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Having difficult conversations with board, staff and donors

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difficult conversations2From time-to-time, we all need to have a difficult conversation with someone. It could be an employee, board volunteer, donor, collaborative partner, or even a spouse or loved-one. I was in such a position a few days ago, and needless to say it didn’t go very well. In the subsequent days, I spent a lot of time licking my wounds and thinking about what I could’ve done differently. So, I’ve decided to share some of my thoughts with the readers at DonorDreams blog and hope you’ll also share your thoughts and experiences.
Setting the stage
Let’s make sure we’re on the same page. The following are just a few examples of difficult conversations I see non-profit professionals having every day:

  • correcting poor performance or disciplinary action with an employee
  • engaging a board member in a discussion about poor attendance at meetings or following through on things they’ve committed to do for the agency
  • speaking with a donor who spontaneously donated — before your fundraising volunteers could schedule an appointment to visit — and made a contribution of less than what you were planning to ask them to give
  • talking with a funder about a set of grant deliverables that your agency agreed to achieve but might now be having difficulty achieving

I’m sure we could identify many more of these types of conversations without even trying very hard. Won’t you please share?
What not to do
As I look back upon the many difficult conversations I’ve had in my professional life, I’ve made many mistakes and some of those mistakes I continue to make over and over again for some dumb reason. Here are just a few of those missteps:

  • I procrastinate and put off having those conversations
  • I obsess and over-think those conversations, essentially having different version of those conversations in my head prior to the actual conversation
  • I try to set the stage with a pre-discussion email outlining the issues that need to be discussed
  • I get emotional and take things personally
  • I wear my emotions on my sleeve
  • I get entrenched in my opinions and don’t leave any room for alternate viewpoints

I could also go on and on with developing this list of mistakes. I’ve made so many of them throughout the years. I know you probably have a few things to add here. Won’t you please share?

Best practices
difficult conversations1I’ve done some research into how I can do better in the future with engaging others in these type of conversations. Here are just a few of the best practices that resonate with me:

  • Don’t have this conversation in your head before having it in-person because over-thinking creates anxiety and frames issues that might not even come up
  • Stay away from email because people read tone into written communications that you may not intend . . . but perception is reality
  • Go into the discussion prepared to: a) hear the other person and b) possibly change your mind
  • Encourage questions to promote understanding
  • Restate what you hear the other person saying in order to make sure you’re hearing them correctly

As with the previous section of this post, I know there are many more best practices. Won’t you please share your best practices?
Resources
When you Google the search words “having difficult conversations,” there are a ton of great resources. Here are just a few that I’ve found helpful:

Without sharing the ugly details about one of your difficult conversations, please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. Share resources that you’ve found useful. Share things that you’ve learned not to do. Share things that you always try to do. Life is too short . . . we can all learn from each other.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Can we please stop talking about how bad the economy is?

Fundraising

recessionThat is it . . . I am fed up and can’t stop myself from saying something that has been on my mind for a little while now. Can non-profit organizations please stop running around and telling anyone who will listen that the economy is bad and the recession is hurting their agency?
I hear my non-profit friends (both staff and board volunteers) bemoaning how bad it is and how they’ve been impacted. I know that I’ve heard it at least once a month going back to the 2008 stock market meltdown, which by the way was FIVE YEARS ago.
I totally understand why people were talking about this 12 to 24 months removed from the epicenter, but as I just pointed out more than half-of-a-decade has passed since that time.
The fact of the matter is the recession officially ended in June 2009, according to Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Don’t believe me? Just go ask Google.
In fact, the Blackbaud Index just arrived in my email inbox, and they are estimating that charitable giving rose 4.9% in 2013. Additionally, online giving increased by approximately by 13.5%.
When I see numbers like these, it always stirs my emotions when juxtaposed against comments such as:

  • “The economy is bad and donors just aren’t giving.“
  • “We can’t ask people for money while the economy is still doing so poorly.“
  • “Our agency hasn’t recovered from the economic downturn.“
  • “Our board members are afraid to ask their friends for charitable contributions as long as the economy is doing so poorly.“

Believe it or not, I heard some variation of each of these comments just this last weekend!
At first, I found myself shaking my head and asking the obvious question, “WHY?” However, I quickly stopped that when I realized that I know the reasons why. Here is what I think drives those comments:

  • Fear is irrational and people believe what they believe in spite of facts.
  • Some parts of the country are taking more time to emerge from recession.
  • Some non-profit agencies never adjusted their revenue model and resource development plan to accommodate for what economists are calling “The New Normal“.
  • Some non-profit professionals are always looking for excuses to justify poor fundraising performance.
  • Some misguided fundraising professionals and volunteers think pleading poverty and pointing at the economy makes for a good “case for support” (which really works the opposite way on how donors perceive your case).

