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Great boards have a significant impact by adding value not available to their organization’s current resources and means. High impact boards are the key difference between achieving good results and great results. They don’t spend their time micromanaging, listening to reports, approving predetermined decisions and second guessing their staff’s decisions beatport app herunterladen. Instead, they act as a high performance team using their member’s skills, talents, knowledge and expertise to make key decisions and build organizational capacity for producing results.

How can you ensure your organization benefits from a high impact board? Here are seven questions to ask:

1.      Do you have the “right people (board members) on the bus” from tidal?

Jim Collins in Good to Great (HarperCollins, 2001) stresses the importance of having the “right people on the bus” for building a great organization. High impact board members have a passion for the mission, vision and the organization. They act as team players using their individual knowledge and expertise to engage in collective decision making kik herunterladen. These board members put their egos aside and have the ability to engage in strategic thinking that builds on one another’s ideas, thoughts and opinions. Each board member adds specific value to the board that would greatly impact the organization if he/she were to leave.

2.      Does your board partner with the chief executive officer (CEO)/executive director (ED) to operate as a championship team download and save music for free?

High impact boards have a culture similar to a championship sports team. Their focus is on becoming or remaining number one, so their culture is built upon using the individual skills and abilities of each team member collectively to achieve their goal. Patrick Lencioni, in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Jossey-Bass, 2002) lists these characteristics of high functioning teams:

·        High level of trust between their members

·        Willingness to engage in conflict

·        High level of commitment to each other and their organization

·        Collective accountability for following through on board agreements

·        Attention to producing results

3.      Does your board chair and CEO/ED act as one leadership team winzip free download windows 10?

There is a high level of trust between the board chair and the CEO/ED of a high impact board. They act as one leadership team communicating the same message about the organization. They are clear about the differences in their individual roles and build on each member’s skills, strengths and expertise to complement each other. They feel comfortable disagreeing with each other respectfully at board meetings and putting their unfinished thinking on the table for others to build upon sims 2 kostenlos.

4.      Does your CEO/ED take personal accountability for building the board’s capacity and leadership to govern with excellence?

CEOs/EDs of high impact boards understand their critical role in building their board’s capacity to lead playstation 4 apps herunterladen. Most board members have little, if any, training in how to effectively govern a nonprofit organization. They often think that their governing role is to manage the day-to- day operations of the organization. CEOs/EDs need to constantly educate their board members about effective governing practices and provide them with the skills, information and support to successfully carry out their roles hörspiel herunterladen. The CEOs/EDs must also learn about what motivates each of their board members and about important aspects of their life (i.e. family, passions, etc.).

5.      Does your board have a “Culture of Inquiry?”

Most boards see themselves as policemen or compliance regulators app storeen gratis. High impact boards add significant value by engaging together with their CEOs/EDs to determine future directions, impacts and strategies. They have what Nancy R. Axelrod calls a “Culture of Inquiry,” in which they are constantly learning and sharing knowledge and information about how they can have greater impact angry birds star wars download kostenlos pc vollversion. They are not afraid to question complex, controversial or ambiguous matters or to look at issues from all sides. They are clear about their decision making authority, as well as about those they have delegated to CEO/ED, which allows them and their staff to feel comfortable discussing any key issues impacting their organizations. They have active feedback mechanisms, employing board and board member assessment processes, that help them engage in continuous improvement.

6.     Do your board and CEO/ED constantly recruit and groom future board leadership?

Most organizations wait until the board chair announces that he/she plans to retire to begin succession planning. They often end up “twisting the arm” of some unwilling board member who is often not the most qualified person, but who is willing to serve as the next board chair. A high impact board, usually through its governance committee, and the CEO/ED, think about who will be their next board leaders when they recruit and select new board members. At least a year ahead of the retirement of their current board chair and other board leaders, high impact boards have identified their next board leaders and have begun grooming them for their jobs.

7.      Do board members feel a significant return on their invested time?

Board members who feel that they are in an exciting learning environment, meeting interesting new contacts and friends, having fun and feeling that they are part of a winning team, are more willing to give of their time, expertise and resources to the organization. If their board service significantly enhances their life experiences, they will make it a high priority in their day-to-day activities.

A high impact board adds significant value to an organization that can be measured in terms of organizational resources, organizational performance and organizational influence. The board plays a leading, proactive role partnering with the CEO/ED, rather than merely serving as an audience for staff or as a regulator providing oversight. If the high impact board vanished, the organization would suffer.

See also:

Super Boards

The Board Game

The Ultimate Board Member’s Book

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Dick and Emily Axelrod waited until they had developed the perfect methodology for effective meetings before publishing Let’s Stop Meeting Like This: Tools to Save Time and Get More Done adobe flash herunterladen.

Rather than simply contribute to the “noise about meetings,” they waited until they had something new to say. They present what they call a “seismic shift (not a set of tweaks) in the way you view, use and participate in meetings.” Let’s Stop gives you a logical system that will help you restructure your meetings so that work gets done; everyone is engaged and respected; the meeting is energizing rather than draining; and time is valued, not wasted programm für visitenkarten kostenlos downloaden.

Today, we wanted to highlight the meaty part of every meeting: decision making. The entire group must be clear about the following items to make a decision: who is making the decision, how they will go about deciding and what they are deciding hits 2018 herunterladen.

The group will bring different levels of engagement based on if it is giving ideas or collectively making the decision. Clarity of the process will prevent frustration caused by believing one way (e.g., the group will make the decision) and discovering the other (e.g., the leader is actually making the decision) is happening.

Do you want your group in the loop?

