How's Your Leadership Cred These Days?

The Great Recession is dragging into year four and there's no question it has left most nonprofits staggering as they try to find some equilibrium under the weight of constricted philanthropy, slashed government funding, and the high stakes competition of foundation and corporate support.  Some institutions are finding gold in big name programs or capital projects, while many struggle to manage the spiraling costs of their "if we build it, they will come" aftermaths.

Event attendance remains predictably unpredictable.   Yet, core audiences in need of programs and services grow.  While the flurry of staff restructuring (read layoffs and furloughs) may now be subsiding, the reality for many (most) nonprofits is that who ever is left is trying to do a lot more with a whole lot less.

So that brings me to the point of today's post:  as the staff or board leader of your nonprofit, how has your credibility held up in the eyes of your staff, volunteers and stakeholders as you've navigated your organization through the last 36+ months?  If they were to grade you on 

• your openness and communication during tough times; 
• your ability to continue to move everyone forward, even a little, everyday; 
• your willingness to be on the lookout for opportunity rather than digging your bunker deeper; or 
• your empathy and humor under big stress

what kind of a grade do you think they would give you?  Do they respect you more for the collective hell you've been through or do you think they might be more likely counting the days until you step down (if you're counting the days, that might be a clue).

Crisis or challenge -- call it what you will -- can bring out the worst and the best in nonprofit organizations and their leadership.  It can magnify the organizational weaknesses of under-skilled people, poor or no planning, long standing biases, or lack of articulated value that in better times, more flush times, could be overlooked or ignored.  However crisis can also galvanize organizations by refocusing them on core mission and values.  It can tone strategic thinking muscles that got flabby from lack of regular use. 

Former three-term NYC mayor Ed Koch routinely asked constituents, "How am I doing?".  He got great press and undoubtedly some political points for asking the question.  As your organization's leader, how comfortable are you with asking it?  And what would you do with the answers knowing that your leadership cred is on the line?

Organizational Change: The First 90 Days

THERE'S A DISCUSSION GOING ON OVER AT the Strategic Planning for Nonprofits group on LinkedIn about leadership and change management.  So far, the topic is pretty broad and most of the posters are encouraging ways to focus it.  Until now.  One poster, a military officer, weighed in saying that the first 90 days is the most critical for new leadership to make change.  If you let the opportunity go by the boards, you're stuck with what you've inherited.  He writes:

The First 90 Days are critical and in most cases can make or break a true leader in the end. The First 90 Days of assuming a leadership position are the times that you are going to affect any real change in the organization, otherwise you have got what you got for the rest of your term.   -- Corey Brown

You may be familiar with the "honeymoon" period of a new job.  It could last 6 weeks, 6 months, or a year.  It's the time period when an organization is most forgiving of its new leader.  And it's the time period when it might be the most open to change.   The honeymoon period, however, is more about your employer and less about you.

For you, the 90-day time frame for change-making is imperative.  Organizational change -- large or small -- is fueled by a sense of urgency.  Your nonprofit hired you because, hopefully, it's looking for change along with your skills and charming personality.  Those first 90 days are your time frame to identify new strategic directions and related personnel, programmatic and procedural strengths and weaknesses.  It's only three months and you've got a learning curve, which you must climb swiftly.  How do you prioritize your organization's needs so that you don't waste your firepower?

Knowing that mission/vision/impact sets the pace for everything the organization does, I'd start with an institution-wide deep dive into mission and vision/impact.  I'd next push those discussions forward into if-then actions:  if we are the organization gets kids turned on to art, then what does our board look like?  then who develops our programs?  then how do we promote what we do?  then where are the voices of kids and families in the decisions we make?  

This cascade of questions -- all flowing from mission/vision/impact -- can not only provide pathways for change, they can also underscore the urgency to make change....or to up your organization's existing game.  And it can help to prioritize what must happen next.

I've seen new leaders make change for change sake and sometimes that's enough to send the message that something's different -- better -- afoot.  I've done that, too.  But coasting on surface change only lasts so long; if systemic change or fine tuning isn't happening concurrently all you end up with is the same old issues covered in a shiny dress.  That'll catch up with you eventually.

