What phase of ERG Program Development is pictured here?

Hint: most ERG programs are in this stage ??

Before I give the answer, let me give some context on what you’re looking at - It’s not a crashed plane, it’s an unfinished plane on a runway.?

Now what does that have to do with ERGs? Glad you asked?? TLDR of the ERG Movement Model:?

Phase 1?? Program Infancy:

This is everything that takes place before Program launch. I healthy infancy would incorporate the five elements of a healthy ERG Program Foundation (we’ll get into that at another time).

Phase 2?? Program Adolescence:

This is where the bulk of Program growth happens. This phase is broken up into three subphases:

??? Early Adolescence:

The 6-12 months post launch. Hyper growth stage. You get a lot of members and do a first pass at applying the SOPs, Data, etc that were established in the infancy phase.?

??? Mid Adolescence:

The storming phase of your program. 2-4 years of consistent activity, measurement +? processes iterations, and community building.?

?? Late Adolescence:

(Turns out there’s no “C” emoji. Not sure what that’s about, so just pretend with me) Your ERG Program has proven the ability to be consistent, to make strategic decisions based off data, to Growth their community, etc. Now they’re ready to sample scale. This can mean different things at different companies. Maybe this is where chapters could happen, or breaking a conglomerate ERG (that’sa big word for Elmo??) up like a multicultural ERG, or launching to a new set of employees/regions, or simply adopting a Signature big program for their ERG to own. Ideally this is when serious business partnerships are introduced and added into program documentation.

Phase 3?? Program Maturity:

As the program nears its vision, ERGs will like continue to scale where possible and form additional partnerships. Impact of the program is being measured (and now has been for some time). Everybody wins because every stakeholder’s (members, leaders, executives) are having their goals met.?

That’s the short version, but hopefully that makes sense. Recently, I’ve been deeply conflicted about all of the ERG programs that never went through a healthy Infancy phase. At one point I was seriously considering calling it the “pre-Infancy Phase“ because nearly every step of infancy was basically skipped, or if not skipped it was glossed over?? but the thing is, the infancy stage ends when a program launches.?

Explaining Your Plane

Here’s the connection points to the picture.

• ?? Your Plane = Your ERG Program Foundation
• ?? Your Trip Destination = Your Program Vision?
• ??? Your Trip Course/Path = Your Program Strategy
• ?? Your Plane Gauges = Your data dashboard
• ?? Your Passengers = Employees
• ?? Corporate that just wants to make sure the plane gets to where it needs to go and gets there when it’s supposed to = Executives
• ?? Flight Attendants that help to make the passenger experience great = ERG Leaders
• ??????? Other Planes in the airspace - Other programs that exist for employees (you don’t want to clash with those)
• 1?? The plane building phase = Program Infancy
• 2????? the takeoff phase = Early Adolescence?
• 2????? that part where you’re on the plane going up until you get to a “stable altitude” (the bulk of the flight) = Mid Adolescence?
• 2???? lengths descent towards your destination = Late Adolescence?
• 3?? plane landing and arriving at your destination = program maturity - ERG program accomplishing its vision.

I went wayyy more in depth on that than I intended to in this post but hopefully dots are being connected now.? You see, I’ve been playing with this illustration for some time now but it really clicked with me this weekend.

Again, I’ve been explaining companies without data, SOPs, uniformity as “pre Infancy” because in the Infancy stage that’s when you would generally do those things. But since the Infancy stage ends when your ERG program launches, that’s not necessarily true.?

Many of you have an ERG program that’s launched already so you’re very much OUT of the Infancy stage(not to say it’s the healthy version but your plane has been built).?

SO I’m changing how I speak about this.

Here’s the quiz answer: ??Your ERG program is in the 2????? Early Adolescence Phase.?

The thing is, it will forever be in the Early Adolescence phase if it’s missing a strong foundation. The Early Adolescence phase is the launch of your plane - to quote the above abbreviated definition "Hyper growth stage. You get a lot of members and do a first pass at applying the SOPs, Data, etc that were established in the Infancy Phase."

Your half built plane will never take off. Your ERG program will never develop into the Mid Adolescence phase of testing and iterating, because you need SOP‘s, governance, a clear end goal, and data in order to properly iterate. As a matter of fact, because you haven’t outlined your program vision (where you want your energy program to go/where the destination of the plane is) your plane doesn't even know which direction to face when going on the runway!

No wonder ERG Programs are running into burnt out leaders (frustrated flight attendants)?left and right - They’re doing all this work and they can’t even get off "the runway" aka make program progress. I would be frustrated too. Low engagement (passenger delight) is also no surprise when they're sitting on a half build plane that's not bringing them any closer to their goal (no shade to the work that you've been doing thus far - I admire how far ERG programs have gotten without the foundation piece, but it won't last. If ERG leads aren't burnt out now, they will be soon and the member experience isn't able to be maintained. I won't go into in this article, but know that that's something that a one-off training or ERG software will not help you with. We need to get the plane together before we worry about making the plane pretty, make sense?)

All in all, your ERG program will forever be in the Early Adolescence phase unless you FIX YOUR PLANE.?

That is why with The ERG Movement Model, I have set out to help your ERG programs to actually get in the air and not forever live on the runway.?

Website relaunching January 1st and I can't emphasize enough how worth the wait it will be. Help is on the way! In the meantime, DM me - Maceo Owens aka The ERG Homegirl if you want to talk more on this!