If your charity was the fortunate beneficiary of a large donation in 2011 thanks to the popular IRA provision, allowing 70+ year-olds to make a contribution up to $100,000 dollars, then you’ll want to rethink your renewal strategy. “Now this benefit is gone, at least until Congress restores it,” according to the Wall Street Journal article by Laura Saunders this weekend.

While your typical donor incentives with traditional gifts (like a tax deduction) don’t apply here, seniors do appreciate not having to count IRA distributions as income if they give it to charity. This saves them higher taxes on Social Security payments or higher Medicare premiums, says Saunders. This Individual Retirement Account (IRA) rule was one of sixty federal tax provisions that expired in 2011.  Similarly in 2006, 2009 and 2010, the law expired but wasn’t re-enacted until December, leaving seniors scrambling with their charitable plans and nonprofits in reactionary mode.

The frustration for IRA donors stems from the fact that the law requires them to take an annual distribution from the account. Donors want to take as little as possible to maximize the annual growth of the IRA assets but also wish to donate some or all of the required payout. If the IRA owner makes a withdrawal and Congress doesn’t extend the law, he or she can’t redeposit the payout for a later gift when the government finally acts, according to Saunders.

“Fortunately, there are ways of working with the current system this year,” says Erica Crenshaw, CEO of Execute Now!, a nonprofit financial services firm. Nonprofits are uniquely positioned to target these IRA donors and prospects by explaining what the options are with the help of a financial professional.  When nonprofits consider the size of these donations, compared with the minimal investment of sound financial input, the return is remarkable. Crenshaw adds, “By leveraging our expertise and offering these donors a credible source of guidance, nonprofits can collectively strategize with donors, further cementing an alliance for future giving.”

by Denise McMahan

See also:

Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability by Jeanne Bell, Jan Masaoka, Steve Zimmerman

Zone of Insolvency: How Nonprofits Avoid Hidden Liabilities and Build Financial Strength by Ron Mattocks

The Cash Flow Solution: A Nonprofit Board Member’s Guide to Financial Success by Richard & Anna Linzer

If you haven’t taken a closer look at Twitter for Good by Claire Diaz-Ortiz, look again. This book is the definitive guide for all innovative leaders in the nonprofit and corporate sectors who want to use Twitter to achieve their cause-related goals.

The author says, “there’s no magic bullet to excelling on Twitter but there are clear, measurable ways to reach success.” By applying the author’s T.W.E.E.T. model, you can watch your community grow and your nonprofit reap the rewards. This week, we’re highlighting the author’s tips on streamlining your tweeting and determining whether to geotag your tweets.

Streamlining is an essential part of the tracking plan, says Diaz-Ortiz. For some, that will mean creating a dashboard of the metrics we’ve explored in this framework; for others, it will mean outsourcing it. Either way, don’t let go of the reins entirely. Be involved in how your target and voice are determined.

Q: What are other tips for streamlining my tweeting?

CDO: Scheduling Tweets is a great way to help maintain constant flow of Tweets—no matter what crisis your organization is dealing with in a given week. Additionally, if your non-profit organization doesn’t want to worry about tweeting on holidays or weekends, it’s extremely easy to schedule Tweets many months in advance. I often recommend Tweet scheduling; it works well as a way to highlight old content or information on your website, because this material is not time-sensitive. The main issue with Tweet scheduling is that you want to choose to schedule only those Tweets that are not time-sensitive. A great tactic is to use Tweet scheduling to focus on high-quality old information on your website that you want to make top of mind again for followers.

And of course, stay genuine when you schedule Tweets. Don’t tell people you’re having a “hard morning in the office” when   you actually slept in late and are still at home. Finally, be careful about tweeting when you don’t want to be “online.” I sometimes schedule innocuous Tweets for days on which I know I won’t be tweeting. On the day I turned in the final draft of this book, I knew I needed to be disconnected, so I scheduled a Tweet from earlier that week about a (bad) movie I saw. Word to the wise: if your book editor doesn’t know you schedule your Tweets, she might think you’re watching a movie and not finishing up your book manuscript!

