There are several books that influence both the nonprofit and forprofit sectors, providing valuable guidance to each and The Innovators Dilemma is one, noted for the impact it had on Steve Jobs in this article from Harvard Business Review.
An excerpt.
“In the lead up to today's release of the Steve Jobs biography, there's been an increasing stream of news surrounding its subject. As a business researcher, I was particularly interested in this recent article that referenced from his biography a list of Jobs's favorite books. There's one business book on this list, and it "deeply influenced" Jobs. That book is The Innovator's Dilemma by HBS Professor Clay Christensen.
“But what's most interesting to me isn't that The Innovator's Dilemma was on that list. It's that Jobs solved the conundrum.
“When describing his period of exile from Apple — when John Sculley took over — Steve Jobs described one fundamental root cause of Apple's problems. That was to let profitability outweigh passion: "My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. The products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything."
“Anyone familiar with Professor Christensen's work will quickly recognize the same causal mechanism at the heart of the Innovator's Dilemma: the pursuit of profit. The best professional managers — doing all the right things and following all the best advice — lead their companies all the way to the top of their markets in that pursuit... only to fall straight off the edge of a cliff after getting there.
“Which is exactly what had happened to Apple. A string of professional managers had led the company straight off the edge of that cliff. The fall had almost killed the company. It had 90 days working capital on hand when he took over — in other words, Apple was only three months away from bankruptcy.
“When he returned, Jobs completely upended the company. There were thousands of layoffs. Scores of products were killed stone dead. He knew the company had to make money to stay alive, but he transitioned the focus of Apple away from profits. Profit was viewed as necessary, but not sufficient, to justify everything Apple did. That attitude resulted in a company that looks entirely different to almost any other modern Fortune 500 company. One striking example: there's only one person Apple with responsibility for a profit and loss. The CFO. It's almost the opposite of what is taught in business school. An executive who worked at both Apple and Microsoft described the differences this way: "Microsoft tries to find pockets of unrealized revenue and then figures out what to make. Apple is just the opposite: It thinks of great products, then sells them. Prototypes and demos always come before spreadsheets."
“Similarly, Apple talks a lot about its great people. But make no mistake — they are there only in service of the mission. A headhunter describes it thus: "It is a happy place in that it has true believers. People join and stay because they believe in the mission of the company." It didn't matter how great you were, if you couldn't deliver to that mission — you were out.”
Showing posts with label Organizational Development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Organizational Development. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Peter Senge’s Work
I first encountered his works through his magisterial book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, and recently purchased the 2006 revised edition, along with his 2008 book, The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals And Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World, and my admiration for his work continues to grow.
If you are a nonprofit leader who has been exploring the discipline of organizational development—and if you aren’t, you should be—then he is one thinker whose work you should become familiar with; and for a wonderful conversation between two truly great organizational thinkers, I suggest getting a copy of Leading in a Time of Change: A Conversation with Peter F. Drucker & Peter M. Senge.
From Senge’s 2008 book, an excerpt:
“three guiding ideas [that] stand out as essential for creating a more sustainable future.”
1. There is no viable path forward that does not take into account the needs of future generations. The term sustainability is widely used to express the need to live in the present in ways that do not jeopardize the future….
2. Institutions matter. Today’s world is shaped not by individuals alone, but by the networks of businesses and governmental and nongovernmental institutions that influence the products we make, the food we eat, the energy we use, and our responses to problems that arise from those systems…
3. All real change is grounded in new ways of thinking and perceiving. As Einstein said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”… (pp. 9-10)
If you are a nonprofit leader who has been exploring the discipline of organizational development—and if you aren’t, you should be—then he is one thinker whose work you should become familiar with; and for a wonderful conversation between two truly great organizational thinkers, I suggest getting a copy of Leading in a Time of Change: A Conversation with Peter F. Drucker & Peter M. Senge.
From Senge’s 2008 book, an excerpt:
“three guiding ideas [that] stand out as essential for creating a more sustainable future.”
1. There is no viable path forward that does not take into account the needs of future generations. The term sustainability is widely used to express the need to live in the present in ways that do not jeopardize the future….
2. Institutions matter. Today’s world is shaped not by individuals alone, but by the networks of businesses and governmental and nongovernmental institutions that influence the products we make, the food we eat, the energy we use, and our responses to problems that arise from those systems…
3. All real change is grounded in new ways of thinking and perceiving. As Einstein said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”… (pp. 9-10)
Friday, October 21, 2011
Hybrid Nonprofits
An excellent article from Harvard Business Weekly about the challenges they face in fulfilling their mission.
An excerpt.
“For those who like to view things in black and white, it's tempting to divide the working world into two camps. There is the for-profit sector, primarily driven by the prospect of financial success. And then there's the not-for-profit world, which eschews the almighty dollar in the pursuit of curing societal ills. In reality, though, the line between the two is growing blurrier.
"In the not-for-profit sector, a number of organizations are trying to be less dependent on donations and grants," says Julie Battilana, an associate professor at Harvard Business School. "In the meantime, facing increased public pressure to help address societal problems, for-profit firms have adopted social responsibility policies, which have pushed them to focus more on social initiatives."
"Some of them have been accused of losing sight of their social mission, or even having a negative impact on the populations they were trying to help"
“In the wake of this evolution over the past decade, more organizations have adopted a hybrid business model in which a social mission is the primary goal, but they still aim to generate enough commercial revenue so they can survive and thrive without depending on charitable donations like a typical nonprofit would. Commercial microfinance organizations often adopt a hybrid model, for example: they provide business loans to poor people who wouldn't traditionally qualify, but they still depend on the loan recipients paying them back with interest.
“The main problem with the model is that hybrid organizations run the risk of suffering from so-called mission drift—meaning that they stray from their original goals—usually by focusing on profits to the detriment of the social good, but sometimes vice versa.
"Mission drift has been identified as a potential problem among microfinance organizations," says Battilana, who has been studying hybrid organizations for several years. "Some of them have been accused of losing sight of their social mission, or even having a negative impact on the populations they were trying to help."
“According to Battilana, there are two key questions that leaders must address to keep the mission on course while still making enough money to sustain that mission: One, whom should you hire to strike a healthy balance between idealism and the bottom line? And two, what's the best way to socialize new hires to stay focused?”
An excerpt.
“For those who like to view things in black and white, it's tempting to divide the working world into two camps. There is the for-profit sector, primarily driven by the prospect of financial success. And then there's the not-for-profit world, which eschews the almighty dollar in the pursuit of curing societal ills. In reality, though, the line between the two is growing blurrier.
"In the not-for-profit sector, a number of organizations are trying to be less dependent on donations and grants," says Julie Battilana, an associate professor at Harvard Business School. "In the meantime, facing increased public pressure to help address societal problems, for-profit firms have adopted social responsibility policies, which have pushed them to focus more on social initiatives."
"Some of them have been accused of losing sight of their social mission, or even having a negative impact on the populations they were trying to help"
“In the wake of this evolution over the past decade, more organizations have adopted a hybrid business model in which a social mission is the primary goal, but they still aim to generate enough commercial revenue so they can survive and thrive without depending on charitable donations like a typical nonprofit would. Commercial microfinance organizations often adopt a hybrid model, for example: they provide business loans to poor people who wouldn't traditionally qualify, but they still depend on the loan recipients paying them back with interest.
“The main problem with the model is that hybrid organizations run the risk of suffering from so-called mission drift—meaning that they stray from their original goals—usually by focusing on profits to the detriment of the social good, but sometimes vice versa.
"Mission drift has been identified as a potential problem among microfinance organizations," says Battilana, who has been studying hybrid organizations for several years. "Some of them have been accused of losing sight of their social mission, or even having a negative impact on the populations they were trying to help."
“According to Battilana, there are two key questions that leaders must address to keep the mission on course while still making enough money to sustain that mission: One, whom should you hire to strike a healthy balance between idealism and the bottom line? And two, what's the best way to socialize new hires to stay focused?”
Thursday, October 20, 2011
The Learning Organization
Becoming one is a key attribute of success, whether forprofit or nonprofit and the leading thinker in this field is Peter Senge, whose magisterial, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, is the one book you need to have in your library.
This article from Stanford Social Innovation Review examines the difficulties involved in actually becoming a learning organization.
An excerpt.
“Reinventing the wheel—this well-worn phrase describes one of the oldest of human follies: undertaking a project or activity without tapping into the knowledge that already exists within a culture or community. Individuals are blessed with a brain that, some of the time, remembers what we’ve already learned—or at least that we’ve learned something. But what about organizations?
“Consider the views of Kim Oakes, director of sharing and communities of practice at the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), a national network of 99 charter schools serving 27,000 students via 1,900 teachers. Oakes told Bridgespan’s research team: “We know that about 80 percent of our teachers create materials from scratch. … It became increasingly important to connect our teachers, so that they could build upon one another’s ideas rather than work in isolation.”