Regardless of whether or not you believe these reasons, the reality is that we need to shake ourselves out of this mindset. Our clients deserve better and whining has never been shown to solve problems.
So, what should you do to combat this mindset? I suggest the following:

  1. Involve your volunteers in developing a new resource development plan and answering this simple question: “If how we raised money before the recession doesn’t work anymore, then what should we do to secure the resources we need to fund our mission today?“
  2. Involve your volunteers in developing a new case for support document and build consensus to stop talking to donors about the economy.
  3. Be the change you want to see in the world and stop talking about the economy.
  4. Take your volunteers by the hand and go with them on cultivation and stewardship visits with prospects and donors.
  5. Engage in benchmarking activities and compare your agency’s fundraising performance to other non-profit organizations (e.g. check out Blackbaud’s performance comparison tool by clicking here).

What are you doing to combat this insidious, self-defeating mindset that is still pervasive in many non-profit boardrooms? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can learn from each other.
On a side note, before you take me to task with comments about my insensitivity, please know that I know there are people out there who are still hurting. I have never said there weren’t. In fact, I know some of those people, and I am sure you do, too. However, the reality is that non-profits cannot wait until there is no more unemployment. Our agencies cannot wait until economic indicators are back to the ridiculous 1990s levels. Those who wait for that to occur won’t be in business for much longer. Let’s rediscover that often-celebrated “American spirit” of picking ourselves off the ground and doing the hard work to get our agencies moving again. 
There! I’ve said it . . . now please feel free to excoriate me.  🙂
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

A quick recap of our Social Media Bible posts

technology

It is halftime for our “Social Media Bible” blog series

By Rose Reinert
Guest blogger
rose1Just over three months ago, I was excited to join the DonorDreams community as a guest blogger. For those that have seen the movie Julia & Julia, Julie Powell takes on the challenge of cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s first cookbook and blogs about it. In the spirit of that movie, I agreed to take on the challenge of reading “The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success,” by Lon Safko and blog about the things that I find.
As we hit the half way point of the book, I thought I would take this time to revisit our journey.
Non-profit social media strategy? Quality not quantity!
In the first chapter, we began with very fundamental questions about how often an organization should post to social media and proposed a paradigm shift in regards to how we think about marketing through social media.
Are your non-profit agency’s social media posts relevant?
It was in the second chapter that I uncovered focuses on the bittersweet fact that social media is a two-way street of communication. Despite how terrifying that is, there are opportunities to learn more about how to better engage donors, volunteers and supporters.
Does your agency use email effectively as a marketing tool?
The third chapter tackles utilizing e-news, and proposed the biggest question of how to avoid the trash can before even getting your message across. Ultimately, the message focuses on ensuring that your content grabs and engages your reader.
Is your non-profit’s website changing with the times?
Chapter four dives into websites, and how they can either draw people in or turn them off. Taking a look at how user-friendly, and mobile friendly, your website is can greatly impact how you share your mission and message.
Pre-blog technology might be helpful to your agency’s fundraising program
Internet forums are highlighted in Chapter 5, and we looked at how to engage donors through these forums. Also, we discovered that there are several forums currently that could offer benefit.
Why your non-profit agency should be blogging
This next chapter looked at blogging, and we considered the potential benefits of writing a blog. We also looked at the potential for reading various blogs that could build professional development.
Non-profits are engaging and collaborating using wiki
Here we unwrapped the tool — Wiki. This was a difficult read for me as I tried to wrap my head around what Wiki was and how it could benefit non-profits. I did find some great ways, however to utilize wiki!
Your non-profit needs to learn how to say “Cheese!”
Chapter eight highlighted the impact of utilizing pictures! There is no doubt that pictures can share so much more than words many times, and beyond this, we highlighted statistics that indeed supported utilizing pictures in posts to catch your donor, volunteer or prospects’ eye.
Coming next week we will continue to explore diverse ways to engage donors, volunteers and potential supporters. Here are a few additional articles from previous weeks that I didn’t summarize in today’s post. Enjoy!

rose draft sig

How are you turning your agency's weaknesses into strengths?

organizational development

The Cracked Pot

By John Greco
Originally published on June 4, 2012
Re-posted with permission from johnponders blog
chinese woman1A Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full..
For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water..
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.
‘I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.’
The old woman smiled, ‘Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side?’ ‘That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.’
For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”
[Author unknown, but greatly appreciated!  If you or anyone you know has a proprietary interest in this story please authenticate and I will be happy to credit, or remove, as appropriate.]

