Every few of months throughout 2026, I had the opportunity to get together with a group of association professionals, who for all intents and purposes, would be considered my peers in the workplace. This was part of an organized group brought together by Associations North, which my current employer is a member of. After recently wrapping up our last meeting of the year, I have been reflecting back on what I learned from the experience, and how the power of a true, intimate community can mean so much more than you expect when signing up.
Let me begin by explaining a little bit about the format of the group and our several get-togethers.
SyncUp, which is the name of the program, brought together just shy of a dozen association leaders. Leaders who sit right in that sweet spot between a President or CEO and the staff of the association. That is the role I am in right now, serving as the Chief of Staff at the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas.
It is a weird, for lack of a better term, role to sit in. You are responsible for corralling the vision of the top leader and Board of Directors, translating said vision into a strategic execution plan, and rallying the staff to drive that plan to completion. You hold the trust of the top leader, and earning the support and commitment of the staff, in your hands. Sometimes you know things that both sides of that equation will never know about each other, and it has to remain that way. Many days, you can't share what you know.
Many days, it is a lonely job.
I'm not trying to be overly dramatic, I assure you. My intention is not to lead you to believe that the role me and my peers hold is a no-win position. It's not; it is a rewarding position, but also the most challenging role I have ever been responsible for. One challenging aspect is we don't have a peer internally at our respective companies to share our challenges with.
That is why my SyncUp group was so important to me this year.
How SyncUp Works
This small group of pros got together every few of months for all-day sessions. The agenda for each session went as follows:
A guest speaker in the morning who offered up a presentation around a specific theme (for example, the speaker at our last session was Jill Johnson, who taught our group about Strategic Portfolio Management).
Then we would discuss our takeaways from the presentation.
Then we would have lunch and get a chance to bond around great conversation.
In the afternoon, we would have two different activities. One is called “Problems of Practice” where a couple of us would share a real problem we were facing at work and the rest of the group would use questions to help the person sharing find a possible solution. The second activity is called “Peer Shares” where two group members share something they have had success with recently.
Then we would end the session reflecting on our learnings from the day.
In July, we teamed up with the CEOSync group, and took a tour of the 3M Innovation Center in Maplewood, Minnesota, followed up by having lunch and great conversation at Davanni’s. It was one of the highlights of the year for me.
Beyond The SyncUp Structure
The agenda, the presentations, the sharing… all of that was worth the price of admission by itself. But what I really took out of SyncUp in 2026 is harder to explain, let alone try to put it down in words here.
But I am going to try anyway.
At the very beginning, at the first session, it was agreed among the group that these meet-ups would be a safe place. A place for us to open up, be vulnerable, share what is really bothering us, what we are really struggling with. And that is exactly what happened.
Hearing my fellow group members share the real experiences they were having, and then all of us working together to help each other is where the real magic happened. It was that alone that had me looking ahead on my Outlook calendar to see when the next session was.
But that sharing couldn’t have happened without the fact that everyone in the SyncUp group are just good people. Like seriously good people. People I would now consider friends.
“In the association world, we talk about “community” a lot. For members of an association, I can get behind that idea. But for years, I have scoffed at the idea of experiencing what a professional community would feel like for me. Today I know what that feeling feels like.”
While not the dictionary definition of ‘community’, one way I define the word after my first year as part of SyncUp, is having the knowledge and comfort knowing that a group of others have your back. They would drop everything to help you, lend an ear, or provide words of encouragement.
I know that after having spent time with my SyncUp peers, I would drop anything to help any one of them out.
Up Next… SyncUp 2027!
According to my web analytics, I have had visitors from 168 countries spend time on my website this year. So the chances of this hitting the perfect person at the perfect time is a long shot, but I am going to say it anyways:
If you work in the association space, in the upper Midwest of the United States, and you are a senior association leader, you need to consider joining SyncUp.
I’m registered for SyncUp 2027 and I am excited about some of the new changes to the program coming next year. But more importantly, I’m excited to see my SyncUp friends again soon.