“Or consider World Vision, an international Christian development organization with an annual budget of more than $2 billion operating in 93 countries. World Vision was facing the consequences of rapid growth. In the words of Eleanor Monbiot, its senior director for knowledge management: “We were growing at 10 to 15 percent a year. We had moved from everybody knowing each other vaguely, to a breaking point. … The No. 1 need was to know what people were up to, where the best practices lay.”
“KIPP, World Vision, and a host of other nonprofits, large and small, are tackling the challenge of making their organizations as smart as the individuals who constitute them. In short, they are engaging in the hard work of organizational learning: The intentional practice of collecting information, reflecting on it, and sharing the findings, to improve the performance of an organization.
“Authors ranging from the late business historian Alfred D. Chandler Jr. to MIT Sloan School of Management senior lecturer Peter Senge have emphasized the value of knowledge and learning inside organizations. But, to use another well-worn phrase, this is easier said than done. In the fall of 2010, a Bridgespan Group team surveyed 116 nonprofits about how they learn—and how they translate the knowledge gained into practice, to increase their impact and fulfill their missions. We then explored these topics through interviews with more than half a dozen organizations, which were recommended by their peers for their innovative approaches to learning.
“The results of the survey indicate that nonprofit leaders care deeply about capturing and sharing knowledge across their programs and fields. But they also identify three significant impediments to organizational learning: a lack of clear and measurable goals about using knowledge to improve performance; insufficient incentives for individuals or teams to participate in organizational learning activities; and uncertainty about the most effective processes for capturing and sharing learning. These issues also surface in forprofit organizations, according to outside studies, where knowledge hoarding between business units can result from competition for resources. In the nonprofit sector, however, 97 percent of survey respondents said their leaders value knowledge sharing as a means to achieve their missions. Still, many of them struggle to do it well.”
This article from Stanford Social Innovation Review examines the difficulties involved in actually becoming a learning organization.
An excerpt.
“Reinventing the wheel—this well-worn phrase describes one of the oldest of human follies: undertaking a project or activity without tapping into the knowledge that already exists within a culture or community. Individuals are blessed with a brain that, some of the time, remembers what we’ve already learned—or at least that we’ve learned something. But what about organizations?
“Consider the views of Kim Oakes, director of sharing and communities of practice at the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), a national network of 99 charter schools serving 27,000 students via 1,900 teachers. Oakes told Bridgespan’s research team: “We know that about 80 percent of our teachers create materials from scratch. … It became increasingly important to connect our teachers, so that they could build upon one another’s ideas rather than work in isolation.”
“Or consider World Vision, an international Christian development organization with an annual budget of more than $2 billion operating in 93 countries. World Vision was facing the consequences of rapid growth. In the words of Eleanor Monbiot, its senior director for knowledge management: “We were growing at 10 to 15 percent a year. We had moved from everybody knowing each other vaguely, to a breaking point. … The No. 1 need was to know what people were up to, where the best practices lay.”
“KIPP, World Vision, and a host of other nonprofits, large and small, are tackling the challenge of making their organizations as smart as the individuals who constitute them. In short, they are engaging in the hard work of organizational learning: The intentional practice of collecting information, reflecting on it, and sharing the findings, to improve the performance of an organization.
“Authors ranging from the late business historian Alfred D. Chandler Jr. to MIT Sloan School of Management senior lecturer Peter Senge have emphasized the value of knowledge and learning inside organizations. But, to use another well-worn phrase, this is easier said than done. In the fall of 2010, a Bridgespan Group team surveyed 116 nonprofits about how they learn—and how they translate the knowledge gained into practice, to increase their impact and fulfill their missions. We then explored these topics through interviews with more than half a dozen organizations, which were recommended by their peers for their innovative approaches to learning.
“The results of the survey indicate that nonprofit leaders care deeply about capturing and sharing knowledge across their programs and fields. But they also identify three significant impediments to organizational learning: a lack of clear and measurable goals about using knowledge to improve performance; insufficient incentives for individuals or teams to participate in organizational learning activities; and uncertainty about the most effective processes for capturing and sharing learning. These issues also surface in forprofit organizations, according to outside studies, where knowledge hoarding between business units can result from competition for resources. In the nonprofit sector, however, 97 percent of survey respondents said their leaders value knowledge sharing as a means to achieve their missions. Still, many of them struggle to do it well.”
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Congruence, Alignment
Both mean about the same and both are becoming much more crucial in an era of shrinking funds for nonprofits, both from government sources and from private philanthropists.
They are also core elements of my consultancy practice.
This article from Harvard Business Review, which uses the term coherence, also meaning about the same, takes note.
An excerpt.
“There is a crisis in the not-for-profit sector. Since the great recession began, donations to the largest charities in the U.S. have dropped by billions — down 11% in 2010 alone, according to a recent report from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. This was the worst decline since the Chronicle began ranking its "Philanthropy 400" list of America's largest fund-raising charities in 1990. Leaders of philanthropic and other non-profit organizations naturally blame the economy for this problem; and many expect things to get worse as the economic malaise drags on.
“But the financial meltdown has not affected all charities and not-for-profits equally. It is the more versatile, general-purpose charities — including such well-known, diverse institutions as The United Way Worldwide and the Salvation Army — that are faring the worst. For more tightly focused not-for-profits, such as the Cleveland Clinic and the network of Food Banks around the country, the decline is not nearly as sharp.
“Why the disparity? Our own research on organizational strategy and leadership more broadly suggests a reason. Since 2010, we've been conducting an ongoing survey of managers' attitudes about the strategies of their organizations (click here to take the not-for-profit version of the profiler). More than 65% of the respondents from the non-profit sector said it was a significant challenge to bring day-to-day decisions in line with their organization's overall strategy. When asked about their frustration factors, 76% (the largest group by far, and a larger percentage than their for-profit counterparts) named "too many conflicting priorities." When asked about their organization's core capabilities — distinctive things their association could do better than anyone else — only 29% said these supported their organization's strategy, and almost 80% said that their association's efforts to grow had led to waste.
“All of these results suggest that, while the hit to fundraising has hurt many not-for-profits, the more fundamental core problem is strategic. These institutions lack a strategy for connecting their mission with their ability to deliver. In short, this is a crisis of coherence.
“Coherence is a fundamental alignment among the elements that create value in an organization. A coherent not-for-profit has three core strategic elements fitting seamlessly together. First, there is a well-defined "way to play," a distinctive way of achieving the organization's mission — thus making a difference in a way that would otherwise go unfulfilled. Second, the organization backs up its mission with a system of interrelated capabilities: a combination of processes, tools, knowledge, skills, and organization, all focused on reliably and consistently delivering what is needed to create value according to that way to play. Third, all its activities relate to this strategic mix; if it doesn't have the capabilities to perform some service, in a way that fits with its overall strategy, then it leaves that to a different organization.”
They are also core elements of my consultancy practice.
This article from Harvard Business Review, which uses the term coherence, also meaning about the same, takes note.
An excerpt.
“There is a crisis in the not-for-profit sector. Since the great recession began, donations to the largest charities in the U.S. have dropped by billions — down 11% in 2010 alone, according to a recent report from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. This was the worst decline since the Chronicle began ranking its "Philanthropy 400" list of America's largest fund-raising charities in 1990. Leaders of philanthropic and other non-profit organizations naturally blame the economy for this problem; and many expect things to get worse as the economic malaise drags on.
“But the financial meltdown has not affected all charities and not-for-profits equally. It is the more versatile, general-purpose charities — including such well-known, diverse institutions as The United Way Worldwide and the Salvation Army — that are faring the worst. For more tightly focused not-for-profits, such as the Cleveland Clinic and the network of Food Banks around the country, the decline is not nearly as sharp.
“Why the disparity? Our own research on organizational strategy and leadership more broadly suggests a reason. Since 2010, we've been conducting an ongoing survey of managers' attitudes about the strategies of their organizations (click here to take the not-for-profit version of the profiler). More than 65% of the respondents from the non-profit sector said it was a significant challenge to bring day-to-day decisions in line with their organization's overall strategy. When asked about their frustration factors, 76% (the largest group by far, and a larger percentage than their for-profit counterparts) named "too many conflicting priorities." When asked about their organization's core capabilities — distinctive things their association could do better than anyone else — only 29% said these supported their organization's strategy, and almost 80% said that their association's efforts to grow had led to waste.
“All of these results suggest that, while the hit to fundraising has hurt many not-for-profits, the more fundamental core problem is strategic. These institutions lack a strategy for connecting their mission with their ability to deliver. In short, this is a crisis of coherence.
“Coherence is a fundamental alignment among the elements that create value in an organization. A coherent not-for-profit has three core strategic elements fitting seamlessly together. First, there is a well-defined "way to play," a distinctive way of achieving the organization's mission — thus making a difference in a way that would otherwise go unfulfilled. Second, the organization backs up its mission with a system of interrelated capabilities: a combination of processes, tools, knowledge, skills, and organization, all focused on reliably and consistently delivering what is needed to create value according to that way to play. Third, all its activities relate to this strategic mix; if it doesn't have the capabilities to perform some service, in a way that fits with its overall strategy, then it leaves that to a different organization.”