I used to have an old, decrepit picket fence along the property line behind my garage.  It was in disrepair.  As I went about working to remove it, I couldn’t bring myself to just throw all the pickets in the trash.
I used some of the pickets to hide my garbage can and recycling container staged on the side of the house.
Last year, I used most of the rest of the pickets to create an old, arbor-like, shabby-chic backdrop for my pond (see picture, right).  Looks like its been there a hundred years, but it’s perfect, for now, to support the cardinal vine that will hug it, twist and turn through it; and when in bloom, beckon the hummingbirds…
My wife and I have had a wicker table almost since we’ve been married (our 34 year anniversary was yesterday) and it also has deteriorated (the wicker table;  not the marriage!) to the point that it no longer can be depended on to safely serve as a table.  Last weekend, I cut the legs off, and placed the wicker top in a spot in the garden, with pea gravel under and around (see picture below).  I’ve still work to do to secure it, but it already has piqued some visual interest to the previously nondescript corner…

And now I’m pondering using the wicker table legs to intersperse among the pond edge bamboo stakes!
I have, as you might have surmised, a bit of a compulsion to reuse things.  To repurpose.  To extend the utility of the unique character of things that long have seen a better day.
The Chinese woman took a pot that didn’t quite work well for it’s intended purpose, and she made it work well for another — shall we say higher? — purpose.  It could not quench her thirst as much as it had before, but perhaps we can say that it is satisfying her thirst for something different.
But there is a cost.  Her labor is returning 25% less water for her and her family using that cracked pot.
And soon I will need to redo the picket screening around my garbage cans.
And the shabby chic picket back drop surely won’t last as long as a structure made from new wood would…
Utility, and return on investment — as beauty — is in the eye of the beholder.
The author of the story above gave the cracked pot the ability to voice its discouragement and shame over its lost capability.  I am realizing now that that storytelling technique gave the author the opportunity to have the Chinese woman talk to the cracked pot, pointing out the critical contribution the pot was playing in beautifying her path, and her home.
I imagine that cracked pot felt pretty good after hearing that…
I will be listening to my pickets; and I will be listening to my wicker table pieces-parts; and I will tell them how much I appreciate their new contribution; I will tell them how they are satisfying my thirst for something, well, different.
And I will leave it to you (at least for now) to make the more explicit connections of this story, and my story, to our real worlds — for they are many, and varied, and meaningful.
For we will all be — if we’re not already — cracked pots.
john greco sig

It isn't about the donation . . . it is about trust!

Uncategorized

trustDid you read Seth Godin’s blog post a few days ago? He wrote about what the most important question a company should be asking itself about its customers. In Godin-like fashion, he runs through a laundry list of questions that are not as important. In the end, he tells us that the most important question in marketing is: “Do they trust me enough to believe my promises?”
As I let this blog marinate for a few days, I’ve come to see Godin’s question as critical for both for-profit and non-profit corporations alike. I even Googled the search words “non-profit donor trust” and came across a great post at Fundly titled “Building Donor Trust For Your Non-Profit Organization“. The first paragraph of this article summarized my sentiments perfectly:

“Donors won’t give if they don’t completely trust your organization. They have to emotionally invest in your cause before they financially invest, and the bridge between the two is built on trust, accessibility and accountability. How do you build that bridge?”

After this obvious realization, I decided to do the opposite of what Seth did in his post and started writing down questions that non-profit organizations should be asking themselves.
Here is just some of what I came up with:

  • Is your agency doing what it said it would do with a donor’s contribution?
  • Are you achieving the programmatic results and outcomes that you promised?
  • Are you measuring the right things in order to know your agency is making a difference?
  • Are your data gathering tools and methods valid and acceptable?
  • Does your agency communicate with donors in ways they want to be communicated?
  • Is your agency running programs that address community needs? Or are your programs being run just because of organizational inertia?
  • Are we sharing the type of success stories that your donors want to hear?
  • How much do your donors trust you? Can it be measured and quantified?

Asking and answering questions like these are directly related to building trust with your donors.
Here are a few other good links that I found from my Google search regarding donor trust and loyalty:

How is your non-profit organization addressing donor loyalty? How are you building trust and relationships? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Who is showing up to your non-profit board meetings?

