Author: whatifconcepts

Empowering those that inspire so they can excel at the work that matters.

Pass and Pause

A Strategic Plan’s greatest value is not on the day an organization adopts it. Rather its greatest value comes from the moment it is ready to be replaced by a new strategic plan. All along the strategic plan was a permission slip to think and act differently. To consider the alternate routes, to head to the scenic overlooks and take in the landscapes, to reflect, and to decide on routes. If you are using the plan as a road map, then consider it outdated and full of erroneous assumptions. Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery had a few local guides and anecdotal information but the most accurate map they possessed was the one they created the day they returned to St. Louis at the culmination of their adventure. Their purpose was their compass and the blank pages were permission to seek a route to the Pacific Ocean.

What does your strategic plan encourage you to discover? Is your plan prescriptive or a permission slip?

The Power of Sensemaking

At your next meeting ask one of the these questions:

On what list do we want to rank #1?
What are our 3 greatest assets? Name 2 hidden assets.
What is distinctive about our organization? Is that quality/service becoming more or less valuable in the world in which we work?
Which conversations are you trying to create?
Are our behaviors reflective of our values?
How will you know it has succeeded? How will we measure success/progress along the way?
What intersections/boundaries do we need to cross in order to innovative?

Did asking these questions alter the conversation? What remarkable ideas were surfaced? Did you find alignment or diversion? Was there a different energy to the dialogue?

The movie industry has a timeline for the next six years related to the production and release of movies generated from comic books. The last few years have seen the release of numerous superhero related films. Many of these characters and story-lines existed for decades. Somebody asked the question, ‘how can we look at these characters and their stories differently?’ If they had not tried to make sense of the genre the characters would have been contained to comic books and a small but dedicated tribe. Scale does not make the transformation compelling but what does is the recognition that there was a generative question to ask.

Freakonomics Fundraising

Remarkable observations about the realities of fundraising offered in this transcript from a Freakonomics podcast. It is all about you- at least in one important way. These revelations may influence your end of the year giving considerations….

BoardSource Leadership Forum Day Two 2014

“One cannot solve a problem in the same state of consciousness and one created the problem.”

A. Einstein

What is the most remarkable dialogue you are engage in at this moment? Not a decision, evaluation, or a conversation. Rather dialogue where one builds on the ideas of others, asks questions to clarify intent, and willingness to listen without judgement. Patrick Davis lead a remarkable session at the BoardSource Leadership Forum building a case for the power of dialogue.

Has your enterprise spent as much time in dialogue as it spends discussing the budget? Why not? We rarely address transformational issues by making a quick decision or collecting data. Rather, it is in our divergent discourse that we offer ourselves the opportunity to engage with new ideas.

Two individuals who have developed compelling frameworks for centering ourselves around dialogue are Bohm and Bonnie. Their guidelines follow:

Bohm’s Suggestions:
No group decisions (we make fewer decisions than we realize already)
No cross-talk
Suspend judgement and suppress “we have already done that” thinking
Build on ideas with ‘yes, and…’ statements
Be aware of which lens we are using as engage

Bonnie’s Suggestions:
Establish clear intentions
Listening not only what is being said, but why it is being said
Avoid building a case against or for while listening
Promote advocacy and unscripted thought
Engage in inquiry with questions that allow for greater understanding
Ask ‘what am I doing?’ Where the head turns so goes the body

Asking ourselves to tackle the wickedly big questions is a courageous act. Balancing the interplay between hope and the brutal facts is akin to drawing an arrow on a bow. The right amount of tension and extraordinary precision can be achieved. Too little or too much tension and the impact of the arrow declines precipitously.

I am bringing the practice of guided dialogue to my ecosystem and look forward to reporting the results. I wonder which brave organizations will risk a few quiet moments and a little change to reap extraordinary rewards?

BoardSource Leadership Forum- Day One 2014

Remarkable content and insights at the BoardSource Leadership Forum. Here are ideas that I am excited to explore further.