Monday, October 17, 2011
Creative Disruption
A good story on the difficulties and opportunities facing the nonprofit human service sector from the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
An excerpt, with links at the jump.
“With a bigger share of America’s population reaching old age and growing more diverse, social-service organizations are in for some big changes in the not-too-distant future. Adding to the challenge: the turbulence in government and private financing.
“For the past six months, the Alliance for Children and Families—a membership group for human-service charities—has interviewed nonprofit leaders, gathered focus groups, and conducted surveys to identify the emerging trends organizations must embrace to succeed.
“Today the alliance has published its findings in a new report, “Disruptive Forces: Driving a Human Services Revolution.”
“Sparking Conversation
“Some of the six trends detailed in the report will sound familiar, such as the need for nonprofits to demonstrate to potential donors the results of their programs as well as the emergence of new types of financing that combine social and financial returns.
“But the report also includes some provocative observations that are likely to spur debate. For example, when discussing “information liberation,” which refers to the fact that a new generation of consumers is more likely to share information about themselves, it’s clear that the report’s authors disapprove of social-service groups’ approach to handling client information.
“The human-services sector has used ‘privacy’ and ‘confidentiality’ as an excuse to avoid developments that promote information sharing,” they write. “Information sharing can improve service-delivery models such that they ultimately give consumers more control over how their information is shared and allow other agencies in the same continuum to provide better care.”
“The report calls on organizations to integrate advances in science and technology into their work and suggests that brain scanning might be one way for charities to demonstrate the effectiveness of their programs.
“Boards will find themselves challenged by the ethical tension between high-tech and high-touch approaches,” the authors write.
“Other forces cited in the report that require nonprofits to act: growing competition that requires a willingness to take risks on innovative projects, plus a focus on “branding causes, not charities,” to persuade donors to focus on the issue, not on a particular group.”
An excerpt, with links at the jump.
“With a bigger share of America’s population reaching old age and growing more diverse, social-service organizations are in for some big changes in the not-too-distant future. Adding to the challenge: the turbulence in government and private financing.
“For the past six months, the Alliance for Children and Families—a membership group for human-service charities—has interviewed nonprofit leaders, gathered focus groups, and conducted surveys to identify the emerging trends organizations must embrace to succeed.
“Today the alliance has published its findings in a new report, “Disruptive Forces: Driving a Human Services Revolution.”
“Sparking Conversation
“Some of the six trends detailed in the report will sound familiar, such as the need for nonprofits to demonstrate to potential donors the results of their programs as well as the emergence of new types of financing that combine social and financial returns.
“But the report also includes some provocative observations that are likely to spur debate. For example, when discussing “information liberation,” which refers to the fact that a new generation of consumers is more likely to share information about themselves, it’s clear that the report’s authors disapprove of social-service groups’ approach to handling client information.
“The human-services sector has used ‘privacy’ and ‘confidentiality’ as an excuse to avoid developments that promote information sharing,” they write. “Information sharing can improve service-delivery models such that they ultimately give consumers more control over how their information is shared and allow other agencies in the same continuum to provide better care.”
“The report calls on organizations to integrate advances in science and technology into their work and suggests that brain scanning might be one way for charities to demonstrate the effectiveness of their programs.
“Boards will find themselves challenged by the ethical tension between high-tech and high-touch approaches,” the authors write.
“Other forces cited in the report that require nonprofits to act: growing competition that requires a willingness to take risks on innovative projects, plus a focus on “branding causes, not charities,” to persuade donors to focus on the issue, not on a particular group.”
Friday, October 7, 2011
Meeting With Peers
This is a good article from Stanford Social Innovation Review, touching on an important resource and fortunately, it is one available in Sacramento at the Nonprofit Resource Center ED Network, and here is their October meeting agenda.
An excerpt from the article
“We recently conducted a focus group with nonprofit CEOs in New York City. Given all the recent research that points to the value of peer-to-peer support for nonprofit leaders, we wanted to know why so little of this is done online. One CEO immediately responded, “We don’t have time.”
“The facilitator of the focus group was taken aback. “How do you have time to come to this two-hour focus group but don’t have the time to go online?”
“The leaders in the room saw the return on investment for a well-organized meeting with their peers to be much greater than anything they could do in the digital commons. They were more confident that they would get actionable insight into management techniques. But perhaps more importantly, the meeting provided an emotional and psychological benefit that is rarely met: a space for candid conversation about successes and failures in a safe, supportive environment. (highlighting added)
“Face-to-face conversations with other leaders—commercial and nonprofit—remind us that failure is, in fact, the norm and does not preclude success.
“If [CEOs’ successes] were graded on a curve, the mean on the test would be 22 out of a 100,” Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz recently wrote on TechCrunch. “This kind of mean can be psychologically challenging…because nobody tells you that the mean is 22.”
“If the buck stops at the CEO, every failure in our organization ends up piled on my desk—whether it’s a typo on the website, a bad hire, or a missed market opportunity. After just a week, the failures stack up so high that it is hard to see past the mountain of complaints.”
An excerpt from the article
“We recently conducted a focus group with nonprofit CEOs in New York City. Given all the recent research that points to the value of peer-to-peer support for nonprofit leaders, we wanted to know why so little of this is done online. One CEO immediately responded, “We don’t have time.”
“The facilitator of the focus group was taken aback. “How do you have time to come to this two-hour focus group but don’t have the time to go online?”
“The leaders in the room saw the return on investment for a well-organized meeting with their peers to be much greater than anything they could do in the digital commons. They were more confident that they would get actionable insight into management techniques. But perhaps more importantly, the meeting provided an emotional and psychological benefit that is rarely met: a space for candid conversation about successes and failures in a safe, supportive environment. (highlighting added)
“Face-to-face conversations with other leaders—commercial and nonprofit—remind us that failure is, in fact, the norm and does not preclude success.
“If [CEOs’ successes] were graded on a curve, the mean on the test would be 22 out of a 100,” Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz recently wrote on TechCrunch. “This kind of mean can be psychologically challenging…because nobody tells you that the mean is 22.”
“If the buck stops at the CEO, every failure in our organization ends up piled on my desk—whether it’s a typo on the website, a bad hire, or a missed market opportunity. After just a week, the failures stack up so high that it is hard to see past the mountain of complaints.”
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Board Members & Courage
This article from Venture Philanthropy Partners is excellent, reminding board members that their job is to ask questions, get answers, and bring the level of passion, skill, and talent for which they were originally recruited as board members, to the proceedings of the board and fulfillment of the mission of the organization.
An excerpt.
“They check their brains at the door” is a complaint often heard about business leaders who serve on nonprofit boards. This complaint has merit. I regularly observe business leaders who are reluctant to apply the same rigor, objective questioning, performance expectations, and data-informed decision-making that serve them well in their day jobs.
“I’ve been guilty of this myself. I remember, with great chagrin and embarrassment, how much difficulty I had finding my sea legs when I first joined a nonprofit board. I was appalled by the lack of information available to us, and the little information we did have told me that the organization and its charismatic leader were struggling mightily. Instead of speaking up and constructively demanding the level of stewardship and governance that I took for granted in my corporate board roles, I just got frustrated and said little.
“I don’t think I checked my brains at the door. But I sure as hell checked my courage.
“As I reflect on why I didn’t speak up, I suppose I just didn’t know what my role “allowed” me to say or ask. I was the new guy from the business world without any real experience with the type of services the organization provided. I joined this board thinking it would be a “nice thing to do” and certainly not intending to ruffle feathers.
“I know others from the business world have felt this same hesitation, as well as a related one: Friendships and social ties with the executive director and other board members can blur objectivity and a sense of accountability.
“The net is that too many nonprofit boards are downright afraid to stir conflict, rock the boat with hard questions, challenge executive directors, and hold the organization accountable for its performance. We simply don’t want to “hurt somebody’s feelings” or, God forbid, introduce any aspect of conflict—even when it might spur constructive debate. Unfortunately, when we elevate “harmony” over mission and purpose, our clients/beneficiaries often pay a big price in terms of the quality of services they receive.
“Timid, polite, “collegial” boards may eventually start asking the right questions, but often it’s too late. The questioning finally comes when they’re faced with a problem so severe that they have no choice but to tackle the real issues. By that time, they’re in crisis mode, which, ironically, almost always results in broken glass and busted relationships as well as well as less-than-desired programmatic results.”
An excerpt.
“They check their brains at the door” is a complaint often heard about business leaders who serve on nonprofit boards. This complaint has merit. I regularly observe business leaders who are reluctant to apply the same rigor, objective questioning, performance expectations, and data-informed decision-making that serve them well in their day jobs.
