FA C E T O FA C E : W I T H A L E X A N D E R MO H R , E F FA
But what else have I learned? If you look back, it is clear that this was maybe the biggest training session in your career! You will never have again such an intense and broad training session, that touched on absolutely everything, from finances to human resources, crisis management, etc. Put it this way, if you made it through the last 12 months, you will be ready for everything that comes. You have seen it all. Has the pandemic forced any permanent changes to how your organisation will operate in the future? How you choose to convene or communicate with your members, for example? My focus is about getting
would like to be closer to the decision- making process in the European Parliament and the Commission. So, to answer your question, this was maybe the biggest change – to restructure the association and to prepare it for the years to come. I believe this is also the biggest success, but this is of course ultimately for our members to decide. The last 12 months have been extraordinary. As someone in a leadership position, what new challenges have you faced? And what, if anything, have you learned about yourself? Indeed, the last year was a challenge for the association, but also for our members. Everybody was,
the associations back on the ‘meetings’ track. I am a big fan of direct face to face communication. Of course, there will be more virtual video platforms like Zoom integrated in our daily work. MS Teams for example is now a standard,
Associationwork is a people business. It’s important that you have face-to- face meetings with your members...
everyday working tool, and not a feature nobody touches on their computer. When it comes to travel? I don’t know. I think this question can only really be answered in a year. But I am certain that association work is a ‘people business.’ It’s important that you have physical, face-to-face meetings with members in the respective committees as well as external stakeholders. I like to sit in a room and talk to people. There is a whole level of non-verbal communication, that we are missing out on at the moment. So, let’s hope by
and still is, more or less in the same situation. All European associations based in Brussels have gone into home- working mode, following government policy. The important thing for me when the situation got serious in March last year, was to make sure that the association continued to work as seamlessly as possible. Of course, we had to change the way we work and communicate among the team, but also towards the members. Like most, we replaced physical meetings with virtual meetings.
40 APRIL 2021 AMIMAGAZINE.GLOBAL
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