I have been struggling lately to determine how to improve the landscape of the nonprofit sector. There is a lack of oversight which is repeatedly demonstrated by status quo organizations, as well as those that have experienced significant mission drift. As I contemplated many issues in this regard, came across this powerful resource. It is time to be honest....here's the direct link: http://www.bridgespan.org/Publications-and-Tools/Leadership-Effectiveness/Lead-and-Manage-Well/When-the-Change-Needs-to-Be-You.aspx#.UXhmbLXCaSo

BUILDING LEADERSHIP

When the Change Needs to Be You

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Author(s): Nicki Roth

When I start to work with a new leader, I ask them to describe their most pressing organizational challenges. With few exceptions, their answers include “all of them”: the staff, the team, the partners, the volunteers, and the community. Then I ask my final question. “If, after I do my assessment, it turns out that you are part of the problem, are you willing to make some changes?” “Absolutely! Whatever I need to do for the organization! Without hesitation.” Easier said than done.

As leaders, human beings, and problem solvers our first strategies to effect change will be to lock in on everything other than ourselves. So how do nonprofit leaders fairly assess whether or not they are the change that needs to happen? And then, what do they do about it?

Two stories, part one

Betheny was hired as the executive director of a large metropolitan children’s services agency after it had suffered significant setbacks and a public image nightmare. She was selected for her deep experience with overhauling large systems, and her open and engaging style. The county in which the agency worked hoped that she could make some tough decisions, get the house in order, and handle the media in heartfelt ways.

Things started out very well because of Betheny’s core leadership strengths: listening to and considering multiple points of view, engaging staff in critical discussions, speaking honestly with politicians and reporters. But after a year things began to stall and Betheny seemed incapable of moving the staff forward.

Raul was stuck, too. After five years of trying to pull together the leadership team to align with and implement a new housing services strategy at his organization, his funders had reached their limit. They insisted that the organization produce the targeted results within the next six months or else something drastic would need to occur. They were banking on his deep subject matter expertise and savvy community relationship skills to turn things around.

As he urgently presented the dire ultimatum to the team and the staff, Raul was met with an uproar of finger pointing. While everyone seemed to know who or what needed to change, nobody volunteered to change themselves. Raul struggled to pinpoint where the most critical change needed to occur.

Betheny and Raul are not unusual. Both leaders had good track records of meeting tough challenges in their previous roles. When I met each of them they were eloquent about a whole host of issues, including their own strengths and limitations. But when I asked what they thought needed to happen to move things forward, changing their own leadership behaviors never made the list, which brings us to the first step in behavior change: honest self-assessment.

How do you know the change has to come from you?

Honest self-assessment starts with asking the right questions. Explore your need to change by answering the following:

• Have you received feedback that you need to shift gears? Have you heard specific recommendations like “you need to be more decisive” or “you need to focus more attention on the daily management issues”?
• Do you dread walking into specific meetings or interacting with certain individuals? Do you find yourself making excuses to not show up?
• Do you feel frustrated or powerless in getting others to make necessary changes?
• Have you set yourself apart from everyone else? Are you asking others to do one thing and you are doing another?
• Is there buzz in the office about you that makes you feel defensive, disheartened or angry?

If you answered yes to any/all of these questions then it’s likely that you are the one that needs to make some changes.

So what can you do?

The first question you need to answer is: Am I sincerely willing to make changes in my leadership behavior? You need to move past the knee-jerk response of “absolutely” and fully imagine yourself at the beginning of a learning process.

Picture yourself finally tackling that skill set you’ve been avoiding, for example, public speaking. You will learn how to speak to large audiences with great passion about your cause. You will conquer your stage fright and learn how to vary your voice and tell a good story. Are you finally willing to take this on now? If so, great. If not, that’s okay too. There can be no successful behavior change if you are not motivated and committed. So don’t give lip service to something that is not going to happen. Find other solutions or resources.

