Maintain Motivation and Balance to Avoid Small-Staff Burnout

As written by me and published by the American Society of Association Executives, 1/24/2012

So much to do, so little motivation. That's burnout and it occurs in staff and in volunteers.
I was very excited to accept the job as executive director of the tiny, five-person, 2.1-full-time-employee-equivalent Chesapeake Automotive Business Association in September 2004. I was so motivated to do a good job for CABA that I was ready to work 24/7/365. Of course, I knew a schedule that intense was not sustainable over the long term, but I had done it before with previous jobs and was quite motivated again to give it my all.

I paced myself well, I think, and in 2011 when I left the job I had not burned out, learning to balance my work life with my personal life, down considerably from the 24/7/365 schedule of the early days, readjusting constantly around busy times and slow times as I traversed through those seven years.

But that was me. I was in control of my own schedule and could sense where my own motivation level was at any time. I could feel it when work crossed into my personal life.

When you are a CEO or a supervisor of any kind, however, the concern for burnout is often less about you and more about those who work for you, employees and volunteers.

"Burnout strikes when [people] have exhausted their physical and emotional strength," according to an article in Lab Manager magazine (see list of additional resources, below). Whether it occurs in the CEO, the staff, or among volunteers, burnout is a cancer that "can drain an organization's morale, as well as its wallet."

Motivation and Balance

A supervisor doing his or her job well will control the association work schedules for staff and volunteers, so if we fail to understand and respect the motivation level and balance point in the lives of those staff and volunteers, the organization is headed for "frustration, absenteeism, and turnover."

Good employees and good volunteers come in all combinations of motivation and balance; they are seldom at the same level. Some want a job, not a career. Some will give generously part time while others may only be willing to give sparingly to your full-time request. The most adept CEO or supervisor will learn to get the most from each type of employee and volunteer, and together they will excel as a team.

Almost all professors of burnout remedies warn against unreasonable expectations, certainly on the employees but also on the organization. As you add projects or cut staff, you must know where you stand against the motivation level and the balance line of each of the people asked to help make that project a success.

What is a Reasonable Expectation?

My employees and volunteers know that, when they come to me with their frustrations (too much to do in too little time, deadlines fast approaching, and more), my first response is: "We have 2,080 hours to work this year. Let's see where we are." The 2,080 hours is a loose measure of our 40-hour workweek and 52-week calendar, and I use it often if for no other reason than to make a point: I plan to execute our strategic plan in 2,080 hours this year. I intend to employ the right staff and recruit sufficient volunteers capable of attaining our goals without burnout. I planned for the year, not the day, the week, or the month. I didn't say we had 40 hours this week. I said we have 2,080 hours this year, structuring our payroll to encourage employees to step up when the need for extra effort arises. Employees can expect to get back on the 2,080 schedule with a little catch-up time after the crunch, thus avoiding burnout.

One method I employed to maintain control of the 2,080 hour plan was in my policy to award annual paid time off (PTO) in place of separate accounts for vacation, sick, and personal time. With PTO, I never heard the destructive complaint that one employee takes all of his or her sick leave and another takes only planned vacation time. Each employee knew what time commitment I wanted from them for each year. Without having to battle employees about their timesheet, I could stay focused on individual productivity. As the years wore on with my employees, I learned what motivated them and stoked their fire. I respected their work-life balance, and they knew I expected their contribution to my 2,080 hours in which I had to complete my job.
Well-meaning volunteers often suggest and even insist on adding new projects to an already crowded annual agenda. In fact, when I began with CABA, I had a tradeshow and two additional social events that I eventually convinced the board were not providing good returns on our time invested. These extra events were damaging the quality and effectiveness of our other higher-priority projects, I argued. We were spreading our sponsorship dollars, volunteer hours, and staff hours very thin across many projects rather than focusing on making a success of our most member-beneficial projects. The board may not have realized that I was also trying to manage burnout by prioritizing our project list.

In my seven years at CABA, I wish I could have done a better job developing my volunteers. It was one thing to digest the individual motivation levels and balance points of the employees I lived with each and every day; it was quite another to attempt that same understanding of my 20 or so volunteers who I saw in person only a few times a year. Unfortunately, the time to manage volunteers was often squeezed out by less important but operationally critical tasks like simple building maintenance. There were, after all, only 2,080 hours, and in a small-staff office, CEO or not, I was the one left to replace the light bulbs.


Skip Potter is an independent contractor in association management and is the former executive director of the Chesapeake Automotive Business Association in Pasadena, Maryland. Email: potter.skip@gmail.com

Additional Resources

There is much written on the topic of burnout, so if you need to learn more about the signs and causes there are many credible sources, including:

• "What is Employee Burnout?" Lab Manager, December 8, 2009
• "The 21 steps to guarantee employee burnout," by Kevin Kennemer, The Chief People Officer Blog, September 15, 2011
• "Job Burnout: Job Factors That Contribute to Employee Burnout," by Elisabeth Scott, MS, About.com Guide, updated February 21, 2010
• "5 Steps for Preventing Volunteer Burnout," by James Robbins, EZineArticles.com
• "Avoiding CEO Burnout," by Jennifer Salopek, Associations Now, August 2009

Balancing the Board-CEO Relationship

I've heard many complaints from fellow association executives about their relationship with their Board. Of course, we all seek a harmonious, productive and balanced relationship where the winner is a fast-growing association with a happy exec, thrilled Board and appreciative membership. Thankfully, some have found that balance.

