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Published June 1, 2021

Episode 123 · June 1, 2021

Chamber Chat Podcast Episode 123 artwork

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Adam Legge discusses Calgary Chamber transformation, Making Remarkable, and the purpose, people, and platform framework for chamber leadership and member value.

About This Episode

Adam Legge, president of the Business Council of Alberta at the time of this April 2021 interview, recounts transforming the Calgary Chamber through brand research, financial diagnostics, leadership changes, and a revised value proposition. He explains the sequence of purpose, people, and platform, how evidence builds board support, and why transformation requires patience and compassionate but firm leadership. He encourages chambers to ask members what keeps them up at night and reassess offerings as conditions change.

What You'll Learn

  • Work through purpose, then people, then platform; strategy belongs within platform.
  • Use member research, financial analysis, and benchmarking to diagnose priorities.
  • Build board support with evidence of the organization's performance and needs.
  • Communicate the vision and handle staffing decisions thoughtfully and compassionately.
  • Treat brand as the member promise and organizational purpose, beyond a logo.
  • Ask members what keeps them up at night and design relevant solutions.
  • Allow time for transformation and revisit programs as conditions change.

About Adam Legge

Adam Legge is president of the Business Council of Alberta. He previously served as president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, where he led an organizational transformation, and he has also held leadership roles in economic development, consulting, and business policy. He is the author of Making Remarkable: How to Deliver Purpose, Inspire People, and Build a Platform for Exceptional Results.

Episode Chapters

00:00.884 — Podcast intro and episode setup

00:41.376 — Guest introduction: Adam Legge

05:36.802 — What the Business Council of Alberta does

10:06.690 — Calgary Chamber transformation story

15:08.050 — Managing difficult staff changes

19:29.838 — Building board support for change

26:24.306 — Rolling out brand and culture change

29:34.764 — Post-COVID value proposition and adaptation

31:47.618 — Ask members what keeps them up at night

34:21.088 — Chambers' future role and technology

Supported by Our Catalyst Sponsors

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App My Community helps chambers strengthen connections with members and their communities through a branded mobile app. The platform gives chambers a convenient way to keep local businesses, events, news, resources, and community information accessible in one place while creating additional opportunities for engagement and visibility.

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Resources Mentioned in This Episode

ACCE's dynamic chamber benchmarking

Benchmarking framework mentioned as a way to compare chamber performance across metrics.

Link not yet available.

PeerSpectives program

Example of a peer-based chamber program built around entrepreneur loneliness.

Link not yet available.

An Idea Worth Borrowing

Start with purpose, then people, then platform

Use a simple diagnostic to transform a chamber or association: clarify purpose and culture first, align the right people next, and then rebuild the strategy and value proposition. Ground the change in data, board buy-in, and member pain points rather than assumptions.

• What keeps your members up at night?
• Which part of your organization needs work first: purpose, people, or platform?
• What data can you bring to the board to make the case for change?