“I’ve been guilty of this myself. I remember, with great chagrin and embarrassment, how much difficulty I had finding my sea legs when I first joined a nonprofit board. I was appalled by the lack of information available to us, and the little information we did have told me that the organization and its charismatic leader were struggling mightily. Instead of speaking up and constructively demanding the level of stewardship and governance that I took for granted in my corporate board roles, I just got frustrated and said little.
“I don’t think I checked my brains at the door. But I sure as hell checked my courage.
“As I reflect on why I didn’t speak up, I suppose I just didn’t know what my role “allowed” me to say or ask. I was the new guy from the business world without any real experience with the type of services the organization provided. I joined this board thinking it would be a “nice thing to do” and certainly not intending to ruffle feathers.
“I know others from the business world have felt this same hesitation, as well as a related one: Friendships and social ties with the executive director and other board members can blur objectivity and a sense of accountability.
“The net is that too many nonprofit boards are downright afraid to stir conflict, rock the boat with hard questions, challenge executive directors, and hold the organization accountable for its performance. We simply don’t want to “hurt somebody’s feelings” or, God forbid, introduce any aspect of conflict—even when it might spur constructive debate. Unfortunately, when we elevate “harmony” over mission and purpose, our clients/beneficiaries often pay a big price in terms of the quality of services they receive.
“Timid, polite, “collegial” boards may eventually start asking the right questions, but often it’s too late. The questioning finally comes when they’re faced with a problem so severe that they have no choice but to tackle the real issues. By that time, they’re in crisis mode, which, ironically, almost always results in broken glass and busted relationships as well as well as less-than-desired programmatic results.”
Monday, August 22, 2011
Smart Merging
Following up on Friday’s post on the possible merger of two local arts groups, here is an article by one of the major experts on nonprofit mergers, David La Piana, published last year in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
An excerpt.
“In the midst of the worldwide financial crisis, funders are increasingly suggesting that nonprofits consider merging—that is, fusing their boards, management, and legal entities to form a single organization. In 2009 alone, my consulting firm delivered nearly 60 presentations and workshops on mergers and other partnership forms to more than 6,000 participants—double the previous year’s tally. Similarly, our strategic restructuring practice (which handles mergers and other partnerships) grew 60 percent last year, during the worst part of the recession.
“Now 2010 is upon us, and the urge to merge shows no signs of abating. Underlying this trend are two core beliefs: The nonprofit sector has too many organizations, and most nonprofits are too small and are therefore inefficient. Mergers, the thinking goes, would reduce the intense competition for scarce funding. Consolidating organizations would also introduce economies of scale to the sector, increasing efficiency and improving effectiveness.
“Yet a closer look at the nonprofit sector suggests that this thinking is too simplistic. Mergers are risky business. They sometimes fail, although not so frequently as in the corporate world. They usually cost more than anticipated. They sometimes create more problems than they solve. And the problems that they allegedly solve—too many nonprofits, too small in size—may not be problems after all.
“Instead of reflexively pulling out the biggest gun in the partnership arsenal, nonprofits should consider a variety of ways of working together. After facilitating some 200 nonprofit restructurings (including mergers, administrative consolidations, and other partnerships), my colleagues and I have developed a few rules of thumb for when nonprofits should merge, when they should remain fully independent, and when they should undertake unions that lie between these two poles.1 We’ve also identified how funders can help—or hurt—the formation of nonprofit partnerships.
“THE RIGHT NUMBER OF NONPROFITS
“A familiar cry in the nonprofit sector, particularly among funders, is that there are just too many organizations competing for too few dollars. The sector has allowed not only thousands of flowers to bloom, but also quite a few weeds, the critics say. With the recession upon us, they conclude, the time has come to prune.
“But are there indeed too many nonprofits? Let’s take a look at the numbers. When funders talk about mergers to reduce competition for funding, they are usually discussing the small subset of nonprofits that have annual operating budgets above $100,000. They aren’t discussing the myriad small, mostly volunteer groups that make up the bulk of the sector, because these organizations are not filling funders’ inboxes with grant requests.
“In 2005, only 170,000 of 1.4 million U.S. nonprofits reported expenses of more than $100,000.2 And only 55,000 nonprofits had expenses greater than $1 million, including the 5,000 hospitals and colleges that are typically not included in discussions of the sector.
“In contrast, 6.7 million of the nearly 30 million U.S. businesses had receipts of at least $100,000, and 1.4 million had receipts greater than $1 million.3 Compared to business, the nonprofit sector is tiny, in both overall number and average size of organizations. Thus the cause of the sector’s current feverish competition for funding would not appear to be “too many actors” in the marketplace. Instead, the principal reason for the run on funding is that, as if by some fiendish design, there are too few dollars available to support the vital services that nonprofits offer and that communities need.
“Most nonprofits respond to what economists call market failure: Nonprofits provide desperately needed services to constituents who lack the means to pay the full cost. Government and private funders must then bridge the funding gap. In bad economic times these third-party payers pull back, leaving nonprofits with inadequate funding—often at the very moment that they are experiencing increased demand for their services.”
An excerpt.
“In the midst of the worldwide financial crisis, funders are increasingly suggesting that nonprofits consider merging—that is, fusing their boards, management, and legal entities to form a single organization. In 2009 alone, my consulting firm delivered nearly 60 presentations and workshops on mergers and other partnership forms to more than 6,000 participants—double the previous year’s tally. Similarly, our strategic restructuring practice (which handles mergers and other partnerships) grew 60 percent last year, during the worst part of the recession.
“Now 2010 is upon us, and the urge to merge shows no signs of abating. Underlying this trend are two core beliefs: The nonprofit sector has too many organizations, and most nonprofits are too small and are therefore inefficient. Mergers, the thinking goes, would reduce the intense competition for scarce funding. Consolidating organizations would also introduce economies of scale to the sector, increasing efficiency and improving effectiveness.
“Yet a closer look at the nonprofit sector suggests that this thinking is too simplistic. Mergers are risky business. They sometimes fail, although not so frequently as in the corporate world. They usually cost more than anticipated. They sometimes create more problems than they solve. And the problems that they allegedly solve—too many nonprofits, too small in size—may not be problems after all.
“Instead of reflexively pulling out the biggest gun in the partnership arsenal, nonprofits should consider a variety of ways of working together. After facilitating some 200 nonprofit restructurings (including mergers, administrative consolidations, and other partnerships), my colleagues and I have developed a few rules of thumb for when nonprofits should merge, when they should remain fully independent, and when they should undertake unions that lie between these two poles.1 We’ve also identified how funders can help—or hurt—the formation of nonprofit partnerships.
“THE RIGHT NUMBER OF NONPROFITS
“A familiar cry in the nonprofit sector, particularly among funders, is that there are just too many organizations competing for too few dollars. The sector has allowed not only thousands of flowers to bloom, but also quite a few weeds, the critics say. With the recession upon us, they conclude, the time has come to prune.
“But are there indeed too many nonprofits? Let’s take a look at the numbers. When funders talk about mergers to reduce competition for funding, they are usually discussing the small subset of nonprofits that have annual operating budgets above $100,000. They aren’t discussing the myriad small, mostly volunteer groups that make up the bulk of the sector, because these organizations are not filling funders’ inboxes with grant requests.
“In 2005, only 170,000 of 1.4 million U.S. nonprofits reported expenses of more than $100,000.2 And only 55,000 nonprofits had expenses greater than $1 million, including the 5,000 hospitals and colleges that are typically not included in discussions of the sector.
“In contrast, 6.7 million of the nearly 30 million U.S. businesses had receipts of at least $100,000, and 1.4 million had receipts greater than $1 million.3 Compared to business, the nonprofit sector is tiny, in both overall number and average size of organizations. Thus the cause of the sector’s current feverish competition for funding would not appear to be “too many actors” in the marketplace. Instead, the principal reason for the run on funding is that, as if by some fiendish design, there are too few dollars available to support the vital services that nonprofits offer and that communities need.
“Most nonprofits respond to what economists call market failure: Nonprofits provide desperately needed services to constituents who lack the means to pay the full cost. Government and private funders must then bridge the funding gap. In bad economic times these third-party payers pull back, leaving nonprofits with inadequate funding—often at the very moment that they are experiencing increased demand for their services.”
Monday, August 8, 2011
Leadership Coaching
I have been providing this service for years and the way I approach it is a pretty straightforward process of listening, advising, and inspiring.
This article from the Nonprofit Quarterly examines it.
An excerpt.
“Ruth McCambridge: If coaching is the answer, what’s the question?
“Bill Ryan: The question is, “If my organization wants to get to Point X, how am I, as a leader, in the way, and what do I need to do to get out of the way?” That’s a negative formulation of it. Another way to put it would be, “If my organization wants to get to Point X, what do I, as a leader, need to do to build on my strengths and manage my weaknesses to help it get there?”
“RM: It was interesting to see in the report how vague and all over the place the definitions of coaching are. Can you talk a little bit about what people mean when they talk about coaching?
