Ep. 2 | Thad Lurie: Why the Association Model Needs to Change

Is the traditional association model still fit for purpose in 2026? In this second episode, Jackson is joined by Thad Lurie, SVP of Digital and Technology at American Geophysical Union and recipient of the Association Trends Trailblazer Award, to explore what it really means to lead innovation inside an industry that has traditionally favored stability over speed.

Thad shares the communication-first philosophy behind some of the most ambitious AI pilots in the association space, why incremental experimentation beats "fail fast" in association culture, and what AGU's real-world experience with declining attendance reveals about the pressures facing scientific associations today.

And he closes with something every association leader should reflect on: "Associations worry too much about what was and not enough about what will be."

Topics covered:

• Why communication matters more than technology in driving successful innovation
• Running incremental, low-risk experiments in a consensus-driven culture
• The membership value proposition and whether the annual meeting model is sustainable
• Trust, identity and why peer-reviewed associations are positioned to win in the AI era
• Rethinking the pipeline content model in favor of a platform approach
• Personalization as a tool for member value, not engagement manipulation

Transcript

Thad 0:02

I do think that associations need to think very carefully about why people would be part of their organization. What does that value exchange look like now and what is it gonna look like 10 years from now? Because that's a difficult question to answer. There is a space here for us to make people's professional lives more efficient. To give them things they didn't have before, to give them access to the right content and to help drive not only their knowledge, but their career, their networks, and really their industries.

Jackson Boyar 0:47

Hi everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Built to Connect podcast. I am Jackson Boyar, co-founder and CEO of Rally Board. And today we have a fantastic guest in Thad Lurie. He is perhaps best known for conducting some of the most innovative, large scale AI pilots in the association field. He's currently at American Geophysical Union. And I just love his perspective as a thoughtful, future forward leader in the association space. He shares a ton of insight on the culture of innovation, how to take incremental risks, and what associations could do differently to on the next wave of innovation. I hope you enjoy the episode. So Thad, you are currently the SVP of Digital and Technology at American Geophysical Union, but you are an association expert in many ways. This is not your first rodeo. I could name the long list of associations you've been in a leadership role at, just to name a few American Health Law, American Wind Energy, EDUCAUSE. Which intersects with my past life. And you've most recently won the Association Trends Trailblazer Award. So like many, I think I saw you first on the association circuit doing a TED Talk, which was inspiring in terms of how associations can be using AI. And today, we'll, we'll probably touch on some of that work, but most interested in a view on your, your mindset and perspective. I would venture to say that you've been part of more innovation than most association leaders across your career, and that's something rare in this, in this space, and we'd like to learn from you. So, thanks for being here today. I'll really kick things off with an open-ended question. How did you get here and what sort of formed your view on the role technology can play in associations?

Thad 2:45

It's funny you asked, I was talking to someone about this just the other day. 'cause they asked, well how did you get your start? And I said, I was a first grade teacher. And they were like, what? And it's true. I did a master's in education, I was teaching, and then I moved into technology, with the advent of the web and it just kind of all went from there. It's interesting, looking across my career, which I, I don't get a chance to do all that often. we have done a lot, and I mean, if you think about where associations were when I started in the industry where we were just learning to build websites and we were just learning to do, you know, online e-commerce and transactions and whatnot. And now here we are where, you and I are having a conversation about building new features into an app, using Claude code in a day. It's, we've made a lot of progress and in a way it's very exciting. And in other ways it's scary because it feels like the velocity of change is accelerating a little bit. And I guess that's kind of just the nature of things, right? It always feels like we're kind of on this curve and, and things are just getting faster and faster and faster. And we're in the process of, adapting and trying to figure out how to manage this and leverage it for value for our communities. But, you know, that's what we do is associations. We figure that out and then we, we deliver things to people and hopefully they're useful.

