Thinking about how best to step up your game in 2022? Look no further! Below are five resolutions for your consideration; none of them easy, but each guaranteed to make you be a more effective leader. Well, not exactly guaranteed. . .
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Why question sustainability, accountability and best practices? Because they each embody specific value choices and requires trade-offs that you may not even be aware of. Let’s take a harder look at each of these nonprofit icons.
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Our sense of what it means to be a high performing nonprofit Board focus on how well the Board performs—not what it provides. But active and engaged do not always equate to being useful.
Is your Board providing as much value as it can to your organization? Let’s find out. . .
We expect nonprofit Boards to render wise decisions, guide strategy and raise money. When they fail to so so, we assume the problem is that they need more—Members, training, engagement. The real problem is unrealistic expectations—myths—about what Boards should be doing. What are these myths and why are so destructive?
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Terminating a team member may be necessary for future organizational success or to resolve an ongoing problem—but that’s not likely to be the initial perspective of the remaining team members. But your options for guiding them through this moment are very limited. Here’s some ways to make the best of a bad situation.
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Bad judgment puts managers in a tough position. If you don't have confidence in the decisions of a team member, you can’t delegate. Which means the team member is unable to perform their job. Do they have to go or is there something you can do. . .
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“Resolve problems” is the indispensable job responsibility of every manager. But for some problems, the effort to find a permanent resolution is likely to cause more harm than good. These are Mowing the Lawn problems and learning how to address these, can spare everyone—especially you—a lot of unnecessary suffering.
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Dissent is more than disagreement; it opposes power. Dissenters must confront fears about speaking up and accept the risks that those fears may well be realized. Managers have their own fears about dissent—having to justify themselves, feeling that their authority is being challenged. Nothing about dissent is easy. And yet dissent is an enormously powerful tool for good. Here’s how you can do more to encourage it—
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You’ve issued a statement affirming that Black lives matter, acknowledged that racism permeates all aspects of American society and recognized that your nonprofit is not immune. Now it’s time to walk your talk—what do you do?
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There has literally never been a better time to grab a bowl of popcorn and stretch out on the coach to watch your favorite organizational crisis-management movies for some ideas and inspirations you can apply to today’s challenges. Since, I suspect most of you lack a favorite in this particular category, I’m happy to recommend mine…
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Advocates for merit pay believe that both basic fairness and organizational interests require that staff who perform better than their peers should be compensated accordingly. This isn’t crazy. But for most nonprofit organizations, it’s a bad idea.
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Among other things, being well-managed by your team means that your engagement is treated as valuable; meetings are shorter, rarer and more efficient; and you’re actually able to spend less time managing others and more time on your own work. Here’s how to make that happen. . .
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When staff complain about a lack of transparency, nonprofit leaders commonly respond by promising more. This rarely works because the perceived lack of transparency is usually obscuring a more significant problem—a lack of trust. The understandable inclination to increase transparency without confronting the underlying challenge around trust is the essence of the transparency trap.
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There’s no either/or with Accountability and Learning—both are essential to organizational success. We talk about these two so often that it’s easy to imagine they fit easily together. In fact, incorporating both into your organizational culture can be extremely difficult. What explains the tension between Accountability and Learning? Why do attitudes and behaviors that support one tend to undermine the other?
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I’ve been reading Ron Friedman’s The Best Place to Work. The book applies insights from a variety of fields—psychology, neuroscience, economics, anthropology, etc.—to the work place. The evidence Friedman presents affirms many things that I thought must be true (natural light is a good thing!), but it’s also caused me to reconsider some of my assumptions. I wish I’d read this book years ago.
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“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” There are a host of nuanced explanations for what that actually means, but the basic point is pretty straightforward—if you want to have an impact (through your strategies), you need to pay attention to your culture.
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Having recently joined an organization as COO, I also took on the responsibilities of interim Development Director. One day, a draft solicitation was sent to me for approval. I found one sentence confusing and edited it accordingly. When asked if I wanted to see it again before it went out, I replied that as long as the edit was made, it was good to go.
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It's taken me longer than it should to accept that many people have an aversion to the idea of managing their bosses--and to start to understand why. As a COO, managing up is practically part of the job description. But as I tried to get my staff to better manage me and I supported others in their challenges with difficult bosses, I came to accept that my view isn't as widespread as (I think) it should be.
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