Leaders can either make the decision, seek advice from the group but maintain the final say, work as an equal with the group, or delegate the decision to the group and let the group decide. Victor Vroom, BearingPoint Professor of Management and a professor of psychology at the Yale School of Management, along with Phillip Yetton, suggests that if there is clearly one right answer and people will accept it, make the choice yourself. “If, however, you need a high-quality decision and you need everyone on board with the decision, then you should shift toward a group decision-making process” (Vroom and Yetton 1973).

Overcome “group grope”

Because a group decision requires each member to resolve his/her logic and emotions, the authors give four ways to combat group grope (when a group has trouble making a decision):

Thumbs-Up/Thumbs-Down: This is used to see if you have spent enough time discussing an issue. Majority rules to end or continue the discussion.

Voting: most effective after a high-quality discussion where all views are represented. The group can decide if it is majority/two-thirds, etc.

Put on your Thinking Hat to Answer these Questions: What are the facts that surround this proposal? What is your gut reaction to this proposal? What are your pessimistic thoughts about this proposal? Why won’t it work? What are your optimistic thoughts about this proposal? Why do you think it will work? How could you build on this proposal and make it even better? What conclusions can you draw from this discussion? All these questions cover the areas needed to resolve emotions/reason and optimism/pessimism.

Don’t try to eat the meal in one bite: Decide what you can agree to right now. Move ahead on some parts and create time for further discussion on the others.

Then, you need to identify the next steps and who is responsible for each step. The leader can appoint people, ask for volunteers, or appoint a task leader and ask for volunteers to join the task group.

When we asked the Axelrods what was most important about their meeting framework, they responded, “Clarity about the decision process is critical to success. In his review of Let’s Stop Meeting Like This in INC magazine, Ilan Mochari said it best when he said, “If you’re holding a meeting to canvas the opinions of your staff–but you know there’s a strong chance you’ll disregard those opinions–let them know early on. The deception of democracy bothers them more than the transparent absence of it.”

Ask yourself if your meeting topics genuinely merit group effort or if you’re better off simply updating the group about your decision and rationale. If you do enlist the group, enhance the process by enlisting the authors’ strategies for overcoming “group grope.” Learn more about all of the Axelrods’ effective methods for getting more done in meetings.

See also:

World Cafe: Shaping Our World Through Conversations That Matter

Death by Meeting

Image credits: ronkitchens.com, psychologoies.com, thedecisiongroup.com, nicosteyn.wordpress.com

Meetings can be wildly successful and help your team reach new heights in performance or they can be an expensive waste of time. Unfortunately, many large and small organizations experience more of the latter. Authors Dick and Emily Axelrod have dedicated their careers to understanding and promoting what makes an impactful meeting in Let’s Stop Meeting Like This: Tools to Save Time and Get More Done gimp nederlands downloaden windows 10.

The Axelrods explain step by step how to participate in highly effective meetings no matter your role: a leader, contributor or facilitator. The Meeting Canoe™ is an approach that helps readers understand the importance of order, shape and flow to your gatherings german mau mau for free.

Are your meetings like a raft or canoe?

“The Meeting Canoe™ is a complete rethinking of the meeting design, execution and follow-up,” say the Axelrods. Compare the canoe with a raft, for example. When we think of rafts, we envision a lazy drift down the river that’s subject to the current while a canoe involves a team of oarsmen and the crew controls the direction eigene tik tok videos herunterladen. The Axelrods think there are too many meetings that feel like rafts when they could be canoes.

According to the authors, the Meeting Canoe™ is a relevant and useful system because:

The Meeting Canoe™’s parts influence each other.

The Meeting Canoe™ interacts with its environment as the crew adapts to changing conditions.

No single part is effective without the other parts Spotify laptop.

How well the Meeting Canoe™ functions depends on how well the parts work together.

We’ve excerpted our interview with the Axelrods below to give you a sense of how their framework can transform your meetings and a look at bad meeting habits.

CausePlanet: Thank you for adding the Meeting Canoe™ framework to the body of literature about effective meetings ing appen op laptop. It’s a terrific addition. Which part of the Meeting Canoe™ do most users find most transformational when implementing the approach?

Dick and Emily: Welcome, Connect, and Attend to the End. Most meeting agendas call for a perfunctory welcome and do not spend time connecting people to each other and the task. The result is they fail to build a solid foundation to do the meeting’s work embedded videos chrome. Similarly, most meeting agendas ignore attending to the end. This results in people being unclear about what was decided during the meeting as well as next steps following the meeting. Failure to spend time discussing how to make future meetings better leaves the group without a self-correcting mechanism. We learned from an architect colleague that how people enter a space and how they leave a space is as important as what happens in the space how to download music for free. We believe this is true for meetings as well. By paying attention to the Welcome, Connect, and Attend to the End parts of the Meeting Canoe™, meeting designers create a complete, productive meeting experience.

CausePlanet: In your research or client experiences, did you discover why most people accept and perpetuate bad meeting habits einladung geburtstag kostenlos download whatsapp?

Dick and Emily: The first is that when we asked meeting participants whom they thought was responsible for a meeting’s success, the most frequent response was “the leader.” This habit is an abdication of responsibility for what happens during the meeting, which allows meeting participants to sit idly by while a meeting goes downhill. We believe another cause is that people have come to think about meetings as painful experiences that must be endured. They do not think of them as a place where productive work occurs wie kann man alle spiele herunterladen. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you begin to think about meetings as a place where people do work, then you can design your meetings using the five proven work design principles:

Autonomy: the power to influence the meeting’s direction

Meaning: the meeting has importance or significance to participants

Challenge: a call to engage in something that tests your knowledge, skill, ability or courage

Learning: acquiring new skills or knowledge through experience, study or being taught

Feedback: information that lets meeting participants know whether a meeting is making progress toward its objectives.