Read the Full Transcript

Read the Full Transcript

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 123 — Organizational Transformation with Adam Legge
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Adam Legge
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.884 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community. And now your host who enjoys a good new pizza podtain. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I am your host, Brandon Burton, and you're joining us today for episode one hundred and twenty-three of Chamber Chat Podcast, where it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your chamber members and your community.
00:41.376 Brandon Burton
Our title sponsor for this episode is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Is your chamber struggling to drive the revenue it needs to support your initiatives? It's a common problem, and one that our new title sponsor, Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions, knows a lot about. Doug and Bill Holman aren't just sales consultants, they're real live chamber guys with 20 plus years of chamber leadership experience. They know how to diagnose and solve member recruiting issues faster and better than anyone else. And they're ready to put that knowledge to work for you in your chamber. Call the Holman Brothers today at 619-852-1391 or check them out at holmanbros.com. That's h-olmbros.com. Our guest for this episode is Adam Legge, who's the president of the Business Council of Alberta. Adam believes in the potential of leaders to make their organizations remarkable. And to do work that can change their communities and the world. Adam has worked with executives, leaders, and boards to help them achieve remarkability through organizational renewal and transformation. Amidst the challenges of disruption, change, and complexity, he uses a proven structure that will enable any organization to move from stale or struggling to remarkable. He brings over 20 years of experience in leadership, governance. Strategy, culture, and change to help his clients create greater impact, relevance, and value as an organization. He is the author of Making Remarkable: How to Deliver Purpose, Inspire People, and Build a Platform for Exceptional Results. When not helping clients become remarkable organizations, Adam Legge is the president of the Business Council of Alberta, where he leads a team that is tasked with harnessing the experience of Alberta's business leaders. And entrepreneurs in making life better for Albertans. Prior to helping launch the council, Adam was a director at the Canadian Centre for Advanced Leadership in the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary. He served as the as the 18th president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, where he took a struggling and traditional Chamber of Commerce and transformed the organization into a dynamic and award-winning entity. Adam has also held the positions of
03:07.288 Brandon Burton
Vice president and chief economist for the Calgary Economic Development and manager with PwC and its real estate advisory services practice based in Calgary, Alberta. Adam is vice chair of Vibrant Communities Calgary and has previously chaired the boards of Wordfest, Attainable Homes Calgary, and the Norfolk Housing Association, and has been on the board of United Way Calgary and Area. He serves on the boards of multiple private companies in Calgary. Adam is a recipient of the Calgary Top 40 under 40, and in November of 2017 was awarded a Canada Senate 150 Medal by the Senate of Canada to only 1,500 Canadians for their work and dedication on improving the quality of life in their communities. Adam, I am excited to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast and would Like for you to just take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
04:13.644 Adam Legge
Well thanks, Brandon, and and hello from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, your your good neighbors to the north. It's a privilege to be on your podcast. I am a devoted chamber executive who has built many, many friendships across the chamber world, both in Canada, United States, and and around the world. I had the privilege of serving on the Association of Chamber Commerce Executives Board for many years and so built Tremendous lifelong friendships in the chamber community. So it's a privilege to be here. something interesting about myself. gosh, four kids. love, love the outdoors, Alberta. if anyone can think of where we live so a similar setting to Denver, high up in the Rocky Mountains here. So real, real privilege to live where we do. And just finally just wishing everybody good health and happiness through these crazy COVID times.
05:09.568 Brandon Burton
That's great. so I'd I'd like for you to take a a few moments just to share with us a little bit about the business council of Alberta. And I know it's not necessarily the topic for our discussion today, but just to kind of give some background about what it is, how it is similar and different at the same time from a a traditional chamber. And I think that'll help kind of stage our discussion.
05:36.802 Adam Legge
Yeah, no, for sure. So as you said in your intro, I ran the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, which is a more conventional chamber type organization for many years, and then was brought in to build this new organization called the Business Council of Alberta. So if you can imagine a chamber taking its largest members, largest corporations, and focusing only on public policy and advocacy and carving that out as a separate organization. That's what the Business Council of Alberta is. So we have a hundred of Alberta's top companies and CEOs. some of which may operate in the United States, companies like TC Energy and Suncor and Enbridge and WestJet, one of our two national airlines. those are all kind of my members who are all headquartered here in Alberta. And we just focus on public policy at the provincial and s and and national level on those things that are really We take a longer term approach. So we talk a lot about shared prosperity, both share social and financial prosperity for all Albertans. but we want to make sure that that is done through a thriving private sector, thriving business community that can create the jobs and the investment needed to generate prosperity for all Albertans. And so it's we we we cover topics like skills and jobs, but we also talk tackle topics like long-term opportunities for our key sectors like energy and agriculture, transportation, logistics, helping grow the tech sector with the right public policy environment. So we're about two years old now. We launched in June of 2019 and are are really just trying to trying to make a difference in the long term lives of of Albertans.