Board development, Board governance, volunteers

Decision are Made by those who Show Up

By Dani Robbins
Re-published with permission from nonprofit evolution blog
showing upMy community had a paltry 10% of eligible voters turn out to vote on Election Day. My neighbor said that any vote that didn’t have at least 40% of the eligible voters voting should be thrown out. But, of course and for good reason, it doesn’t work like that. Elections – and most other things – are decided by those who show up.
Now you may be thinking: “That’s nice Dani, but this is a nonprofit blog. What’s this got to do with non profits?” Everything; it works the same way for agencies. Many states ban proxy voting and require email votes to be 100% unanimous. Assuming you have a quorum, the decisions made by the board will, primarily, all be made by those in the room.
That means it not only matters who you elect to serve as Board members, it matters which of them chose to show up to meetings. It’s hard enough to figure out how a large group of smart people are going to vote; it’s even harder if you don’t know who will be in the room. As such, you need to know who’s planning to attend every meeting.
“Good Execs do their homework before the meeting and usually know how people are going to vote before the meeting begins……which doesn’t ensure they will do so.” (Board Meetings Gone Wrong) Even when you do your homework, and think you know how they will vote, a parking lot conversation can change someone’s mind.
The foundation for ensuring you have the right people in the room starts long before a board meeting is scheduled. It starts and also ends with the Board Development Committee.
When you are recruiting new prospects, unless you are willing to change the meeting time, those who tell you they cannot come to the meetings should not be considered as board members. Most agencies already carry one or two board members who consistently miss meetings; don’t add to that count.
The agenda that is set should also reflect, to some degree, the behavior of those expected to be in the room. This is most applicable to consent agendas. When you consider if a consent agenda is right for your board, consider the board members who most often attend. Do they typically read materials in advance or in the room? If they read them in advance, consent agendas can allow more time for robust generative discussions. If they read them in the room, they may not have time to read all the materials and may be voting on things about which they are not entirely clear. If that is the case, consent agendas can create issues of liability for your agency.
If you don’t have enough board members show up, the ones that do will not have their votes counted if you do not have a quorum. Quorum issues are the best indicators of disengaged board. As mentioned in Engaging the Board “If you have consistent issues with having enough Board members in the room to make decisions, I recommend you take a look at how your board was built and how it is being developed.”
Finally, it behooves you to consider removing disruptive or disengaged Board members. For instructions on how, click here. It is a difficult option to consider, but each of our roles in nonprofit leadership requires us to do what’s best for the organization. If the work of the board becomes focused on defending or covering for an inappropriate board member, other more relevant work is not being accomplished.
We can’t always control who shows up, but we can control who is invited to serve.  If we build the board intentionally and thoughtfully, it is far more likely that those who show up have the capacity, the wisdom and the experience to appropriately govern our organizations, and our organizations have the resources, impact and reach to change our world.
What’s been your experience? As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please share your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.
dani sig

What is your non-profit agency doing in virtual environments like Second Life?

technology

To Infinity and Beyond: Non-Profits setting up shop in Second Life

By Rose Reinert
Guest blogger
rose1Happy Monday and welcome back to our weekly blog series! As we dig deeper into Lon Safko’s book, “The Social Media Bible,” we explore more unique forms of social media. In chapter fifteen, “Virtual Worlds- Real Impact,” cracks open a unique and impactful way to engage supporters, volunteers and build community.
First, to understand the basics, a virtual world is an Internet-based simulated environment. Second Life, founded by Philip Rosedale, launched on June 23, 2003. This virtual world includes avatars and was designed to encourage personal, one-on-one communication. The NonProfit Commons project (NPC), managed by TechSoup Global, is a virtual community of practice for non-profits to explore the opportunities and benefits of Second Life.
This chapter was beyond challenging for me.
Virtual worlds are beyond my normal realm. Despite this challenge, in my exploration, I found some cool ways virtual worlds are being utilized by our non-profit sector.
American Cancer Society Relay for Life
Second City has hosted the American Cancer Society Relay for Life since 2005 and has raised over $650,000. Supporters can choose an avatar and complete the race. This community also has engaged more than 100 cancer survivors.
WeeWorld: Partnership for a Drug Free America
The Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA) has just announced the successful completion of its WeeWorld campaign to educate young people about substance abuse prevention and the consequences of drug and alcohol abuse. With over 55 million registered users, the showpiece of this initiative was the real-life recovering teen JT whose WeeMee avatar reached 20,000 friends by the end of the campaign.
These are just a few examples! Explore more at Second City and share some of your experiences.
Here are a few additional links you may want to explore:

