Leading by Design

I'M A NEW BOARD MEMBER.  I figured after all these years of working with and for boards, and writing about them, too, it might be useful to experience nonprofit life from the other side of the table.  In five short months, the pressures of the duties of care, loyalty and obedience have firmly taken hold.    At a recent board meeting, staff members presented two unbudgeted funding requests for approval.  Both were completely out-of-the-blue, so far as I could tell -- at least I wasn't aware of them.  Just minutes earlier, the board had reviewed and approved the year-to-date operating statement, which already contains an vague amount "to be raised" to cover capital projects beyond normal maintenance.  Acknowledging that these proposals were outside of the approved budget, the staff pressed their cases for the urgency of the two expenditures. Many board members -- myself included -- sat in disbelief that they were being asked to find $50K out of ...

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 ...

Action Learning/Research is an approach to problem-solving that was pioneered more than 60 years ago by social-psychologists, and it offers pathways for the 21st century nonprofit to explore issues more deeply and implement decisions based on the findings of these explorations. One pathway for problem-solving involves seven steps that require 1) an understanding and differentiating of information types; 2) delving through symptoms to get at root causes, which may then lead to important discussions of organizational values; and 3) developing criteria for impartial evaluation of potential solutions. The seven steps are: 1.  Identify the problem or issue. 2.  Analyze the problem:  is it an isolated issue or is it related to other problems?  Who is affected by it?  How is it handled now? 3.  Describe the problem in measurable, impartial terms. 4.  Look for root causes and causal relationships by asking "why?" at least five times. 5.  Develop alternative solutions, evaluating each...

In his 2005 book, Blink:   The Power of Thinking Without Thinking , Malcolm Gladwell examines the balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking and concludes that truly successful decision making is a balance between the two.    As in Gladwell’s other bestselling book, The Tipping Point , there are many insights and lessons for the nonprofit leader in Blink . Take the decoding and sorting of information, for example.   Having a deep knowledge of a topic, combined and honed with experience, allows some people to make seemingly snap interpretations or decisions.   Nonprofit leaders are expected to decode and sort an increasing array of nuts-and-bolts organizational information as well as possess subject matter expertise…and perform these skills in the shifting landscape of social and economic change.  The challenge for CEOs, particularly in the instance of board members who may not possess deep knowledge or experience about the organization for which they serve, is to provide...