Jackson Boyar 4:04

You're an observer of the trends and you know, I think you've been equipped at, at multiple organizations to take advantage of that. Certainly with the research you've done at AGU and maybe we can, we can start with some of the success and then I'm also interested in where you see associations getting tripped up. What is the, the culture you believe technology leaders or even non-technical leaders and associations need to bring to technological change to stay with the times?

Thad 4:34

That's a good question. And it's one of the things that we, we talk about as a set of leaders within the industry. You know, there's, there's not so many of us. It's a relatively small sandbox. And I think we started figuring out not so long ago that the technology components of what we're doing are important, but they're in many ways a commodity at this point. I remember, gosh, it must be 10 years ago now, Reggie Henry from ASAE saying, we really need to focus on communication. We really need to focus on collaboration because the technology's there, that isn't necessarily the issue. And so when we talk about how to successfully innovate with technology and how to move organizations forward, whether it's a digital transformation or implementing AI or standing up a new website or you know, replacing your AMS with a new ecosystem, technologically, those are all doable. And sure there are gonna be challenges and hiccups and customizations and whatnot, but I found what makes my efforts most successful is communication. You have to talk to people, you have to bring them with you. You have to listen to them. 'cause I mean, folks have a lot of good ideas. They might not always work. But having those conversations, I think is critical to the success of the project, not only from an ideation and design perspective, but when people are part of the team, they buy in a lot faster. They champion it elsewhere. They make sure that the adoption in their team is as high as it can be. They want things to be successful. And so I think in many ways, back in the nineties, we ran tech projects in a black box, partially because we could, partially because a lot of people didn't understand what a SQL query was, and that's what was driving a lot of the world at the time. we just, we wanted speed and, and all of a sudden there was this like sense of being able to, to move quickly and do things. And leadership would just kind of sign off on it 'cause they didn't understand it. We are not in that world anymore, nor was it necessarily the best version of what we can do. Now I think we have an obligation to explain what's going on. In business terms, so that everybody understands that everybody knows where we're going. We have a clear and agreed upon shared understanding of what we're trying to accomplish, what the outcomes look like, and we communicate as we go. We share updates. We're transparent, we're candid about, okay, this went well, this didn't go so well. This is gonna be a three week delay. We just found this bug. or we just realized that there's a use case that we never even thought of. Do we want to pause? maybe do some parallel development. Let's all talk about it together. All those decisions that were made in a vacuum, they weren't necessarily good business decisions because they were technical decisions. We really, really need to make sure that we're working all together so that we're moving in the correct direction as a team rather than things fragmenting and then people getting upset, and then it all goes sideways. It doesn't matter how good your tech is, if the business does not adopt it or does not believe in it, or will not go and sell. So I think that communication aspect is where we are successful.

Jackson Boyar 7:45

It's almost like starting your career as a teacher actually pays off. Who would've thunk? Love it.

Thad 7:50

Working with a bunch of frustrators gave me a whole bunch of skills that I needed later.

Jackson Boyar 7:54

Yeah, that's project management, 101 right there for sure. So I, I love the focus on communication because I've seen this time and again where, technology is not going to solve problems without the culture and the structure in place. How do you reconcile the idea that folks need to be communicating, collaborating on an active basis with the tension? In associations of more consensus based decision making, more process at times, more stakeholders across board, volunteers, members, and then what you've seemingly been able to do, which is rapid iteration, maybe less fear of failure, trying things, experimentation. How do you reconcile those two concepts?

