Members offer critique of ASME's Continuity and Change initiative

The following letter was sent to the Board of Governors and to other ASME volunteers who are working on the Continuity and Change initiative. It was also submitted for publication in ASME NEWS.

The undersigned have worked with consultants who have first-hand experience helping not-for-profit societies to grow under the similar conditions as those facing the ASME today. As additional background, several of the undersigned participated in the Futures Committee in 1999, which was the precursor to what became the Continuity & Change initiative today.

Our committee members [Editor's Note: This is an ad hoc group, and not an actual ASME committee.] are supportive of change as long as the plans and ramifications have been carefully considered. In future months and years, we're interested in being a part of the solution to the issues identified below. Members of our committee are available as a resource for you via telephone and e-mail. We are also available to meet with you during your meetings.

Update and Feedback
During March 2004, several of us attended meetings, including the Technical Executives meeting (TEC) in Pittsburgh, the Board of Government Relations meeting in Washington, D.C., and the power conference in Baltimore.

It was heartening to see the Council on Engineering and the Council on Member Affairs team up at the TEC meeting. Having each of the senior vice presidents actively work together with members of the technical divisions is a positive step forward.

Moving Forward
From these meetings and following the review of the documents from the March 13, 2004, Board of Governor's meeting, as well as the document entitled "Continuity & Change Transition Phase: Project Management," we continue to have concerns that we're "punting the ball" on additional challenging issues and decisions that face us today. In order to capitalize on unforeseen future opportunities and to minimize the risk of catastrophic mistakes, no subject or topic can be off limits for discussion and action.

There appears to be several that need to be thoroughly reviewed (these have not been priority ranked):

1) Overriding principle — All plans, and programs must address the issue: "What is the benefit for our members?"

2) Global growth — As a Society we need to decide if we are an American Society or a global Society. At present, our Society remains uncommitted to either philosophy. This is a challenging decision that we need to explicitly make since it will be a key factor in our future plans and has serious financial consequences for our Society. The process used for making this decision needs to be a democratic one and inclusive of all our members.

3) Methods of plan development and analysis that need to be used in the future:

• What is the problem(s) and root cause of the problem(s) that we're trying to solve?
• Risk analysis
• Robust contingency plans with go/no-go dates
• Realistic, measurable goals
• Are the timetable(s) achievable?

Any reorganization plan of this magnitude needs to include specific dates where we review our metrics to determine if we're on track. Since no one can foresee all of the potential benefits and pitfalls that we'll face, we need to have predetermined contingency plans based on likely scenarios. This will allow us to focus our resources on fixing future problems that are truly unforeseen.

4) Finance — The financial plan to move forward does not exist and our Society is not willing to write a blank check. Financial issues that need to be addressed:

• Financial plan development concurrently with other activities during the next 15 months.
• Plan implementation and post-implementation cost analysis.
• Our system for fund allocation is far too complicated and not transparent to our members.
• Are our operating expenses and headquarter location comparable to other successful businesses and societies of similar size?

5) Simplicity — We need a solid, simple operating structure.

6) People:

• Do we have the right people in staff and volunteer positions? What is the plan to draw from our membership's depth of knowledge.
• Does the staffing size make sense?

7) Inclusiveness — The ASME's grassroots members have remarkable experience in the challenges facing us. To date some of our leaders and executive staff have not been interested in at least listening to their suggestions. With our vice presidents taking the lead in reshaping our society, we hope to improve our working relationship by working with them to build a formal mechanism for feedback and by actively pursing feedback from our membership.

8) Young engineers — Retention of our young engineers has not been accomplished. An alliance has been formed between the Early Career Committee and the Management Division, but this alliance needs to grow to include all divisions and sections.

9) Minorities and women — The integration of minorities and women into the Society has not been accomplished. We need a formal mechanism for including minorities and women in everything that we do.

10) Communications — Our membership needs more frequent face-to-face communication with senior staff members, particularly during the onset of the plan development activities. Decisions made at all levels of the Society need to be easily available to our members.

11) Council on Education — The Council on Engineering and Council on Member Affairs are joining forces; we need to formally bring the Council on Education (COEd) into that team.

Competitive Analysis
A minority of staff and members has suggested that the ASME cannot be run as a service business. We disagree with that assertion, since a world-class service organization is "world-class" regardless of the organization's tax code classification.

Our grassroots committee sought input from representatives of two volunteer-based organizations that provide similar services in its are of specialty.

As a baseline, we used the following factors for the ASME (values are approximate):

American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 125,000 volunteer members, 350 paid staff, $67 million annual operating budget, founded in 1880.

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), 400,000 volunteer members, 200 paid staff, $42 million annual operating budget, founded in 1939.

AOPA is now known as "the place to go for your airplane questions." They have done an exceptional job in servicing their members since 1939 by educating pilots on technical issues as well as being an advocate for their members in public forums and the government.

Great marketing coupled with a focus on their members and a simple operating structure resulted in the AOPA's membership growing to 400,000 by 2003.

Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), 65,000 volunteer members, 50 paid staff, $35 million annual operating budget, founded in 1944.

The SCCA faced a truly challenging time in the 1990s. Its members consistently berated the organization for poor service. The staff was an "old boys club" uninterested in working with their members. And the organization was in a dire financial situation, since it was using money from its foundation to offset high operating costs.

Enter a new pro-member executive director (equivalent) and a fresh team of volunteers. In 1999, staff launched the first phase of an initiative similar to ASME's Continuity & Change initiative. Staff spent the first four months meeting with local sections during the week and weekends.

The philosophy of Steve Johnson, the executive director, was and remains: "The reason for our existence is for our members. If the staff simply sits in their offices, they are separated from the heartbeat of who we are." You'll find Steve and his staff traveling to local events and volunteering in "the trenches" many days of each week and weekend.

"We spent four years listening to our members, developed several strategies to respond to their suggestions, and then implementing the best strategy." At the same time, Steve moved the headquarters from the expensive location of Denver, Colo., to Topeka, Kan. "We needed to cut our costs and find a central location that was easily to accessible by our members on both coasts of North America."

The result was a 50 percent reduction in operating costs and world-class service.

Grassroots Feedback
The top-down development of the strategy now in place needs to be balanced with a bottom-up approach to planning by utilizing the depth of experience found in our grassroots membership. This means communicating the details of the current strategy. It also means being inclusive of our members' feedback and respecting their work/school/life volunteer schedule when calculating the amount of time that should be allocated for their feedback on our future plans. At present, less than 0.4 percent of our members were able to attend the five Continuity & Change meetings (including the 2003 Congress).

Feedback from our grassroots members needs to have a clear channel of communications to the vice presidents, project management task force and project management review teams. And the recommendations made by our members needs to be available for public viewing. We also need the feedback from all of our staff members who were not a part of the Continuity & Change Core team.

We look forward to working with the vice presidents, project management task force and project management review team in the coming months.

Sincerely,

Tom Libertiny, Board on Government Relations
Jill C. Anderson, Early Career Committee
Howard Berkof, Early Career Committee
Susan Ipri Brown, Board on Government Relations
Brian Dietz, Vice President, Region X
Brian Erbstoesser, Vice President, Region VII
Rebecca King, Chair, Southeastern Michigan Section
Diane Peters, Chair, Chicago Section
Cindy Strong, Vice President, Board on
Professional Development
Judith Todd, Vice President, Manufacturing
Keith Thayer, Life Fellow

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