07:22.284 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. I know a lot of people listening might be a little jealous right now if they, you know, really have a an affinity towards public policy and advocacy. And if they just came off of planning their annual chamber banquet or you know, some other big event, they might think, you know, Adam's got a good good gig there. Yeah.
07:42.254 Adam Legge
I I I feel pretty pretty pretty privileged because yes, I I don't have to worry about the next networking event or or the chamber ball or or whatever some of those big fundraising drives might be.
07:53.964 Brandon Burton
That's right. Those the stress-inducing events for sure. Well, our topic for discussion today is around organizational transformation. And for anyone who's read Adam's book, Making Remarkable, it focuses all around this topic of of transforming transforming an organization to become remarkable. And we're going to get into some of the the details around that as soon as we get back from this quick break.
07:58.11 Adam Legge
Remember the days, yeah.
08:24.046 Brandon Burton
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10:06.69 Adam Legge
Sure. So I I I was recruited in in 2010 to to join the the Calgary Chamber. what really drove the the desire for a new president was they had under two they they had really slipped in their membership ranks and and and felt there was a need for a membership push. So the board had commissioned a marketing study to say how do we how do we position ourselves in the market to really get more members. what came out of that marketing study was the the consultants came back and said, You actually you you can't really sell more memberships because you have a brand problem. and so they said you need to shift your brand, and they really recommended that they find someone who was younger. all of my predecessors, phenomenal people, but had been of an older generation, a lot of gray hair. and they said you need you need to find someone younger. And so I think I was. I was a bit of the the black sheep in the mix of of the candidates. I eventually was was was offered the position, came in at the age of 38 to run the chamber. I was that sort of under 40 person. And so I was given a mandate to to reimagine the chamber from a brand standpoint. And those that are familiar with brand, lots of people think it's sort of a logo, but it's it's much more than that. It's your promise, it's your commitment to. your customer or your member about what that experience is going to be. It's it's who you are, it's your purpose really, and why you exist in the world. And so we began to do a lot of work with with members, with past members, with other stakeholders in the community. And then I began to dig internally in terms of the operation and found that not only did we have this brand problem, that people in the community didn't really know who we were, what we stood for, but we also just had no one had really looked under the hood of the business. And broken it down in terms of its performance by different business lines and by metrics and comparing against other chambers and benchmarks. And what I just found was an organization, quite frankly, that was just sort of rotten to its core. and it needed it needed rebuilding from the foundation up. So that then began the the process of transformation. And it took a number of years, you know, Brandon. At first I I tried to
12:20.992 Adam Legge
you know, sort of force a few things through. I had I was very inexperienced. I had never done this before. It was my first president CEO job. and I sort of just began looking for the the blueprint of how do you transform an organization. I could find bits and pieces of it, but I could never find the the the complete picture, which is what ultimately ended up in me writing the book. but you know, we we started with brand, we redid the brand of the organization. After a number of false starts, I decided I needed a whole new leadership team. So we we switched the the team out, got a whole bunch of new great people in. They then built great teams under them. We you know dissected the value proposition, we analyzed the financials. like many chambers, we owned our building at the time. So we went through a real estate decision and ultimately sold the building. and turned the place around. It took it, you know, it wasn't until probably year four. That I could start to look at our income statement and the membership growth and start to feel okay, we've we've gotten there. It took sort of three years of really hard work. I probably could have truncated that a bit if I had been more experienced in it. but it you know, it took some time. And, you know, when I left in 2017, it was it had won a number of awards, both internationally and within Canada. we had had a tremendous membership. levels. We had our financial performance was was superb. membership satisfaction and retention was very strong. and staff satisfaction and turnover was was tremendous. So I really felt I was able to to turn the tides and and leave a stronger organization than I found it.
14:02.266 Brandon Burton
