Leadership and Management Ideas You Can Use
Restricted income is the lifeblood of many nonprofits. Smart organizations steward that income carefully, making sure that funds are allocated only to appropriate expenses. Knowing whether funds are restricted or unrestricted is a critical accounting distinction. But from a financial management perspective, that distinction is far less meaningful and may even be confusing.
Read MoreThere’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?
Read MoreWhat explains our chronic failure to effectively onboard nonprofit leaders? Surveys persistently show high levels of ED dissatisfaction with their onboarding processes.* The conventional answer is that Boards of Directors are to blame for failing in their responsibility for onboarding new leaders. This is both true and entirely beside the point.
Read MoreCongratulations! You’ve just hired your next staff leader. Now it’s time to think about the onboarding. The first few months of the new leader’s tenure will be the cornerstone of both the successes and challenges of the years ahead. Thoughtful decisions now about what approach to onboarding makes the most sense will have implications far down the road.
Read MoreI’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.
Read MoreThis is the third (and final) in a series of posts about how to use problems that have arisen in the past to shape improved future performance. Not by focusing on accountability, but through a learning process that centers on asking five basic questions. This post introduced the subject, and this one focused on how best to use “What happened?” Here, I’m going to move quickly through the final four questions.
Read MoreMost managers and leaders I know like to talk about how important learning is. And they mean it! But often they don't know how. This post and the following two are intended to give you both an overview of the subject and then a very simple approach, involving five basic questions. I'll walk you through each of the questions so that you know why you're asking it and what you should be trying to get out of it.
Read MorePity the perfectionist manager! How can she delegate to staff knowing that they won’t do nearly as good a job as she could? She expects nothing more of her team than she does of herself and yet, time and again, they disappoint. Not surprisingly, she finds managing to be frustrating and stressful. Sometimes she acts out. Pity her team as well! They aren’t oblivious. They know they’re being micromanaged and underappreciated. Sometimes they act out.
Read More“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.
Read MoreHaving 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.
Read MoreIt'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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