When you apply these design criteria to your meeting, you create the conditions for productive work to occur.

A quotation in Let’s Stop Meeting Like This by author, speaker and consultant Peter Block aptly describes the challenges the Axelrods address with their model office kostenlos downloaden chip. Block says, “If you look at the way we meet in organizations and communities across the country, you see a lot of presenters, a lot of podiums, and a lot of passive audiences. This reflects our naiveté in how to bring people together.”  If you find your meetings have fallen into an unproductive or passive pattern and you feel like you’re swimming upstream, get your team in the Meeting Canoe™.

See also:

World Cafe: Shaping Our World Through Conversations That Matter

Death by Meeting

Image credits: en.wikipedia.org, matt-gibson.org, flickr.com

This is the second part of a two-part article on strategic planning. Part 1 was “Get back to basics with first principle of strategy development.” Part 2 continues with the next two principles: building on your strengths and making decision-making criteria explicit microsoft office 2019 download free chip.

My last article covered the first principle in strategy development – Know Thyself – and provided questions to ask to make sure that nonprofit board members and managers share a fundamental understanding of the organization.

Building on that base, organizations should consider two more principles when developing strategy.

Second principle: Build on your strengths

Knowing Thyself is important for many reasons, but the most important benefit is to guide the organization in making major decisions by doing more of what it does best google fotos herunterladen android. Human nature is often to fret over our weaknesses. But individuals are more energized, and organizations more successful, when they focus on their strengths. We all know the energy we get from completing something we are particularly good at – the actor at the end of the show, the athlete at the end of the race or the teacher when a struggling student finally aces a test as an audiobook. The principle is no different for an organization – nonprofits come alive when they focus on what they’ve learned to do best.

The best approach to developing strategy is to use the fundamental organizational identity discussed in the first principle – composed of mission, geography, programs, customers and funding – as a guide to select among strategic options. The option that best fits your current identity – that takes advantage of what you’ve already developed as your area of expertise – is often the best choice minecraft kostenlos downloaden uptodown.

One piece is still missing, however. Another part of self-knowledge is knowing how your organization is distinct from others or how it is unique in your field. In the for-profit world, this is known as the organizational differentiator or, in a term I find particularly useful at challenging nonprofit assumptions, the competitive advantage kan mails niet downloaden.

Nonprofit board members and staff are often reluctant to think about competition because a premium is placed on cooperation. Indeed, nonprofits do and should cooperate. But understanding when and how you compete will give you a real lead in achieving your full potential. To put it bluntly, you don’t deserve to stay in business if your mission is not important enough, or your execution not sharp enough, to attract the resources to carry it out ps vita games kostenlos herunterladen.

Nonprofit competition is different in key respects from for-profit business competition. Both sectors have to consider direct competitors (those doing exactly what you do), as well as indirect competitors (those doing something different, but similar, such as a movie theatre compared to a live theatre). But nonprofit organizations also face resource competition for funding, staff, media attention and board members.

Once you get used to the idea of competitors, then think about your competitors’ strengths mixed hack for free. Do they have a program that no one else operates? Have they developed a skill and reputation for working in a community that has been particularly hard to reach? Then ask the same questions of your organization: What is the particular strength we have that differentiates us, makes us unique and helps us make the case that others should support our work adobe flash player download kostenlos deutsch windows 7 64 bit? Once you know what your competitive advantage is, do more of it!

I know of several organizations – all in different communities – that had developed particular skills in working with the Latino community. Although the types of services they offered were often similar to those offered by others – health education or leadership development – they were able to develop new strategies that leveraged the trust they had built with the local Latino population by partnering with other organizations playstation now games downloaden. Through this approach, they have been able to generate additional revenue and exert a greater impact in their field.

Although the second principle is to Build on Your Strengths, it wouldn’t be fair to pretend that you should never try to improve where you are weak. At times, organizations must move into a new area to be most effective or to remain financially viable. The point of this principle is that any move to go beyond your basic identity or to develop new core strengths should be driven by the greatest possible necessity and supported by more extensive planning Freecell solitaire free download.

Third principle: Make decision-making criteria explicit

Many great leaders make brilliant strategic choices without ever talking about the thinking behind those choices. I’ve heard middle managers in one organization describe a kind of strategic chaos – they do not understand why one program is emphasized over another, or why new programs are taken on. But the CEO and senior managers are credited by everyone in the organization with making remarkably prescient choices. The factors that go into major strategic decisions are somewhat opaque for many in the organization. As a result, the organization has thrived – driven by the decisions of senior managers – but seeds of serious challenges around staff cohesion and succession are readily apparent.

By taking time to identify and communicate the fundamental criteria for decision making, rather than assuming everyone understands these factors, you can build a more cohesive organization and address the latent frustration described by mid-level managers and staff when faced with changing assignments or increased work stress.

These three principles are perhaps simple, but they reflect a lesson we all learned from Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music: “Start at the very beginning.” By naming organizational fundamentals, you can move forward with cohesive guidance for making decisions on a day-to-day basis – or, at the very least, communicating the factors for major decisions throughout the organization.

