The Mission Paradox Blog

A little appreciation

At my local Starbucks this morning, I watched as a manager slipped his employee a hand written note complimenting him on the quality of his work.  The note was specific, highlighting particular things he did well.  And as an added bonus, the manager slipped in a gift card to a store the employee particularly liked.

The note put a huge smile on the employee's face.  Hell, I smiled just watching it.

What I loved about it was that the Starbucks manager didn't just say "Thanks for doing a good job."  He was specific.  His praise was specific.  The gift card reward was specific to that particular employee.  It wasn't just generic praise.

Something to think about as your figure out ways to thank your employees for all they do.

It's hard . . . live with it

Just finished reading Seth Godin's fantastic little book The Dip.  It's a great read and you should check it out.  One of the basic elements of the book is that every great task, from windsurfing to becoming a lawyer has a "dip", meaning a time where success becomes very, very, very hard.  The theory is that great organizations know how to make it through that dip.

It got me to thinking about my friends in the nonprofit world.

I think one of the biggest challenges they have is that they simply can not accept that the process of building a strong, sustainable nonprofit is extremely difficult.

Think of the homeless shelter trying to raise funds.  They go talk to the local foundations, they talk about how the shelter changes lives and saves families.

Four months later they get a courtesy "no" letter from the foundation.

Would it surprise you if someone at that shelter was thinking . . . "I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY TOLD US NO!  Here we are trying to SAVE PEOPLE'S LIVES and they told us NO!"

I think because nonprofits feel like they are doing such good and noble work it hurts them deeply when a fundraising drive doesn't work, or someone doesn't come to a show.  Just a few big losses can drive an organization into being just "average" and "surviving" forever.

But let's come back to the reality of the situation.  It is HARD to do anything worth doing.  Great companies accept this difficulty. 

Not only do they accept this difficulty, they embrace it.

Imagine what would happen if you gathered your Board and Staff together and gave them this message . . .

"What we are trying to accomplish is hard.  We will be treated unfairly.  We may have to change tactics 1,000 times before we break through to success.  Fundraising drives may fail.  Weak Board members may leave.  That is all part of the process.  Anybody who can't embrace that should leave now."

The point is worth repeating . . . great organizations accept difficult and embrace it.  No complaining, no whining.

What is your organization doing?

The Choice To Lead

Last week, I had the honor of serving on a panel on leadership during the Illinois Arts Alliance's annual conference.  It was a truly awesome experience and my fellow panelists had some great points on leadership in nonprofit organizations.  Let me share some of their wisdom with you . . .

On how someone should deal with ineffective leadership:

It is important to understand the organization's role in creating ineffective leadership either on the Board or Staff level.  Often leaders are ineffective because they are misinformed about their role in the organization or are not properly trained in how to do their job.  So one way of dealing with ineffective leadership is to see if the organization can do more training with the ineffective person.

On making sure your Board and Staff share the organizational vision

One of the most interesting points a fellow panelist made is that their really is no such thing as a shared organizational vision.  The truth is 12 people can have 12 different visions.  This is something that is human nature and often unavoidable.  What a good leader must do is understand what the organizational vision means to a particular person and then lead that person based on their own understanding of the vision.

People Tip #2: Don't just interview

A few weeks ago, the National Football League held their annual draft.  Each team gets 15 minutes to announce the player they will be "hiring" for their squad. 

Some people have called the steps leading up to that player announcement the most intense hiring process in the world.  That process gives us some lessons about how we should go about selecting people to work in our nonprofit organizations.

The NFL draft process starts with something called a combine.  In this combine, representatives from all the teams come together to watch players go through drills that test their ability as football players.

Here's the question . . . why do the NFL teams need a combine?  The prospective pro athletes once played college football so there is plenty of footage available to the pro teams to look over.

Why don't teams just look at the film of the player they like, do an interview and draft them?

It is because these teams need to see with their own eyes if the player can actually do the things a professional football player needs to be able to do.

Let's carry this example to hiring in the nonprofit world.

Assume you had a candidate for a Development Director position.  Her resume is solid.  She has good references.  Typically, the next step in the process would be an interview (or series of interviews) and then a hiring decision would be made.

What if this company added an extra step?

What if this nonprofit created their own little combine?

Think about it.  What if you had a series of role play exercises where your Development candidate asked individuals for contributions to a capital campaign?  What if you had her work with your existing development team to come up with a hypothetical pitch for a corporate donor?

The ways to create your own combine are endless.  The big point here is that before you hire someone, make them go through some tangible process to show they have the skills necessary to be successful at your company.

People Tip #1: Always Be Recruiting

One thing that great companies have in common when it comes to acquiring talent is that they are always looking for talented people, whether they have a job opening at their company or not.

