Don’t Become Anyone’s Raw Meat: A Lesson in Defensive Communication
This is inspired by an experience facilitating a board of directors’ retreat for an association undergoing a rebranding. While the board was excited about the new direction the organization was taking, the changes were met with swift and fierce negative reactions from longstanding members, who felt excluded from the decision-making process. In the end, the issue wasn’t so much the new name or logo, but how the changes were implemented. This incident exposed several rifts between the board and the membership.