What We Will Need in the Next Sixty Months
AUTHOR’S ATTESTATION: This article was written entirely by Jeff De Cagna AIMP FRSA FASAE, a human author, without using generative AI.
As of this article’s publication date (12/19/24), there are 1838 days remaining in The Turbulent Twenties, and 13 days until this decade’s midpoint on January 1, 2025.
Let me begin with an apology. It was my intention to write columns in both November and earlier this month. A combination of unexpected circumstances prevented me from making that happen, and I am sorry.
It saddens me to report that nothing has transpired during the interregnum between my October column and this one to lessen my apprehension about the next sixty months for the association community. In this time, regressive forces have gained momentum and are sowing chaos at home and around the world. This detrimental dynamic further raises the stakes for everyone concerned about the future of associations, and their stakeholders and successors.
What We Will Need
In October, I shared my serious concerns about the damaging impact that systemic upheaval, systemic risks, and systemic problems will have on our community over the next 60 months. With the start of this decade’s second half now less than two weeks away, it is important we get clear on what we will need from associations, their decision-makers, and from each other to confront the profoundly challenging conditions ahead.
- Care over complacency—In the second half of The Turbulent Twenties, there will be no acceptable justification for complacency among staff and voluntary decision-makers in pushing back against the most dangerous consequences of systemic upheaval. Instead, they must act in concert to demonstrate care for their stakeholders and successors by protecting them to the greatest possible extent from the mounting societal threats of dehumanization, exploitation, and marginalization. Far more than a legal duty that association boards are required to follow, care is an enduring and inviolable mandate to safeguard and strengthen our shared humanity, with a special emphasis on long-term successors whose futures are most endangered and yet have no voice in current association decision-making.
- Cooperation over competition—Over the next sixty months, association boards and CEOs will need to explore difficult questions related to competition, with a focus on the harmful systemic risks it creates for their organizations and the wisdom of continuing to internalize those risks into the future. With the technology-centric innovation paradigm now dominant across all organizations, the vast majority of associations lack the flexibility, market scalability, and financial resources to keep pace with a growing universe of well-funded and more nimble for-profit rivals. Association decision-makers should reconsider the orthodox belief that “associations are businesses” and adopt the justified belief that our organizations are essential societal institutions with critical roles to play in enabling and advancing meaningful cooperation within industry and professional ecosystems.
- Collaboration over conflict—Arguably my greatest concern for the second half of this decade is the unpredictable effects that will emerge when the collisions among our organizations’ past, current, and future systemic problems become more intense and destabilizing. For many associations, these collisions are already happening, in the form of legacy business models that are ill-suited to shifting demographics and stakeholder behaviors, the inability to make substantial investments in new capabilities, and the growing vulnerability created by increased for-profit competition, artificial intelligence, and the climate crisis. As I wrote in October, “[t]he presence of both greater upheaval and higher risk demands the thoughtful devotion of our collective attention to solving systemic problems.” Instead of allowing destructive conflict over their organizations’ systemic problems to waste their energy and undermine their resolve, association decision-makers must act responsibly and unite in collaboration to solve them with empathy, imagination, and prudence in judgment.
Next Column
Thank you for reading The Duty of Foresight column this year. I will return with my next column in January 2025. Until then, please accept my best wishes for a safe and joyous holiday season.
Jeff can be reached at [email protected], on LinkedIn at jeffonlinkedin.com, or on Twitter/X @dutyofforesight.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this column belong solely to the author.