Frequently, however, there are associations at opposite ends of the balance scale: Some execs complain they can't get their volunteers out of day-to-day operations leaving them to do what they are best qualified to do; while others complain they can't get volunteers involved enough, even to update the strategic plan.

Like most problems in association management, the solution is a moving-target and has multiple elements to consider. Take, for instance, my own experience with my association. When I accepted the job in 2004, I expressly complimented the Board on their history of direct involvement and told them I would need their passionate efforts to grow the organization.

To my surprise, I lost one volunteer after another within my first year. They would each tell me what a great job I was doing, smile and leave me to do my work and the work I thought they should be doing too. Oh well, I reasoned, they are busy running their own company and I have a lot of association management experience so I should be able to fill in for them. Before long, I found myself managing a massively diverse company with a Board who hardly noticed they were needed. Graciously they (some) would attend our quarterly Board meetings but when we couldn't grow new members or education events missed attendance targets, I was left to blame myself.

In hindsight, I recognized my primary failure was to fulfill one of the most important roles of a professional association manager: volunteer development. I was losing the initial board members because they were burned out. They had given a huge chunk of their cash and emotion to our association already before I arrived so, sure, they were happy to have me. In my haste to put my mark on my new association, I tried to replace with hard work a member development strategy that would take a volunteer's passion. I tried to sell seminar seats with smart promotion when I needed volunteers to show their passion for the events they helped plan. I should have spent more attention to filling the vacant Board seats and delegating responsibilities they would likely have enjoyed.

Meanwhile, I see associations where volunteers are picking the napkin colors, designing sales flyers, writing their own press releases and recruiting their neighbors kid as the association's preferred web developer. This is where the professional in professional association management earns his keep. The best of us professionals will recognize how to harness the passion and expertise of a volunteer and balance it with the processes and practices taught by our own American Society of Association Executives to separate the Board's strategic role from the staff's tactical role along a very wide gray line between them.

In developing volunteers and balancing their direct involvement in association activities it is the professional executive director's responsibility to know each members relevant skill and interest, then to direct their effort towards a productive result. Each volunteer has their own skill, interest and level of effort. But most want the same thing from their volunteer experience: A feeling of accomplishment in growing their association.

The professional exec is their facilitator, not their grunt. But it is the Exec's job to make that so.

Why do we attend a conference?

Why? To learn, to make contacts and to contribute to the greater good.

While we trade association leaders are always telling members the value of attending a conference, the same value exists for us organization leaders. On that measure I feel I have just completed two of the most valuable two weeks ever spent. A week ago I attended the spring Board meeting of the Alliance of Automotive Service Providers where I learned new education innovations from CARQUEST, met the future of the aftermarket in Hamilton Sloan and enjoined 3 new industry projects with the granting of thousands of dollars from AASP. Last week I attended the Alliance of State Automotive Aftermarket Association Executives held in conjunction with the incredible Spring Leadership Conference for the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association. There I shared insight and expertise with 400 of the most knowledgeable industry leaders; cultivated personal connections with the top executives in aftermarket manufacturing, distribution, service, education and communications; and witnessed pioneering efforts in industry image, business development, technology, education and association management.

What I learned, the amazing people I got to know and the initiatives I am now a part of will make me and my industry better for many many years to come.

Keys to a Strong Trade Association

I won't debate whether the primary element in a successful trade association is the professional staff CEO or the passionate volunteers of the Board and Committees. Evidence abounds to demonstrate success with either of these elements prevalent above the other. But if you want to see super-success you will most likely see it in trade associations where the staff CEO is a skilled and experienced association management professional and the volunteers believe and act as deeply about their association as they do about their business. I challenge you to find a profitably surviving and growing trade association that is void of one or the other of these key elements.

Many small trade associations, however, are financially limited in the level of professional association management they can afford to employ. The most common solution to this challenge is to hire passion if you can't afford the experience. I have great respect for dozens of such passionate Executive Managers and I have learned from most of them myself through the years. Typically, the strength of the passionate Executive Manager is operations; the power to reinvent the association does not yet live in them.

Passionate volunteers are much harder to find and even harder to organize into productive member machines. Without them, the association is in deep trouble. With an engaged team of volunteers who take their Board and Committee positions seriously and who will dedicate themselves to be champions of their specific cause and their association in general, the association is poised for great success.

Imagine the chemistry where your organization has access to the most experienced, best connected and critically inventive CEO talent, employs the most passionate executive manager and sits on the shoulders of many volunteer champions.

That is exactly what I am imagining for associations like the Chesapeake Automotive Business Association, a Maryland-based, regional non-profit representing auto service centers, tire dealers, parts jobbers and their suppliers. Their Board has contracted with me to support their Passionate President and their Passionate Executive Manager.

This is an exciting new trail for trade association management which lies somewhere between the traditional CEO/Board model and the Association Management Company model. If you think your association would benefit from my talent, experience and contacts, please let me quote you on my C6Support. SKIP POTTER