Thad 8:39

Tough question and, and, and to be fair, we don't always do it successfully. Sometimes that is the stumbling block. I was writing back in 2010, 2012 articles for a SAE about why associations tend to be more com not compliant, risk averse. And they tend to be willing to let others lead and to follow after the primary portion of the risk has been de-risked. It's it's just the nature of the industry in that because we're purpose-driven, because we aren't necessarily. Well certainly aren't required to, and in some cases aren't even encouraged to make a profit i. e. drive money above, break even to put back into the reserves or to drive research and development, Complacent, that's the word I wanted. They tend to be a little complacent and it, it's not about driving something incredible. It's about good enough. And so I think in some ways. That comes back to bite us. I'm not saying all associations do that and I'm, I'm not saying that it's necessarily bad to not be the first early adopter, but there is generally a culture challenge there that we tend to move towards consensus. And when you're all in consensus, it's very hard to do things that are spectacular because you're always finding that middle ground. Middle ground is de-risked. Middle ground is less aggressive, and I, you don't know of any incredible product launches that weren't risky. You don't know of any new great ideas that broke ground that were a shared thing that everybody did together. I think in some ways we accept that trade off. We accept that we're not going be doing this really new groundbreaking type stuff and that it's a little safer and that we're not gonna move as fast, but we're also not gonna light our entire business on fire and, and go under in six months, right? Because we can't, we have to exist to serve our members. So it's an interesting challenge that we face where we want to be innovative within kind of a bubble of safety. And so, you mentioned that we've done some of these smaller, iterative proof of concept type engagements. And those seem to have found good traction. The ideas are groundbreaking, trailblazing even. The ideas are outside the bubble of comfort, but we keep them small and so it's not, we need you to put, you know, $500,000 investment into this idea that may or may not work. It could be huge. It, it could not. No, we're running small contained risk, proof of concept type engagements that if something doesn't go well, okay, we let it go. Organizations, association specifically, talked for years back in 2015, 2017, pre COVID time, fail fast, got really popular. Everybody fail fast. We need to move out there and be agile and and nimble and we gotta fail fast. It didn't really stick. Because organizations in our industry like that wasn't really their, their culture at the time. So I think they wanted to be that way, but I think they had difficulty actually getting there. And what we're finding now is, I think some paths to that.

Jackson Boyar 12:14

How

Thad 12:14

How do we fail fast in a culture that is less risky? And so if we find these little isolated places where we can try new things and see how they go, communicate with our members about it, they see what we're trying to do. They see that we're trying to do it in a reasoned and kind of methodical, but still little risk, baby risk way. We'd have a lot of support. Because they wanna see us moving forward. They wanna see new things, they wanna experience some of the, you know, the, the new technology that's available. It's so powerful and the things that we can do it are, are light years beyond what we were dreaming about 10 years ago. I feel like we found sort of a happy medium. And I mean, it reflects, when, when AGU decided they wanted to push product development, they came to my team. And said, look, you've been successful. Are there ways that we can do more projects this way? And roll them out, keep them small, get buy-in, communicate, get collaboration. Get to a point where we've got a proof of concept and then test it and really see like, does it have traction? Do the members like it? Does it get good satisfaction rating? And if it does, then all of a sudden that bigger investment, it feels a little bit de-risked. We've already got champions in the community. We've already got technological product that will scale and we know that it'll work. We're still gonna have to QA it, we're still gonna have to integrate with identity and all these other things, but core of it we know is solid and we know that people are interested in it and that they like using it. So yes, now we're ready to, to write a larger check and to do a production rollout and to put marketing, you know, strength behind it and things of that nature.

Jackson Boyar 14:02

I love the focus on sort of incremental innovation, innovation in the bubble, if you will. And then eventually production scale where it can be transformative to the business model. And I think that's a good segue into sort of the focus of, of this podcast, which is. How associations adapt their, their business models in the context of, of an attention economy where there are competitive threats that may not have existed 10 or 20 years ago. changing, preferences of young professionals and, I won't call you out too much, but I've listened to some of your other podcasts and you've talked about the diminished value proposition of membership. Not to any one association per se, but that it's often tied too closely to this once a year or maybe twice a year in-person experience the annual meeting and, you know. There isn't a lot to offer in between those, those major touch points. When you bring that up internally, how do leaders react and how do you think about changing that paradigm? Maybe it doesn't need to be changed, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thad 15:13