Q: Should I geotag my Tweets?

CDO: Many individuals have their Twitter accounts set to show the location from which they send each Tweet. This can be extremely interesting—and useful. Should an organization show their geolocation status to their followers in their Tweets? The question really depends on the amount of travel involved in the account holder’s tweeting. Take John Wood’s personal account, @johnwoodrtr, and the Room to Read main account, @roomtoread, as two examples. Wood travels two-thirds of the year to interesting places all over the globe, reading his location adds an element of interest to his Tweets. In contrast, Room to Read’s organizational account, @roomtoread, is run by Rebecca Hankin, director of communications and marketing. Rebecca spends most of her year in San Francisco, so if she had her account set to include geolocation in her Tweets, it wouldn’t be terribly interesting to followers.

by Denise McMahan

This blog excerpts a Page to Practice™ book summary from CausePlanet – where nonprofit leaders get smarter faster. If you would like more information about this book summary and others in our summary library, visit www.causeplanet.org/book_summaries.

See also:

More CausePlanet blogs about social media
The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine
Up and Out of Poverty: The Social Marketing Solution by Phil Kotler and Nancy Lee
Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission by Holly Ross, Katrin Verclas and Allison Levine

I’m a big fan of our Page to Practice™ feature this month, Twitter for Good, because author Claire Diaz-Ortiz boosts readers with essential advice about Twitter and managing your social media strategy. I remember participating in a workshop last year with one of my statewide association partners where attendees were exclaiming that they couldn’t possibly find the time for social media in their schedule. You would think, by the look in their eyes, we were asking them to boil an ocean. (Read last week’s blog to find out how Diaz-Ortiz answers the “find-the-time” question.) This week, I wanted to highlight the author’s answer to “How do I find the influencers and what’s the best way to contact them?” Many aspiring Twitter users think they need to mimic celebrity Ashton Kutcher who surpassed ESPN with his number of followers. Diaz-Ortiz argues otherwise. She asserts that what you need to focus on is quality over quantity.  Diaz-Ortiz addresses dozens of the most popular questions she’s asked as leader of corporate social innovation and philanthropy at Twitter, Inc. Here’s an excerpt of the author’s Q and A from the book about influencers:

Q: How do I find the influencers?

CDO: There are a few great ways to find influencers on Twitter. First, be sure to check out Twitter’s Suggested User Lists in various categories. Individuals with high follower numbers are high engagement make it onto this list via an algorithm so these are all great examples of popular users in a given area of influence. Searching for highly followed lists is another fantastic way to find the movers and shakers in your area of interest, and you can set up automatic searches for keywords and phrases to help you find out who is interacting about given terms. I’ve also suggested making your own private lists of influencers you are following. Consider choosing one or two of these influences a week to focus on, and read all t heir @replies on any given day. There are many tools that can help you set up an automatic stream of who they are @replying to. This allows you to see who they are interacting with and will lead you to new influencers.

Q: Once I find the influencers, what’s the best way to contact them via Twitter?

CDO: It can be intimidating to contact influencers, and knowing how to do it well is the key to getting noticed by the people you are trying to woo. Check out the specific tips from Tim Ferriss earlier in Chapter Five.

Ferriss’ tips:
• Make your tweets specific and offer proof that you’re capable or credible.
• Keep it to 120 or less and get your friends to retweet it. For your message to stand out in the firehose stream of Tweets, I first need to see it. If your Tweet is 137 characters, no one can easily retweet without editing.
• Use multiple channels. The easiest way to influence me is to have one of my friends (not someone who’s just met me once) email me and ask me to take a look at your work.

Seasoned Twitter users and novices alike will find a plethora of useful advice in this book. I highly recommend getting a copy for yourself. Her simple yet comprehensive methodology uses the word T.W.E.E.T. to help readers remember to Target, Write, Engage, Explore and Track while using Twitter. The book is designed for nonprofits of any size as well as for-profits that want to make a difference or create a movement.

by Denise McMahan

This blog excerpts a Page to Practice™ book summary from CausePlanet – where nonprofit leaders get smarter faster. If you would like more information about this book summary and others in our summary library, visit www.causeplanet.org/book_summaries.

