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Pearls of Wisdom: 2014
PRESIDENT IN 2014
MS. KIMBERLY LILLEY, CIRMS, CMCA, BERG INSURANCE AGENCY
When I became President of the CAI Greater Inland Empire Chapter, there was general confusion about what each person, committee, or board member’s goals were, how CAI National fit in, and overall, who was supposed to do what. I considered it to be my goal for the year to help people understand just where they fit in and how they could best contribute to making CAI and the Greater Inland Empire Chapter better.
First on the docket, Policies & Procedures at the board level. This document was completely overhauled to reflect the actual policies in place and the board codified the procedures that needed to be in place from one group to the next. Next, the board gave specific “tasking” to each committee so they would each understand their goal: they would know, without having to wonder, what it looked like for them to be successful, according to the board’s overall (big picture) plan.
After that, the committees could flesh out exactly the steps they would take to achieve the tasking the board gave to them. The challenge here was not the committees coming up with ideas, it was the board wanting to jump in and micromanage the committees. It is a big adjustment for chapter boards to go from serving on committees (doers) to being chapter board members (visionaries), but knowing that there was a difference helped a lot in keeping each group in their individual “lanes.”
Finally, we communicated and interacted more with CAI National and were able to take better advantage of the information and training they could provide. The challenge of clarity of purpose in a large organization is a big one. To achieve that end, good communication is needed, and clarity around what it means to lead is also important. All of this came into play in 2014 when we, as a Chapter, could easily say: “Challenge Accepted!”
