Think Young. You can have gray hair, but successful organizations want high energy modern thinkers with a "can-do" attitude on their payroll. Thinking like an OWG is one of the top turnoffs in today's business world. Where are all of the new ideas coming from? The internet companies. Just recently CBS, the old fogies network, bought iwon.com, the internet company that gives away $10,000 a day and $10 million on tax day.

Take Risks. So what if you fail. No one ever bats 1.000. Consider two of our country's greatest failures, Walt Disney and Michael Jordan. Disney was fired by a newspaper for lack of ideas and went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Learn the Yiddish word "chutzpa" which means guts, nerve, gall, moxie. Remember that all good things come to those who ask!

Change is Mandatory. If change is a bad word in your organization, consider that just five years ago you probably didn't know the difference between a website and a cobweb, e-commerce from an emu, the Internet from Dragnet, or a Palm Pilot from a palm reader. If looking good to your membership is important to you, then what worked well in the 90s will be an antique five years from now if not sooner.

New Technology is the Norm. OWGs don't want to understand it. Hire Generation Xers who not only can put it in place for your association but also who can explain it to you. The OWG went bonkers when they took away his carbon paper and IBM Selectric and replaced them with a Xerox machine and a computer. But who was the last person in the association to learn how to fix a paper jam or learn how to use a word program? The OWG, of course.

Delegate. Today's Generation Xers are smarter than you. You may wear a suit while they sport a tattoo, but acknowledge the fact they can make your association run smoother and make you look good to your board and constituency.

Flexibility not Rigidity. Let me share with you at no charge how to become an instant millionaire: Figure out a way to remove that invisible broomstick stuck up the rear end of OWGs. I've tried to glean some insight from proctologists and colon rectal surgeons to no avail. Your mantra needs to be, "Strike while the iron is hot" rather than, "Let's study (and restudy) it." You need to be proactive both in dealing with problems and opportunities.

Customer Focus. What have you done lately to make your customers and members not just satisfied but enthusiastic about what you do for them? OWGs have as much trouble with that question as do teenagers when asked to write that September composition entitled, "What I Did on My Summer Vacation." OWGs want customer and member loyalty but fail at the Four Rs: Relationships, Responsibility, Responsiveness, and Recovery, the basis of Client Contact Management, one of the latest watchwords of today's mega companies.

Quality. Close enough doesn't cut it anymore. The OWG hibernates in his office. Get out and wander around. Talk with customers, employees, and anyone who might provide new insight into how to improve and make things better.

Entrepreneurship. Your spaceship into the 21st century. When someone asks an OWG, "What's new?" he replies, "Same old, same old." Ask Jeff Bezos the founder of Amazon.com that question and watch his eyes light up with animation. You'd also better be prepared to listen for an hour while he answers that question. Whose stock would you rather own today, General Motors, the country's largest automaker, or Amazon.com, a company that has yet to turn a profit? If you had bought only $1,000 of each company's stock five years ago, which one would have made you a multi millionaire today? OWGs are content to survive when they should be thinking marketing and become more action-oriented to excel.