A good point. I do think that associations are facing something of an identity crisis now. There was a time where the purpose of the association was to bring people together, to convene, to provide a forum for, sharing of scientific and medical knowledge or whatever it is your association does, bring together businesses that, couldn't be together, without the organization's umbrella. We look at the younger generations now and their ability to self-organize, the tools that they have to support that ability and willingness. The fact that people put together, whether it's neighborhood groups or large political movements all by themselves from a computer, which can do a lot at this point. Watching my kids and their ability to self-organize with whether it's, just their normal discord group or where they have their group chat. They're with each other and in each other's lives almost constantly. And it's a little disconcerting, honestly, as a parent and as an adult to look at this and be like, they walk around with an AirPod in and they're always with each other. It's like they have this virtual conversation that's going on at the same time as their real world conversation. And you've got your people that you're face to face with, and then you've got everybody else that's with you in the AirPod. So all of a sudden, this capability of bringing people together and organizing them and giving them to talk to each other feel quite as valuable. And if your value proposition is based upon doing that once a year and you're looking at students and early career members or in your people in your community who have this self-organizing capability and know how to use it. I feel like that is, I'm not gonna say a threat 'cause it's not external, it's just association's need to look very carefully at why people would join. Because some of the value proposition that we depended on in the eighties and nineties. I'm not sure it holds anymore. Do people still want to come together and present their scientific research? Yeah. Are there burgeoning new ways for them to do that? Yeah, there are. And so then it's like, well, we still have the journals, we still have peer reviewed scientific publishing and yeah, that absolutely is true. And you, you can't necessarily, you can self-publish with Amazon if you wanna write a short story or something like that. But you can't self-publish scientific work yet. I mean, is that coming? I have no idea. I'm not heavyweight in the publishing world, but I do think that associations need to think very carefully about why people would be part of their organization. What does that value exchange look like now and what is it gonna look like 10 years from now? Because that's a difficult question to answer. If you think about 10 years prior, we were still wrestling with tablets and mobile, we haven't had COVID yet, we still didn't really work remote, there was no AI to speak of. The world was exponentially different. We have to look forward in 10 years and say that's probably gonna happen again, plus some. Cause AI's just gonna accelerate and amplify everything, right? And so here is a group of businesses, an industry that is historically not fast to change, historically resistant to large change. Looking at a real shift, a ground shift in how people communicate and how they work together. And I think there needs to be a realization that the business model needs to be examined. And that's hard. That's really hard because not only is it difficult to accept, but it's not association's strong suit. Looking at the business and being like, we're gonna radically change how we do everything. That that's, those aren't words you generally hear in a board meeting. I think, I think we need to have a period of reflection as an industry and say, we need to move a little faster.

Jackson Boyar 19:40

Very, very compelling take. Of course this resonates with me as an entrepreneur where I have free license to run about and, and ship things frequently. But I suppose the silver lining here is that the underlying demand is there and, and I would argue that if anything it's, it's amplified post pandemic, there's a loneliness crisis. You know, the millennial and Gen Z folks I know are connecting to your point, through an air AirPod on a minute by minute basis. It might be that the form factor, has changed for that connection. And I wonder if, perhaps the annual meeting is still a major pillar of that strategy. It's hard for me to imagine the in-person event disappearing. I think people actually still crave it, but it might not be enough on its own. And so, in, in sort of specific terms to AGU, I know that meeting is a huge portion of the organization's operating budget every year. What happens if, if it declines 20 or 30%, it's not going away, but it's, it's not carrying the organization the way it does today. Where else would you be looking to make up the gap or strengthen the value proposition if it attrits engagement over time?

