Last week, IABC members received a short email from the chair of its International Executive Board with the subject line “IABC Leadership Changes.” Within the email are two classic bits of corporate speak: Two people “are no longer with the association” and “We wish them every success in all their future endeavors.”
The Hemingway app says the readability of this message is good, although one sentence is flagged as hard to read (in yellow) and two are very hard to read (in red). What the app doesn’t address is the jargon and lack of explanation of what’s going on behind the departures.
The Executive Director and the Membership Director are pretty high up the IABC food chain, so their departure wants a bit of explanation. Instead, we learn that an interim person is coming in, and her leadership and “expertise in leading global associations like ours” will presumably “resolve some of the challenges we’ve faced this year” as we “move ahead strategically” (whatever that means).
As an IABC member, I’d like to know why these two people left the organization. Were they fired for a lack of expertise in leading a global association? Did they leave on their own? Are they setting off together to start their own association? We have no idea.
There is no mention of what IABC’s challenges were this year, either, and why the exiting personnel somehow didn’t resolve them. Nor will you find details – or even a mention – about the “Leadership Changes” or the challenges faced this year on IABC’s home page or its News & Announcements section.
As I’ve said before, the corporate world has a long and not-so-proud history of using euphemisms. This substitutes an inoffensive expression for one that may offend, usually in the spirit of disguising bad news. Executives being “no longer with the organization” or “leaving to pursue other interests” generally mean involuntary departures.
IABC, please give members credit for being able to handle the truth, and give it to us.
Related reading
Hidden facts? Might as well be weasel words
6 reasons to avoid jargon and corporate speak
‘Improved experience’? Probably weasel words too
As an IABC leader, I received this email. The issue was a back-end technology rollout that was poorly managed and that caused membership renewals online to be disabled, thus causing a loss of renewing members.
Dear IABC Region Leaders, Chapter Leaders and Committee Chairs,
Later today, an email to all IABC members will be sent regarding some important changes, and we wanted to make sure that you were aware of this information first.
As of today, our Executive Director, Stephanie Doute and our Membership Director, George Hamilton are no longer with the association. We wish them every success in all their future endeavors.
On Monday, we will welcome Interim Executive Director, Erin McClain to IABC, and look forward to her leadership as we move ahead strategically, and resolve challenges we’ve faced this year as an association. Erin comes to us via
Leading Associations, a firm we’ve engaged to help us accelerate our recovery.
We know that issues with our technology rollout have resulted in significant
membership losses, and created financial difficulties for chapters and regions,
as well as the association as a whole. We are confident that Erin and the
Leading Associations team’s deep expertise in working with global associations like ours will help us move quickly in the right direction.
In the coming weeks we’ll be scheduling a Town Hall for our volunteer leaders to provide an opportunity to meet Erin, and ask any questions you may have.
In the meantime, thank you for your continued dedication to IABC, and for your
patience with us as we work towards building a future for IABC that allows us
to continue serving our members and advancing the profession.
Sincerely,
?
Victoria Dew, SCMP
IEB Chair
Hi Elaine,
Thanks so much for clarifying the situation. I’m glad to know IABC shared more details with the various regions, chapters and committee chairs, but I still say they should have been more up front with the rank and file members. Also, the explanation doesn’t specifically say that Stephanie and George’s departure is connected to the tech issues, but it certainly implies that they are taking the fall for it.
I heard from a few people who didn’t want to publicly comment, but agreed that as a communications organization, IABC could have/should have handled this differently. They noted that IABC squandered an opportunity to inform and educate by example. The departures were also an opportunity to discuss the challenges facing a global professional org in the tech age. They could have proffered ‘More info to follow’ if they wanted time to gather their thoughts.