Leading by Design

SOME THINGS HAVE A WAY OF STANDING THE TEST OF TIME.  That's why I'm dusting off this post from 2009 , because I think the ten resolutions I wrote about then still make good very good sense for 2011.  This time around I'd like to emphasize resolution #8:  get comfortable with change.  It's not just a clever catch-phrase anymore.  Today, it's as much about organizational survival as mission impact. While some folks will shrug their shoulders and say "change happens", others will be proactively using change to generate sparks.  You might think that making sparks is just so much wasted energy, but sparks light fires.  Shrugging change off doesn't even get the match lit. Head into your office on January 3rd with my list of resolutions or your own and see if you can make some sparks fly. Who will be your organization's change agent in 2011?  Will it be you? Photo:  desejo-lhes um santo 2011 - I wish... from Marcos Arruda

I'm so honored to be listed among Debra Beck's favorite governance blogs!  Check out the others on Debra's list:  http://bit.ly/hHRdS5 I'm in great company!  And Debra's blog is one of the best. Image:  Blogging 101 from martin.canchola

JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH A BOARD PRESIDENT who was checking in with me about the planning process his organization was wrapping up with me.  I told him what I had told the planning committee a week earlier at the end of our last meeting together, "Now the hard work begins.  You've got to summon the discipline to stick to this plan you've created." My advice wasn't just for the planning committee, although they were the only ones in earshot of my parting words.  Planning committees may think all they have to do is create the written document, and while that is the immediate goal, I think they also have the added responsibility (along with staff leadership) to figure out how to institutionalize it at the board level.  This is especially critical if this is the first plan the organization has ever produced or if the organization has previously failed at following their plans.  So, part of the planning committee's follow-through responsibilities include teachin...

IN HER RECENT BLOG POST "Where good (board) ideas come from" , Debra Beck links to a great video (you've just got to watch it) and poses the questions "Do we nurture breathing room and value insights shared amidst the rush to check reports off the agenda? Do we foster opportunities for good ideas inside board members' heads to make it to the surface so they can be connected?" Thoughts of inspirational discussions and deep-diving into issues that were cut short by a too-full agenda and not enough time came flooding over me as I read Debra's post.  Yes, I've been in those situations and I look back on them with mixed emotions knowing that some great conversations will never be rekindled and some organizational energy was lost. So, how can we build in time for idea generation, rumination, and synergy at the board and staff levels?  Here are some of my thoughts: It's counter-intuitive, but the space to spark and nurture ideas needs to be planned ....

WHEN DO "AHA" MOMENTS COME FOR YOU?  If they rolled up on your doorstep with unfailing regularity, you'd take them for granted.  They wouldn't elicit an "aha!" at all.  But real "aha" moments, for me at any rate, come after stretches of concerted problem-solving and reflection.  They more often occur as a prolonged unfolding of understanding rather than in one flash of insight. So it was with a strategic planning committee I'd been working with for months.  Our regular meetings were moving well through the obstacle course of mission refinement, goal development and strategy creation.  But it wasn't until we were buried knee-deep in strategies and tasking that some very forthright conversations started to take place. As the morning fog lifts from the landscape, this team began to articulate  -- as a group -- that its resources for at least the short-term had to be spent on strengthening its organizational core.  Board and staff development, ...

A KEY AND EARLY COMPONENT OF STRATEGIC PLANNING involves a critical review of an organization's vision and mission statements.  Most of the cultural nonprofits I work with have mission statements; few of them have vision statements.  I often refer to mission statements as the articulation of where an organization is now (and its importance for being, serving, and providing a public benefit) and the vision statement as the embodiment of the organization at some future point in time.  Sure, that's what visions are all about, but shouldn't they be about something more? That's where impact comes in and thanks to practitioners like Hildy Gottlieb and her Community-Driven Institute , the women of the Social Change Divas Daily and others, I really do think that the vision statement must answer this question:  if we consistently meet or exceed our mission, what will be our organization's impact on our audiences and our community?   Without long-term external impa...

A MUSEUM STUDIES CLASS IS ABOUT TO LAUNCH A planning process with a local historical society as part of a semester-long project this fall.  As a preliminary activity, one of the students (who is responsible for the outreach portion of the project) and I chatted yesterday about my take on organizational planning.  We covered a lot of ground and a lot of the basic elements of a solid planning process:  vision, mission, where do goals come from?; how much outreach can you suggest an all-volunteer organization do?; as well as the more mundane how much can you devote to this class project when you're a busy student with tons of other claims on your time? That aside, I encourage my grad student friend to spend considerable time at the beginning getting the board to engage in the emotion-based discussions about why their organization is important, who it serves and what impact it can make on the lives of its audiences, its neighborhood, and its larger community.  These are ...