Executive Vice President's Message
Keeping it Fresh—the Importance and Challenge of Turnover

From everything I read about not-for-profit associations in journals, achieving the right amount of turnover in any organization’s volunteer leadership is a never-ending balancing act, both at the governance and technical/scientific levels.  While turnover is necessary to ensure “fresh blood” enters the organization and new ideas are generated and acted upon, how do we, at the same time, retain our most talented and committed leaders?  This is especially challenging in times when volunteer recruitment and retention is becoming increasingly difficult due to work schedules and generational differences in attitudes on volunteerism. 

Recently, we instituted term limits for our three standing subcommittees to sync up with existing area committee policies.  Additionally, in the fall, we will institute the same policy at the Board committees level.  In general, our committee appointments are for a maximum of six one-year terms.  Simple math shows that we will have approximately 18 positions turn over per year at the governance level (ten committees + the Board = 108 members divided by 1/6 = 18).  With the addition of the ten scientific area committees, as well as our overall desire to achieve approximate parity among our government, industry, and healthcare professions constituencies, the numbers become a bit daunting. 

CLSI is a great organization with an outstanding reputation. Now, as always, our best recruiters are our volunteers and member organizations. Please do not hesitate to let any of our volunteer leaders or staff know of your interest in increasing your professional and personal profile by giving back to the profession.  It’s well worth the investment — just ask any of our 2,000 active “recruiters.”

Glen [ return to top ]