Smart Stewardship: A Closer Look

Smart Stewardship:A Closer Look September 29, 2012 CBHC Annual Conference

Your Speaker • Peter Brinckerhoff • peter@missionbased.com • 01-217-341-3836 • www.missionbased.com

Our workshop agenda • A very quick review • Getting more from our Mission • Getting more from our Values • Getting more from our Leaders • Getting more Innovation

Remember: For every decision: • It needs to be about mission first, middle, last. • Each decision you make as a staff or board should result in: • More mission • Better mission • More efficient mission • More effective mission • That’s the point.

Evaluating a Growth Opportunity Is the growth area consistent with our mission and values? Can we protect our existing services’ quality? Have we done the appropriate business analyses? Is it something we already do really well? Can we get good before we start? Do NOT proceed until problems are resolved Have we consulted/involved the appropriate people? Do we have the capacity to grow? Do we have the cash to invest? Proceed with caution

So what about mission? • Do you use it enough? • What’s it really for? • You have to beat the “click” • How can you get more out of your mission • Stories • Repetition--it needs to be everywhere • Video

So it’s about mission--but what about values? • The mission is the why or your CRP. • Your values are the how.... • Values will define your culture, attract (or repel) staff, board and volunteers. • Values require constant, personal leadership. • When people feel comfortable in their values environment, everything benefits.

Hands-on Values • State your case in your values. • Think these through collaboratively, and don’t just put obvious things in. • Have values that require discussion to implement. • Be analog not digital. • Google’s key value? • Don’t have values you can’t live with. • Share and amend as needed.

More on values • Use your values in your employee and volunteer recruitment. • Use your values as a management and decision-making tool. • Enforce values in your behavior management. • Be public-hold yourself accountable!

Have some values…. • Respect: We will treat others as we would like to be treated. We do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment. • Integrity: We work with customers and prospects openly and sincerely. When we say we will do something we will do it. When we say we cannot or will not do something then we won’t do it. • Communication: We have an obligation to communicate. Here, we take the time to talk to each other….and to listen. We believe that information is meant to move and that information moves people. • Excellence: We are satisfied with nothing less than the very best in everything we do. We will continue to raise the bar for everyone. The great fun here will be for all of us to discover just how good we can really be.

Mission and Values Takeaways... • Values can be a real accelerator of your growth. • They define both you and your organization as much as your mission does. • If you decide to try something that conflicts with your mission and values you SHOULD get called out by staff and board. • If your growth conflicts with your values--don’t proceed. Don’t just chase the money.

Leading Your People toward Growth • Key philosophy: • Your organization needs good staff a lot more than your good staff need your organization! • In growth situations, your people need to be visibly led. • Growth is change, and change requires constant leadership.

Leadership in Nonprofits • You have to lead from the front—be visible and accessible. • “People don’t care how much you know until they know that you care.” ---John Maxwell. • Be a mission cheerleader. • You’re asking every staff and volunteer to do more in growth situations--relate it to mission and values and they are more likely to come with you.

Growth is change • People resist change, right? Some always will, but in the main.... • Poorly led people resist change.... • If you engaged them in developing growth strategy, • If you relate growth to mission outcomes every day, • If you are visible and engaged with your people, • If you show that your staff that you value them.....then....

What will happen? • The people you want, the people you need, the best staff and volunteers: • They’ll come with you because they want to, not because they have to. • So, let’s celebrate--bottoms up! • Huh?

Bottom-up management • Treats management as a support function, not a restrictive one. • Values direct service staff above all. • Pushes decisions as close to the line of service as possible. • Flips the organization chart upside down. • Works in competitive,growing environments and with younger workers.

The traditional model… • This traditional organizational chart was developed for large organizations in non-competitive environments. • It worked-under those conditions.

The improved model… • By valuing the people who deliver service, training them, and empowering them, the organization is more responsive, flexible, provides higher quality service and is more competitive. • And staff stay longer, work harder and have more enthusiasm for their work.

Components of bottom-up management. • You are an enabler, not a restrictor. • Treat others the way you would like to be treated. • Be a leader, but be willing to follow.-remember our video! • When you are praised, pass it on; when criticized, take the fall. • They are not your staff. You are their supervisor. • Thus the supervisor’s job is to get the tools and training in the hands of those closer to the line of service, to encourage, coach, mentor them, and to let them do their jobs.