If your answer is “yes, I am ready to change” here are some guidelines.

• Take small bites. Human beings change one small step at a time. When we set goals and plans for significant changes our biggest mistake is that we bite off too much. Just think about the last time you tried to lose weight or stick to an exercise routine. Pick one or two small but potent new actions. If your goal is to run a tightly facilitated meeting, just commit to starting and ending on time or having only four agenda items. Or if your goal is to meet twice a month with each of your direct reports, use Wednesday mornings as your 10-minute check in with each person.
• Get supportive help and feedback. Select a trusted advisor or role model with whom to share your ideas and practices. Describe your behavior change plans and ask for help and feedback about how you’re doing. With each attempt at the new action, debrief and tweak, and then try again. Your trusted advisor becomes your “safe place” to practice before going live as well as a safe place to process that helps you get comfortable and ultimately integrate a new habit.
• Turn to your team. If you’re comfortable, engage your team in your development plan. Tell them what you plan to do differently, ask them to praise you when they see you doing it well, and invite them to gently redirect your efforts when you miss the mark. Making your aspirations public reinforces your commitment to follow through. The secondary benefit to this is that you’re modeling continued growth and vulnerability for the other leaders.
• Keep going. Once you have mastered one new behavior, try another one. Keep taking small bites. Before you know it you will have expanded your leadership repertoire in ways you can’t imagine today.

There is one warning here. Your new actions initially will be met with skepticism as your staff struggles to trust that this is real or sustainable. Don’t back off. If your behavior becomes consistent it will become believable.

Two stories, part two

My work with Betheny became very focused because multiple thought paths easily distracted her. Her propensity towards endlessly listening to everybody on every issue had become a problem. Betheny struggled to close her door consistently so people were still able to get her attention. Together we agreed that she would attempt to curtail her open-door policy by clearly and firmly announcing her decisions and then allow for only three days of additional input.

Raul was aware of the divisive gossip around the office, but he was not intervening. After rehearing his remarks with me, he met with the staff, acknowledged the destructive gossip, and described how he wanted it to stop and what the consequences would be if someone violated the new expectation. Within weeks he had called out several staff members, written up misconduct reports and ultimately had to dismiss a repeat offender. Not only did the gossip stop, but the respect for Raul skyrocketed.

Sadly, Betheny just could not sustain new habits. She claimed they just weren’t in line with her core sense of self and she was willing to suffer the consequences. She was removed from her position. Conversely, Raul felt freed up and raring to go. His funders were delighted with the progress and extended their support.

At the root of making effective leadership changes is an accurate assessment of what needs to be different, loads of experimentation, feedback and support, and reinforcement for achieving improved outcomes. Even more fundamental is the motivation to change.

The moral of the story? Change is possible but you really have to want it.

Nicki Roth is the cofounder of Saroga, the Nonprofit Leadership Forum. Her work focuses on facilitating leadership growth. She brings decades of experience as an executive, management consultant, and therapist to her nonprofit and corporate clients.

Non Profit Leaders - LOCK your door!!

Aloha Nonprofit Leaders! Came upon this resource and thought that every Executive Director, or CEO, should start their day reading this page. In your position, you may often find yourself constantly in crisis management mode, putting out fires, or making sense out of chaos. There's always something that requires your immediate attention, and steer your focus away from advancing your organization's mission.

Upon entering your office, disable your phone(s), LOCK the door, and read this page from Social Velocity before you take on the day's challenges:

If the leaders of a nonprofit organization are really serious about creating change, there are some things they must have in place. I spend my days talking with a variety of nonprofit organizations, and the problems that bring them to Social Velocity all fall into these broad categories:

• An inability to raise enough money
• A lack of strategic direction
• An inability to “move the needle” on a social problem
• A disconnected, disengaged, ineffective board of directors
• Lack of sufficient organization infrastructure

In my mind, the solution is so simple. If every nonprofit had 4 key things in place, those problems would go away. Here’s what I think every nonprofit has to put in place:

1. A theory of change. Nonprofit organizations exist to meet some sort of social need or problem. Unlike for-profit organizations, nonprofits can’t simply use their financial bottom line as a barometer of success. Rather, a nonprofit must articulate what they exist to do. A theory of change, or logic model, allows a nonprofit to state (to internal board and staff, and to external funders, volunteers, supporters) how they take community resources and turn them into social change. Without a theory of change, a nonprofit cannot convince anyone to be part of their work, let alone measure whether that work is actually resulting in anything.