“BR: There are lots of people attempting to nail down the definition. The practice of coaching is still relatively new, so everyone is trying to definitively type it, and, in particular, they’re very anxious to distinguish it from consulting or therapy. Some people, invested in the practice as a profession, want to put coaching on the map as something highly distinctive.
“RM: But isn’t it kind of a weird combination of consulting and therapy?
“BR: That’s right—when I talk to coaches and they describe what they do, it reveals that they’re doing a blend of things, and there was a nice typology put together by editors at Harvard Business Review that did show the overlap.
“I think, probably, the big difference many are trying to emphasize is that consulting would be about trying to come up with the answer, therapy would be about trying to get to self-understanding by understanding the past, and coaching is in the middle.
“[Coaching] should help you gain enough introspection to come up with your own solutions looking toward the future. [Leadership guru] Warren Benning was quoted as saying, basically, that the effort to distinguish it from therapy is partly just to make it more legitimate. No manager, certainly no for-profit one, is going to say, “I’ve got to stop our meeting now, it’s time for me to meet with my shrink.” But to say, “It’s time for me to meet with my coach” would be acceptable.”
This article from the Nonprofit Quarterly examines it.
An excerpt.
“Ruth McCambridge: If coaching is the answer, what’s the question?
“Bill Ryan: The question is, “If my organization wants to get to Point X, how am I, as a leader, in the way, and what do I need to do to get out of the way?” That’s a negative formulation of it. Another way to put it would be, “If my organization wants to get to Point X, what do I, as a leader, need to do to build on my strengths and manage my weaknesses to help it get there?”
“RM: It was interesting to see in the report how vague and all over the place the definitions of coaching are. Can you talk a little bit about what people mean when they talk about coaching?
“BR: There are lots of people attempting to nail down the definition. The practice of coaching is still relatively new, so everyone is trying to definitively type it, and, in particular, they’re very anxious to distinguish it from consulting or therapy. Some people, invested in the practice as a profession, want to put coaching on the map as something highly distinctive.
“RM: But isn’t it kind of a weird combination of consulting and therapy?
“BR: That’s right—when I talk to coaches and they describe what they do, it reveals that they’re doing a blend of things, and there was a nice typology put together by editors at Harvard Business Review that did show the overlap.
“I think, probably, the big difference many are trying to emphasize is that consulting would be about trying to come up with the answer, therapy would be about trying to get to self-understanding by understanding the past, and coaching is in the middle.
“[Coaching] should help you gain enough introspection to come up with your own solutions looking toward the future. [Leadership guru] Warren Benning was quoted as saying, basically, that the effort to distinguish it from therapy is partly just to make it more legitimate. No manager, certainly no for-profit one, is going to say, “I’ve got to stop our meeting now, it’s time for me to meet with my shrink.” But to say, “It’s time for me to meet with my coach” would be acceptable.”
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Optimism & Leadership
Excellent advice for anyone working within an organization, from Harvard Business Review.
An excerpt.
“One of my greatest mentors was the late Jay Chiat of TBWA Chiat Day, an iconoclast in the field of advertising with a constant imagination for possibilities in business and life. Jay embodied the three traits of a "lucky attitude" that I described in my last post: humility, intellectual curiosity, and optimism. Of these three characteristics, it was Jay's optimism which was perhaps his greatest lesson to me. He inspired people to embrace optimism — inside themselves, and also, as importantly, in others. It is a gift to understand how to project, share, and inspire with optimism. It is an even greater act of generosity to be inspired by optimism from others and to be willing to receive it.
“The capacity to be a natural recipient of ideas and other peoples' optimism is what makes for the ultimate optimist. You may be open to experimenting with new things, but do you truly see the good in something before the bad? The order of this thought process is critical: to try and see everything good in an idea before seeing anything bad. While most of us like to think we do, and would therefore self-describe ourselves as optimistic, more often (if we are truly honest with ourselves) we are natural critics (even cynics). Experience brings wisdom, but its collateral damage is that it can jade one against new concepts, turning many of us into Pavlovian skeptics. Whether we openly say it or not, we often think of what might be wrong with someone or something before we try to understand what might be right or good. The temptation and reflex for cynicism is usually more common than a natural responsive optimism. Cynicism is indeed the enemy of optimism.
“Here's a practical tool for the skeptic or cynic in all of us: the 24x3 rule. The next time you hear an idea for the first time, or meet someone new, try to wait 24 seconds before saying or thinking something negative. This reinforces a foundational skill of good optimists and good leadership. That basic skill is listening. As you gain the ability to listen and pause for a brief 24 seconds before letting the critic in you bubble to the verbal surface, move to the next level and try to do it for 24 minutes. At 24 minutes, you are able to give more considered thought to the idea and think more carefully of the many reasons why it might actually work, why it might be better than what is out there, and why it might just topple conventional wisdom.
“And yes, you should also work towards the ability to wait 24 hours — one single day — before pondering or verbalizing the cons against something. Of course, most times this will not be possible. Our minds cannot compartmentalize so easily, nor shut off our past experiences. But the 24x3 rule is a type of reflective meditation for developing a more optimistic approach towards people and ideas. The simple guideline of 24x24x24 is just a good reminder that a prerequisite of optimism is to have a willing suspension of disbelief.”
An excerpt.
“One of my greatest mentors was the late Jay Chiat of TBWA Chiat Day, an iconoclast in the field of advertising with a constant imagination for possibilities in business and life. Jay embodied the three traits of a "lucky attitude" that I described in my last post: humility, intellectual curiosity, and optimism. Of these three characteristics, it was Jay's optimism which was perhaps his greatest lesson to me. He inspired people to embrace optimism — inside themselves, and also, as importantly, in others. It is a gift to understand how to project, share, and inspire with optimism. It is an even greater act of generosity to be inspired by optimism from others and to be willing to receive it.
“The capacity to be a natural recipient of ideas and other peoples' optimism is what makes for the ultimate optimist. You may be open to experimenting with new things, but do you truly see the good in something before the bad? The order of this thought process is critical: to try and see everything good in an idea before seeing anything bad. While most of us like to think we do, and would therefore self-describe ourselves as optimistic, more often (if we are truly honest with ourselves) we are natural critics (even cynics). Experience brings wisdom, but its collateral damage is that it can jade one against new concepts, turning many of us into Pavlovian skeptics. Whether we openly say it or not, we often think of what might be wrong with someone or something before we try to understand what might be right or good. The temptation and reflex for cynicism is usually more common than a natural responsive optimism. Cynicism is indeed the enemy of optimism.
“Here's a practical tool for the skeptic or cynic in all of us: the 24x3 rule. The next time you hear an idea for the first time, or meet someone new, try to wait 24 seconds before saying or thinking something negative. This reinforces a foundational skill of good optimists and good leadership. That basic skill is listening. As you gain the ability to listen and pause for a brief 24 seconds before letting the critic in you bubble to the verbal surface, move to the next level and try to do it for 24 minutes. At 24 minutes, you are able to give more considered thought to the idea and think more carefully of the many reasons why it might actually work, why it might be better than what is out there, and why it might just topple conventional wisdom.
“And yes, you should also work towards the ability to wait 24 hours — one single day — before pondering or verbalizing the cons against something. Of course, most times this will not be possible. Our minds cannot compartmentalize so easily, nor shut off our past experiences. But the 24x3 rule is a type of reflective meditation for developing a more optimistic approach towards people and ideas. The simple guideline of 24x24x24 is just a good reminder that a prerequisite of optimism is to have a willing suspension of disbelief.”
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Nonprofit Management: Basic & Advanced
Nonprofit Management 101: A Complete and Practical Guide for Leaders and Professionals, is a terrific book, with timeless advice from some of the top people in their respective nonprofit disciplines, reviewed here by Nonprofit About.com.
I added it to my library a few days ago, and suggest you get a copy also as it is a wonderful resource, and, as important, very fairly priced to fit within just about anyone's budget.
An excerpt.
“Lest you think that this book, at over 600 pages, is just a doorstop, let me assure you that you won't use it that way.
“These 50 essays from 50 nonprofit experts, such as Michael Watson of the Girl Scouts of the USA; David Greco of the Nonprofit Finance Fund; Holly Ross of NTEN; Andrea McManus of the AFP; Katya Andresen of Network for Good; and Beth Kanter of Zoetica, cover the gamut of nonprofit topics from human resources to social media.
“Furthermore, the essays embody the tried and true pillars of success associated with nonprofit work, while riding the edge of contemporary thought. They are not likely to go out of style any time soon.”
I added it to my library a few days ago, and suggest you get a copy also as it is a wonderful resource, and, as important, very fairly priced to fit within just about anyone's budget.
An excerpt.
“Lest you think that this book, at over 600 pages, is just a doorstop, let me assure you that you won't use it that way.