Thad 20:58

I hate to tell you, our meeting did decline by 30% this last year, And the environment that this administration has created for science is challenging, the environment this administration has created for international travel with a lack of visas and just difficulty getting into the country. and fear about status in the country during the visit, has significantly dampened our ability to gather. And so in DC in 2024 we had just over 30,000 people. This past year in New Orleans, we had 21,000, so that's 30% off the top. I, it was hard, and I think it will continue to struggle as the scientific enterprise lacks funding and lacks support, you know, kind of across the board. And so then the question became, how do we pivot and, and what do we provide? I agree with you. What's interesting is that while our value proposition is in question, I think we're actually more important than ever, specifically because of the advent of AI. And it's, it's kind of a sideways take, but let me, let me walk you through it. I think of it as trust and identity. That's how I generally frame it, because there is an incredible amount of disinformation. There's an incredible amount of inaccurate information, and people are struggling to determine what's real and what's not, what's true and what's not, what is factually, objectively accurate and what's not. And the AIs of the world are not helping because they create a lot of stuff that sounds legitimate. And it is exactly what the users want to hear because as a, you know, word generation model, that's what they do. They give users words that they want to hear, but they're not necessarily true and they're not necessarily accurate. I think the pendulum will swing back from convenience, which is where we are now. I can ask a lot a question and it gives me an answer. Do I validate if that answer is accurate or not? You know, that's, that's the tricky part. I think the pendulum will swing from convenience, back to clarity and objective factual assessment, which is right where associations are incredibly strong. We have peer reviewed rigorous scientific publications, medical publications, trade publications, and these are things that you can trust. And so when you're looking for factual information to make a decision or think about something in your life or make a decision for a family, are you gonna trust Claude? Are you gonna trust the thing that was reviewed by seven independent scientists and verified to be accurate and true? I think it's gonna come back to that. I think people are gonna come back to this content. Now. How do we proliferate that content in combination with AI? Entirely different question, but trust and identity piece also spreads to the media. I saw a talk by Ken Holsinger at PCMA in Montreal like three, four years ago. He's doing, he works for Freeman, he's their SVP of something something. And super smart guy did a really interesting talk on generational engagement and how the different generations are engaging with different types of content across different mediums. It's fascinating stuff. One of the really interesting parts was he put up a graph of Gen Z and their trust levels for different mediums of content. So whether they saw it on social media, whether they saw it on like the television or on YouTube, and the number one trusted source of content was talking to someone in person because you know they're real. You know that what they're telling you is probably true. You can look them in the eye. So, I think that combined with the knowledge, I guess, tautology of knowing that what you're being told is true, or at least that that person believes it's true combined with disinformation leading to the trust and identity problem. I think that associations are actually positioned incredibly well if we take advantage of it. If you want a large shared knowledge base that is trustworthy and you want people that you can meet with, partially from the human side, partially from the career development side, partially from the knowledge side. We have that. We have that in space, and so if we're able to leverage it, well I believe we're gonna be okay. In fact, I think we're gonna be better than okay. But it's going to require some thinking and it's gonna require some changes and figuring out what those are and how we position this in the market, that's, gonna be the tricky part.

Jackson Boyar 26:06

This is a great framework from a business strategy standpoint, you're saying associations have this unique asset in, in brand and trust, in authority. It may be sitting somewhat passively behind a membership gate or an annual meeting registration, but it does exist and I would agree with you. It's gonna be more important over time as we get more slop out in the, in, in front of us. I think the challenge becomes, I'd love to get your take. How do you get the member, maybe they're my age, in their thirties, where their first initial reaction is "I'll go to YouTube or I'll go to Claude, I'll go to Google". How do you get them to pay attention to AGU, or any other association that has that authority? And you might argue that we're already being poisoned by hyper addictive, misleading content. That's a, that's a tough mountain to climb. And I wonder if there's a different spin on the content, a different spin on the value proposition. Same underlying strength of asset, but new novel ways to compel the younger generations to spend time with the association.