See also:

The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution

Building Nonprofit Capacity

Nonprofit Sustainability

Image credits: blog.readytomanage.com, sbcvoices.com, vivocoaching.com

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Many nonprofits are considering the spectrum of strategic restructuring options, such as partnerships and mergers, as potential strategies to enhance financial viability and achieve greater sustainability. With more than a decade of experience in this area, I have learned one crucial lesson for those seeking a successful partnership: It must be considered within the context of a broader organizational strategy kostenlos musik downloaden und offline hören.

In this time of economic uncertainty, organizations may seek a partnership out of expediency without considering how the partnership may advance, or derail, their organizational strategy. Nonprofit leaders may lack the time, resources and data to undertake strategic planning while exploring potential partnerships. La Piana Consulting has developed a research-based and field-tested methodology called Real-Time Strategic Planning (RTSP) that allows organizations to consider their strategic focus effectively and in a fraction of the time required by traditional strategic planning screenshot download deutsch kostenlos.

RTSP and strategic restructuring

Within the context of a merger or partnership, nonprofit leaders should refer to the following elements of the RTSP process.

Business model

The term “business model” can overwhelm many nonprofit leaders by conjuring thoughts of corporate executives plotting money-making schemes free ego shooter download. However, RTSP provides a simple way to think about your nonprofit business model to turn it into an effective tool for decision making. When considering a partnership, nonprofits can define their business model into easily understood and efficiently analyzed themes:

Who you are – your mission and brand;
What is your scope – the geography, activities and clients served;
What is the source and distribution of funding – where funding comes from and how it’s spent.

Once you have a clear understanding of your current business model, it is important to consider potential gaps and opportunities that a prospective partnership may impact, i.e warum kann man einige filme bei netflix nicht downloaden. new geography, clients, funding, or more efficient operations.

Market awareness

Understanding your business model will make it much easier to understand where you “fit” into the market. Therefore, conduct an honest assessment of your market. Ask yourself, is demand for your services growing or shrinking?

Other key considerations include: Who else is providing similar services vier bilder ein wort herunterladen? With what organizations do you compete or collaborate? What are their strengths and weaknesses relative to your organization? What do they bring to the table that strengthens their position in the market? Look at these competitors and analyze how they compare to you.

Answering these questions will help you better understand your own market position, as well as how a partnership can strengthen your organization and better fulfill its mission

Competition

As described above, a large part of market awareness is recognizing your organization’s competition facebook app zum downloaden. Although the concept of competition may not be commonly referred to in the nonprofit sector, nonprofit leaders must address competition in order to ensure an organization’s success. Consider the various types of competition your organization faces, including competition for funding, staff, board members, media attention, clients, etc gta 5 mod herunterladen ps4. Understanding competition is a stepping stone to understanding your relative strengths as an organization, and being able to leverage them in support of your mission.

Trends

No one can predict the future, but having a general understanding of the trends facing nonprofits, and your organization in particular, is critical thalia books from the cloud. Consider trends in demand for services and funding. Many nonprofits find themselves in the unpleasant situation of seeing their financial support (from government, donors and foundations) decline at the very time the demand for services is increasing. Nonprofits facing this dilemma should consider how partnerships can enhance their ability to serve more people in the most efficient way possible. Partnerships can offer potential funding opportunities if they are well designed and well promoted kostenlos antivirenprogramm avasten.

Competitive advantage

Competitive advantage in the nonprofit sector is defined as “your organization’s ability to produce social value using a unique asset, outstanding execution, or both.” By gaining an understanding of your market, competition and the trends that impact your work, you will be better able to hone your organization’s unique strengths. Again, understanding your competitive advantage and those of your competitors and collaborators is the first step to considering how to build on your strengths or mitigate any weaknesses herunterladen. Furthermore, combining the strengths of two or more organizations and aligning competitive advantages can significantly enhance an organization’s ability to compete, and minimize each organization’s weaknesses.

Strategy screens

In considering a partnership, your nonprofit organization should create explicit criteria to help guide decision making. A strategy screen is a set of criteria that are applied to any potential strategy to help determine its appropriateness. The decision-making criteria in such a screen are rooted in your nonprofit’s business model and competitive advantages; in fact, you should look for partnerships that build on what you currently do well. A strategy screen can help you to determine the relevance of potential partnership strategies. Strategy screens can also be used as a quick way to determine the appropriateness of a potential organizational partner. 

Putting it all together

Use these concepts when considering a strategic restructuring partnership, whether it is a merger, administrative consolidation or joint programming effort. Like any organizational strategy, partnership development needs to be carefully considered and not just pursued because an exciting opportunity crops up.

Moreover, the initial exploration with a potential partner does not have to take up huge amounts of time or resources. The RTSP process is designed to be quick and efficient, usually taking one or two days of facilitated discussion, with basic information gathering prior to the session.

Wherever you are in the partnership development process – assessment, negotiation or even integration – the Real-Time Strategic Planning process can help you determine if the partnership supports your nonprofit’s organizational strategy and advances the mission.

See also:

The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution

Building Nonprofit Capacity

Nonprofit Sustainability

Image credits: poweredbysearch.com, businessnewsdaily.com, euroross.blogspot.com

Strategic planning often gets a bad rap. And it’s easy to see why. Usually, we have a board retreat or take the staff off site and hold a big meeting. Much is said and brainstorming is vigorous, but little is written down and less is quantified. We return to the office on Monday, with few decisions made. The retreat or meeting didn’t help your organization change anything.

In order to be successful, organizations, teams and individuals must plan and set a defined course for change. How does planning focus energy, change outcomes and result in greater job satisfaction for the board and staff? In the end, the insights gained during planning should influence the hundreds or thousands of individual actions that take place in an organization on a daily basis windows 7 home premium kostenlos herunterladen. Sounds good, but how do you do this, and what does it look like in daily application?