2. A strategic plan. And I don’t mean a “pretend” strategic plan where board and staff went through the motions to create something they could show to funders and put up on their walls. I mean a real strategic plan that is built on the logic model and guides the day-to-day work of the organization, is compelling and inspiring, and results in real solutions to social problems. A good strategic plan allows a nonprofit organization to understand and articulate their contribution to a larger community marketplace and then craft organization goals around that knowledge. Without a good strategic plan a nonprofit is just twisting in the wind, probably doing a lot of work, but to what end?

3. A financing plan. It is not enough to have big goals and  a plan for the future, a nonprofit must understand the price tag associated with their strategic plan and how they are going to bring enough money in the door to finance that plan. And a good financing plan analyzes all potential sources of money, lays out a clear road map for bringing that money in the door, and fully integrates the securing of money into the other work of the organization.

4. A pitch for capital. Capital is money to build the nonprofit organization infrastructure, as opposed to revenue which helps the nonprofit provide more services. Most nonprofits simply go out and raise revenue, but few go out and raise money to build a stronger, more effective and efficient organization. This kind of money is capacity capital. If more nonprofits put together a pitch to convince funders to invest in organization building we would start to see many more effective solutions to social problems grow. In the for-profit world we understand that you can’t just sell widgets. You need an infrastructure behind those widgets (staff, technology, systems, sales, etc), but in the nonprofit sector we insist on starving organizations and forcing them to spend every last dime on services, with no money for infrastructure. With a compelling pitch for capacity capital, that can change.

I don’t think I’m oversimplifying things. The nonprofits that will emerge from this recession stronger, more effective, and better able to really tackle and solve the many problems facing us are those organizations that have taken a step back and put in place the building blocks that will move them forward.

Photo Credit: 5mal5

Direct link: http://www.socialvelocity.net/2011/06/4-things-every-nonprofit-needs/

The costs of high-turnover in nonprofit leadership

Aloha! Because the nonprofit sector is a major economic force in America, I was preparing today to write about the high turnover in nonprofit organizations. I came across this blog post which provides a better explanation on this subject than I could put together. 

My personal opinion is that high turnover is the result of two things: 1) Not staying relevant; and 2) Board apathy. I would also add that unless the full Board has a clear understanding of the role of the Executive Director, they will serially hire according to a fictional job description. Statistics also indicate that a greater majority of Boards do not regularly evaluate the Executive Director, despite that responsibility being one of the primary functions of a Board.

Here's the link to this page which includes some great comments.
http://www.nextlevelnonprofits.com/costs-highturnover-nonprofit-leadership/

• Posted on August 30, 2012 
• in Blog posts 
• by Natasha Golinsky

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In a discussion recently on LinkedIn, I asked a group “why do you think executive turnover is so high in the nonprofit sector and what can we do to help the leader stay in one spot for longer?” The response I got was interesting – the majority of the respondents felt that high turnover was good because it was a chance for the organization to have new ideas infused and to not get stuck in a rut.  Despite all the opinions of this nature I couldn’t help but see the collateral damage of high leadership turnover: low staff morale, inconsistent culture, lack of trust in the organization’s leadership, high financial costs of finding replacement etc. I know that organizations need a continuous flow of fresh ideas but I could not see how turning over the CEO every 4-5 years could be a good thing.