Thad 27:23

That's really the question, isn't it? And I, I don't have an answer at the moment, not a clear one. Anyway. I think part of what you said, I mean you, you reflected the challenge well, and we talked a little bit, I just touched on earlier, how do we successfully proliferate our trusted content through these new channels? And I think organizations are struggling with that a little bit. Associations by nature have been more of a pipeline business approach as opposed to a platform, right? So we keep our content behind a wall, as you mentioned, like you have to pay to get it. I'm not sure that's gonna serve us going forward. If you look at the platform approach where we take all comers and we're supporting all of that, and we drive value, not necessarily through the individuality of our content or lack of access to it, but through its quality. I think we probably want to think about what that looks like for our business models. And that, that that's really, you put your thumb right on it. This is a business model change. And it doesn't necessarily need to be drastic or really violent, but we need to start thinking about how we do this differently. Because if we don't, we're gonna be sitting in our little bubble, which used to be in the middle of a larger thing and the thing is moving and our bubble is fixed. So we kind of either figure out how to move the bubble, which I think is gonna be challenging, or we gotta start poking some holes and start to interact a little bit more with the environment around us. That's really scary for associations that have been, within the barricaded area, to say, okay, we're gonna open up the fence and we're gonna start working with these other, entities or organizations in this way. And our value exchange is gonna change a little bit or a lot, in that it's not you pay the 20 bucks to get the thing. It's that we are bringing you the best of the best. Not just our stuff, but other stuff as well. We're partnering with a lot of other places and now you get value just from engaging with us. That's, that's hard.

Jackson Boyar 29:51

Well, you have shown off a couple experiments around personalization. Tying back to the core sort of data assets the association has in its peer reviewed research and member profiles. I, I believe that's one of the ways you get attention, It is the reason social media is so addictive, maybe nefariously. So they're looking at a lot of information to, to put forward something that captures your attention. I don't know that any association does it even at a fraction of the scale of a meta, and I by no means advocating for that model. I think it has some real negative impacts on society. But there is this, dichotomy between, personalization, which I believe would strengthen the value proposition to the association shareholders. And then sort of the privacy of, a member's research or, how they perceive the association relative to the social media companies that are sort of injecting ads all across their, their attention. Maybe it's somewhere in the middle, but should associations embrace that personalization and, and sort of what's the, the red line you don't, you don't step across.

Thad 31:01

I, I, I agree with everything you said, starting with the fact that the social media companies have designed a system specifically to benefit themselves they're very, very good at what they do. I mean, if you look at how much screen time kids are spending on their phones and just the endless scrolling, like it just feeds your brain, the dopamine it wants. And it's, it's terrifying how good they are at getting people to engage with their stuff. All that being said, personalization is a tool, right? A knife is a tool, a knife can be used for great things like preparing food or working around the house, or you know, cutting plants, whatever it is. It can also be used for bad things. I think a lot of it is gonna depend on the purpose of the wielder here, I believe that what we are trying to do with personalization is to put the right content in front of the right people at the right time. That, to me, feels like just an intrinsic good. I don't feel like we're damaging anyone by doing that. I think there's also a line to be drawn here where associations generally serve people's professional life as opposed to the personal life of social media. Is there a blur there? Yes. Is that blur getting bigger? Yes. But I think there is a space here for us to make people's professional lives more efficient and to give them things they didn't have before, to give them access to the right content and to help drive not only their knowledge, but their career, their networks, and really their industries. If we do it well, I mean, that's why associations exist is to, whether it's to promote scientific, learning or whether promote medical procedures or it's to promote, development of a business or an industry or a sector. Like that's why we're here. And so I feel like if we try and do that better. If we do a better job curating how people spend their time with us, so that if you're able to give 15 minutes a week or an hour a month, or whatever it is, that that time is well spent. And that you're getting the right resources. Maybe you're learning things or you're able to find an answer to a question or solve a problem. You're able to find a colleague. You're able to be introduced to someone who you can do research with or talk with about a, a problem that you're having or a challenge. That to me feels like it's all on the right side of the ledger. And not to, you know, vilify what the social media folks are doing, but I'm not trying to get them to stay necessarily. I'm just trying to make their time with us better.