“These 50 essays from 50 nonprofit experts, such as Michael Watson of the Girl Scouts of the USA; David Greco of the Nonprofit Finance Fund; Holly Ross of NTEN; Andrea McManus of the AFP; Katya Andresen of Network for Good; and Beth Kanter of Zoetica, cover the gamut of nonprofit topics from human resources to social media.
“Furthermore, the essays embody the tried and true pillars of success associated with nonprofit work, while riding the edge of contemporary thought. They are not likely to go out of style any time soon.”
Friday, July 29, 2011
Compassion Research
This article from Stanford Social Innovation Review reports on the results of a new study.
An excerpt.
“One death is a tragedy; 1 million is a statistic,” Joseph Stalin is supposed to have said. The more people we see suffering, the less we care. It’s an unfortunate quirk that psychologists so far have blamed on our brains: Humans are tuned to individuals, the thinking goes; we are just not capable of feeling compassion for whole groups.
“A new study calls that comfortable conclusion into question. “The collapse of compassion is an active process,” says Daryl Cameron, a doctoral candidate in social psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It’s not some passive limitation on human experience. It’s the end result of an active choice not to feel something.”
“Cameron designed a series of experiments to find out why four people in pain don’t get quadruple the sympathy of one. In one test, he had 60 college students read about one, four, or eight children from Darfur. The students who said they were better at regulating their emotions—who don’t easily lose focus or control, and usually know how to make themselves feel better—reported being less upset by multiple Darfur children in crisis than by one. In another experiment, different students reading about these same children were told either to let themselves fully experience their emotions or to think objectively and be detached. Again, those who proactively regulated their emotions showed a collapse of compassion when viewing eight victims compared to one.
“This suggests that people are perfectly capable of responding emotionally to groups. They just steel themselves against it. “If you really took everything to heart, to the full magnitude that all these disasters truly deserve, you’d probably be sitting home rocking yourself in a closet all day,” says Elizabeth Dunn, a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia who was not involved in the research. “We need to be able to cope.”
“Our capacity to empathize with a large number of people is good news for disaster relief, says Cameron. “If it is a choice, rather than a constraint, then we can try to get people to decide differently what they want to feel, and toward whom.” The bad news is that we seem to care only when we don’t have to act. Cameron’s other experiment compared students who had been prompted with the idea of a donation with students who hadn’t. “When people did not expect to have to help on the basis of their emotions, they experienced more emotion toward eight victims than toward one victim,” he says. Opening your heart is a lot easier when there’s no expected cost.”
An excerpt.
“One death is a tragedy; 1 million is a statistic,” Joseph Stalin is supposed to have said. The more people we see suffering, the less we care. It’s an unfortunate quirk that psychologists so far have blamed on our brains: Humans are tuned to individuals, the thinking goes; we are just not capable of feeling compassion for whole groups.
“A new study calls that comfortable conclusion into question. “The collapse of compassion is an active process,” says Daryl Cameron, a doctoral candidate in social psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It’s not some passive limitation on human experience. It’s the end result of an active choice not to feel something.”
“Cameron designed a series of experiments to find out why four people in pain don’t get quadruple the sympathy of one. In one test, he had 60 college students read about one, four, or eight children from Darfur. The students who said they were better at regulating their emotions—who don’t easily lose focus or control, and usually know how to make themselves feel better—reported being less upset by multiple Darfur children in crisis than by one. In another experiment, different students reading about these same children were told either to let themselves fully experience their emotions or to think objectively and be detached. Again, those who proactively regulated their emotions showed a collapse of compassion when viewing eight victims compared to one.
“This suggests that people are perfectly capable of responding emotionally to groups. They just steel themselves against it. “If you really took everything to heart, to the full magnitude that all these disasters truly deserve, you’d probably be sitting home rocking yourself in a closet all day,” says Elizabeth Dunn, a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia who was not involved in the research. “We need to be able to cope.”
“Our capacity to empathize with a large number of people is good news for disaster relief, says Cameron. “If it is a choice, rather than a constraint, then we can try to get people to decide differently what they want to feel, and toward whom.” The bad news is that we seem to care only when we don’t have to act. Cameron’s other experiment compared students who had been prompted with the idea of a donation with students who hadn’t. “When people did not expect to have to help on the basis of their emotions, they experienced more emotion toward eight victims than toward one victim,” he says. Opening your heart is a lot easier when there’s no expected cost.”
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Mission & Culture
Too often, the internal culture of a nonprofit organization is directly at odds with its stated mission, and that is always a huge problem, as this article from the Nonprofit Quarterly reports.
An excerpt.
“Throughout my nearly 15 years of working as a nonprofit employee and as a consultant for nonprofits, I have landed upon a basic fact: All nonprofits are dysfunctional in some way or another and figuring out where to hang your hat requires one to assess whether the level and type of dysfunction is personally tolerable. Like most of us working in the nonprofit sector, I am motivated by a desire to have an impact, create change and help others. Somewhat surprisingly I have worked in several organizations where the management staff has exhibited behaviors in direct contradiction to the stated mission.
“Take for instance the reproductive health organizations that frowned upon any of its staff members having children, because it reduced the individual’s ability to work extended, and frankly unsustainable, hours. Then there was the Africa policy organization that overthrew its executive director in a bloodless coup d’état, and the lawyer at the health and human rights organization who jokingly informed me that they should stop hiring women of reproductive age. I have also encountered an executive director of a service delivery organization who provides services based on clients’ assumed ability to raise money for the organization, either directly or indirectly through a network of wealthy friends and colleagues. In truth, these examples do not begin to scratch the surface of the nonprofit dysfunctions I have seen.
“From a personal financial perspective, one enters the field of nonprofits expecting to live on minimal earnings. We often attend graduate school knowing that our earning potential will be no greater when we exit, though perhaps more onerous, thanks to our additional debt burdens. I recall a job panel some years after attending graduate school, where the panelists counseled audience members to accept a position at any level and any salary, if it meant getting a foot in the door at an organization of interest. For a while, these tenets seemed reasonable and feasible. With time and increased experience, as well as additional life expenses like parenthood, indentured servitude no longer seemed acceptable.
“This realization dawned on me while working for a human rights organization where it emerged that men, even those less qualified and with fewer degrees, typically earned more than women. The irony was again not lost on me or my colleagues, but the pariah treatment I received for requesting fair wages was still surprising. After being criticized for requesting a higher salary and told that one does not enter the field “simply to earn money,” a friend and I joked that we should start paying our bills in commitment, dedication or service.”
An excerpt.
“Throughout my nearly 15 years of working as a nonprofit employee and as a consultant for nonprofits, I have landed upon a basic fact: All nonprofits are dysfunctional in some way or another and figuring out where to hang your hat requires one to assess whether the level and type of dysfunction is personally tolerable. Like most of us working in the nonprofit sector, I am motivated by a desire to have an impact, create change and help others. Somewhat surprisingly I have worked in several organizations where the management staff has exhibited behaviors in direct contradiction to the stated mission.
“Take for instance the reproductive health organizations that frowned upon any of its staff members having children, because it reduced the individual’s ability to work extended, and frankly unsustainable, hours. Then there was the Africa policy organization that overthrew its executive director in a bloodless coup d’état, and the lawyer at the health and human rights organization who jokingly informed me that they should stop hiring women of reproductive age. I have also encountered an executive director of a service delivery organization who provides services based on clients’ assumed ability to raise money for the organization, either directly or indirectly through a network of wealthy friends and colleagues. In truth, these examples do not begin to scratch the surface of the nonprofit dysfunctions I have seen.
“From a personal financial perspective, one enters the field of nonprofits expecting to live on minimal earnings. We often attend graduate school knowing that our earning potential will be no greater when we exit, though perhaps more onerous, thanks to our additional debt burdens. I recall a job panel some years after attending graduate school, where the panelists counseled audience members to accept a position at any level and any salary, if it meant getting a foot in the door at an organization of interest. For a while, these tenets seemed reasonable and feasible. With time and increased experience, as well as additional life expenses like parenthood, indentured servitude no longer seemed acceptable.
“This realization dawned on me while working for a human rights organization where it emerged that men, even those less qualified and with fewer degrees, typically earned more than women. The irony was again not lost on me or my colleagues, but the pariah treatment I received for requesting fair wages was still surprising. After being criticized for requesting a higher salary and told that one does not enter the field “simply to earn money,” a friend and I joked that we should start paying our bills in commitment, dedication or service.”
Monday, May 9, 2011
Organizational Conflict & Alignment
They are surely connected and without resolving one the other cannot be achieved, as this article from Harvard Business Review addresses.
An excerpt.
"If [fill in the person] thinks I've bought in, they're crazy."
"Even if [fill in the group] doesn't believe in our current vision, they'll believe when they see it."
"I don't think [fill in the project] even matters to our customers."
“These are not the kinds of comments any of us utter if we know "the boss" could hear them. But each of us can likely remember a time in our career where we said it, or heard it. It's tempting to think that people who aren't on board will eventually "self-select out of the organization" or, if you're the boss, you'll never have to be that hard-ass who says, "Sorry, but this is just how it is."
