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Are you a member of the Georgia Nurses Association?
Why? Whether you are or not - is a key question for the current
leadership of GNA. In 1907, a group of very dedicated and courageous
nurses organized the Georgia Nurses Association. Since this first group
of committed women set out to improve the status of nurses and health
care, the Georgia Nurses Association has been at the center of nursing
in Georgia. Continuing that commitment to the nursing profession and
health care in Georgia, the Board of Directors and the District Assembly
(the presidents of the districts) met for the annual leadership retreat
in November, 2004. The group examined GNA's existing strategic plan and
developed new strategies to navigate the course for the future of
Georgia Nurses' Association. National trends of associations and nursing
associations in particular were utilized to lend objectivity to this
work.
Memberships in organizations are declining. The
youngest members of our own profession are not joining organizations
either. There are many reasons - too many commitments; not enough time;
the organizations not meeting the needs of the membership; not enough
money, etc.
As part of the preparations for GNA’s Centennial
Celebration, the Board of Directors and members of the District Assembly
(the presidents of the districts) made a commitment to increase the
membership of the Georgia Nurses Association.
After reviewing and reaffirming the mission
statement- “Nurses Shaping The Future of Professional Nursing and
Advocating for Quality Health Care” this leadership group decided by
group consensus that the Georgia Nurses Association is to serve it’s
members first, followed with serving the Nursing Profession. Therefore,
the focus for the Georgia Nurses Association was determined to be:
Create meaningful, diverse opportunities and services for GNA members
and promote professional nursing practice in Georgia.
The Board of Directors selected the Executive Board
and the Director of Strategic Planning to develop a plan to meet the
goal of increasing the membership. In the book, Good to Great by
Jim Collins, the focus of how an organization moves from just “being”,
to surviving and thriving is analyzed. The group is using this research
as a reference. The concept that Mr. Collins expounds is that an
organization can either be a fox or a hedgehog.
The hedgehog simplifies the complex world into a
single organizing idea -and for GNA -that is to meet the needs of our
members! Therefore, to look at increasing our membership - the special
task force that has been commissioned to work on this issue is called
the Hedgehog Task Force. The Hedgehog Task Force (Betty Daniels, Kay
Gatins, Debbie Hackman, Kay Hampton, Wanda Jones, Kathy Shaw, and
myself) have met over ten times to work on this plan. This group has
been following the recommendations of the facilitator from our initial
work session. The initial commitments of the Hedgehog Task Force
were to make sure that this working group clearly communicated our
working plan to not only the Leadership of GNA, but to the members and
potential members.
The facilitator recommended that the Hedgehog Task
Force could either start with a fresh piece of paper and develop an
organizational structure that would meet the needs of our members, that
included working with our passion, making sure that it focused on what
GNA does best and that the organization could financially support it’s
mission. Or the second option given was to examine the current
structure of the organization and determine what was working and what
needed to be re-examined and changed. The Hedgehog Task Force combined
the two methods.
The Board and District Assembly Retreat participants
identified seven critical success factors were necessary to move the
organization forward:
-
Effective and responsive
structure and processes.
-
Substantive financial
and human resources to do this work
-
Effective communication
with the membership, other organizations, the public, and
policy-makers.
-
Tangible and intangible
products valued by members.
-
Supportive environment
for the new generation of members.
-
Inspired, committed
members
-
Leadership commitment
So what does this mean for the Georgia Nurses
Association? The Hedgehog Task Force examined numerous parts of the
organization and determined that a good portion of time is spent on the
structure and governance of the organization. The desire was to
streamline these areas so that association leaders and volunteers could
spend more of their time focused on topical issue related work that is
important to our members and would produce tangible outcomes.
In the proposed new
structure, the first major change would be that the organization would
move to two year operational cycles. (Effective and responsive
structure and processes). The elections would be every other year
(the current system of having some positions elected every year has
caused a lot of stopping and restarting of structural units work).
Since many in the organization stay in the same position for more than
one term – continuity would not become an issue. But by having all the
elections on the same cycle it decreases the upheaval of having to start
over every year with many new members on all the structural units.
Allowing for a two year work cycle gives volunteers a more realistic
time frame to produce meaningful outcomes.
The financial structure would also be placed on a
two-year cycle of budgeting to support the structural units work plan.
The other major change would be that instead of
having a convention every year – the “convention” would be every other
year, with the intervening year being for those other special situations
–such as having a “Celebration for Nursing” or a “Call to Nursing” –
where more continuing education and celebration of Nursing can be
accomplished! ANA has already adopted the biennial system and GNA is
currently one of the few remaining SNA’s to have an annual House of
Delegates.