See also:

More CausePlanet blogs about social media
The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine
Up and Out of Poverty: The Social Marketing Solution by Phil Kotler and Nancy Lee
Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission by Holly Ross, Katrin Verclas and Allison Levine

According to “Twitter for Good” author Claire Diaz-Ortiz, we live in a world where more individuals have access to mobile phones than clean water. “This truth shapes the greatest challenge of our age: How can technology solve today’s most complex problems? The answer lies in the individual,” says Diaz-Ortiz. She and her Twitter camp say their open real-time information network allows individuals to share minute-by-minute information about what is happening in their lives, their communities and the world. Not only does Twitter allow one to share from anywhere, but it also allows one to share with anyone. Technology is changing us, and we now have the unique opportunity to find innovative ways to use technology to help change the world. Twitter cofounder Biz Stone has said the real triumph of Twitter is one of humanity, not technology.

Because Diaz-Ortiz’s position at Twitter is focused on helping nonprofits use Twitter effectively, she has spent thousands of hours and conducted hundreds of presentations on just that. This framework is the result of her research and work in the field alongside nonprofits like American Red Cross, Room to Read, the Skoll Foundation, Kiva and many more. The author explores each of the goals within the acronym T.W.E.E.T.

T (Target): Why Tweet?
W (Write): Why you should Tweet like Kanye
E (Engage): Tools to win
E (Explore): Finding everybody and bringing everybody to you
T (Track): Making sure you’ve hit your mark

It’s no surprise why social media has become the strategy du jour among nonprofit organizations. It’s relationship building, it’s inexpensive, and it works. With more than 200 million users worldwide, nonprofits cannot afford to overlook Twitter as an option for informing their constituencies and running fundraising campaigns.

In 60 seconds, or the time it took you to read this section, more than 98,000 Tweets were sent, and 320 new user accounts were created. More importantly, Diaz-Ortiz cites examples of large and small organizations and local and global causes that are making phenomenal use of Twitter to advance their causes and raise millions of dollars. Nonprofits can’t hide behind the excuse that they can’t afford to make time for social media. In this case, they can’t afford not to.

Diaz-Ortiz’s book also includes the most common questions she’s asked by users and novices. We’ll leave you with one of them:

Q: How long should it take each day to tweet?

CDO:  With a streamlined system, you can easily manage the Twitter accounts for your organization in two twenty-minute blocks each day. You can certainly spend more time, but two twenty-minute periods are enough for you to adequately respond to @replies and direct messages, craft engaging Tweets, retweet and favorite others’ Tweets, and complete the bulk of your other tasks on Twitter. Even if you have lots of followers, this is enough time. Keep in mind that this does not include the time needed to develop your “Target” in the beginning, find your particular voice in your writing, or find the initial list of influencers you want to follow and engage with. This also does not include extensive Twitter tangents—like reading every Tweet written by someone you may or may not have gone to high school with twenty years ago. For those journeys, the sky is the limit.

by Denise McMahan

This blog excerpts a Page to Practice™ book summary from CausePlanet – where nonprofit leaders get smarter faster. If you would like more information about this book summary and others in our summary library, visit www.causeplanet.org/book_summaries.

See also:

More CausePlanet blogs about social media

The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine

Up and Out of Poverty: The Social Marketing Solution by Phil Kotler and Nancy Lee

Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission by Holly Ross, Katrin Verclas and Allison Levine

You all know how it feels to have someone in your personal life tell you about a conflict they’ve been harboring long after it’s happened. You feel ambushed. More importantly, you feel powerless to correct events from the distant past, where any amount of explanation feels like a Herculean effort.

The same can be said of annual performance reviews, if they exist in isolation of any other strategic feedback and coaching expectations or formal reward and recognition processes. If the annual review is your only plan for recognizing or coaching your employees, then authors Eric Mosley and Derek Irvine would like to intervene. In their book, Winning with a Culture of Recognition, the authors weave in what they call MYTH BUSTERS to address common misunderstandings about recognition in the workplace.