“Most of us generally avoid conflict. After all, who can remember getting a performance review saying, "You rock at conflict!" Instead, we reward getting along, and being good corporate citizens, and we hope that disagreements will resolve themselves. But as we've all learned in real life, hope is not a strategy. Because most of us are bad at dealing with conflict, we're also bad at fostering what must, in a successful business, come through conflict — whether overt or covert. And that's alignment.
“Alignment is among the contenders for the most overused word in business today. Why is that? It's not very sexy. Out of curiosity, I ran it through a search engine and what did I get? Wait for it... wheel alignment.
“Ooh, yeah. Sexy.
“But wheel alignment is actually an apt metaphor for organizational alignment. In a nutshell, wheel alignment is a matter of adjusting the angles of the wheels so that they are perpendicular to the ground and parallel to each other. The purpose of these adjustments is maximum tire life and a vehicle that tracks true when driving along a straight and level road. When a car is out of alignment, we get rapid tire wear, or a vehicle that pulls away from a straight line. The driver wastes time and resources fighting to keep the car on course. A shock to the system — hitting a pothole, say — can throw a car that's well-aligned out of alignment.”
An excerpt.
"If [fill in the person] thinks I've bought in, they're crazy."
"Even if [fill in the group] doesn't believe in our current vision, they'll believe when they see it."
"I don't think [fill in the project] even matters to our customers."
“These are not the kinds of comments any of us utter if we know "the boss" could hear them. But each of us can likely remember a time in our career where we said it, or heard it. It's tempting to think that people who aren't on board will eventually "self-select out of the organization" or, if you're the boss, you'll never have to be that hard-ass who says, "Sorry, but this is just how it is."
“Most of us generally avoid conflict. After all, who can remember getting a performance review saying, "You rock at conflict!" Instead, we reward getting along, and being good corporate citizens, and we hope that disagreements will resolve themselves. But as we've all learned in real life, hope is not a strategy. Because most of us are bad at dealing with conflict, we're also bad at fostering what must, in a successful business, come through conflict — whether overt or covert. And that's alignment.
“Alignment is among the contenders for the most overused word in business today. Why is that? It's not very sexy. Out of curiosity, I ran it through a search engine and what did I get? Wait for it... wheel alignment.
“Ooh, yeah. Sexy.
“But wheel alignment is actually an apt metaphor for organizational alignment. In a nutshell, wheel alignment is a matter of adjusting the angles of the wheels so that they are perpendicular to the ground and parallel to each other. The purpose of these adjustments is maximum tire life and a vehicle that tracks true when driving along a straight and level road. When a car is out of alignment, we get rapid tire wear, or a vehicle that pulls away from a straight line. The driver wastes time and resources fighting to keep the car on course. A shock to the system — hitting a pothole, say — can throw a car that's well-aligned out of alignment.”
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Sector Shifting
Nonprofit to private, private to nonprofit, government partnering with nonprofits and forprofits, and combinations of all; what matters is the mission, the porpose, and the best way to get it done, in this case, it's all about farming and gardening education, as reported by the Tacoma News Tribune from Bellingham, Washington.
An excerpt.
“EVERSON - Cloud Mountain Farm is going through big changes, but they're not yet visible to passers-by.
“Owners Tom and Cheryl Thornton plan to sell their popular business to a yet-to-be-determined entity that will convert their 20-acre farm into a nonprofit center to provide education and hands-on training to new and experienced farmers and gardeners.
“The couple, who started Cloud Mountain as a commercial orchard in 1978, will continue to work and live at the farm, and Cheryl Thornton will sit on the center's new board of directors.
“They're already well-known for offering workshops and other educational programs, and for experimenting with crops and growing techniques, all while diversifying their farm nestled against the western flank of Sumas Mountain.
"It's a continuation and expansion of what we're already doing," Cheryl Thornton said. "The center brings it full circle."
“The transaction is being handled by Whatcom Community Foundation, which manages numerous funds, including at least two geared to helping local agriculture - the Sustainable Whatcom Fund and the Whatcom Farm Incubator Fund.”
An excerpt.
“EVERSON - Cloud Mountain Farm is going through big changes, but they're not yet visible to passers-by.
“Owners Tom and Cheryl Thornton plan to sell their popular business to a yet-to-be-determined entity that will convert their 20-acre farm into a nonprofit center to provide education and hands-on training to new and experienced farmers and gardeners.
“The couple, who started Cloud Mountain as a commercial orchard in 1978, will continue to work and live at the farm, and Cheryl Thornton will sit on the center's new board of directors.
“They're already well-known for offering workshops and other educational programs, and for experimenting with crops and growing techniques, all while diversifying their farm nestled against the western flank of Sumas Mountain.
"It's a continuation and expansion of what we're already doing," Cheryl Thornton said. "The center brings it full circle."
“The transaction is being handled by Whatcom Community Foundation, which manages numerous funds, including at least two geared to helping local agriculture - the Sustainable Whatcom Fund and the Whatcom Farm Incubator Fund.”
Friday, April 29, 2011
Inside Foundations
If you often approach foundations for funding, this excellent article from Stanford Social Innovation Review will be of interest to you.
An excerpt.
“Foundations often undermine their own efforts by micromanaging how social problems are solved. Two insiders explore why foundations have developed this way and what grant makers can do to foster high impact strategies.
“We would probably be better off as a society if the decision makers in the nation’s large private foundations took up surfing. Why? Because surfing is about letting go, and that’s what foundations must do to achieve higher impact. Surfing is incredibly humbling, an encounter with the enormous power, beauty, and unpredictability of the ocean. No surfer would attempt to change the shape of the waves or the schedule of the tides, because these forces are far beyond any one person’s control.
“But two common practices of major foundations—the design of specific solutions to social problems and the narrow focus on one pathway to a goal—are the equivalent of ordering the ocean to change shape. Just as men cannot control oceans, individual foundations cannot control social systems. Such an approach underestimates the vast power and complexity of the systems in which foundations are attempting to intervene.
“The strategic philanthropy movement has been a positive influence in recent years by encouraging foundations to clarify their goals and regularly evaluate their progress. But it has also fueled practices that undermine the nonprofit sector’s impact, rather than amplify it. Too often, funders insist on controlling the ways in which social problems are solved. This is a move in the wrong direction.
“To make steady forward progress solving problems in dynamic environments of complexity and uncertainty, foundations must shift from centrally planned, narrowly focused grantmaking strategies to more decentralized, diversified strategies that are better able to catch the waves of effective leadership, distributed wisdom, and innovation. There are two ways foundations need to let go. The first is to enable effective nonprofits to take the lead in designing solutions to social problems. The second is to diversify investments across multiple solutions or pathways to the goal. Let’s take a closer look at the problems with current practice in philanthropy.
“Problem #1: Foundation-Designed Solutions
“When solutions are centrally planned by people who are distanced from the real work in the field, the solutions are often poorly implemented. This is a classic principal-agent problem. The organizations tasked with implementation feel little ownership or passion for projects they didn’t dream up themselves. For example, in 2004 the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation made a grant to create the Legislative Education Project, as part of its California Education grant portfolio.1 The project was a response to term limits and the loss of institutional memory in the state legislature. It was intended to provide a nonpartisan professional development forum for legislative staff to learn about the history and current status of California education policy. The foundation developed the idea and then invited a respected university research center to implement it. Unfortunately, the researchers weren’t able to keep the legislative staff engaged and satisfied with the programming, nor did they respond aggressively enough to complaints from participants about an imbalance between liberal and conservative viewpoints. Eventually, the Republican legislative staff refused to participate, and those who did participate gave only lukewarm reviews of the sessions. The foundation considered the project a failure and did not renew the grant.”
An excerpt.
“Foundations often undermine their own efforts by micromanaging how social problems are solved. Two insiders explore why foundations have developed this way and what grant makers can do to foster high impact strategies.
“We would probably be better off as a society if the decision makers in the nation’s large private foundations took up surfing. Why? Because surfing is about letting go, and that’s what foundations must do to achieve higher impact. Surfing is incredibly humbling, an encounter with the enormous power, beauty, and unpredictability of the ocean. No surfer would attempt to change the shape of the waves or the schedule of the tides, because these forces are far beyond any one person’s control.
“But two common practices of major foundations—the design of specific solutions to social problems and the narrow focus on one pathway to a goal—are the equivalent of ordering the ocean to change shape. Just as men cannot control oceans, individual foundations cannot control social systems. Such an approach underestimates the vast power and complexity of the systems in which foundations are attempting to intervene.
“The strategic philanthropy movement has been a positive influence in recent years by encouraging foundations to clarify their goals and regularly evaluate their progress. But it has also fueled practices that undermine the nonprofit sector’s impact, rather than amplify it. Too often, funders insist on controlling the ways in which social problems are solved. This is a move in the wrong direction.