During this review – it was acknowledged that some of
the programs have become watered down by apathy. All of the Honors and
Scholarships need to be “beefed up” – to improve the publicity and
re-engagement with these programs. The Nurse of the Year Program was
selected as one of those programs that needed to be re-evaluated and
updated to meet the needs of the membership. Too few volunteers were
available to assist in making this program viable and organizationally
strong – and meaningful to the general membership. A lack of enthusiasm
and participation from the members caused concern.
To become the effective and responsive organization
that will be needed to attract and retain new members (especially the
younger generation)—the Georgia Nurses Association must be more
responsive to the members’ needs –meaning that the Georgia Nurses
Association MUST HAVE LESS STRUCTURE AND MORE FLEXIBILITY!! Members want
to engage in their passions and they want to make a difference with the
limited volunteer time they have. No one needs another generic business
meeting to go to.
There is a great need for additional means of
Membership and various ways to engage our members in important issues
while respecting their hectic lives.
The first additional membership category that has
been approved by the 2004 House of Delegates is the “State only”
membership. This is for members who have more of a local interest, want
a less expensive alternative to join and perhaps can not commit to the
national scope yet.
The next level of additional membership will be to
connect with and encourage involvement from other nursing organizations
in Georgia. It is important to offer the different groups such as the
Nursing specialty groups (like the Emergency Room Nurses) and the
Professional Nursing Organizations (like the Georgian Association of
Nurse Educators) the opportunity to become Organizational Affiliates.
This would bring more connectivity within the profession and would put
GNA’s structure more in line with the American Nurses Association’s new
organizational affiliate structure. Building an inter-related community
for the profession like this is a wonderful opportunity for all of
nursing. The autonomy of the Organizational Affiliates structure and
governance would remain with them. The connectivity would be about
communication and issue collaboration.
The last –but probably the most important aspect of
becoming an effective and responsive organization is that the meetings
need to be accessible and convenient. Meetings need to be where the
nurses are. In this era where time is such a commodity nurses do not
want to drive great distances to attend a meeting.
Therefore, to be more responsive and flexible – the
Georgia Nurses Association would move to a CHAPTER structure rather than
the current large districts. These chapters can be set up to meet the
needs of those who want to gather. The goal would be have a minimum of
10 nurses per chapter –with no limit on the number who belong. Nurses
would be able to join more than one chapter. A chapter could develop at
their work facility –and another of new graduate nurses could form a
chapter (statewide on the internet) – or an alumni group from their
nursing school –or a group of orthopedic nurses in their city. The
possibilities are endless! The goal of the chapter is flexibility and
meeting the self-determined needs of shared interest groups.
The chapters would have very little structure – each
can dictate what will work for their own group. This will allow the
chapters to meet the professional needs of nurses at all the different
levels (from new grad to retirees; from specialty groups to
generalists)! There would be one set of By-Laws for all of the chapters;
the chapters will be the master of their own destiny; the funding of the
dues portion that has been goint to the Districts would go into a
Special Grant Fund at GNA. The chapters will be able to request funding
for their projects – with the GNA Finance Committee overseeing the grant
requests and disbursements.
We want to build a community within Nursing.
Therefore, the chapters need to have a resource person –this will be a
“Regional Representative”. Not today’s Regional Rep – but a new and
different function. There will be more than in the current structure.
The recommended number will be determined by a special task force (Chair
Sheila Warren, the current Regional Reps and a few current district
Presidents) are developing recommendations for the number of regional
liaisons that would be needed in a new system.
The Regional Liaisons would be part of the
Membership Development Committee that is Chaired by the Director of
Membership Board position – thus making sure that these individuals have
all the current information to communicate to the chapters.
The other very MAJOR CHANGE to the proposed structure
–is that of changing from the current delegate structure – to a one
member one vote structure. The convention would change from a House of
Delegates to a Biennial Membership Assembly. Many states have this type
of structure – and have found it to be quite successful! The Current
Delegate Structure Limits Participation –particularly of our youngest,
newest members!
One member – one vote will increase participation and
interest in the issues.
So how would the work of the Georgia Nurses
Association actually get done? By utilizing specific Task Forces. At
all levels – task forces can be developed to work on certain issues or
projects. With a set goal (someone’s passion) – the member can
volunteer for activities knowing that their involvement will be focused
around that one issue and will have a start and stopping point.
This will work for practice issues, such as studying
Palliative Care. If this is identified as an area of interest, a task
force could be formed and they determine the needs, i.e. educational
programs needed around the state and the call for volunteers for the
task force goes out along the list serve. The chair of the task force
is determined, the project is organized and worked on and then programs
planned, executed and then evaluated. This task force is dissolved and
new ones formed.
This can work in all aspects of the organization.