Daniel Forrester

Leaders are spending their time in the following ares: 30% interruptions, 25% content creation, 20% meetings, 15% absorbing content, and 5% thinking.
What books are you re-reading to confirm or challenge your original assumptions?
Big Ideas–>Culture–>Dialogue are three areas where we can be obsessive

Cathy Trower: Stage V Thinking

The five stages of thinking
- Stage 1: collective, analyzing, interpreting
- Stage 2: Strategic decision-making
- Stage 3: Strategic planning
- Stage 4: Execution. Reviewing progress against the plan
- Stage 5: Sensemaking
  - Engage board members as thought partners, not technicians
  - Distinguish between discussion (action focused) vs dialogue (exploration and new ideas)

Thomas McLaughlin: Nonprofit Collaboration

Alliance is required for economic, resource, and operational sharing. Mergers required in a corporate to corporate union.
Corporate structures are allergic to mergers so they need time and both parties have to win.
Honoring the brand is important.
Culture is exponentially more important that strategy.
Ask, what does success look like? Who else has done this before? What did the merger look like?

Richard Mittenthal: Governance 3.0

Consider strategic initiatives that embrace the entire ecosystem your organization occupies, not just your enterprise in isolation.
Build board capacity by providing board with the vocabulary and technical understanding necessary to discuss programs.
Distinguish between collaboration and collective impact. Collaboration does not give-up much whereas collective impact sacrifices for the whole.
Is your organization breaking down the board walls by inviting external guests and taking field trips?

Gigi Woodruff: Advancing Governance

Search YMCA’s Board Leadership Competency Model for great resources
Six Competencies
- Inclusion
- Influence
- Decision-Making
- Philanthropy
- Emotional Maturity
- Functional Expertise
Ask the board: How will we show-up? How are we related to the bigger opportunity? Which competencies are you going to commitment to during the next year?
Who on the board asks, what just happened?
Recruit new board members by allowing them to tell their stories and sell themselves to you

Holly Duckwork: Ctrl+Alt+Believe

Reboot your organization by transcending history and hierarchy
Dying organizations have three common themes: fear, doubt, lack. Growing organizations: faith, courage, abundance
Ask, what are we optimistic about?
Combine two best practices to create a new practice
Zappos top five core values are remarkable
- Wow through service, embrace and drive change, create fun and weirdness, be adventurous and creative, and pursue growth

Relentless

Seth Godin posted on the subject of math. He suggested, ‘we need to get focused and demanding and relentless in getting good at math, at getting our kids good at math and not standing by when someone lets themselves (and thus us) off the hook.’ It took me a long time before I found a math teacher who communicated with clarity to guide my proficiency in math. Once I did find such a coach it transformed my reaction to encountering word problems.

Who are you spending time with and being relentless in adding value to their journey? These are the individuals who will remember you forever. Which teachers from your elementary school years can you name? What made them remarkable?

When we take our expertise (thinking like a scientist) and share them so they are accessible (talking like a truck driver) the pursuit of something greater is possible.

Business Gets Personal: A Day with Masters

Seth Godin, Dave Ramsey, and Gary Vaynerchuk co-hosted a one-day event in New York last week, titled Business Gets Personal. These three thought leaders continuously created remarkable content and build loyal tribes. The opportunity to hear the trio deliver keynote addresses and interact with one another was a highlight. Their talks were authentic to the philosophy’s they share through their selected mediums. A few highlights follow.

Seth Godin

Seth expanded on his theme that the world has changed from the three television networks and local newspapers. You now have permission to bring something that matters into the world without waiting for gatekeepers. His mantra, ‘people like us do things like this.’ We cannot exist just by demonstrating competence and if we get into a race we will find ourselves doing it cheaper and faster and may just win the dubious title of being the cheapest competent. Seth encourages us to look for people who gravitate towards the edges. If we are just trying to get the word out then we are simply marketing to the masses. If failure is not an option then we have also taken the option of success off the table. The underpinnings of Seth’s recommendation include being generous and being an artist. Do work that matters so much so that you will be missed if you do not show-up one day.

