It’s the middle of summer here in Adelaide, where I’ve lived
my entire life. The last week saw the local temperature exceeding 40°C
(104°F)
on a number of days. Whilst I am currently typing in air-conditioned comfort,
it’s fair to say most Adelaidians know a good deal about heat.
Meanwhile, Rotary’s future district leaders are at the
International Assembly in San Diego being trained up for their important role
commencing July 1, and of course to deliver their own training to club and
district leaders in the months between now and then. Not having served as a
District Governor myself, I only have second hand accounts to go on, but I get
the idea there’s a good deal of heat experienced by incoming and serving
District Governors, and I’m not talking about the heat you feel when you step
outside at this time of the year in Adelaide. I’m talking about the heat to
continually increase our membership. There will no doubt be a comprehensive agenda of training
and inspiration delivered on all areas of Rotary leadership, but I suspect the
number one thing on the mind of all District Governors Elect as they return
home will be the prime directive: get the numbers up!
In his opening speech, Rotary International President Elect
(RIPE - we really need to work on our acronyms) Mark Maloney announced his
first emphasis was to grow our membership so that we can achieve more. “Last
year we set a record for the number of people who left our organisation. We
need to address the root causes of that member loss. Membership is all that
stands between a Rotary that serves and a Rotary that disappears.” You can view
his address in full here.
I was a District Membership Chair for three years, and I can
assure you, I felt the heat. I would imagine a good deal of club presidents
feel the heat too. I am very proud of the work I did in that role over three
years, but live with the constant regret that despite my efforts, the numbers
went down every year. I’ve often used the analogy of running up the down
escalator. You have to work pretty hard to even stay in the same place, and if
you relax for a moment, you get dragged down immediately.
I’m starting to work out why some of us work really hard
on membership, yet see so little in the way of results. It’s because most
Rotarians don’t feel the heat. I’m sure if we surveyed all of our members, the
overwhelming majority would respond that they would like to see the
organisation grow. You’d probably even get a majority that would agree that the
organisation needed to change. But if you conducted another survey and asked
the question, “In order to grow the organisation, are you willing to have your
Rotary experience change?”, I reckon most would say no. Most people will begrudgingly
accept change as long as they are not the ones who have to do the changing; as
long as they don’t feel any heat.
I put it to you that we already know what we need to do in
order to turn around our membership fortunes, but there are just too many who
aren’t prepared to do it. I strongly believe that the biggest change we have to
make is to transform from a meeting-centric organisation to a service-centric
organisation, but attending meetings with a meal and a guest speaker is so
embedded in Rotary culture, and it seems hard to see where how such a shift in
priorities would ever occur. Our last Council on Legislation in 2016 delivered
serious options for clubs wishing to provide more flexible meeting formats, but
in many clubs the Guardians of the Status Quo fight very hard to make sure
Rotary remains stuck in the 20th century, doing things the same way
we’ve always done them.
Sadly there are too many Rotarians who won’t lift a finger
to help grow the organisation. It’s not their job. They want everything to stay
the same, because staying the same means staying comfortable. I do have some
sympathy for those senior members who have worked hard and made a great
contribution over the years, and want to enjoy their remaining years in the
organisation. We all need to enjoy our Rotary experience, and get something out
of it. But that enjoyment cannot come at the cost of progress in all forms. We
must evolve and find new ways to serve, and attract new people to serve. Service
Above Self is our motto and service must be our priority. If we’re blocking
progress; we’re blocking growth. And if we’re blocking growth, we’re reducing
service capacity.
Maybe we can shield those long-standing members from the
heat, but club leaders still feel the heat, and must be free to respond to it. The
challenge for club leaders is that they're copping heat from both directions. They
feel the heat from district leaders who are constantly at them to grow
membership, and they feel the heat from the blockers within their own club who
fight against change. No wonder so many are happy to get out of the kitchen when their term expires. That’s a lot of pressure on those people who have
volunteered to lead the club.
The very highest levels of Rotary’s global leadership
desperately want to grow the organisation, or at best prevent it from
declining. On the surface at least, a bigger organisation means greater reach
and greater capacity to deliver tangible outcomes for those who need our help. But
there are also enormous operational costs in keeping our massive organisation
ticking. Those costs must be met by the membership base, and despite
increasingly frequent conversations about membership flexibility; there is
exactly zero flexibility when it comes to RI recognising you as a member. If
you pay RI dues; you’re a member. If you don’t; you’re not.
I have often asserted that our best opportunity for growth
lies with creating new clubs. I have been through the process myself, and I’m
not going to pretend it’s easy, because it’s far from it. But it’s doable, and
the opportunities for new clubs are infinite. The greatest factor that allows a
new club to thrive is what I call the “baggage free zone”. By starting with a
blank slate, there are no rituals or traditions to follow. No-one barking at
your heels with comments such as “But we’ve always done it this way”. That
freedom is invaluable, and it’s something I have noticed first hand at the
Rotary Club of Seaford. We do things differently because we are allowed to do
things differently, and we’re not held back by those who are accustomed to
things being done the same way for decades. As a result we can create a more
flexible style of Rotary that is more attractive to more people.
It would appear President Elect Maloney agrees. Here are a
few other snippets from his opening address. “We must grow Rotary by forming
new clubs. We need to form new clubs not only where Rotary does not exist, but
in communities where Rotary is thriving. We need to start new model clubs,
offering alternative meeting experiences and service opportunities.”
And here’s an extract from CEO John Hewko’s address at the
same event in 2018:
“We need to unleash the creativity of our 35,000 clubs, because
every club is a potential beta tester for different club models and models of
service. Some will work and some will fail, but the important thing is to think
differently.”
But here’s where things get challenging. The Guardians of the
Status Quo do not appear satisfied merely with denying progress in existing
clubs. They also want to block innovation outside of their own clubs. As if
there aren’t enough challenges faced by the trailblazing Rotarians who have the
foresight and gumption to start a new club. I faced considerable opposition
from neighbouring clubs when I announced plans to start the Rotary Club of
Seaford, and I’ve come to learn this is pretty much par for the course. I have a
Rotary friend in another Australian district who is facing similar opposition
right now to his moves to get a new club up and running from clubs in the
region.
I won’t mince my words. This disgusts me. It’s what happens when
SELF gets in the way of SERVICE. I know how the argument goes. It’s the very
same argument I heard near Seaford a few years ago. “You’re intruding into our
recruiting zone.”
There’s a mindset held by many Rotarians that sooner or
later, the new members will just come. Well, in some cases they do. Sometimes
new fish are attracted to old bait that has been sitting in the water for a
while. But more often than not, there are no fish interested in the sort of
bait you’re dangling overboard, and you need to change your bait.
The reason we found the 20 new recruits we needed to charter a new
Rotary club, was that we were offering a completely different version of Rotary
than that which was already on offer in the region. The existing clubs were
never going to attract the people we recruited. New clubs have that opportunity
to offer something new and attract new people. And the blockers know it, but
they want to have their cake and eat it to. They want their version of Rotary
to stay the way it always has been, but they want to attract the people they
have never been able to attract.
My message to the blockers is this. Your district leaders will
shortly return to your district, full of enthusiasm with new ideas and a drive
to grow the organisation. They in turn will pass those messages and enthusiasm
onto your new club leaders, who will then try and bring progress and growth to
your club. How about this year, we don’t stand in their way? How about we give
them the freedom to escape at least some of the heat? Maybe it's time to direct some heat towards the Guardians of the Status Quo.
