Association Leadership - September/October 2007 - (Page 21)

7 Measures of Success Up close and personal: Chief Elected Officer Jim Boon as “Broker of Ideas” I As TSAE chair, Boon hopes for give and take on new ideas By Lyle Fitzsimmons education conference in September. Boon is executive director of Texas Exes, the alumni association for the University of Texas. He has been on the TSAE board for three years and will be chair for one year. The role of the CEO as an association’s “Broker of Ideas” is measure ﬁve of the “7 Measures of Success: What Remarkable Associations Do That Others Don’t,” a 138-page book published earlier this year by the ASAE and The Center for Association Leadership. “The leader is expected to set the pace,” Boon said. “But obviously, if a leader does that to the exclusion of all other input from available sources, he’s going to wake up one morning and realize that he’s 180 degrees out of sync with the organization.” To both prevent the latter and encourage the free ﬂow of ideas throughout the association as a whole, the new chairman plans to tap into what he considers an existing TSAE strength – a broad-based and communicative infrastructure. “Anyone who’s familiar with our organization knows that we’ve gone through seven years of ‘interesting’ times, and by interesting I mean difﬁcult,” Boon said. “But now that we have a good, stable staff, it’s my job to stay out of the way and let them ◆ continue their progress.” t’s a tough tightrope to walk. Upon taking a prominent role with an organization – elected, appointed or otherwise – a new leader has to skillfully balance a desired personal vision for the group with the longterm views of an already entrenched membership. Make no mistake, the question is one that Jim Boon – incoming chairman of the Texas Society of Association Executives – has already wrestled with while preparing for a one-year term that ofﬁcially gets under way at the group’s annual meeting and “The leader is expected to set the pace. But obviously, if a leader does that to the exclusion of all other input from available sources, he’s going to wake up one morning and realize that he’s 180 degrees out of sync with the organization.” September/October 2007 | Association LEADERSHIP 21

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Association Leadership - September/October 2007

Contents Chairman's Column Homepage 60-Second Solutions An Interview with TSAE’s New Chairman TSAE’s Newest Board Members 7 Measures of Success Association Case Study: Diversity on the Board Assessing Your Association: Texas Nursery and Landscape Association TSAE's Annual Golf Tournament Between the Covers Now Online at TSAE.org – Association Leadership Magazine Getting Found Through Web Searches “I Survived a Year on a Committee!” New Members Community Spotlight San Antonio Mississippi Gulf Coast Index to Advertisers Board of Directors

Association Leadership - September/October 2007

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