So I appreciate you sharing that kind of snapshot, if you will. I know that that that's a lot of time and a lot of change that you just condensed into a couple of minutes. so one of the things in both you telling that kind of that summary of of the story and and also in reading the book, there's a personal aspect to an organizational change as well, which I think can be difficult for a lot of people that are, you know, dealing with the people, whether it's somebody that they've worked with, a staff member for a long time that's not fitting. the direction for the new change, or even being the new guy, you know, coming into an organization organization and making, you know, some staff changes that might be unpopular. how did you deal with that with the I I'm sure you you weren't always the, you know, the the popular guy when when some of these changes were being discussed. but how did how did you work through that?
15:08.05 Adam Legge
it's you know, great question. There were so many different scenarios that we faced. I mean, there were some people that you know, I I so many different categories. Some were actively undermining my efforts. and so they they had to go a little easier, right? Yeah, you sort of feel weight off your shoulders. there were some that just
15:25.622 Brandon Burton
That makes it a little easier.
15:32.056 Adam Legge
I guess I I step back. First and foremost, I guess it's it's a matter of sort of painting the picture of where you want to go, right? You gotta you gotta bring people along on the journey. So after we had built the br readone the brand and and set the strategic direction for the organization, it was then about okay, who's on who's on the bus with us? and then you had sort of a variety of different camps that came out of that. One was, you know, what were actively undermining, so those folks had to go. two were people that believed in the direction but just couldn't keep up or couldn't perform. And so, you know, we did have to have to let them go. But I'm I'm happy to say that pretty much everybody in that case found a better landing zone than where they were. They actually ended up happier in a better place. That's good. and you know, and then there were others that were just sort of as you s as you said, you weren't popular. So people then started behaving badly because they didn't like some of the directions. And so they were willing to kind of you know fix their their their anchor to somebody else who had gone down. And so they went down as well. I because I just wasn't going to support people who, you know, I had one I had to let one person go because he wasn't performing. And his whole team later that afternoon was so devastated they decided to go out and and get drunk and then not show up for work the next day. and then we then let them know it was quite fine to not show up for the rest of the days after that too, because you basically abandoned your job. So, you know, they're just So you know, humans react so bizarrely at times. But you know, I think ultimately the people that were on the bus and believed in it. And I and I always did it in a in a human humanistic and compassionate way and explained to people why we had to do certain things. and, you know, most people said, Okay, I I I kinda get it. I like the person, but I also like the vision where we're going. And, you know, I can I can figure things out and I can be part of the team and I can contribute to this. And then also other people saw it as an opportunity to step up and we actually then moved a number of people who were underneath person who we had let go, and and put them in more senior positions and they they thrived. I've got a number of examples where that happened. Yeah. it's you're right. Being in a leadership position, it's you have to make those tough calls. You're not you're not going to be everybody's friend. and it took me a long time to sort of build the stomach and resist resilience to be able to sort of manage through that. at first I tried I tried to be liked by everybody. In fact it's one of those
17:55.342 Adam Legge
i i i if if anyone's a fan of the Patrick Lencioni books, he writes these books about leadership and these sort of fabled approaches. and one of his his books centers around you know, the temptation to being liked versus delivering results. your board is not hiring you to be liked, your board is hiring you to deliver results. And so you kinda just have to find them, you know, this fortitude to pursue through that. And I know that sounds a bit harsh, but you know, ultimately that's what what you're there to do. And But doing it in a thoughtful, rational, very sensitive w way, I think everybody can can figure out how to how to participate going forward.
18:34.498 Brandon Burton
Yeah. And I think if you do that, you go after the results, then the people that are on the bus, like you said, that are on your team and back in the purpose that those people they will like you. They'll support you. They'll they see the vision and and they catch on and and ride with you all the way. Yeah. so I wanted to ask you, so you were brought into Calgary Chamber with the specific purpose for making some some positive change there at that organization. for somebody who's brought in in that situation versus somebody who may be at a a chamber for several years now, but they see the need for some change. how would somebody how would you suggest somebody who's been in that position for some time to go about trying to implement some of that change? I know the buy-in can be hard if it if it's you seeing the need and trying to convince others.
19:29.838 Adam Legge