This also requires: • Good delegation • Delegating both the work and the authority. • Holding people accountable for outcomes not process. • Good evaluation • Constant, supportive and firm.

Leadership Takeaways • You need your good staff more than they need you. • Leading growth is leading change. • Leadership is a support function. You support those you supervise.

Some decisions require innovation • You need to keep improving services, the work environment and your board service experience, your marketing and your management. • Improvement means trying new things. • And, whether large or small, that means developing a culture that innovates.

Does anyone in the room have difficult issues to solve? • Why can’t we solve them? • One of two or three reasons: • They’re new: we haven’t had a chance to really work on them • They’re expensive to solve: True in some cases, an excuse in others • They’re HARD..... 2

A thought.... • All the easy problems have been solved. • The rest have been left, in large part, to nonprofits. • So, if these are hard, hard problems, why do we think that our management team alone can solve them? • Why don’t we include more people? 3

More people? • Collaborative innovation draws on the wisdom of crowds. • It assumes that everyone has a perspective, a contribution, an idea that can be teased out. • It values diversity of perspective, education, and experience. • It goes by two credos:

The Two Credos: • Every idea is a good idea until we come up with the best idea, even if the best idea is not my idea. (John Chambers) • All the easy problems have all been solved. The tough ones have been left, in the main, to nonprofits. Put more neurons on the problem. • What we know is often our biggest problem.

How do we get input? • In person • In groups using tools like WordPlay and Pro-Con. • Online • Blogs, comment areas, discussion groups, social network sites. • Open as many avenues as possible for input. • When ideas are first formed, send them out for improvement. Improve the idea and then send it out again. Iteration requires input from lots of people.

The more you listen… • To constituents…. • Bed Stuy food bank • To employees…. • Too many french fries • To younger people…. • Jack Welch and the in-ter-net thingy • To customers…. • Save the Earth with a dirty towel • …The better the ideas. • NONE of these would have worked if people “who knew better” weren’t willing to listen.

Innovation is a little bit of Eureka, and a lot of solving existing, vexing problems. • Innovation can be about the great leap forward. • Mostly, though, innovation is also about adding value, meeting wants, being more efficient and effective in doing more mission. • Innovation is not an event. It needs to be baked into your organizational culture. It needs to be both iterative and patient.

Fixing what’s broken….. • In many cases, we have to fix something that we, or others broke. • Or, we have to amend and rethink an innovation that we tried that didn’t work. • Often, such discussions are difficult, and we don’t get very far. • “What did we learn from this….” is a far better attitude that placing blame, and one of those “baked in” concepts that helps your organization innovate as a norm.

Remember to: 1. Ask more people for more ideas. • The more neurons you turn on to a problem, the better. • Trust the creativity of the people around you. • The best ideas don’t always come from the experts. • What we know is often our biggest problem. 2. Listen. Think. Listen. Apply. Listen. • Most great ideas don’t come fully developed, but if you don’t listen (a LOT) you miss things. • Iterate, ask, iterate, ask, iterate. 3. Adopt an innovation policy that says: • “Every idea is a good idea until we find the best idea” • Then, live it, lead it, reward it.

Suggestions for when you get home…. • Start small. Try this on a tangible, but vexing issue. See if you can innovate with a (much) larger group than you have in the past. • Be patient. If people have not been listened to before—they won’t dive into this right away. Give them time to get comfortable. • Close the loop. Get back to people in an iterative manner-let them have a second and third shot at a problem—and to help improve the initial solutions. • Be patient. This takes time…the more iterations, the more people, the more time. However, this results in better ideas, more ownership and a culture of better ideas—that are all good ideas until you find the best one. • Commend, reward, display, reinforce. Talk about new ideas and practices all the time. In other words, be the innovation leader, the leading cheerleader for innovation as the norm. • Finally--if someone ELSE has a great idea.......

Thanks for coming! • I’ll be doing two workshops this afternoon on Governance. They’ll be part one and part two, so I hope you can come for either or both!

Books • Smart Stewardship for Nonprofits: Making the Best Decision in Good times and Bad, by Peter C. Brinckerhoff • The Heart of Change: Real Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations, by John Kotter • Small Giants: Companies that Choose to Be Great Instead of Big, by Bo Burlingham • The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, by Pat Lencioni

Thanks for having me! • I’ll be doing a workshop later this morning that will deal with mission, values and leadership in more detail. • Have a great conference!

Smart Stewardship: A Closer Look