Leadership Development at Region Conferences

Is it true that ARMA International will be organizing next summer’s Region Leadership Conferences?

• Yes. Next summer, the US regions of ARMA will combine their conferences into 3 regions: East, Central and West. These will be organized and run through a collaboration between ARMA HQ and the respective region teams.

Why?

• The first thing that lead us to this decision is that region leadership teams were focusing too much on planning region leadership conference rather than direct support to chapters.  With this new model the regions and HQ staff can work together on delivering what both do best.  HQ focus on logistics and set up while region leaders focus on chapters and content for the meetings.
• Additionally, this addressed the fact that our chapter leaders were getting different experiences at each RLC, therefore these inconsistencies prompted ARMA to delegate resources towards producing leadership training and development specialized for ARMA leaders. (This also eliminates the need to impose chapter assessments when applied in some regions).  This gives chapters an opportunity to hear from other chapters of similar size and structure from other regions that they haven’t had the opportunity to work with in the past.
• This is all part of ARMA wanting to direct more resources and energy to making volunteering and leading easier. In each RLC next summer, all attendees will experience one unique educational event that will capitalize on the success that these events have already had.

Why haven’t we heard about this sooner?

• We chose to introduce the bulk of the coming developments in person as opposed to simply in writing. We wanted to communicate with you face-to-face so as to directly to hear your feedback.
• Since we will be able to talk with you and hear leaders’ perspectives throughout the summer, we will have a better understanding of your concerns and how we can address those as we move forward. Ultimately, the Region/Chapter Project is a reflection of that which we’ve heard from you over the years, and we don’t plan to stop listening.

Why 3 conferences and not 8?

• In examining ARMA’s adoption of RLC’s, a few factors helped us decide to narrow it down from 8 to 3 in the summer of 2015:

– First, the more resources we can delegate to fewer events, the higher quality that the events will be.

– Second, combined conferences will help leaders broaden their network even further in an event pulling for a larger geographic area.

– Last, we have often heard that members can’t justify taking off work for leadership development, so we are looking to potentially combine these with roadshows or other education to increase the ROI for attendees.

How does this relate to ARMA International’s information governance initiatives and the Annual Conference and Expo?

• The Region Leadership Conferences do not align with ARMA’s goals with IG. That is an entirely different department, and the owner of the region/chapter program is not intimately familiar with what their strategic plans are outside of the high level reports what’s reported by the board at RLC’s. Therefore, these events will not compete, replace or emulate ARMA’s International Conference and Expo.
• The function of Region Leadership Conferences will remain exactly the same – if anything, they will be enhanced by the additional resources that HQ is able to provide. The content will still be driven by the region leadership, and the focus remains on chapter leaders. The value in having a strong leadership supported by a close network is what HQ aims to maintain. By unburdening the region teams of the logistics and financial and event management, we are further empowering the capacity of members to support members – region leaders to support chapter leaders.

Will Region Leadership Conferences still be fun?

• The fun is not going away. There will still be social events with a local touch, we’ll expect region leaders to generate agendas that foster collaboration and interaction, and with a bigger family there will be more excitement and energy.

Will these events cost more for attendees?

• We are aware that potential for increased travel could mean increased costs for attendees. This means that we will be hosting these events in cities which are easy to get to and centrally located.
• We will be reexamining our leadership grant program to help ensure that it remains affordable for chapters to send leaders to the events as well as individuals to come on their own.
• ARMA does not have intentions for this to be a profit-driven vehicle. As a not-for-profit organization, while we still look to generate revenue in order to increase the value of our services, the fact is that value comes first. This notion is at the core of the decision to allocate resources towards RLC’s. Thus, costs to attendees are intended to remain as reasonable as regions have always kept them and, like with the leadership grant program, we will continue to look for ways to drive costs down for attendees.

Will chapters be involved in organizing these events?

• We may confer with local leaders for recommendations for social events and the like, but we will manage all the logistics and management. Chapter leaders already spend a lot of time on organizing their yearly programming, and we want to ensure they have time to focus on that.

Our region is tight knit and we want time to spend with just our close network of region members – will this be possible?

• Each region group is still going to have time at RLC’s with just their region people. We will be setting time aside specifically for regions to be in their own room with each other to talk region business, to be social, to maintain the family feel that you are all passionate about.

How will HQ pick the cities in each region?

• HQ will aim to pick cities that are central and easily accessible with the primary goal to minimize costs for all attendees. We understand that proximity is important for leaders, so we will do our best to ensure that it will be untroublesome for leaders.

When can we expect to know details about next year’s RLC’s?

• We are piloting a hybrid of our proposed RLC format with one region this summer in order to learn more about the traditions and aspects of the events that we will look to preserve and that which we will want to improve, expand and/or streamline.
• After the 2014 RLC’s are over, HQ will begin to plan for 2015. Information will come out as soon as it is available.