Seth Godin

My Nonprofit

Michel Martin on NPR’s Tell Me More program discussing President Obama’s address to the business community introduced one of the guests as the owner of two nonprofit businesses.  I gave me pause, can one ‘own’ a nonprofit?

The concept of owning a nonprofit is like laying claim to the sun.  One cannot posses the enterprise and it does a disservice in my mind to assign ownership to a cause established to serve the public trust.  By conferring dominion to a single individual we take the greatness out of the entity.  None of us are able to own a nonprofit.  It exists to meet a need that has a qualifying public benefit.  The concept for a social sector cause may originate with a founder but by incorporating as a nonprofit, the founder is conveying their idea to the public.  It is the ultimate gift.  If they wished to retain ownership then a for-profit structure provides far greater protection of competitive advantage and proprietary information.  If the social sector wishes to fully realize the magnitude of its influence and reach, it must be done by recognizing its dependency on others and not by building fortresses on the highest hills.  Seth Godin found a far more eloquent way to express our need for inter-connectedness and building community in his blog post today.

Words of Change
It’s a lot easier for an organization to adopt new words than it is to actually change anything.
 When you look at your current strategic or long range plan and compare it to your last version, did your cause create real change or simple wordsmith concepts from the past?  It is exciting to talk about striking out into the wilderness and journey towards a significant landmark.  It is another thing to sleep alone in the middle of a forest and listen to strange sounds outside your tent.  If you are not experiencing moments that jolt you from the day-to-day routine, you may not be on the journey you wrote about.  Real change takes more than words.

Sometimes Average is Enough

An exchange between two guests on WHYY’s Radio Times caught my attention this morning.  In acknowledging WalMart’s increased presence in the super market sector a guest essentially proposed that WalMart does not need to be better, they just need to be as good as their competitors.


That comment struck a deep cord with me.  Many businesses model themselves on the commodity approach.  If they can be as good as the name brand competitor but offer the product at a lower price or with some attached feature then they get the sale.  They win.

It reminds me of the philosophy proposed in Seth Godin’s book, The Dip.  If you do not create a deep enough dip between your product and service then there is no barrier to slow your competitors from matching your features. Products are easy to replicate in this global marketplace so suddenly we are left with a few variables.  Personalized service, an emotional connection, a belief in the organization’s purpose, a desire to make a statement, an individualized experience.  When we analyze what distinguishes us from our competitors there is very little on the commodity side.  It is usually the intangibles that tip the scale in our favor.  


Philanthropically minded individuals who has submitted an organizational grant request to a foundation that seems perfectly aligned to fund one’s cause can often be disappointed to see they were passed-over for a less obvious choice.  Many times the personal relationships between the foundation and the successful grantee are the golden key that provided success.


What features and benefits provide your cause with the greatest return on investment.  It may be the intangible items that are the hardest to measure.

The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)

Putting the Tribe Back Together

I have watched a couple organizations struggle to keep all their constituents connected as part of one tribe.  These are groups who started small and formed a loyal base of supporters.  As the cause grew and the membership increased suddenly there was need for new staff, databases, email newsletters, and phone systems.  Now the staff who were part of the organization’s early years and the original members are trying to regenerate the intimacy that they so cherished.  They have proposed multiple strategies and programs to re-create community.  Some of the initiatives are goals in the strategic plan.

It took me a while to see the common denominator in theses causes.  The challenge is that the tribe has grown larger than the organization’s could handle.  As Seth Godin points out in the aptly named book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us a tribe needs two things.  The two elements are a shared interest and a way to communicate (they also need a leader as Seth points out later).  In the case of the aforementioned organizations the shared interest had begun to deviating and communication was fractured.  There is another point.  At about 150 members a tribes typically begins to outgrow a level of intimacy and either splits into separate tribes or become less of a community.  That is why a national organization such as Alcoholics Anynomous has local chapters, so individuals can form their own tribes within a local community and still connect to a larger national tribe.  For an independent day school serving kindergarten through twelfth grade it might mean allowing tribes to form within the Elementary, Middle and High School.

Are you providing your tribe with information that resonates with their shared interest?  Is your enterprise constantly enhancing communication not only to the tribe but between its members?  Does your tribe need to split in order to thrive?

Tolerance and Thrashing

Is there somebody at your organization that always has the wild ideas?  You know the zany concepts about radically altering the way your organization does business?  Does this individual contain an bottomless well of new approaches?  Does your organization thrive on the suggestions or is it disruptive?