Jackson Boyar 33:51

I think the, nonprofit nature of associations, the incentives of associations, certainly, leave some room to experiment. And I think if nothing else, associations are hyper attuned to the needs of their members. So if there's pushback, things will probably change. That's the, the pro and the con of, of running a network association. I'll, I'll end with a question I've asked our other guests. Open-ended and i'll, it's sort of the mad lib where you fill in the blanks. Help me fill in the blank: sssociations worry too much about blank and not enough about blank. You can take all the time you need to respond to that one.

Thad 34:30

I am gonna say, this is kind of esoteric, but I'm gonna go with it. Associations worry too much about what was and not enough about what will be. We spend a lot of time reflecting on how things have been. And I think in some ways that inhibits us from moving towards where we need to be. The phrase, we've always done it that way, is real within the association industry. And I told this story once at a conference. I'll tell it now because it's, it's, it's not even my story. I can't remember where I got it. But it's, it's a, it's a good one. There's an experiment. It's a science experiment, and there's four monkeys in a room. There is a rope hanging from the ceiling, and there's a bunch of bananas at the top of the rope. Have you heard this one?

Jackson Boyar 35:21

Keep going, maybe.

Thad 35:24

One of the monkeys starts climbing the rope and it gets hit with a blast of water from a thing that's towards the top, and it doesn't like that, so it jumps down. Over time each of the monkeys tries to climb the rope to get to the bananas, and they get hit with a glass of water. One of the monkeys is removed and replaced with a new monkey that has not tried to climb the rope yet. The monkey tries to climb the rope and the other monkeys stop it because they know that it's going to get without blast of water. So the monkey does not climb. A second monkey is replaced. That new monkey again tries to climb the rope and the three remaining try to stop it. Over time, each monkey is replaced. So now you have four monkeys in the room, none of whom will climb the road, all of whom will try to stop the others from climbing the road. And none of them knows why, because they've never actually seen the water can. So it's just a good little story to show how some of these learned behaviors propagate over time, even as the conditions change, I think we need to pay a little more attention to the conditions. We need to be a little more willing to try climbing that rope because things are changing really, really quickly in our environment. And the constraints or the reasons that we had not to try something or to try something, five years ago, they may not be true. So we need to really look around carefully and understand why we're doing what we're doing or what we're not doing, because the reasons that we had before, they may not still be the reasons that we should have now.

Jackson Boyar 37:05

It's a great parable and I will ask you one more question. Every

Thad 37:09

time I tell that story, people are like, huh?

Jackson Boyar 37:14

Yeah, it's the myth of the culture of the tribe, sort of setting norms, and that's how it becomes very deeply ingrained and we forget how it started. So you know, if I am an association leader or even an entry-level teammate, and I see an opportunity because of my lived experience or research I've read, to maybe take a little bit of a risk. What's your advice on how to go about doing that? Knowing this culture exists to actually create something actionable that you can showcase. Maybe not in a Thad Ted Talk style format, but the first version of that.

Thad 37:50

It's tough especially as like a younger associate coming in when you say, Hey, have we tried this? And somebody more senior, or maybe even your boss or your boss's boss says, oh, yeah, we tried that. It doesn't work. It it, it that exists and that kind of shutdown. I think it's, it's both sides, right? How does someone new bring in an approach or a thought and get it considered. And then we as leaders, I think even more importantly, we need to start listening again. And instead of saying, oh, we tried that, it didn't work, say we tried that in 2006. Here's what happened. Do you think conditions might be ready for another try? Do you think maybe things would go differently? Let's talk about it as a team and consider. Because the they are pulling the other monkey off the road because you've always done that like that. That is not good for our business right now.

Speaker 38:52

Wise words. Well, Thad thank you so much for joining Built to Connect today. Thank you for having me.