A case study

Let’s assume you are the CEO of a large nonprofit with international operations scattered across the globe. Your staff and volunteers work with people who have enormous health, education and economic needs in some of the most challenging places on the planet. Information cascades into your organization daily—from the Web, news reports, donor feedback and field reports. Last year, you, your staff and your board worked hard on a five-year strategic plan. What difference is that plan making today on how you face challenges kostenlos aufnahme programm downloaden?

An effective planning process begins with rigorous advance preparation. The quality of the end product is directly correlated with the development of comprehensive external and internal scans. An external or internal scan represents a quick check by a planning team of trends in key areas of the environment.  All organizations risk losing touch with those key trends, internally or externally, that signal major changes ahead for the organization. These environmental scans create a context for the dialogue during the planning process. The process focuses the board’s attention on strategic thinking and the forces that are shaping the organization’s future. Which of the rapidly changing forces in this organization’s environment will have the most significant impact on the organizations results in the future herunterladen? The outcomes of the strategic thinking dialogue are then used to define the organization’s strategic direction, goals, objectives and, ultimately, action plans and budgets. The key is to identify the right questions for the next business cycle of the organization.

The board of this nonprofit focused on the strengths, limitations, opportunities and threats in the external environment. Five forces of change were identified that warranted the board’s attention, not just during the planning retreat, but in ongoing discussions during board and committee meetings for years to come.

The five forces are:

Globalization
Demographic upheavals
Rising expectations
Explosion of new technologies
New forms of organizing work

Based on the deliberations of the board and staff during the retreat, the specific strategic drivers and key questions for this organization to address over the next five years were identified as:

The world is flat herunterladen. How does globalization impact the structure of our organization? What new competitive forces will impact our ability to attract the talent and people we need in the regions we serve? How could we organize our work differently and employ technology more effectively to serve targeted populations? How do we, as a board and staff, stay informed and proactive in rapidly changing environments?
Security of operations. Security has the single greatest impact on effectiveness of global operations. There is no service to targeted populations if operations are removed or restricted. Security is an issue for the safety of an organization’s people, capital resources, equipment, programs and technology schulmanager online herunterladen. How do we enhance our efforts to monitor and adapt quickly to changing security issues? Can our organization be more nimble?
Competition for support. Trends indicate that government support in all forms will be reduced for non-governmental organizations and all other nonprofit organizations in current and future years. This will result in greater competition for remaining government funds. How can this organization compete most successfully to sustain the largest percentage of government support possible, while simultaneously diversifying private support from individuals, corporations and foundations? What are the expectations of our existing and new donors?

The progression from a broad external scan to forces of change to key strategic drivers clarified for board and staff where they should be focusing their attention herunterladen. Rivers of information are now sorted by how they impact the nonprofit’s structure, staffing, security and fundraising. There were many other worthy issues to focus on, but these priorities emerged as the key ones for this organization over the next five years. The CEO identified opportunities for board and staff to monitor these issues on an ongoing basis, in order to make decisions and take actions to positively impact the result this nonprofit strives to achieve.

Internal environmental scans focus on the core components that are essential to every organization. Regardless of its structure, stage of organizational development or field of activity, every organization consists of five essential components—without which it cannot come into being, sustain its existence or grow.

These five components and their definitions are:

Market gekaufte alben bei amazon downloaden. Anyone who uses, or has the potential to use or fund the programs, products and/or services created, distributed or funded by this organization.
Program. The content and methodology an organization creates and distributes through products and services to define audiences.
Organization. The network of structures and systems through which an organization creates and distributes programs, products and services to its market.
People. The human resources available to an organization to create and deliver programs, products and services to its market Re-download windows update.
Capital. The non-human resources available to an organization to create and deliver programs, products and services to its market.

Growth comes when an organization energizes one or two of these components. Sustained capacity building depends on an organization’s effort to balance the development of every component. Organizational stress is a signal that the development of one or more components is lagging behind the development of the most energized component. Alignment among and between components can propel an organization to the next stage of its organizational lifestyle (i.e. from start up to growth mode), or a lack of alignment can stymie an organization’s development for years. This analysis of internal capacity must be measured against the challenges this organization will face to achieve success, however success is defined mcafee kostenlos download vollversion deutsch.

Based on an internal scan of this nonprofit, the following key opportunities were identified:

Cultivate new donors while retaining existing donors to raise net contributions and diversify funding sources.
Build development/fundraising/outreach/communications functions and systems to cultivate lasting relationships with funders and collaborators, while raising more money to support the mission.
Coach, develop and grow capacities and skills of the executive management team to build the capacity to deliver on its mission and support the work of the organization.
Clarify goals and quantify objectives for vice presidents to further develop their skills as self-directed managers herunterladen.

The board and staff identified many ways that this organization could improve performance on the five components. The four opportunities sited above are the ones that are central to the growth and development of this organization during the current business cycle.

The three drivers resulting from the external scan and the four drivers resulting from the internal scan formed the basis of a Statement of Strategic Direction, which captured the seven priorities for this organization over the next five years. There were other worthy priorities, but these seven were critical to the organization’s future growth, development and ongoing success.

The staff took the next step and crafted five-year goals, supported by quantified objectives. The board reviewed and approved these goals and objectives. The staff writes annual detailed action plans to support the outcomes defined in the objectives. The action plan development dovetails with the creation of an annual budget.  The systems are in place to support the desired outcomes.