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I I think the biggest thing for me was that I had a very supportive board. They they knew that transformation was needed. And so I had great support to undertake the change that needed to be to be made. so I think for someone who who sees the need, first piece is to begin to begin to get their their governors on side and and the the the directors and the board. you know, maybe start with a couple people they know might be some internal champions, help advocate and help help help champion that cause. But if you're going to try and be pushing at a transformation agenda or a change agenda for with a board that sort of likes things as the way they are, feel pretty comfy and cozy, or don't want to open up resources to enable you to make the change, because it does cost some money, then you're gonna be you're gonna be pretty stuck. So I I think getting the board or some key leadership or influencers there on side is is is the first piece. And and really to help do that, you kind of need to do some homework up front, which is really Understanding the performance of the organization. And this is where you kind of have to be a little bit ruthless in terms of, you know, how are we performing? Are we, you know, a great tool is is ACCE's dynamic chamber benchmarking. I'm a huge fan of that, really assessing how you perform against other chambers of your size or in your geography or or or budget, etc. And and across a whole host of metrics in terms of membership, retention, budgets, expenses, staff, all these sorts of things. you know, I I always tell my team just because you can lift 50 pounds is kind of irrelevant compared to whether you know that what you should be lifting is 100. until you've got some sort of comparator, you really don't really know where you fit. So bringing some data to the table, really analyzing that, bringing some some other members or some some feedback from potential member candidates who would say, you know, I'd join if the chamber did X or Y or what have you, just getting some stakeholder input in terms of that to help build your case. and then, you know, once you hopefully get some some approval to move forward, then you've got a variety of different places. You know, I I've built my process around three P's and which is purpose, people and platform in that order. So know you can start with the purpose, which is sort of your brand and your culture. then you can move to your
21:49.014 Adam Legge
your people, which is your board and your team. And then finally is is your platform, which is your your strategy and your value proposition. Depending upon what needs to be changed, you may tackle certain things in different orders or some things may be working well and you need to tackle other things. So, you know, it really depends on what needs to be changed. And in my case of the Calgary Chamber, we needed to change pretty much everything. and so we started with that purpose step brand and then worked our way down through things. I didn't get everything sequentially perfect, I'll be honest. but you know, making sure you got the right people on board is critical, making sure the board is there with you and is going to be a transformation-oriented board is is a really good governance type board. and then making sure you've got the right value proposition, making sure you're selling what people want to buy, and that you've got the right ability to deliver that is is sort of other key pieces. So Really getting that buy-in and support at the governance level to me is is sort of an essential first step using good data, good information to build the case.
22:52.514 Brandon Burton
Yeah. So I can see, you know, some people in their situation might, you know, be close to just throwing their hands up and saying we need change, but I can't even put my finger on where to start with that change. is there certain I mean, you mentioned the three Ps, the P the purpose, people, and platform. Is that the best place to kind of start and you know, kind of take that temperature, if you will, of your organization and figure out where the the direction needs to go with the change or or do you have another suggestion as to kind of gauge where you need to go?
23:29.002 Adam Legge
I mean that as I as I said earlier in this in the I looked for that that roadmap or that how to manual when I joined the the Calgary Chamber, in terms of how do you transform an organization, I couldn't find one. So I knit all these pieces together. And that's ultimately what what my model is, is kind of knitting all these bits and pieces together. It's what worked for me. and I think it's what works effectively given that it starts at the big picture and works its way down. If you try and do too much at the bottom without sort of fixing the the foundational elements, like your brand and like your culture, you know, you can bring in, for example, some of the best performing membership salespeople. But if they're toxic to your culture and your values, you're gonna drive away a whole bunch of other good staff. So you need to make sure you've got your culture and your values down firm. If if if you or you can try and track people, if they don't know what you're working towards is your purpose as an organization, you may not necessarily be able to achieve the home runs that you hope you can. So as I say, I start with the big picture, your brand and your culture, then you move down to your people and then to your sort of the your your your system of delivery under the platform. as I say, not every organization is gonna have every part of that broken, but dissecting it that way is really helpful. I've got in in my book questions to ask yourself under each one of those key pieces. And I've got a sort of scoring system to determine whether you're a remarkable organization in this area or you need some help in this area. So it kind of is a bit of a diagnostic that enables you to go through it and then say, okay, we our purpose might be great, but we need fixing on our culture, or we may need to fix our value proposition, but our our strategy is good. So, you know, sequentially dissecting that can can really help where identify where the problem spots are.
25:18.73 Brandon Burton
Yeah. I love how in the book how you really stress the the need to define what your purpose is and also defining your culture and how both those two things, the the culture and purpose, are really different than what a lot of people may think on the surface, when you talk purpose and culture. so I don't know that we need to dive into that right now. People can can get into the book and and and and see what you mean on on on purpose and culture, but those are big key elements. I I've heard you bring up multiple times in our discussion here.