Here is Mosley and Irvine’s MYTH BUSTER about performance appraisals:

The annual or biannual performance appraisal process is not the most effective means of conveying praise or constructive feedback to employees due to several limitations, not the least of which are:

1. Because of their infrequency, appraisals are usually a source of anxiety for both the appraiser and the employee.
2. Standard appraisals primarily offer the viewpoint of one person with no real benchmark beyond the immediate team.
3. Appraisals give an imprecise picture of performance.

Strategic recognition dramatically enhances the performance of employees by encouraging peers and managers to frequently and in a timely way acknowledge efforts and achievements that demonstrate the company values and contribute to company objectives. It is critical that the recognition come as soon as possible after the effort or achievement being awarded.

These “recognition assessments” and kudos then can be used during the annual performance review as additional data on an employee’s strengths (John has been recognized repeatedly for innovation) and even weaknesses (but John has been recognized only once for teamwork) and to identify potential areas of improvement. This presents a much more rounded view of an employee’s contributions, some of which may not have been seen directly by the employee’s manager. Moreover, since such a strategic recognition program is deployed company-wide, data can be gathered and used to benchmark and individual’s performance and demonstration of values in their work against direct peers, team members, the division, and even the company as a whole.

Once a year, once a month, or once a week. Which do you think is going to have a greater impact on your daily behavior?

Choose the “slow drip” recognition versus the once-a-year “fire hydrant” of feedback. The consistent, steady strategy recommended by the authors strengthens your annual review with anecdotal and quantitative information about the employee, thus diminishing the need to couch potential surprises. If given the chance, you’ll find that most employees correct their performance behavior long before the annual review and your bottom line will be better for it. Either way, you’ll have the data you need to act on your annual evaluation rather than ramping up to prove your case after the review.

Join fellow nonprofit leaders to discuss how to create a culture of recognition and connection with your employees on Wednesday, January 18, 2012, at 1 – 2:30 p.m. This is the first of six sessions for nonprofit leaders called Management Café. CausePlanet will be providing participants with an executive summary of Fired Up or Burned Out by Michael Stallard as the basis for conversation. Five more executive book summaries and facilitated discussions will follow, one each per month during this new program that is presented by the Nonprofit Cultivation Center. Kick off the year by getting it right with your employees. You won’t want to miss all of the essential management topics we’ll cover—all from the convenience of your computer. Register now—space is limited.

by Denise McMahan

See also:

This blog excerpts a Page to Practice™ book summary from CausePlanet – where nonprofit leaders get smarter faster. If you would like more information about this book summary and others in our summary library, visit www.causeplanet.org/book¬¬_summaries.

Nonprofit Cultivation Center www.culitvationcenter.org

Winning with a Culture of Recognition by Eric Mosley and Derek Irvine

Fired Up or Burned Out by Michael Stallard

CausePlanet blogs about recognition

One of the fascinating aspects of publishing CausePlanet is learning about the numerous perspectives each author has about what makes you a successful nonprofit leader. Even more compelling is when two or more authors, with completely different backgrounds, align in their thinking. I love to point out these moments because there’s nothing like consensus to instigate change.

In our December feature from 2009, 12: The Elements of Great Managing by Rodd Wagner and James Harter, the authors draw from The Gallup Organization’s database—which now includes 10 million employee and manager interviews—to give real-life examples of how managers from around the world epitomize each of the 12 Elements.

In addition to the Gallup data, the authors use the latest insights from brain-imaging studies, genetics, psychology, behavioral economics and other scientific disciplines to reveal what drives good managers.
Wagner and Harter’s 4th element is the power of private and public feedback:

4th Element: “Recognition and Praise”: In the busy nonprofit world—with minimal resources and a greater need for resources—there will always be problems. However, without a conscious effort to maintain recognition and praise, the negative events will overshadow the positive ones. Managers who fail to use the power of positive feedback diminish both their managerial effectiveness and the power of the salaries they are paying. One of the most effective ways of improving recognition of employees is to discover the forms of feedback that mean the most to them, i.e. knowing who prefers public praise to private praise, and vice versa.