The key issues are clear: Every board of directors’ meeting must include time for discussions about security, competition for support, growing the capacity of staff, or how the systems support the desired outcomes in donor relations. The board has a greater awareness of and growing knowledge of the most important strategic issues. The staff feels empowered to sort the incredible amounts of information that bombard them daily and use the most relevant information to address the core issues for their organization. Most importantly, the CEO, in conjunction with the board and staff, fosters the ability of the staff, volunteers and key stakeholders to see what truly exists today and, perhaps more importantly, fosters the capacity to see what will exist tomorrow.

See also:

The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution

Nonprofit Strategic Positioning

Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability

Image credits: positive-shift-co.com, mothereseblog.com, optimumorg.com, oaktree-asia.com, megahdscreen.com

Bestselling author Dan Pink has dedicated his latest book to the study of how we move people in To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others. You might ask why we’re recommending a book about sales to those of you in the social sector.

The answer?

Pink builds his argument for a “broad rethinking of sales as we know it.” You’ll see in his first-ever analysis of people’s activity at work: “We’re devoting upward of 40 percent of our time on the job to moving others vocals. And we consider it critical to our professional success.”

He further shares that one in nine people are in traditional sales while the other eight are in “non-sales selling.” In other words, most of us are in the business of persuading, convincing and influencing others. When you put sales in Pink’s terms, we’re all in the business of moving others—especially those of us in the nonprofit sector herunterladen.

Are you old school or new school?

In our first post about Pink’s book, we mentioned the broad variety of strategies at play in the nonprofit sector when executives are in the midst of convincing, persuading or influencing their boards, staffs and constituents. Some may be using old school techniques, and perhaps others draw on intuition. No matter what the convenient tactic at hand, a strong case can be made for formalizing our approach to moving others and understanding what motivates indische musik kostenlos herunterladen. It is, after all, the (nonprofit) business we’re in.

How do successful persuaders keep persuading?

Nonprofit leaders constantly find themselves asking how to move a donor to give, how to move a board member to lead, how to move the staff to act. Understanding today’s truths about Pink’s sales ideas such as Attunement, Clarity and Buoyancy is especially relevant due to the sector’s increased presence of competition and general misunderstanding of sales Itunes free download for pc.

Three truths of moving others

We discussed Attunement in our first installment about Pink’s three truths for nonprofit leaders who want to move others. In today’s post, we’ll address a second truth called Buoyancy. Remember, these are qualities of successful people who move others. In the face of resistance or objections, nonprofit leaders who exhibit Attunement and Buoyancy are far more accomplished at convincing and influencing others instagram stories app. Here are three underpinnings of Buoyancy:

Buoyancy through interrogative self-talk

In sales as in fundraising, the rejections and constant effort can get you down. Pink asserts Buoyancy, the “B” in the new “ABC” of sales, must be part of your strategy here. Before a sale, interrogative self-talk is more helpful than positive self-talk herunterladen. Instead of just telling yourself you can do it, the author encourages you to ask the question, “Can I sell this?” This question allows you to go through your plan, discover holes and realize where you are good specifically. This interrogation goes deeper to prepare you mentally for a negotiation.

Buoyancy through positive thinking

During a negotiation, he recommends a three to one positivity ratio from youtube to mobile phone. For every three positive thoughts, you will also think one negative one. Positive thinking, according to social science research by Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina, broadens your options and makes you more creative. Negative emotions usually decrease your vision and possibilities. Fredrickson and Hall discovered this three to one ratio to be ideal because you are not bogged down by negative thoughts but you are also realistic and think enough negative thoughts to improve your performance herunterladen.

Buoyancy through explanatory style

During the ask, too, it is imperative to actually believe in your product. After a sale or lack thereof, your explanatory style is important. Pink draws on Martin Seligman’s research on “learned helplessness” here. If you can use optimism to see failures or negative occurrences as temporary vs herunterladen. permanent, specific vs. pervasive, and external vs. personal, you will be more able to recover from setbacks.

Try these exercises to increase your buoyancy with fundraising, leading and persuading

Dan Pink includes exercises in his book to practice interrogative self-talk (forming questions), monitor your positivity ratio, tweak your explanatory style, enumerate and embrace your rejections in order to improve and motivate yourself, write rejection letters to yourself to prepare yourself for the worst consequence and think through your strategies, and allow yourself to go negative every so often in order to improve.

If you’re in the business of raising money, persuading others or leading your team, consider Pink’s three truths about moving others: Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity picturepeople photos. All three qualities are consistent themes in the author’s extensive research. As nonprofit leaders, we have an exhaustive list of persuading to-do’s. Dan Pink has identified what characterizes the most successful movers. Try on some of his Buoyancy strategies and get moving.

See also:

Seeing Through the Eyes of A Donor

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

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Last week, a colleague called me about facilitating strategic planning for a new group he is managing through his association management firm. He warned me that the executive committee didn’t hold much value in strategic planning, but they had agreed to an initial conference call to, as he put it, “hear me out.”

At least half the calls I get from clients about strategic planning include dire warnings that they don’t really want to do planning, but feel it is a “necessary evil.” I became so intrigued by this apparent aversion to planning that I did my own investigating. What makes boards roll their eyes and shake their heads over the suggestion of annual planning?

Here’s what I found apple foto downloaden. For many boards (and nonprofit executives), strategic planning means:

1. A lecture from a “talking head” consultant;

2. General, unfocused discussion about what went wrong in the past year;

3 app store für herunterladen. Participation in the dreaded “team-building” exercises;

4. Two to three days out of the office at a remote location (translation: misuse

of volunteer time and organizational resources); and

5. An added cost the organization either can’t or does not want to bear, because

they do not see the benefits of planning solitaire download kostenlos vollversion deutsch.