As I continued to read Forces for Good, I came across a fascinating fact; successful executive directors and their top teams have extraordinarily long tenure staying, on average, 20 years. However according to the Daring to Lead 2011 report, statistically just 25% of nonprofit executives expect to stay in their jobs for more than five years.

What are some of the costs of high-turnover in leadership? 

1. Real impact often takes decades, not years.  If you continue to change the plan, it is incredibly more difficult to get any traction towards your goals.

2. Executive directors and senior managers spend much of their time cultivating relationships – if a leader leaves, some of these are lost.

3.  Most nonprofit work relies on tacit knowledge embodied in the staff; when top leaders leave, the organization loses accumulated wisdom and skills.

4. Because the issues that nonprofits are trying to solve are so complex, constant leadership change causes the organization to focus more internally, rather than on external results.

5. Emotional damage to the team having to adjust and then readjust every time their leadership team changes.

6. Financial costs. It has been estimated that the costs of recruiting, interviewing, hiring and on boarding an ED can cost up to $50,000 – money in most cases that the organization could better spend somewhere else.

7. Mission drift as each new leader has their own take on how to best grow the organization.

 What do you think?  Is high-turnover good for the sector or is it a disruption to the organization fulfilling its strategy?  

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Where is Philanthropy?

I was born and raised in Honolulu, and in recent years have lamented the fact that the O`ahu population has doubled since I was in high school, it's over-crowded and over-developed. I found less and less evidence of neighborhoods and communities that were a big part of my youthful exuberance. My son has often commented that he wished he could experience the Hawai`i of my childhood because without a doubt, it was the greatest place on the planet to grow up.

So, for a myriad of reasons, we relocated to Lahaina, Maui. And we now find ourselves fortunate to be in the center of the best of both worlds. There is more opportunity in terms of securing stable employment, and one need not look beyond the surrounding neighborhood for some "ono backyard kanikapila". The sense of community remains in tact, and I am home once again.

The nonprofit community is diligently supported by the public sector here, and philanthropy is thriving. One of my closest Lahaina connections is a "Traditional Intellect" and has assumed the charge of caring for a cemetery that rests alongside the oldest historical landmark on Maui island, Waiola Church. He leads a group named Na Kia'i O Waine`e, and they are the stewards of the Royal Tomb at the cemetery's entrance, as well as numerous other gravesites that mark the resting places of Hawai`i's chiefs and chiefesses. The ancestral grounds are cared for with all the protocol and sacred ritual that rivals the canonization of Mother Marianne Cope - and rightfully so.

                  

Naturally, there is a much deeper, richer, profound history that can be told here about the Royal Tomb and the graves at Wainee (the location that inspired Michener's "Hawai`i"), however, today I want readers to understand the broad spectrum of the nonprofit endeavors. Within a mile's distance that we traverse each day, we will encounter someone or something that relies on our philanthropy.

Take notice! What have you seen today that relies on our philanthropy?

Send your donation to: 
"Na Kia`i O Waine`e"
c/o Waiola Church
535 Waine`e Street
Lahaina, HI 96761-1109

Mahalo!!

Maui No Ka Oi

Aloha and welcome to my new blog. I am anxious to connect with anyone directly or indirectly connected to the nonprofit sector in Hawai`i, and beyond our sandy shores, that are interested in making a positive contribution toward philanthropic objectives.

Blogging has just been added to my social media toolkit, so please be patient as I navigate my way to sharing information in the most productive and purposeful way.

Let's just use this first post as a way of introducing a new and dynamic way of creating a path to open and honest dialogues about communities, best practices in nonprofits, and any issues that matter to you. Through our voices, the independent sector can continue to be a powerful economic force in America, providing quality services to those in need, and **gulp** job creation!

For starters, here's a great link found on www.independentsector.org:

http://www.independentsector.org/uploads/about_sector/roles_nonprofit_philanthropic_community.pdf

Start thinking and sharing with the rest of us.

Mahalo.