This flexibility will allow nurses to get involved where their passion
is – then back out when completed. Some task forces will be very short –
while others could function for years.
The next Critical Success Factor is that of having
the right Financial and Human Resources available for the success of
the organization. There will be a need to identify the funding
changes that will be needed to support the new structure. (Issues that
the Hedgehog Task Force are working on.) The key Human Resource change
will be adding a professional Communications Director to the staff to
assist both GNA and GNF with media exposure, organization brand
awareness and the development of internal and external communication
infrastructures to connect our critical messages with members and
external policy makers. One of the Critical Success Factors identified
is that of having Effective Communications! Having a professional
communications staff member will help implement a complete Media and
Communication Strategy. The communication links to the membership will
be strengthened utilizing more of the technology that is available (and
those that will be forthcoming in the future!). The Web Site – although
very good – will continue to improve –to include member-only services
and chat rooms and blogs for those specific groups that want to share
information and ideas.
What do we need more than anything –Inspired and
Committed Members! The question is how to get them!! So a survey of
the membership will be done. The goal is to identify the members’
problems and expectations—we need to have information in order to
identify what type of services GNA should be offering. The specialty
nursing organizations should also be surveyed. In order to meet the
expectations of these groups, GNA must know what they want!
How and what to provide in the way of Tangible and
Intangible Products –these answers will come from the surveys. The
chapters will have the ability to request funds to help them meet the
needs of their chapters. This could be to pay for speakers, events,
projects, programs, etc. The goal is that the resources will be
allocated to where the work is being done!!
As a first step to provide a Supportive
Environment for the New Generation a survey of the GANS board was
accomplished, along with the Hedgehog Task Force having lunch with the
GANS board and discussing numerous common issues. As President of the
Georgia Nurses Association I have spoken to the GANS convention and am
scheduled to speak at their Leadership conference– but more avenues for
interaction are being developed.
The list of who would serve on the Board of Directors
of the Georgia Nurses Association for 2 year terms in the proposed new
structure are:
•
President
•
President – Elect
•
Treasurer
•
Secretary
•
Director – CAN (Center for American
Nurse) – Workplace Advocacy Issues
•
Director – Leadership Development
•
Director – Legislative/Public Policy
•
Director – Membership Development
•
Director – Practice Issues
•
Director – UAN (United American Nurses)
– Union / Labor Issues
One of the new
Board positions identified would be the Director of Leadership
Development. Traditionally (in our past) leaders often times worked
their way up the ranks by serving in elected positions at the District
level. As we make the grassroots more fluid and flexible, there would
still be a need to provide association leadership development
opportunities - “a novice to expert” program. For those who have a
potential interest in association Board leadership, GNA could provide a
formalized program that had all the basic components of teaching
interested parties more about things like:
§
the GNA structure and how it works
§
the ANA structure and how our inter
–related work is accomplished
§
what a non-profit board member’s
responsibilities are - like fiduciary, strategic planning, budgeting,
issue identification and prioritization, media interviews, etc.,
etc.,
This could even
become a CE certificate program that the Director of Leadership
Development created, organized and promoted. A task force or committee
to support this Director could become a place for some of GNA’s past
leaders to continue to serve as well as perhaps training the Regional
Liaisons to put on these programs. Leadership development will be
entirely different from Membership Development. One is seeking quality
the other is seeking quantity. This program could also be a way of
helping Nominations identify potential leaders for the ballot.
As we move into the next century as an organization,
the Georgia Nurses Association must continually challenge itself to be
flexible, creative and innovative –in order to meet the evolving needs
of members and potential members. Developing and implementing all of
these changes will be a monumental undertaking –which the Leadership
of the Georgia Nursing Association is determined to bring to
fruition. And of course, more ideas (particularly yours!) are being
solicited! The first step is communicating all of these ideas to the
membership; followed by changing the By-Laws and finally working through
the transition and implementation. The GNA By-Laws committee is working
to take the Hedgehog Task Force’s recommendations into a workable
organizational structure. Look for these changes in our next issue of
Georgia Nursing and ultimately on the web at
www.georgianurses.org. GNA’s 2005 Delegtes will address these
potential changes in structure and bylaws in October at the House of
Delegates in Columbus. Between now and then an assertive communications
plan has been developed to present these new concepts and rationale
statewide to leaders and members-at-large to help answer questions.
I hope that you can feel the excitement of the change
that is coming for the Georgia Nurses Association. As we celebrate our
past hundred years as a profession and organization within Georgia –it
will take innovative, creative and supportive ideas and individuals to
help us insure that the Georgia Nurses Association survives into the
next hundred years! I look forward to your suggestions and support as
we courageously move to update our organization!! Feel free to email me
at – leasterly@hhc.org. |