These perceptions from leadership are insightful. Who among us doesn’t cringe at the thought of two days devoted to strategic planning? Don’t we wonder what we’ll do and how (if) it will really help the organization? What if leadership doesn’t see the value in planning? Will the board only commit a couple of hours to planning as part of its regular board meeting?

To address board apprehensions about strategic planning, I follow a simple set of rules that guide my work with nonprofits:

Rule 1: An organization must devote one full day to strategic planning, with no other business conducted during that day.

Successful strategic planning requires the undivided attention of board and management, conducted with total commitment to the organization’s well being and its focus on the future. Too often boards try to maximize their allotted time together by attempting to conduct business, elect board members and do strategic planning work all at one meeting.

Example: One organization that hired me for a day of strategic planning ended up conducting a quarrelsome board meeting for five of the eight hours originally allotted for planning. The acrimonious nature of the meeting made it virtually impossible for the board to move into team planning, so we ended up rescheduling. Both the organization and I were frustrated about losing both time and resources due to their lack of focus on planning.

Rule 2: The board and management must commit to at least two days preparing for planning.

Successful strategic planning requires advance preparation to ensure the best use of time and organizational resources. I am a firm believer that planning can be accomplished in one day. However, in order to accomplish this, both the consultant and the planning participants must be prepared. Working with the organization’s leadership, I develop a pre-planning survey that is sent to all participants 30 to 45 days before the session. The survey asks for input about organizational value (current and future), mission, future goals, governance and financial issues. The survey results are used to finalize the agenda and identify relevant planning materials. (The survey also greatly decreases the chance of the planning being derailed by a hidden issue.)

Example: A newly-merged association I had been working with insisted they could not do planning in less than two days, even with all the preparation. They made arrangements to spend three full days in planning and board meetings. However, because of the pre-planning work we did, we wrapped up their planning agenda by 4:00 p.m. on the first day, allowing them to do a quick board meeting the next morning and head for home. The results from employing this process were gratifying for the association, as well as for me.

Rule 3: The board must come to consensus around issues discussed.

There is nothing more frustrating than spending a day of planning with no tangible results. An important component of strategic planning is the actual decision making around goals and issues important to the organization. Moving the board to consensus around strategic organizational components such as vision, mission and goals is essential in order to establish a clear direction for management to act upon.

Example: Working with the management of a local credit union (a not-for-profit financial institution), we designed parameters for the board to address at their annual board retreat. The board engaged in an exercise where they “voted” on their comfort level related to institutional growth and risk. The resulting board consensus was used by management to set goals for the upcoming year.

Rule 4: The organization must commit to developing a business plan with a budget and work timetable.

Successful strategic planning requires developing a business plan that becomes the organization’s roadmap for success. The most valuable outcome of strategic planning should not be the session report, but a true business plan with goals and strategies that lead the organization to accomplish its vision and mission. The board’s role is to set the direction by confirming vision, mission and three-year goals. Management’s role is to create a business plan that develops strategies, tactics and tangible outcomes that drive achievement of the goals set by the board.

Example: One organization that has been a client for several years created a “dashboard” that is reviewed at every board meeting to check progress and make strategic decisions about goals and strategies. They have had the same business plan for over three years, using their annual strategic planning to update the plan. In essence, they have created a “rolling business plan” that is carrying them to an ambitious future vision.

What happened to the group that asked me to justify their need for strategic planning? The subsequent call went well, because I had sent them a detailed contract with these four rules and a copy of a business plan to show them the results they would achieve from a day of planning. I’ll be facilitating their strategic planning later this year.

See also:

The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution

Nonprofit Strategic Positioning

The Nonprofit Business Plan

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Bestselling author Dan Pink is asking you to call it what it is.

More specifically, your work. If in your job you spend any time persuading, convincing and influencing others, you are in the business of moving others herunterladen. Frankly, he explains, you’re selling. And if you’re selling, it’s important to recognize major developments over the years that have changed how the best people are moving others. Through a first-of-its-kind study and a collection of a broad spectrum of examples, Pink has thoughtfully made the case for rethinking sales. You will learn how to be, what to do and how to put all the pieces into play in his new book To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others herunterladen.

There are a broad variety of strategies at play in the nonprofit sector when executives are in the midst of convincing, persuading or influencing their boards, staffs and constituents. Some may be using old school techniques, and perhaps others draw on intuition. No matter what the convenient tactic at hand, a strong case can be made for formalizing our approach to moving others and understanding what motivates herunterladen. It is, after all, the business we’re in.

Three truths about moving others today

Nonprofit leaders constantly find themselves asking how to move a donor to give, how to move a board member to lead, how to move the staff to act. Understanding today’s truths about Pink’s sales ideas such as Attunement, Clarity and Buoyancy is especially relevant due to the sector’s increased presence of competition and general misunderstanding of sales lens studioen.

Attunement

For example, Attunement honors the knowledge and goals of the buyer, jettisoning the old sales adage, “ABC” or “Always be closing.” Pink begins the new “ABC” with the first word, Attunement, or “the ability to bring one’s actions and outlook into harmony with other people and with the context you’re in. Think of it as operating the dial on a radio. It’s the capacity to move up and down the band as circumstances demand, locking in on what’s being transmitted, even if those signals aren’t immediately clear or obvious.” He also calls this “perspective-taking.”