I'd love to hear how you approached change-making/change management when you took on your last job.  How superficial; how deep?  What was the pay off?

Image:  Directions from markddpatterns via flickr

A Career Full of Happy Accidents

WHAT'S BEEN THE ROLE OF SERENDIPITY IN YOUR CAREER PATH?  I'm knee-deep in trying to map out new segments of my own career path and, because of that, I was recently asked to write about personal career planning.  So I did what any author who's looking for some inspiration would do -- I reached out to the cultural nonprofit community via LinkedIn for some input.  And here's where serendipity comes in.

The second response to my question was about the importance of serendipity -- those accidental opportunities -- to the enrichment of a career. "Too much planning can limit your options," wrote the responder.  Happy accidents can't be planned and that's the point.  I, too, have been the beneficiary of serendipitous career moves that, looking back on them, were completely unknown to me at the time, but in hindsight emerge as important turning points to my career development.  I certainly didn't plan them to be what they ultimately became.

Interestingly, my dictionary defines serendipity as "an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident", which implies that there is some innate or acquired ability to sense discovery, to be open to the not yet known, or maybe to be able to generate or attract opportunities.  To me, artists of all types are great examples of people with aptitudes for serendipity, as are many entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders.  To be a cut above, they've honed their abilities to search for, discover, and invite happy accidents.

How can you create a personal career plan that keeps you moving toward some fairly specific goals while recognizing the importance of being able to expand, strengthen, or magnify your ability to make happy accidents happen or simply to be in the right place at the right time? 

Related article:  Building a Nonprofit Career Path, Bridgestar.org

Image:  Fork in the Road from Jessi Joy via Flickr 

What's on Your Board's First Meeting Agenda for 2012?

JANUARY IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER (yikes!) and many if not most nonprofits will be holding their first board meeting of the new year sometime in the next four weeks.  While we might be inclined to fall back on comfortable agenda formats and conversations for this meeting, if you're embracing 2012 as a year of intentional organizational development (see my post about that here), then I know you're giving serious thought to rethinking what and how business will be discussed.

For those of you from organizations that tend to tick methodically through task lists at board meetings before calling it a day, structuring the first board meeting of the new year around an evaluation of past successes and failures coupled with discussion about future directions is in order as one way to move from microscopic dissection to big picture strategy.  For this type of conversation to be successful, it needs to be structured.  One way to do that is with a handful of big questions and some supporting information.  If you want to talk about why admissions, ticket sales, or event attendance was up or down, provide some contextual data that can help trustees understand trends and evaluate possible organizational responses.

Example:  instead of focusing solely on money raised or lost, what if the big question was about the demographics of who supported and how the demographic could be expanded or shifted for the future?

If you've got a written, goal-based and mission-driven plan (and hopefully you do), that's your starting point for both assessment of the past year and future work.  Make review of the plan a chunk of the agenda and make sure that all other agenda items connect to the plan.  What a great way to get the new year off and running!

And speaking of mission, doesn't it make sense for the first board meeting of the new year to focus on that?  One board I'm now serving on plans to devote half of its first board meeting of the new year to just that discussion.  We're arming ourselves with some context-setting 'homework' that will not only help frame the conversation, but fuel it.

Bringing new board members on for their first meeting in January?  For my money, there's probably no better opening conversation than a round robin discussion about why each of you cares about the organization and wants to be a part of it. Even the newbies should be able to articulate why they agreed to join the board.  It's not only a good icebreaker, it's also a team-builder.

Perhaps you'll want to mix up the first meeting with a brief tour of a physical space, collection or department in need of attention -- attention that will find its way to future board meeting agendas.  Or perhaps there's a hands-on activity that will help to enlighten board members to the important work done every day.  At the upcoming retreat of a staff and stakeholders of a school archive, we're going to spend some time looking at primary source documents and talking about why they're important.