Dave Ramsey

This was my first occasion to see and hear Dave in-person. He centered his time around four elements: 1. People Matter. Dave remarked that vendors, customer, and competition are not units of revenue, production, or supply. 2. Team and Culutre of Excellence. He outlined the importance of unity and discussed the biggest threats to unity, including poor communication, gossip, unresolved disagreements, lack of shared purpose, and sanctioned incompetence. 3. Slow and Steady Matters. Using Aesop’s fable of the Tortist and the Hare to illustrate his belief that slowing down in many aspects of business is vital. To be hired at his company takes 7-10 interviews as he looks for people’ ‘inner donkey’ to appear so he knows what talent he is really hiring 4. High Calling. Be generous in everything you do and recognize that there are no shortcuts.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary is well known for going off-script and improvising. He did not disappoint, ditching his keynote for an impromptu question and answer session with the audience. In classic fashion he entrained and informed. The most powerful takeaway for me were his remarks on social media. Gary implored the attendees to act more like a media company and focus less on being a virtual social gathering platform. The delivery of useful and engaging content supersedes the desire of most groups to manipulate users into taking an action. Gary considers the ‘Editor-in-Chief’ of any enterprise the most important individual in the company. When asked to recommend the next social media platform he responded that he only cares about what works today, he can adjust in real time when the next platform gets traction. The cost of entry into a remarkable social media effort is your organization’s content. If the content is useful, informs, and engages then people will rely on your cause as an expert. An actionable step is to visit https://twitter.com/search-home and enter in search terms that are relevant to your cause. The results offer costumer insights at a scale none of us could ever afford to produce on our own.

Being of service to others by producing things that matters may be a simplistic summary but equally profound for me.

The final surprise give-away, a poster reproduction of a custom print commissioned by Dave Ramsey for the session.

Remarkable Resources from Idaho Nonprofit Center’s State Conference

A recap of presentations that struck me as remarkable from last week’s Idaho Nonprofit Center’s State Conference.

Vu Le brought great humor and reminded us to get out of the office more often in his talk entitled, “Nonprofit Happy Hour.” Vu took time encouraging us to look for weak tie connections, these weak ties are where most novel ideas and inspiring concepts germinate. He encouraged authentic collaborations to happen instead of forcing them. The power of a cohesive community and its ability to serve many different needs is more effective than reacting to the endless list of needs. Finally, Vu outlined one of the best happy hour drinking games imagined. Find a summary of all these ideas at his website Nonprofit With Balls.

Susan Howlett presented a highly-informed workshop from her book, Boards on Fire that encourage highly effective nonprofit boards and advancement campaigns. An “ah ha” moment for me came in her handout worksheet which dedicated space on the first page for writing down action-steps or paradigm shifts from the workshop. What if our board agendas and handouts contained space on the title page to document actionable steps instead of embedding all our notes inside where they are less visible? Susan was a truth-teller when it came to fundraising resistance, checkout her negative word fundraising sheet for humor and shock.

Rich Dietz turned a marathon of information into a sprint on the topic of Visual Storytelling. My biggest take-away was we can be better storytellers and the preferred platform is video in 90-120 second segments. Need evidence, a video is twelve times more likely to be shared than a photograph on a social media platform. Rich encouraged us to employ our smartphones and some creativity. You can find high quality resources and a better understanding of Facebook’s new metrics at nonprofitrd.com/idaho14 (He also has a great blog!)

The panel discussions were equally vibrant. A couple gems from the local media session included, ‘exclusivity is currency’ when dealing with the media. Answering the question, ‘what lead up to the ribbon cutting’ is a more compelling story than the actual event. And, know the strengths of the media’s medium. The morning radio show may give you only 90-seconds but the newspaper can dedicate a couple paragraphs. Maximize each mediums strengths.

Growing Trust from Broken Promises

John Oliver’s, Last Week Tonight on HBO produced a piece on the Miss America Pageant and Miss America Foundation that could carry ramifications and opportunities for the social sector. His team investigated and revealed that the actual value of the scholarships awarded compared to the stated ‘provided’ value of the scholarships represent during the pageant’s telecast equate to an eye-opening difference. John stated the pageant “gives out way less than the 45 million dollars in scholarships (he claims less than $4-million) and yet two, whatever the number is one thing does still seem to be troubling true…because even their lowest number is more than any other woman-only scholarship we could find.” Instead shining the spotlight completely on the semantics and mathematical formulas employed by the Miss America Pageant and Miss America Foundation he challenged the audience to consider support woman-only scholarship organizations, such as:

Society of Woman Engineers Patsy Mink Foundation Rankin Foundation

I am not sure of the impact of this news story for the Miss America Pageant and Miss America Foundation. It does not appear to immediately enhance the public’s trust in the social sector. Perhaps the greatest opportunity for growth is that woman-only scholarship funds can use the conversation to share their purpose and offer a call to action. When others break loyalty and trust, there is an opportunity to re-enforce the relationship each of us fosters with our own tribes.

What-if-concepts

Empowering those who inspire so they excel at the work that matters.