Pink describes three ways to become more attune with your buyer/client/funder:

Increase your power by reducing it bild bei instagram herunterladen. Through several social science studies Pink relates, it was found that people who perceived greater power became less attune with others’ points of views. And the inverse is true of those who perceive less power. Because a salesperson no longer holds all the information and therefore, the power, s/he must rely on taking the other’s perspective and giving up power in order to move someone windows 7 updates.

Use your head as much as your heart. Perspective-taking is not the same as empathy. Pink describes perspective-taking as a cognitive action where you imagine what someone else is thinking. Empathy means you feel for the other or try to imagine what another person is feeling. Empathy can cause you to toss aside your own interests, as you may feel too deeply, whereas perspective-taking can help both sides achieve their goals tolino buchen. Therefore, perspective-taking with a cognitive focus on people, their relationships and context is more effective to move people.

Mimic strategically. Pink stresses that mimicking your buyer can help you negotiate better. Mimicry builds connections, trust and understanding. However, it must be treated with care so it is not obvious dietrichs herunterladen. Otherwise, it can backfire. Pink also discusses how touching (e.g., on the arm) can help build connections and foster negotiations.

Pink’s choice for nonprofits

In addition to attunement, Pink explores many other essential principles surrounding the notion of moving others. We asked him which one he felt was most appropriate for nonprofits for our Page to Practice summary and have excerpted here weit film herunterladen.

CausePlanet: Nonprofit leaders constantly find themselves convincing or persuading others to support their causes. Is there a principle from your book that you feel stands out as especially appropriate for nonprofit executives to apply?

Dan Pink: Make it personal. There’s an array of research showing that abstract and conceptual appeals (“Increase vaccination rates”) are far less effective than specific and concrete ones (“Vaccinate this child or she risks dying of malaria”) applaus herunterladen. And the principle goes well beyond fundraising. There’s some great research from Israel, for instance, showing that radiologists who see both a scan and a photo of the patient whose scan it is spend more time and are more accurate in their evaluations. The same is largely true for leadership. When leaders put themselves on the line and when others see they’re real people, their leadership effectiveness rises substantially.

For those of you who find yourselves in the business of moving others (and Pink argues virtually everyone is in this business), consider how attune you are with your prospects and then ask yourself how you can make your appeals personal. Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks as we discuss Pink’s observations about clarity, buoyancy and other interview questions we had for him.

See also:

The Influential Fundraiser

It’s Not Just Who You Know

Yours for the Asking

As my friend Rich Male likes to say, “Leadership is one of the most talked about and least understood ideas in the nonprofit world.” There are volumes of books on leadership, seminars to take and discussions to have. But real leadership development requires action and practice, and you can’t get that from a book.

For a few years now as part of my volunteer work, I’ve been training prospective board members, mostly on the basic legal requirements and top ten responsibilities etsy presets. We go through the lists, share examples and discuss what meetings can be like. After we’ve covered all the conventional information, I share the biggest thing I’ve learned about being on a board: it’s the best leadership development program available, particularly right now. The tough decisions and thoughtfulness required of boards are ramped up due to the financial crisis in which we find ourselves.

Here are a five valuable things board members can learn about leadership:

1 herunterladen. You cannot do it alone

Boards are set up to have multiple members for a reason. Better decision-making requires more than one mind. In order for ideas and decisions to move forward, a group consensus needs to emerge among board members. You learn to gather the right information, communicate well with others and advocate. Part of being a good leader is sharing a way to move forward and mobilizing those around you to join in microsoft office 2016 free. You will also learn to listen and gain a respect for the opinions and thoughts of others.

2. There is no passing the buck

Boards are the final decision-makers for organizations, which is a huge responsibility. On high- functioning boards, the trustees don’t shy away from tough decisions. They gather data, consider the options and then make the best decision given the information plant images for free. This is not always a fun or pretty process.
Laying off staff is heartbreaking, but sometimes necessary. Declining one opportunity to develop another can be difficult. However, all leaders are required to make tough choices, and learning to do this is both an art and a science. Boards offer opportunities to make these decisions and learn from their effects nacon revolution pro 3 profiles.

3. You get to witness the good and the bad, and learn from both

During my time of service to organizations, I have had the privilege to watch some outstanding board members and chairs and learned a lot. From the way they conducted meetings, communicated with other members and prioritized issues for the board, these great leaders showed grace, humility and compassion wish app downloaden. I also remember the ineffective board members and how they acted or didn’t act. Both types of experiences are important as you think about your own actions and how you want to lead.

4. Develop your own style

Boards offer opportunities to step up the leadership ladder. By taking on the role of committee chair, you can develop your talents while contributing to the larger work of the organization, and learn to drive agendas and important projects for the organization microsoft word download chip kostenlos vollversion. Reflecting on your success and failures during this process provides strong feedback you can use as you work your way forward in other leadership positions, either on a board or in other arenas.

5 soy luna your world. Develop leaders who will come after you

Succession is tantamount to board effectiveness, just as it is in leadership. You will not be the leader forever if the program or project you lead is to continue. Taking time to develop the next leader provides a chance to encourage the best in others and transfer skills that help you refine your own attributes videos mit edge herunterladen. It will also ensure the future success of the organization, which is a positive outcome for all leaders.

In order for the board experience to be truly worthwhile, you need to select an area about which you are passionate and to which you are committed. Simply joining a board to gain experience would be a somewhat shallow experience. However, as with most volunteer experiences, you will get just as much out of it as you offer to the organization how can I download minecraft for free.

This treasure trove of leadership experience on a board is available to you for the small price of financial support for the board’s organization and some good intentions toward your work. It sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

See also:

The Ultimate Board Member’s Book

The Board Game

Super Boards

The Practitioner’s Guide to Governance as Leadership

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