I hope you'll be encouraged to begin 2012 with a reinvigorated board meeting road map that balances board attention between the present and the future; between the 30,000-foot overview and knotty, on-the-ground issues; between the known and the unknown.  And I hope you'll share what's on your first of 2012 agenda with the readers here at Leading by Design.

Make 2012 Your Organization's Year of Intention

NOW THAT THE END OF 2011 IS PLAINLY IN sight, many of us are taking some time to evaluate our progress these last twelve months and plan for the next twelve.  What's on your agenda -- personally or organizationally -- for tweaking or downright change?  Have you already identified a few strategic shifts for 2012?

From an organizational point of view, any amount of course shifting can be difficult.  The tiniest changes can be disruptive and angst-producing....and may not produce hoped for results.  But, small changes, when introduced intentionally, thoughtfully, and tied to larger goals, can have great effect over time.  Tackling challenges from the margins is often a really useful strategy.

How does an organization determine when a challenge can be resolved or reframed from the edges and when it needs to be addressed head-on?  Isn't this just one of those perfect strategic questions for board and staff to work on together?

The key word is, of course, "strategic".  Course shifting for the sake of doing something different just doesn't cut it in a time of depleted resources and donor fatigue.  Part of the answer to these questions rests on how open your organization is currently to engaging in deep conversations of this type.  Part of the answer rests on your organization's commitment to embracing relevant external and internal information along with its vision-mission-goals as the guideposts for decision-making.  

Part of the answer rests with you.  As the board or staff leader, as a staff member or volunteer leading from within, as a donor who goes the extra mile for your organization, how can you illuminate the pathways to strategic development?  What questions will you ask?  

A new year is coming.  Are you ready?

Can You Plan Without Passion?

WELL, I GUESS THE SHORT ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION IS 'YES'.  Plans are concocted everyday for all sorts of things from grocery lists to multi-year programmatic initiatives and I can see where many of them can be accomplished with little reflection and less excitement for the results.  There are proponents who assure us that even the most complex plans can be achieved with short, highly focused bursts of effort.  And, indeed, that's possible.  But it seems to me that any plan will lack dimension and luster if it's written as an internal 'beat the clock' exercise or a requirement to satisfy someone else's desire.

The best planning is borne of possibility and one's own desire to marry the here-and-now with the what-if's and can-do's.  Its underlying thesis has everything to do with making aspirations reality, even if the aspiration is as universal or as necessary as getting out of debt or revisioning the work of a downsized staff.  

When done right, most types of organizational planning take time and talent to complete, but it is rarely a draining experience, often it's just the opposite.  Yet, I've seen many organizations approach the idea of planning as a burden, a maze to get through, or as one trustee exclaimed, "So we don't have to do this again for another 50 years!"  Really???  

Is it really mind-numbing or wasteful work to consider an organization's future beyond the regular board meeting?  Is it somehow inappropriate to chart a big or better future for an organization rather than letting circumstance chart it for you?  Is the idea of thinking beyond one's personal interests too big a leap to take?  Too risky?

All I think I can say in response is if an organization is willing to invest its resources to any degree to plan for its future, why ever would it not want to be fully committed to exploring the possibilities, the potential and, yes, the pitfalls that lie ahead?    Why ever would it not want to dig into bridging the gaps of what exists now with what could be?  

I guess the question isn't so much can you plan without passion as it is why would you purposely plan half-heartedly?  Why would any organization waste such an opportunity to lift up the hood and examine the engine?  And why wouldn't that be exciting as well as challenging?

Image:  Neighborhood Plan Update...from litlnemo

The Boardroom Blues

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?

So, what should be on the agenda instead?  

How about trying a little strategy ....  using the organization's plan and key success indicators to evaluate how well program is meeting mission?
  
Maybe ditching most of those reports of past activities to free up time to discuss future steps?

How about breaking into smaller discussion groups for a deeper dive into issues?

Would a staff or volunteer presentation, a brief tour of a project, or a hands-on activity help board members to better understand your challenges and opportunities?

We talk a lot about how to engage audiences.  Shouldn't engagement of the board be a top priority?