Ann Oliveri

Association Leadership: Oxymoron or Redundancy?

Years ago, military intelligence was the phrase I trotted out as my favorite oxymoron, but maybe it should be one much closer to home: association leadership.  

After all, associations document the minimum standard of practice and benchmark reasonable expectations of performance. The goal is to draw a line in the sand that places ethical practice just beyond the truly unscrupulous but in easy reach of those in technical compliance. So by definition, the bar must be low enough to avoid challenges and excessive legal bills. If that's leadership, we are all in trouble.

Yet, the opportunity for leadership lies in a vigorous challenge to that minimum, the status quo.  To attract new members and support, we must advance practice and aspire to be more. 

How can we make sure "association leadership" is a redundant term not an oxymoron? 

• What if associations relentlessly sought out the thought and market leaders in our sectors and senior practitioners who have moved on, chasing them down and co-creating meaningful opportunities so compelling they couldn't say no to getting involved? 

• What if associations elected and groomed leaders whose business and professional practices reset the benchmark and rewrote the definition of responsible policies and actions?

• What if associations welcomed critics and competitors into neutral forums or created mega-communities of leaders where we could work together to eliminate a mega-problem rather than negotiate the shape of the table?

For too long, association managers have dumbed down member involvement in search of efficiency, emulating Nurse Ratched in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, neutralizing boards and members to keep them docile. Maybe the inmates should be running the asylum.  Maybe it's time to be a movement.

Innovacion

Visiting the Mendoza wine country at the foot of the Andes, a desert lushly irrigated by aqueducts first built by the Incas, we toured two bodegas (wineries), one of the oldest and one of the newest.

The oldest, Familia di Tommaso, in business since 1869 and run by descendants of the original owners, is a heritage site hand-crafting 60,000 cases of wine sold from the cellar door.  The most striking feature, though, was the water pouring through irrigation channels weeks before harvest.

The newest winery we visited was Familia Zuccardi, founded in 1963. Alberto Zuccardi emigrated to Argentina from Italy via the Napa Sonoma Valley to introduce a new irrigation method.  From those demonstration vines has grown a small empire producing some extraordinary wine in vast quantities for export--not done before Zuccardi harnessed the technology and marketing know-how.

Expecting a dreary industrial complex, we were absolutely delighted with our tour and tasting at Zuccardi.  Our personal guide was Charles from the UK doing his gap year in the wine trade in Argentina.  But what struck me most was the fact that it took an outsider to see the potential for export and the savvy to create blends of the traditional Malbec for those markets.  The drive to improve quality continues, grafting new varietals to find out what this terroir can produce and testing baby wines only available at cellar door labeled Innovacion.

Seeing opportunity requires new eyes, not just new glasses.

In contrast, other emigres from the Napa Sonoma, The Vines of Mendoza, have done little more than graft the pretentious tech entrepreneurs and dentists that now dominate California wine onto a charming wine district.  Ew. For the straight scoop on Argentina wine, check out the Wine Republic. 

Since we traveled light, Bill is bringing home a case of Rutini Cab-Malbec, the best bottle of wine for the money we tasted.  Found it in Mendoza, thanks to the sommelier at Azafran.  Bill finally figured out a way to get the price down to $US15 a bottle so it's worth hauling home.