25:57.998 Adam Legge
They're huge. They they they set the tone for the organization for sure.
26:01.496 Brandon Burton
Yeah. so you you talked about sharing the vision with the board, with the governance, with the what other levels? So you've got your board, you've got your staff, you've got members. How would you go about on the different levels trying to share the vision and to get buy in from those stakeholders?
26:24.306 Adam Legge
we we did a variety of different approaches. So in in let's let's assume we kind of fast forward to the point where we've we've rebuilt the brand. We did that through consultation with our board and with members and with stakeholders. We did a very broad consultative process in the community about what they felt the chamber should be and what its purpose should be. We then built that, we rolled it out, got board approval for it from the start. and then we we We built the the brand rele re-release of the of the new brand around our AGM back in back in 2012. and you know, we had we had sort of seeded it a little bit in the community to give a sense of as we had worked through it to test and validate it. and we rolled out in in in a at our AGM to some good fanfare. and then it was a matter of activating it. You know, you can you can roll out a brand and a culture. but unless you walk the talk and and live it and activate it through different practices and new approaches, it'll just fall flat. So we, you know, purposely began to to develop some new kinds of events and some new messaging. the way in which we tackled projects was different. and and we we spent different c had different conversations with our members, different conversations with the people we were hoping would join as members. so it enabled a whole new set of conversations to happen. and it was as I say, you can roll out a brand, but it it it took probably a full twelve months of every of renewal of everything of of our of our membership platform, of our of our communications, our material, our look and feel, our events, and and even to some degree our physical space. It took 12 months of all of that sinking in when people sort of kind of looked around and said, hmm. Okay, I this place has changed. you know, it it the chamber prior to my arrival had tried to quote unquote rebrand itself a few times, but all they did was change a logo and still do the same old thing. so you know, as I say in the book, you kind of gotta do more than just change the drapes. it it it it it really is about fundamentally redoing who you are and and what you're talking about.
28:47.71 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. And I can see, you know, in this time time in history, this post-COVID for some still very much during COVID time frame, organizations may be seeing a need for a transformation with the way they do business, the way they roll out programming to members, the way that they get their brand and their messaging out. I think this is a it's a good time, if nothing else, to evaluate your purpose, how you're serving your purpose, your members, and what your culture is looking like. Has it changed during this COVID experience? I think those are all reflective things for for everyone to be looking at. I don't know if you have any thoughts around kind of the post-COVID world in
29:34.764 Adam Legge
Yeah, it you know, it's it's an interesting one, you know, chambers and organizations like mine, the business council, we've all been struggling. What is what is the value proposition? You know, the traditional networking and events and things like that, the the lunches and dinners that we would all do, ground to a halt, you know, for the past 12 months. And so part of that huge part of that value proposition vanished. So the the question mark is, you know, what do you do? Do you you people have pivoted and done stuff virtually, focus more on some public policy? but the question is, once we're all kind of able to go back to quote unquote life as normal, what what does the chamber offering and value proposition look like after that? Well, people say, Hey, I I I I enjoyed not having to get in my car and drive down to the downtown hotel for the rubber chicken lunch and whatnot. I'll just do it over Zoom. or are they gonna say, you know, I really miss being in the presence of my peers in the community? I'm gonna get in the car and I'm gonna drive down to that to that lunch. I think the jury's still out on that. I I'm I'm personally thinking it'll go more back to it being in person. I think people are gonna be craving those interactions. and and so I do think that there's lots of things, but you know, it it is it is time to question, do we go back to business as usual pre-COVID, or do we use this as a chance to kind of transform ourselves, knowing that the world's changed a little bit in in this time and what what was really critical, what was really important, what really drove money. what really drove membership affinity, what really drove a commitment and and and alignment to members and and the organization. so I'd I'd encourage every chamber leader to really think about is is is this really where we should be going based on what we used to do? Or is this a chance to abandon some stuff that just wasn't working and this is a perfect opportunity to do so and build the organization that we've always wanted to do that fits more aligned to the future.
31:29.128 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. so as we start wrapping things up here, I wanted to ask, based on our discussion today, what might be one tip or action item that somebody listening could do to to help take their organization up to the next level and and in your words become more remarkable?
31:47.618 Adam Legge