In our current feature, Winning with a Culture of Recognition by Eric Mosley and Derek Irvine, the authors created an entire book out of Wagner and Harter’s 4th Element of great managing. Their belief is that strategic recognition plays a critical role in every organization’s success. In fact, they claim that even in tough-minded cultures like the military, positive reinforcement is a powerful driver of a winning culture.

“U.S. Marine training might be strenuous and even abusive, but that initiation process is not the winning culture. The stress of Marine boot camp serves as much to identify Marines as to train them. Once established as a marine, an individual experiences profound recognition on a daily basis—reinforced by mottos, the uniform, the unit cohesion, the intense group loyalty. Marines display recognition for their service and sacrifice on their uniforms in the form of medals, ribbons, and rank insignia. All these inspire pride and internal reward. Marine culture is intensely about recognition,” say Mosley and Irvine.

I would call this convergence on strategic recognition consensus among the ranks. Don’t forget to recognize your employees today.

If you’re interested in discussing these book ideas and others with fellow nonprofit leaders, consider registering for a new virtual book club called Management Café, presented by the Nonprofit Cultivation Center. CausePlanet’s Page to Practice™ summaries will be the foundational subjects for facilitated discussions each month. You’ll have an opportunity to connect with your peers on hand-selected book topics from January to June 2012. Space is limited so register sooner than later!

by Denise McMahan

See also:

www.recognizethisblog.com
www.globoforce/thought-leadership/resources
www.fistfuloftalent.com
www.tlnt.com
Page to Practice book summary of Winning with a Culture of Recognition and Page to Practice book summary of 12:The Elements of Great Managing

Many of you are wrapping up your fundraising goals this month. If you are on a fiscal year, you’re at the halfway point. While your eye may be on the waffling donor who’s considering their year-end tax-deductible gift, don’t forget to take this opportunity to recognize your staff. Winning with a Culture of Recognition demonstrates how important authentic recognition is to your team loyalty, productivity, and bottom line. Co-author Derek Irvine had this to say when I asked him why he wrote Winning with Eric Mosley.

CausePlanet: Hi, Derek. Thanks again for this interview for our readers. What inspired you to write this book?

Derek Irvine: This book was an opportunity for us (co-author Eric Mosley, CEO of Globoforce and me) to share recognition best practices we’ve seen working with some of the world’s most successful and admired companies. Our ambition for this book is to change the way company leaders think about recognition. With recognition, HR and business leaders today can elevate employee engagement, increase employee retention, manage company culture and discover the power of real-time performance management.

The authors weave insightful “Myth Busters” throughout their book. I’ll do my best to share some of them this month in our weekly blog since there simply isn’t enough room in our Page to Practice book summary to include them all. Here’s the first of many memorable myth busters:

MYTH BUSTER: Are you only retaining employees or are you creating loyal employees? What’s the difference?

“A survey by the Center for Work-Life Policy, an American consultancy, found that between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of employees who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95 percent to 39 percent; the number voicing trust in them fell from 79 percent to 22 percent. A more recent survey by DDI, another American consultancy, found that more than half of respondents described their job as ‘stagnant,’ meaning that they had nothing interesting to do and little hope of promotion. Half of these ‘stangators’ planned to look for another job as soon as the economy improved. People are both clinging on to their current jobs, however much they dislike them, and dreaming of moving when the economy improves. This is taking a toll on both short-term productivity and long-term competitiveness: The people most likely to move when things look up are high-flyers who feel that their talents are being ignored. Employees agree to be retained in tough economic environment or in other situations in which options may be limited. But if you’re not fostering employee loyalty, as soon as more options become available, you will see your employee retention numbers plummet.”

In Winning, Irvine and Mosley cover many nuances of successful recognition programs, including the differences between recognition and incentives, and the importance of timing. The holidays are a great time to reflect on your employees accomplishments throughout the year. If not now, kick off 2012 with recognition plan. You’ll thank yourself when the economy improves.

by Denise McMahan

See also:

www.recognizethisblog.com
www.globoforce/thought-leadership/resources
www.fistfuloftalent.com
www.tlnt.com
Page to Practice book summary of Winning with a Culture of Recognition

You’ve all heard the phrase “You should never judge a book by its cover.”

