Have you inspired loyalty in your members like Star Trek has in their fans?  No?  Well?  Then may I suggest you wipe the mocking smirk off of your face and rent a few DVDs?  Maybe you have some exploring of your own to do.....

May you live long and prosper......