One of the concepts I have come to readily adopt is the idea of thrashing.  Thrashing is represented by the active brainstorming and manipulation of a new or existing idea.  It can take place in many stages of development and its impact varies.  Perhaps a visual representation offers more clarity.





Thrashing works exceedingly well at the inception of an idea.  It is what allows a foal to find its legs and begin to walk.  Without a willingness to put everything on the line the foal is doomed to suffer an unfavorable evolutionary ending.  Thrashing works less well when done later in the development stage.  The results can be more destructive than productive.







Seth Godin’s book Linchpin makes an interesting case for the value of thrashing.

“Thrashing is essential.  The question is: when to thrash?  In the typical amateur project, all the thrashing is near the end.  The closer we got to shipping, the more people get involved, the more meetings we have, the more likely the CEO wants to be involved.  And why not?  What’s the point of getting involved early when you can’t see what’s already done and your work will probably be redone anyway.  The point of getting everyone involved early is simple: thrash late and you won’t ship.  Thrash late and you introduce bugs.  Professional creators thrash early.  The closer the project gets to completion, the fewer people see it and the fewer changes are permitted.”



Tolerance is an amazing part of any organization’s culture.  It allows for innovation and new concepts.  An enterprise with a willingness to tolerate a wide range of ideas is powerful.  Having a value system in place to be accepting attracts lots of fans.  However, creating an agreement about when the time for input is being closed is equally important.  At some point you need one person to make the decision, even if it is a decision to vote.  One person needs to take all the inputs and write the strategic plan.  One person needs to be empowered to enter into a contract on behalf of the organization.  If you thrash late you may never seize any opportunities now matter how great the idea.

Balancing Need

“Give the world something it didn’t know it was missing”

Daniel Pink: A Whole New Mind

What need is your organization trying to meet, extinguish, enhance or support? Does the world or even your community know about the need?  Have you remembered to show the impact of the need on your community?  Does your universe understand what success will look like?  Do they understand the consequence of failure? 

Is your need overwhelming your community.  Seth Godin’s post on philanthropy from last week speaks to the danger of constantly calling fire or wolf.  The world may not want to know about your need if it is too painful to consider on a daily basis.

How has your enterprise established a balance between significance, urgency and priority?

Being Your Best

I have read and been repeatedly inspired by Marcus Buckingham’s books.  I embrace the theory that you maximize an individual’s talents and mitigate their weaknesses.  He recently released a new book titled Find Your Strongest Life that I anticipate reading as soon as I finish Seth Godin’s Linchpin.

I am always searching for the best question to ask at the right moment.  Marcus has a five-point strategy for problem solving.  Number three is listed below: 

Change follows the line of your questioning. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong?” ask, “What does it look like when it’s working?”

Checkout the rest of the steps on Oprah’s website along with tactics for decision-making, switching careers and developing connections.

Training Your Competition

When I lived in a ski resort town in Idaho I was a volunteer member of the local fired department.  The fire department developed a policy that required new members to serve a probational year after which a firefighter who met certain requirements could begin to advance their medical and fire ground training beyond the core curriculum.  At first this policy felt like a glass ceiling because many of the new paid-on-call volunteers had a lot of energy, time and were motivated to learn as much as possible.  After inquiring about the process, I learned the rule had developed partly to comply with professional fire fighting standards but its real roots existed in the classic resort town struggle.  In earlier years volunteers were obtaining their Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certification by joining the fire department in September and completing the course over the winter.  When the snow began to melt and the rivers ran high, some of the newly minted EMTs headed to work for the whitewater rafting companies.  Many of these companies required EMT certification or paid more if you had the training.  The volunteers had taken the course at the expense of the fire department and then bolted for the river.  After a couple years of developing frustration the fire department instituted the probational year as an assessment tool to quantify the aptitude and initiative of each member.  This is one method to ensure retention of your staff.

Alternatively, Seth Godin argues that if you hire exceptional people and provide a dynamic workplace retention will not be your issue.  Godin’s recent book Linchpins speaks at length about the old factory paradigm and how it is becoming obsolete.  He points to companies like Zapoos which are almost infectious with enthusiasm.  Places where the people do their best because of the their personal motivations, not because of a policy.

Both systems are in play.  The question is which one adds to your organizational culture?  Which one holds your best and brightest at a average pace that most everyone can achieve?

Are you training your competition’s employees?  Have you created a dynamic environment that attracts talented individuals?  Are your best people recruiting new employees for you?