The truth is we all do.  In this particular case, I looked at some of the great management books we’ve featured at CausePlanet over the years. One of them caught my eye because the cover’s so great. (Insert “Caught you!” here.) But the more intelligent answer you’re looking for is that it contains a terrific amount of sage advice for managers. The book is called Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity by Michael Lee Stallard. December feels like an appropriate time to take a pulse and see if you fall into one of these “fired up” or “burned out” camps. In either case, you’ll find Stallard’s approach worth your time.

Stallard talks about the notion that connected organizations are more productive, more innovative and more profitable. Conversely, a lack of connection will gradually burn employees out. Stallard makes the case for increasing connection at work and shows you how to build a “connection culture”—a culture that increases connection among people—by increasing the elements of a connected culture: vision, value and voice. Paying attention to these so-called “soft” aspects of the work environment will help increase employee engagement and, in the end, will make your organization more successful.

Research by the Gallup Organization shows that fewer than three in ten Americans are engaged in their jobs. Gallup also estimates the annual cost to the American economy from the approximately 22 million American workers who are extremely negative or “actively disengaged” to be $250 to $300 billion every year. Unless people in an organization feel a strong sense of connection to their work and colleagues, they will never reach their potential as individuals, and the organization will never reach its potential.

A “connection culture” is a culture that embraces the beliefs and behaviors that enhance connection among people and meet their basic human psychological needs for respect, recognition, belonging, autonomy, personal growth and meaning. There are three elements of a connection culture that meet these basic needs: vision, value and voice. Leaders who intentionally foster these three elements will reap the benefits of a connection culture. The connection culture formula can be thought of in the following way:

Vision exists in an organization when everyone is
• motivated by the organization’s mission;
• united by its values; and
• proud of its reputation.

Value exists in an organization when everyone
• understands the basic psychological needs of people;
• appreciates their positive, unique contributions; and
• helps them achieve their potential.

Voice exists when everyone
• seeks the ideas of others;
• shares ideas and opinions honestly; and
• safeguards relational connections.

A good way to remember these elements is to remember this formula: Vision + Value + Voice = Connection. When all three elements are in place, it’s a win-win for individuals and organizations.

If you’re interested in discussing these book ideas and others with fellow nonprofit leaders, consider registering for a new virtual book club called Management Café, presented by the Nonprofit Cultivation Center. CausePlanet’s Page to Practice™ summaries will be the foundational subjects for facilitated discussions each month. You’ll have an opportunity to connect with your peers on hand-selected book topics from January to June 2012. Space is limited so register sooner than later!

by Denise McMahan

More information:
Visit Michael Lee Stallard’s website, www.epluribuspartners.com
Download Stallard’s new eBook, “The Connection Culture”
Visit CausePlanet’s library or store for the Fired Up or Burned Out Page to Practice™ summary
Read “Perfect and paired cultures”
Read “Happy holidays and the Happiness Advantage”

This week, we posted a terrific article called “Evaluating the executive director” by Jan Masaoka. While I consider myself lucky to have served on boards where the ED review was faithfully executed every year, I know many colleagues who have experienced otherwise. Unfortunately, many executive directors go “un-reviewed” for long periods of time, according to Masaoka. She also shares that the most important reason to conduct a review of your executive director is to get on the same page with the board.

This month’s Page to Practice™ book summary called The Three Laws of Performance by Zaffron and Logan speaks to the same point. Performance is heightened when a team shares the same view of their circumstances. The inherent challenge is that our life experiences alter how things occur to us individually. Additionally, our performance has a tendency to fulfill what the authors call a personal “default future” unless we make the effort to calibrate our perceptions with coworkers and rewrite a future everyone wants.

