New York Forum Officer’s Dinner

Last night we had an outstanding meal, connection and conversation. Enormous thanks to chef, former Global Forum Committee Chair, and one of the world’s top coaches, Bassel Hamwi. Four US states and 11 chapters were represented.

A highlight was the sharing round about how Forum had changed each of our life trajectories. Clearly the 550-odd individuals who serve as Forum Officers around the world are personally motivated to pay it forward.

We talked about Forum Officer challenges, best practices and technologies. Highlights:

Transition

The hand-off from the previous FO is a point of failure. There’s little data so you have to find out the status of all the forums yourself. Experiences with this were inconsistent. GLC Training comes late, sometimes FOs check out early. One best practice: call each moderator and build a relationship early. Also, this is what Dov’s FO Intelligence app is trying to address.

Visibility

Related - it is hard to know how Forums are doing. The historical culture of extreme privacy is changing a little to help with this. But there is no consistent definition of success, or health data. Forum tenure is probably the most important metric. A best practice is to survey moderators.

Y & Gold

There was a theme around managing integrated chapters and the aging out in Y chapters. Is 50 too young? How do you establish peerdom in Gold chapters that are a mix of retirees and hustlers? A best practice is to agree between Y and Gold to prorate budget support for a Forum based on number of members. No one wants to policerogue forums.

Membership

The FO-membership partner is essential, and there are different practices for working together. It is frustrating when membership limits intake making it hard to launch Forums. A best practice is for the FO be at least a very active participant in membership.

Launch

How heavy-handed should an FO be in putting a Forum together? Technology like Forum Intelligence can help streamline but this is ultimately a very human process. Many experience challenges like everyone wanting the cool restaurateur who just joined the chapter, with introverts being left out. One best practice is for members to form Forums organically - first two agree, then they add a third, then a fourth; this gives agency which helps with long-term success; but this is hard to scale. Another is for new Forums to broadcast their theme & focus. One member had 3 of 8 Forum launches fail.

Norms

How prescriptive should FOs be in how Forums are run? In one case a “1-miss” policy backfired because everyone took the miss and that resulted in almost no meetings with 100% attendance. Others shared different formats that worked better than the standard monthly meeting. 

Technology

Security is a big concern. This room was more interested in tech outside than inside meetings. 

The FO Role

Many start with high hopes but don’t have the systems or ability to meet expectations for launch or support. Some leave unfulfilled. Recent requirements can feel more like policing than support, with policies that don’t apply to some chapters. Forum gets as little as 5% of chapter budgets, but is considered by this room at least (and we think beyond) to be a much greater share of the YPO experience.

I did get my 5-minute appeal for help with Key Associate Forums; at least one attendee didn’t know about them. On this note, I’m excited for what’s possible when the forum-loving community of Forum Officers is informed and engaged.

I’m looking forward to more collaboration and connection points between FOs around the world. It made for a great dinner party.

About the Author:

Dan Hoffman is the CEO of ForumSpace. He believes organizations grow as fast as their people grow. He believes people, like plants, tend to grow toward the light. He's less interested in inventing something new than he is in helping an old, human practice make a resurgence in modern life. Through ForumSpace and CircleSpace, he is able to work on scaling beautiful, transformative small group experiences and live the Warhol quote, “Good business is the best art.”