The main reason for this is that the very best people in a particular field will rarely if ever be on the traditional "job market."  These folks don't have to send out resumes to look for a job.  More then likely, they already have a job they enjoy and if they don't . . . they are only a couple of networking calls away from finding that job.

So when you have a job opening at your nonprofit and you do the traditional "send in your resume" approach to hiring, more then likely you are not getting resumes from the top people in your field . . . you are getting resumes from the people who searching for a job!

Here's an idea.  Instead of gathering resumes the next time you have a position open, how about keeping a short list of the most talented people you have run across over the past month (six months, year)?

If you go to an event and the speaker is a dynamic expert on marketing that works for another company, write her name down on your list.

If you read an article about a development director that has just executed an awesome fundraising campaign, write his name down.

Then when the time comes to hire somebody, give those people on your list a call and sell them on the idea of working for you.

I know for many nonprofits this would be a very different approach to hiring.  Most of them are used to bringing in a batch of people and letting them sell why THEY should be working for the company.  I can see why organizations like this approach . . . it makes them feel good to have 20 or 30 people coming in a room and talking (begging?) about how much they want to work for the company.

But here's the thing . . . the best people in the field will probably never be in that room.  They don't need to be.  So you are going to have to find and recruit them.

So the next time you are out and about at various events for nonprofit managers, keep your list handy.  You may run across someone today who, six months fron now, could be the person who helps your organization go to the next level.

Talent Matters

I just finished watching my beloved Chicago Bulls get beat up by the Pistons in the NBA Playoffs.  After the game, I turned on sports talk radio to listen to my fellow fans mourn a tough loss.  Everybody offered their opinions as to why the team lost.  Then the host of the radio show chimed in with an opinion no one could get around . . .

The Pistons are more talented then the Bulls.

Now that isn't to say the Bulls can't win the playoff series, they can and as a fan I hope they will.  But the fact still remains, if the Bulls play as well as they can . . . and the Pistons play as well as they can, then 8 out of 10 times the Pistons will win because they have better players.

Over the next few weeks, I will talk a lot about finding the right people for your nonprofit.  This little example illustrates my first, and probably most important point . . . Talent Matters.

In a recent article in Inc. Magazine, Joel Spolsky, CEO of Fog Creek Software says this about his hiring process . . . "in our field, the top 1% of the workforce can easily be 10 times as productive as the average (software) developer".

Think about that for a second.  Or more importantly, think about the consequences for nonprofit management if that example applied to our sector.

What if one really, really good development person was better then 10 average development people?

What if two very talented, top of the line marketing people were more more effective then 15 average marketing people?

How would that change nonprofit management if that were true?

One of the biggest challenges nonprofits have is their ability to afford top talent?  But would that top talent be easier to afford if nonprofits had the courage to cut off some of the "dead weight" in their organizations?

Now maybe this doesn't apply to your nonprofit.  Maybe you have no dead weight.

Then again, maybe you do.  And maybe that extra weight and the salary it is commanding is holding you back from hiring a truly talented person.

Just something for you to consider.

My larger point is this in nonprofit management, just like in sports, the majority of the time the team with the best players wins the championship.

Not the team that tries the hardest (though that helps)

Not the team with the most self confidence (that helps as well)

The most talented team almost always wins.

We will be discussing how to draw that talent to your organization, but for now just take my word for it . . . talent matters.

Coming Soon: People Month On The Paradox Blog

For the next month (or so), the Mission Paradox blog will be talking about how nonprofits can attract, hire and maintain the most talented people.  The blog will tackle questions such as:

• How can I hire someone when I can't pay them a top salary?
• How do I evalute my employees?
• How can I fire an employee without getting sued?
• How do I attract top talent to my nonprofit?

Whether you are just one person running a company or a large nonprofit with numerous employees, the Mission Paradox blog will have useful tips for you.

We will kick things off later this week with a post on how top organizations recruit talent, and what lessons nonprofits can take away from their experiences.

How to be rich

So I'm watching chessy informercials last night and one guy is selling a book called "How to Get Rich and Get Everything You Ever Wanted!"

Of course the guy selling it was a "preacher" and I am sure part of his solution was to give generously to his church!

But for nonprofits, the way to getting rich (assuming that is your goal) is the same as it has ever been.

Add value.

The more value you add to the world, the richer you become.  Of course the trick for nonprofits is figuring out how to measure that value.  But here is the thing, everything is measurable . . . you just need to figure out a way to do it.

Maybe nonprofits should hire a stats expert, or better yet find one and put him/her on the board, that is an expert at measuring intangible things.

But the equation is still the same.  More value = More money.  And of course, More Money = More Mission

Darn Flu

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I have been snatched up by a flu bug and I am just now getting over it.  The blog will be back up to speed by Monday, May 7th if not sooner