For example, early in the book, Zaffron and Logan explain how the newly appointed CEO, Brad Mills, “transforms an impossible situation” at Lonmin (a publicly traded company in South Africa) by changing how the situation “occurred” to thousands of his employees. The authors explain that, “the Three Laws of Performance is the relationship between how a situation occurs and the actions that are naturally correlated. By ‘occur’ we don’t merely mean how a situation is perceived. We also include the significance and meaningfulness that comes with the experience of the situation. The breakthrough comes from using these ideas to shift how situations occur, allowing for powerful new actions to naturally emerge. In real life situations, people can’t try to remember what actions to take. Life is like a tennis ball coming over a net at 100 miles per hour. For a professional tennis player, the movement of the ball occurs as ‘hittable.’ For most people, it would occur as a blur. Shifting how situations occur for people is akin to having a tennis ball that used to occur as a blur occur as hittable.

For those of you who sit on a nonprofit board, consider the importance of evaluating your ED to gain mutual alignment. By do so, you’ll also be ensuring that your ED’s performance will circumvent a “default future” and follow the future you collaboratively rewrite together.

See also:

Rewrite your nonprofit’s future by enlisting “coauthors”
Override your “default future” with three performance laws
See more of “Three Laws of Performance” Page to Practice™ book summary by subscribing to our summary library or visiting the summary store.

by Denise McMahan

Statistical evidence shows that most change efforts fail. The reason for this is that regardless of the management interventions attempted, the default futures of employees and leaders are still in place. The more things change, the more they stay the same. “Whatever you resist, persists,” say coauthors Zaffron and Logan in The Three Laws of Performance. However, when everyone in your organization gets involved in rewriting the future, you rewire everyone’s perceptions of how their performance rolls into the overall fulfillment of that new future. Once you realize how the Laws are changing people’s ingrained views about their roles in the organization, you begin to embrace the potential of how much you can change or improve your future.

Each of the Three Laws of Performance has a message or leadership corollary that guides what you can do and shapes who you are for others.

Leadership Corollary 1: Leaders have a say and give others a say in how situations occur. When leaders have engaged everyone in writing the future of their organizations, compliance is replaced by ownership. Ask yourself, “How can I interact with others so that situations occur in a more empowering fashion to them? What processes, dialogues or meetings can I arrange so that people can feel like coauthors, not merely recipients, of a new future?

Leadership Corollary 2:  Leaders master the conversational environment. Consider that your organization is its own network of conversations. What paradigms can you break with new language? One hundred percent of leadership happens through conversations that pull people into the game, not through sitting back and creating visions that need to be sold. Leaders manage and master the conversational environment by working with people to resolve any “incompletions” they have. Leaders also create a blank space into which the new future can be created. They bring group “rackets” into the open so they can be discussed and resolved. Leaders do all of this with integrity.

Leadership Corollary 3:  Leaders listen for the future of their organization. By following this corollary, there is no implementation problem because the group has coauthored the future.

When I asked the authors about the leadership efforts within a particularly challenging situation they described in the book, here’s what they had to say.

CausePlanet: Early in the book, you explain how the newly appointed CEO, Brad Mills, “transforms an impossible situation” at Lonmin (a publicly traded company in South Africa) by changing how the situation “occurred” to thousands of employees. Would you explain the role “occurrences” have in your performance laws?

Zaffron & Logan: Fundamental to the Three Laws of Performance is the relationship between how a situation occurs and the actions that are naturally correlated. By “occur” we don’t merely mean how a situation is perceived. We also include the significance and meaningfulness that comes with the experience of the situation. The breakthrough comes from using these ideas to shift how situations occur, allowing for powerful new actions to naturally emerge. In real life situations, people can’t try to remember what actions to take. Life is like a tennis ball coming over a net at 100 miles per hour. For a professional tennis player, the movement of the ball occurs as “hittable.” For most people, it would occur as a blur. Shifting how situations occur for people is akin to having a tennis ball that used to occur as a blur occur as hittable.

Learn more about the author’s leadership corollaries for the Three Laws of Performance and how you can change the way your team perceives their performance as part of the overall organizational goals. Visit www.threelaws.com or for a complete summary of The Three Laws of Performance, visit www.causeplanet.org/book_summaries.

by Denise McMahan