Yeah. You know, the the the the biggest eye opening thing for me was, you know, chambers do a lot of surveys about did you like this, yes or no, did you like that, yes or no? and I think the ultimate litmus test of a value proposition for organization is that we should be i solving our members' challenges. you know, it's e you know, it if someone asked me, you know, do you like the blue car? You know, sure, yeah, I like a blue car. But I think the biggest question chambers should be asking is their members is what keeps you up at night? What's that barrier to your business success that is in the way right now? and and really understanding what ask the right question. Don't ask what what do you want us to do more of? Don't ask what did you like? Did you like the banquet or did you like the breakfast? Just don't ask those questions. Ask what keeps them up at night. and what is in the way of that that entrepreneur, that business growing their business. And then figure out how do you solve that problem. that's when chambers will be successful. That was the turning point for us in our value proposition, is we stopped asking, do you like this or do you like that? We asked what kept them up at night. And you find amazing things like it's lonely here as an entrepreneur. I don't have anybody to talk to. so we built a program around that, which is kind of like the PeerSpectives program that that that many chambers use. or we heard people say, I keep hearing about innovation. I don't know how to do it. So maybe I'm not an innovative company. So we built a a bit of a a a rapid ninety day accelerated program for how traditional companies can can apply innovation. cause they all thought, I have to be Tesla or Google or Apple to be innovative. So when you unearth the real questions about what keeps these companies and entrepreneurs up at night, you can really develop solutions that make membership sticky. that they'll see a real value in that membership proposition. that's what I'd encourage people to do is stop asking traditional questions of do you like this, do you like that? Sit down with your members and ask what keeps you up at night and then try and solve their problems.
33:53.368 Brandon Burton
And it's those open-ended questions too. If it's do you like the banquet or the breakfast, you're not getting useful information. If you leave it open-ended and you get a different response from everybody, and then you can see where those common themes are and where the the big needs are, that's where you can go and focus your attention. So I love that response. as we look to the future of chambers, how do you see their purpose going forward?
34:21.088 Adam Legge
I you know, I I think they're just as relevant now as they were a hundred and thirty odd years ago when some of the first chambers in Canada were created. I know they're even older in in in the United States. you know, we're we're I go back to we're there to somehow help make our members more successful. that's what they look to us for. And and every member will have a different pain point. some will be around exposure to new new customers, some will be around a public policy issue. As long as we don't lose sight of that core DNA of help helping our members be more successful and solving some of the the challenges that they can't do alone. I think we then just have to overlay that on contemporary issues, contemporary technologies, ways in which people are interacting and the solutions will emerge. you know, I think doing far more through digital platforms is going to be essential. you know, one of the big things I had hoped to get done before I I left, but I didn't was and how do you do kind of the the Tinder for business, you know, sort of algorithm AI driven business matchmaking, which sort of will be a far more valuable curated way of interacting. So figuring out how do you keep how do you honor that that that genuine DNA element and then and then building it into today's issues and technologies. and I th and I think the the the the the solutions will be there.
35:49.462 Brandon Burton
I think that's so true. And understanding you you mentioned applying the the layers of technology and understanding where those influences are coming from and kind of where the world is going and and be there with it. Don't get left behind. So I love that. well I wanted to give you an opportunity for anyone who might want to reach out and connect with you or continue this discussion offline or pick up your book. what would be the best ways to to reach out and connect with you or to or to find your book?
36:21.27 Adam Legge
thanks, Brandon. every author is a shameless self promoter at some point. So so I y you can find me at at adamlegge.com, L E G G E is how I spell the last name. That's my general website. the book is making remarkable dot com. and you can get it on either in print or or or Kindle version through that platform. I'm on Twitter, A W Legge L E G G E. although I have a a new found sort of Distaste for social media, just the world is getting so toxic on that stuff. But I I pop in there from time to time just to kind of try and send the world a positive message. But so you can find me there at Twitter AWLegge. and and yeah, anyone who who would like to follow up, please send me an email, Adam at adamlegge.com. happy to continue the conversation and I'm a big fan of of of chambers and chamber executives. And so however we can help make the world a little better together, I'm happy to do so.
37:20.204 Brandon Burton
That is perfect. And I will get all that contact information and links up in the show notes for this episode, which will be found at chamber chatpodcast.com/slash episode one twenty-three. But Adam, I've enjoyed visiting with you. it was an honor to have you on here. And and you've you come with a lot of great value and insights that I think a lot of people can benefit benefit from. And hopefully they either have already read your book or will pick it up and apply some of those those principles to become remarkable.
37:52.846 Adam Legge
Well, thank you so much for having me. It was real privilege and you know, thanks for all the work you're doing trying to make sure the chambers can be at the top of their game and and being successful contributors in the community. So thanks so much.
38:05.27 Brandon Burton
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38:41.39 Brandon Burton
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