How have you seen virtual worlds utilized n the non-profit sector? How could virtual worlds be utilized to engage donors or volunteers?
rose draft sig

How risk adverse is your non-profit organization?

organizational development

Trust the Break

By John Greco
Originally published on July 9, 2012
Re-posted with permission from johnponders blog
elevatorThousands of spectators flooded into the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York City.
It was 1853.
Elisha Graves Otis stood on an elevating platform. As it rose up high above the crowd, Otis took out a knife; it became immediately apparent to everyone that he intended to cut the cable!
The crowd of people feared the same results that they had read about or seen: a quick plunge, to a likely death, or serious injury…
But not this time.
With the cable fully severed, Elisha Otis’s platform did not plummet.  Otis’s safety brake produced a slight drop, until the spring kicked out into the guide rails.  Otis is said to have shouted, “All safe, gentleman, all safe.”
Otis sold 42 freight elevators in the two years after his exposition debut.
After his death in 1861, Otis’s company was left to his two sons; by 1873, they had sold over two thousand elevators worldwide.
Adapted from the Otis Elevator Blog

How risk averse are you?
I find it hard to answer that question.  I hedge; it depends.  I’m not sure I would have been an early rider of Otis’s elevator.
That’s a lie, really.  I am sure; I would definitely not have been.  No way!
But when it comes to organizational change, I’m pretty much all in.
I’m afraid that inclination hasn’t particularly helped me over the back half of my career as I’ve pitched changes in structure, policy, process, and culture…  I can paint a pretty compelling picture of the benefits, and I do alright projecting the costs.
But I under appreciate the downside risks.  I, consequently, short change the risk mitigation section of the proposal.  In fact, sometimes I omit it entirely.
The tenor of the responses are wide-ranging, but the result is disturbingly the same.  They don’t relish the ride I’m pitching.  So, no go.  They’re not on board.
I think they were all looking for Otis’s brake.
And who could blame them?  I wouldn’t have went up with Otis … and I’m sure I would have wrestled him down to the platform once I saw that knife come out …
Fear is a powerful emotion.  It stops us in our tracks.  We don’t go forward.
Or up.
Elisha Graves Otis did not invent the elevator.  He invented the elevator brake.
But the brake wasn’t his only innovation.  He innovated in influencing.  He created quite the spectacle to demonstrate the brake’s effectiveness.
Nothing to fear.
The sky is now the limit.
But we needed to trust that brake first.
john greco sig

Is your agency's grant writing program in a state of change?

Uncategorized

grant writingYesterday, I had the opportunity to spend a little time with a professional grant writer, and I walked away from the encounter wondering if there isn’t a new trend afoot in the world of non-profit grants. During our time together, I got the sense that the winds of change are blowing. So, I thought I’d blog about it this morning and see if you are encountering some of the same things.
Of course, a comprehensive grant writing program has many different components to it, such as:

  • Private foundations
  • Corporate foundations
  • Government grants
  • Family foundations

Even within these areas, you have some additional subdivision:

  • Federal government
  • State government
  • Local government

So, our conversation was predicated on planning question because this organization’s resource development committee is in the process of developing a written resource development plan for 2014. Here were some of the questions I asked:

  • How many grants did you write in each of these areas last year? What were your results?
  • What do you currently have in the pipeline (e.g. written and out the door, in the process of writing, etc)?
  • What strategies are we currently using? Should we shift our grant writing strategies and make adjustments in the upcoming year (e.g. who we’re writing to, what we’re writing for, how we’re engaging decision-makers, etc)?

It was during this interesting discussion the grant writer shared a few interesting observations (and opinions):

  • He sees a contraction in government grants starting to occur
  • He sees increased competition for private foundation and corporate foundation pools of dollars
  • He attributes a huge bump in grant dollars over the last few years to the federal stimulus package and believes that organizations who rode that wave now need to find another wave to surf (and quickly)
  • In the wake of the recession, he thinks there is a “New Normal” where many non-profits tweaked their fundraising plans and focused more on grant writing (thus making proposal pools more competitive)

Of course, I find all of this interesting even if it is just one data point (and one grant writers opinion) in a huge universe of data. However, it still tweaks my curiosity. So, I’m hoping you will use the comment box below this morning to weigh-in on any of the following questions:

  • Did your agency change its resource development plan (e.g. goals, strategies, tactics) since the 2008 economic crash? If so, what did you start doing  differently?
  • Are you seeing some of the same things?
  • If you are experiencing some of the same things (e.g. increased competition, fewer government grants, etc), what are you planning to do about it?
  • Are you in the process of shifting your agency’s grant writing focus? If so, what are you shifting it to?

