Paradigm shift in AOTA Governance

Hi all,

I hope all of you are reading about the proposal for reorganizing the governance structure of AOTA. I want to talk about why now, what is the urgency for change? As I come to the close of my Presidency, I have been reflecting about what has been accomplished. One advantage of the Centennial Vision has been the change in focus on doing activities of the Association to investing in activities that are thought to have impact on moving us forward toward our agenda. We have had major opportunities and challenges to face in these past three years and more are on the horizon. The biggest issue I have dealt with is healthcare reform and how to ensure occupational therapy is included in any proposal. We had to mobilize many groups to take action by attending Capitol Hill days (there were four last year), engaging in virtual activism, keeping membership informed via web site and podcasts, and raising money from AOTA members for AOTPAC. The advocacy is never ending as now that healthcare reform is stalled, how do you make sure the CAPS exception process for Medicare part B gets reinstated? So, what does this have to do with reorganization? What I have learned is that human and financial resources of any organization are finite. In terms of human resources, our members are very busy people as are our staff. We have been increasing our membership numbers to over 40,000 members. We have to figure out how to increase members even more (140,000 practitioners), which increases both human and financial capital. We have to involve members in important activities that impact the profession. Members tell us they want to participate when they can, but when they do participate, they want it to be important but within a finite time period. Getting more people involved gives us the money and the people we need to get the work done to meet our profession's challenges.

Getting more people involved means we have to create a database so that members can self-nominate themselves for leadership that matches their interests, their skills, their time limits, and their need for growth and development. The reorganization proposal includes development of the Coordinated On-line Opportunities for Leadership database (COOL). Also, we want to invest resources into leadership development programs for those who want to lead and become involved. We have to make sure we have an ongoing pipeline for leadership that develops a broad range of members. By doing so, we also increase the diversity of our leadership, that is diversity of all types including racial, ethnicity, gender, years of experience, OTAs, more practitioners, etc. Therefore, the reorganization proposal includes a new standing committee, the Volunteer Leadership Development Committee whose purpose is to develop the COOL database by getting people to self-nominate, create leadership development programs, increase interest in running for office, nominate leaders for appointments to a growing number of ad hoc committee work groups, recognize the important work of leaders, etc.

So, all you have to do is to see the decline in the numbers of people running for office. We are starting to have more single slates for various offices. It is hard to get members to vote in races where there is only one person running.We need leadership now more than ever. We need to make sure that new practitioners see themselves as leaders and see AOTA as a place to gain more leadership skills and to feel competent that they can make a difference. We have to increase the average length of time new practitioners are members. The baby boomers are more likely to be life-time members, but they are starting to retire. Have we done our job to make sure AOTA is an inviting place to participate? Participation is the life blood of making sure our profession continues to develop and grow regardless of the challenges we face. Participation is the way we take advantage of opportunities and to mobilize accordingly.

I will install more entries on this proposal for reorganization.

Penny Moyers Cleveland

AOTA President

Published 17 Feb 2010 2:55 AM by Penelope Moyers
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Comments

# re: Paradigm shift in AOTA Governance

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 5:54 PM by Diane Gaffney

AS a baby boomer and long time AOTA active member and frequent volunteer to AOTA and/or the OT profession I applaud the proposed changes.  I particularly like the idea of COOL.  Over the years it has seemed to me that far too many qualified and interested potential volunteers were ignored simply because they were not well connected to the current leadership and/or powers that be.  Sad.  A smaller and more responsive governing body also seems to be a wise choice.  Thanks to you and the others who were chosen to volunteer on this project.  The material, rationale, and data presented is excellent.

# re: Paradigm shift in AOTA Governance

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 11:15 PM by Penelope Moyers

Thanks Diane for your comments. I would like to respond to the issue of people who want to volunteer but can't figure out how to do so, or when making their intersts known, there is no response. As AOTA president, I have had the honor visiting many states and interacting with practitioners at state association conferences and meetings. People come up to me and hand me their card and express interest and enthusiasm for being a part of the Centennial Vision. But then what happens? I keep the cards and when it is time to appoint people, I go through them and try to get them involved. This is not a good system. You can imagine what happens to the cards in trying to get them back home and then scan them into my computer. It is certainly not official way to track volunteers and is not accessible to anyone but me. I try to forward these names to staff and other leaders. But, is this a good use of my time? So, I want so much for people to enter their own names into a data base for all staff and leaders to use.

But, there is another fundamental issue underlying volunteerism here. What do I have volunteers do? AOTA is very procedural in terms of having Commissions and Committees with Standard operating procedures about how people get elected and who appoints, etc. This means that this group of people who are elected and appointed are committed for a three year time frame. Two things happen then. People get burnt out because that is a huge committment. Members are telling us that their employers and family lives are not supportive of such long-term committments. The second thing that happens is that no other member can be involved unless that Commission appoints some sub working groups.

The reality of the external environment is such that we need to be able to quickly respond to opportunities and challenges. If something comes up that needs immediate attention, the work of the Standing Commissions and Committees is already scheduled and it is hard to interrupt what they are doing. So, we have begun to use many more ad hoc committees to respond to these opportunities and challenges. In fact we have had over 44 such groups working on various issues over the past 5-6 years.

So the proposal addresses this issue by transforming the RA to a 15-member Council. The Council will over see the work of many ad hoc committees. These appointees for such work groups will come from the VLDC who will recommend people based on the COOL database and on their work in developing leaders. This allows many more people to be involved in the work of the association. And, these work groups will have a specific charge to be completed in a specific time frame. This also addresses the member issue of having limited time periods where they can serve.

Penny Moyers Cleveland

AOTA President

# re: Paradigm shift in AOTA Governance

Thursday, February 18, 2010 5:55 AM by Ron Carson

This concept is wonderfully energetic and proactive. "Kudos" are in order for the people involved in the development and implementation of this change.

Great job!