“To make steady forward progress solving problems in dynamic environments of complexity and uncertainty, foundations must shift from centrally planned, narrowly focused grantmaking strategies to more decentralized, diversified strategies that are better able to catch the waves of effective leadership, distributed wisdom, and innovation. There are two ways foundations need to let go. The first is to enable effective nonprofits to take the lead in designing solutions to social problems. The second is to diversify investments across multiple solutions or pathways to the goal. Let’s take a closer look at the problems with current practice in philanthropy.
“Problem #1: Foundation-Designed Solutions
“When solutions are centrally planned by people who are distanced from the real work in the field, the solutions are often poorly implemented. This is a classic principal-agent problem. The organizations tasked with implementation feel little ownership or passion for projects they didn’t dream up themselves. For example, in 2004 the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation made a grant to create the Legislative Education Project, as part of its California Education grant portfolio.1 The project was a response to term limits and the loss of institutional memory in the state legislature. It was intended to provide a nonpartisan professional development forum for legislative staff to learn about the history and current status of California education policy. The foundation developed the idea and then invited a respected university research center to implement it. Unfortunately, the researchers weren’t able to keep the legislative staff engaged and satisfied with the programming, nor did they respond aggressively enough to complaints from participants about an imbalance between liberal and conservative viewpoints. Eventually, the Republican legislative staff refused to participate, and those who did participate gave only lukewarm reviews of the sessions. The foundation considered the project a failure and did not renew the grant.”
Friday, April 22, 2011
Homelessness & Sports
As this story from the UK Daily Record reveals, demanding a commitment to life change before being allowed to join a homeless-change program, works.
A very good thing.
An excerpt.
“IT is 10 years since Mel Young and his friend came up with the idea for the Homeless World Cup over a beer.
“They were looking for a way to bring together people from around the world and thought of using the international language of football.
“From the idea of a friendly bout between the homeless of Scotland and Mel's friend Harald Schmied's native Austria, it grew into a pioneering event.
“A total of 18 countries took part in the first competition in 2003.
“A Scotland team won the trophy in the Danish capital Copenhagen in 2007.
“Now the organisation has teams in 75 countries, with more than 30,000 people taking part in football training schemes and play-offs to reach this year's competition in Paris.
“Of those who have previously taken part, 97 per cent say the experience has had a positive impact on their life.
“Almost 80 per cent say they have made changes to their lives as a direct result of involvement. In Mexico, 4300 homeless men have applied to try out for this year's team.
“To qualify to take part, all they have to show is that they are committed to turning their lives around.”
A very good thing.
An excerpt.
“IT is 10 years since Mel Young and his friend came up with the idea for the Homeless World Cup over a beer.
“They were looking for a way to bring together people from around the world and thought of using the international language of football.
“From the idea of a friendly bout between the homeless of Scotland and Mel's friend Harald Schmied's native Austria, it grew into a pioneering event.
“A total of 18 countries took part in the first competition in 2003.
“A Scotland team won the trophy in the Danish capital Copenhagen in 2007.
“Now the organisation has teams in 75 countries, with more than 30,000 people taking part in football training schemes and play-offs to reach this year's competition in Paris.
“Of those who have previously taken part, 97 per cent say the experience has had a positive impact on their life.
“Almost 80 per cent say they have made changes to their lives as a direct result of involvement. In Mexico, 4300 homeless men have applied to try out for this year's team.
“To qualify to take part, all they have to show is that they are committed to turning their lives around.”
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Shy Leadership
An excellent article in the Harvard Business Review Blog about how to deal with an introverted boss, by an introverted boss.
An excerpt.
“Every time I've taken a Meyers-Briggs test, I score high on the introversion scale. As an introvert, I enjoy being by myself. I sometimes feel drained if I have to be in front of large groups of people I don't know. After I've been in a social situation — including a long day at work — I need quiet time to be alone with my thoughts and recharge. But as a CEO of a company with more than 18,000 employees, I've found myself particularly challenged because so much of my work requires me to be "out there" in front of others.
“So how do I manage this? And what advice would I have for other introverted managers — and for the people who have to work with us? Here are a few personal observations that might prove helpful:
“Introverts need thinking time. I tend to do my best thinking when I can carve out some "alone time" to reflect on important decisions that need to be made. So if I'm facing a big decision, I will create a process in which I can fully vet issues with others, and reflect on the choices before me. Of course, most decisions need to be made on the spur of the moment when I have incomplete information. However, I have found that I make my best decisions when I approach them in a way that feels comfortable to me as an introvert.
“Introverts aren't as aloof as they appear. In meetings, introverts can often be perceived as aloof, disinterested, shy or retiring. In my case, I often times prefer to listen to people than to speak and I find it very difficult to pretend that I'm naturally out-going when I'm not. When viewed from the outside, it may seem that I'm not openly contributing as much as I could or should, but that's just because I'm busy listening and thinking.
“One of the best ways I've found to help people overcome their discomfort around my behavior is to simply declare myself. I tell them, "If you see me looking aloof, please understand that I'm shy, and I need you to call me out." By declaring myself in this way, I've found other people quickly, and compassionately, adapt to my style.”
An excerpt.
“Every time I've taken a Meyers-Briggs test, I score high on the introversion scale. As an introvert, I enjoy being by myself. I sometimes feel drained if I have to be in front of large groups of people I don't know. After I've been in a social situation — including a long day at work — I need quiet time to be alone with my thoughts and recharge. But as a CEO of a company with more than 18,000 employees, I've found myself particularly challenged because so much of my work requires me to be "out there" in front of others.
“So how do I manage this? And what advice would I have for other introverted managers — and for the people who have to work with us? Here are a few personal observations that might prove helpful:
“Introverts need thinking time. I tend to do my best thinking when I can carve out some "alone time" to reflect on important decisions that need to be made. So if I'm facing a big decision, I will create a process in which I can fully vet issues with others, and reflect on the choices before me. Of course, most decisions need to be made on the spur of the moment when I have incomplete information. However, I have found that I make my best decisions when I approach them in a way that feels comfortable to me as an introvert.
“Introverts aren't as aloof as they appear. In meetings, introverts can often be perceived as aloof, disinterested, shy or retiring. In my case, I often times prefer to listen to people than to speak and I find it very difficult to pretend that I'm naturally out-going when I'm not. When viewed from the outside, it may seem that I'm not openly contributing as much as I could or should, but that's just because I'm busy listening and thinking.
“One of the best ways I've found to help people overcome their discomfort around my behavior is to simply declare myself. I tell them, "If you see me looking aloof, please understand that I'm shy, and I need you to call me out." By declaring myself in this way, I've found other people quickly, and compassionately, adapt to my style.”
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Powerful Leadership can Stifle Communication
In this insightful working paper from Harvard Business School Weekly, the ramifications of leadership that is so powerful that it actually makes communication within the organization less open, is examined.
This is a phenomena I have seen many times in the grassroots nonprofit sector, especially within organizations still being led by the organization’s founder.
An excerpt from the Executive Summary.
“History has shown that possessing a great deal of power does not necessarily make someone a good leader. This paper explores the idea that power actually has a detrimental effect on leadership, especially with regard to how it affects open communication within a team. Research was conducted by Leigh Plunkett Tost of the University of Washington, Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, and Richard P. Larrick of Duke University. Key concepts include:
• Members of teams with high-power leaders are likely to keep quiet in meetings, both because high-power leaders talk a lot, meaning there's not much time for others to talk, and because of the perception—fair or not—that powerful people aren't interested in anyone else's ideas. This can result in a dearth of ideas during brainstorming sessions.
• Leader power has a negative effect on team members' perceptions of the leader's ability and desire to engage in open communication. Because open communication is vital to any project, these perceptions can hurt team performance.
• These negative effects of leader power can be virtually eliminated simply by clearly communicating the idea that every team member is individually instrumental to any given task at hand.”
This is a phenomena I have seen many times in the grassroots nonprofit sector, especially within organizations still being led by the organization’s founder.
An excerpt from the Executive Summary.
“History has shown that possessing a great deal of power does not necessarily make someone a good leader. This paper explores the idea that power actually has a detrimental effect on leadership, especially with regard to how it affects open communication within a team. Research was conducted by Leigh Plunkett Tost of the University of Washington, Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, and Richard P. Larrick of Duke University. Key concepts include:
• Members of teams with high-power leaders are likely to keep quiet in meetings, both because high-power leaders talk a lot, meaning there's not much time for others to talk, and because of the perception—fair or not—that powerful people aren't interested in anyone else's ideas. This can result in a dearth of ideas during brainstorming sessions.
• Leader power has a negative effect on team members' perceptions of the leader's ability and desire to engage in open communication. Because open communication is vital to any project, these perceptions can hurt team performance.
• These negative effects of leader power can be virtually eliminated simply by clearly communicating the idea that every team member is individually instrumental to any given task at hand.”
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