In the interest of sharing, this organization is contemplating slightly shifting its focus to Family Foundations and engaging its board volunteers to help in the cultivation process. Of course, these type of foundations act and behave very differently than the others. As a result, they need to look at possibly employing different engagement strategies and different solicitation strategies.
As I always say, there is no reason that we need to be alone out there in this vast non-profit universe. We can all learn from each other, but that requires you taking one or two minutes out of your busy day and sharing your thoughts and experiences.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

How does your agency use goals?

Uncategorized

Are your Actions Conflicting with your Goals?

By Dani Robbins
Re-published with permission from nonprofit evolution blog
dogI’m always fascinated by the number of things people do that are in direct conflict with their goals. My dog does a perfect illustration of this: He gets so excited when we have visitors that he acts inappropriately and gets put outside or crated, which prevents him from meeting his goal of being loved by our visitors. He is not alone. Leaders and organizations do the same thing!
This week, since it’s a new year and many people in my personal and professional lives have begun working on new goals, I’ve been thinking about the intent of those goals.
I love goals that are intended to get everyone on the same page and align the work of an organization.
I do not love goals that are intended to motivate people, and I’m not even clear why we would need to do that.
Employee goals intended to motivate don’t make any sense to me and, honestly, I don’t find them motivating. In fact, I find them de-motivating, and also slightly insulting.  High performers — a group I like to count myself among — will do their very best every day, aligned with the work they’ve been assigned and the expectations of their position, and not in any way because of the goals they’ve been assigned. They will do their best because it’s who they are and the work ethic they possess. It is our job as leaders to demonstrate our vision and hire, support, groom and develop high performers who can help us reach that vision.
goalsLet me be very clear, I absolutely and unequivocally believe that leaders must set expectations for staff and also evaluate those staff based on the expectations set. I also believe that the job of the exec is to implement the strategic plan which doubles as their goals. In the absence of a plan, it is the board’s job to work with the exec to set the expectations by which they will evaluate that exec’s performance at the year’s end. Those expectations (call them goals if you must) should not be set to motivate your exec. They should be set to align the work of the organization, ensure everyone is on the same page and provide a process for evaluation. If you have to set goals to motivate your exec, you have the wrong exec.
As leaders, we should all strive to have as many high performers as we can possibly attract and afford.  It begs the question: are the goals we are setting for high performers alienating those performers? I think they might be. I’m beginning to believe that employee goals that are intended to motivate people are lowering our standards, teaching to the middle, and working in direct conflict of our actual goals of meeting our missions and achieving our organizations’ visions.  You know, I believe that any action, process, policy or procedure that is in conflict with our goal is a bad action, process, policy or procedure. I am starting to believe that goals that are intended to motivate are just that.
Once, many years ago and before I really understood resource development and major donor cultivation, I was running an agency that attracted about $50,000 of contributions from individuals each year. My Board Chair wanted to set a goal for me of $1,000,000. One million dollars! Yes, your math is right and that would have been 20 times the annual giving received by that agency. He called it a stretch goal.
Rather than inspire me to reach that goal, it terrified me -– and not in a good way. How in the world — with no change in staffing, no change in process or a new program or project to announce — was I going to raise 20 times our current contributed income?  I wasn’t.
Thankfully, I was able to explain my position and get him to revise my goals. To his credit- and this may have been his intent all along — I ramped up my own knowledge and capacity for raising money and cultivating and retaining major donors giving major gifts.
I did raise that amount and more a few years later, but not because of a goal and not, by any stretch of the imagination, alone. I did it with a change in staffing, a more developed board, several changes in process and a huge project that addressed a significant gap in service that I was committed to rectify.
Wanting something doesn’t make it a good goal. If you set goals, set them to recognize, hire and retain high performers.  Set them to align the work of your agency. Set them to have some way to evaluate your executive. Make your goals doable, with systems to support them and a path to achieve them.
Don’t set goals to motivate people! We should not be using goals to motivate. We shouldn’t have to. The work we do and the communities we serve should motivate our team toward greatness.  If they don’t, we have built the wrong team and no amount of goal setting is going to rectify that.
What do you think about goals being used to motivate staff?  As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please share your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.
dani sig