In our last post, we discussed three ways to structure conversations, even everyday ad hoc conversations, to achieve your objectives. Every conversation is an opportunity to build relationships, to coordinate activities, to plan for the future, to sell your ideas, to get ideas, or to recap the past.
Today, we add another structured conversation, with a specific focus strategic planning
Mindfulness is an important buzzword these days. Basically, Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.
We each hold dozens of conversations, mostly mindless conversations, every day. These are wasted opportunities to build relationships or coordinate activities or to plan for the future or recap the past. It is possible to focus a conversation so that it has a meaningful result by using some simple techniques. It is possible to plan your conversations. And after a smidgeon of practice, you can apply these techniques with little or no effort. Continue reading How to Hold Mindful Conversations – Part 1
Every nonprofit has a mission to achieve a vision where a problem is solved.
So why aren’t they there now?
It’s because they have a small number of constraints, at least one. The constraints could be funding, volunteers, management time, facilities, weather, skills, tools, software, legal, whatever. The constraints could be anything. Continue reading Know Your Constraints
I wrote a post offering a quick way to get past a blank page using the here-it-is, ain’t-it-great, however, approach. That works for emergency situations, where you just have no idea at all where you are going.
If you have more time, here are four ways to get started: Continue reading Getting Past the Blank Page
Amazon has published a set of leadership principles. Great! Many organizations do that. But they have people, long-term managers, whose job is to see that new hires understand those principles and that the organization actually follows them.
The principles are easy to read but harder to apply. They are contrary to practices in many, if not most organizations. For example, the customer comes before profitability. Most companies follow the dictum of Milton Friedman that the sole purpose of a corporation is to increase profits.
Obviously, Amazon understands that the higher purpose of a corporation is to add value. Then profits come as a fallout of that value.
Another principle is ownership. Leaders are owners. They think long-term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They take ownership of issues and results.
Most of the other principles flow from these.
Dave Anderson, one of those Amazon leaders, has written an article, both humorous and sad, about outrageous responses to interview questions about these principles. Then he demonstrates an answer he loves. He posted it both on Scarlet Ink and on Linkedin. Go read it. You will be glad you did.
Here are some questions that your strategic planning process should answer:
Now you have your strategic plan. Document it. Add it to your Operating Plan.
Now go do it.
It seems that about every three years nonprofits get an itch to update their strategic plan.
But do they realize what they are asking?
They are asking to scan the external environment for changes that impact their approach to achieving their vision. Then they review their current strategies to see if they are accomplishing their mission efficiently and effectively.
But this is worthless unless they put into place some Strategic Actions that are innovative and substantial.
Continue reading Do You Really Want to Update Your #Nonprofit Strategic Plan?
Once again, I am seeing nonprofits that are not growing and moving toward their vision. They are busy. Very busy, in fact. But they are going nowhere.
The reason: the Executive Director keeps him- or herself busy with minutia. Then they claim that they are too busy to do the important tasks. They claim they are overworked.
For example, I recently met an ED who has a major event scheduled for 11 weeks from now. He is expecting nearly 4,000 people. He has not nailed down the venue. He has not signed a single speaker. He has not built an agenda.
Why? “I’m too busy. There is too much going on. I am exhausted.”
He won’t even look for volunteers to take over tasks. When he does get one, he micromanages them until they leave, which usually does not take long.
His organization has had over thirty potential paths to achieve their important vision. They are currently executing only three. And when he retires or dies (probably at the same time) the organization will dissolve, with its mission unfulfilled.
He should be finding volunteers to take over the management of various events. Complete management. There are lots of people in this town who can and would do that.
If he is fortunate, he can hand it over with a minimum of instruction. If a little less fortunate, he can let that person shadow him through the process and give him the aegis next year. But, his major job should be finding and freeing volunteers to handle each activity, even if it takes more hours to recruit them and bring them up to speed than he now spends on managing on a recurring basis.
He has turned over the management of one of the paths to a retired executive. That path appears to be working well. It seems to be in the S4 area.
See my prior posts on Delegate or Die and How to Delegate.
Some organizations spend months, years even, developing their vision, only to have it end up rambling on for pages.
Doing it right is not that hard, and it’s important…very important. Continue reading On a Clear Day, Can You See Your Vision?
Last week, I described a framework for making a decision to either negotiate or to flight-or-fight. This framework was developed by Robert Mnookin and detailed in his book, Bargaining with the Devil. His framework is meant to be used totally rationally, without recourse to emotion or intuition. But that is silly. Recent research has proven that nearly all decisions are made emotionally, then justified using logic and reason. Continue reading Negotiate or Flight-or-Flight II – Emotional Traps