Association Committee Management matters to leaders because these groups serve as a powerful means to get things done. Unable to afford large staff in most cases, Associations must rely on Committees to move the organization’s work forward.
Committee Problems
However,Committees must be carefully managed. Mismanagement can cause many problems:
Unclear Responsibilities
Overlapping Purposes
Poor Leadership
Undermotivated members
Wear task management
Lack of Communication
Sloppy Documentation
Strong Association Committee Management can avoid these problems.
Best Practices to Solve the Problems Association Committee Management
Clarify Responsibilities – No committee should come into existence without specific and clear objectives. All committee members need to understand those objectives, so they can produce the expected results.
Define Distinct Purposes – Committees should not duplicate effort. Associations cannot afford such inefficiency, given their typically scarce resources. Setting definite boundaries between committee purposes reduces the risk of wasted resources.
Select Strong Leaders – Associations often attract highly competent people dedicated to the organization’s aims. These individuals need to be identified and invited to run committees. Such experiences may inspire them to move on from heading up committees to take senior leadership roles.
Energize Committee Members – Strong leaders play the largest role in motivating their Committee members. However, the overall senior leaders help by providing the tools, policies and procedures that invigorate Members to perform effectively on behalf of the organization.
Provide Task Management Tools – Expecting Committees to perform effectively with rudimentary task management tools inevitably leads to disappointment. In contrast, providing tools and training in enhanced task management will result in higher performance.
Enable Robust Communication – Depending only on email, texts and phone calls will not be enough to push Committee effectiveness to the needed levels. Providing dedicated messaging and document sharing make the achievement of Committee objectives more likely.
Facilitate Document Management –Members should be able to quickly and easily share, store, search and retrieve documentation in support of Committee objectives. Providing tools and infrastructure to make document management simple directly support Committee effectiveness and reaching organizational goals.
