Meeting an Expectation of Delight
How's your Board experience? Should you delight your board? Should you not? Is this even a question you ever contemplated? Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers* and The Secret to Delighting Customers* were both published by Harvard Business Review: the first in...
How is Improv Comedy Like Appreciative Inquiry?
For years, the words Appreciative Inquiry seeped into my consciousness. It began at a two-day national development seminar, and most recently at a five-day conference for lay leaders, nonprofit professionals and clergy. By this time, it appeared everywhere, either...
How are Committees Like Mothers-in-Law?
They both get a bum rap! A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done. Fred Allen A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours. Milton Berle Then there's this rubber...
Do, Delegate, Discard: Make Time for New Resolutions
I resolve to do more (fill in the blank)¦¦ in the coming year. Congratulations! But what are going to do less of? A simple and powerful tool for any manager, Do, Delegate, Discard is especially helpful to Executive Directors who are the lynchpin between the Board of...
Right Message. Wrong Words.
Did you read the BBB, Guidestar, Charity Navigator letter about The Overhead Myth ? I did. And even as I cheered the message, it felt wrong. It was written to the wrong audience. The donors who commented were not convinced. The same day I read Michael Schrage wrote...
Living in a Bubble
I've been living in a bubble. I attended a seminar by an attorney who works with nonprofits, talking to other attorneys about the world of nonprofits. Her talk was a shocking reminder of just how widespread misconceptions about board service are. I'm becoming used...
Don’t Worry, Be Happy? Bah!
In 1988, Bobby McFerrin released a song that drove me absolutely nuts. Don't Worry, Be Happy. Just ask my husband. I cringed whenever I heard it. The whole idea that you should never worry, and that just being told to be happy would work was just crazy to me....
Do you really need a board?
Do you really need a Board or does having one just lead to more chaos¦? A few months back, this loaded question was asked of the Nonprofit Professionals Group on LinkedIn, and a robust discussion followed. My favorite answer, though, came from colleague John...
Machiavelli was Right
Niccolo Machiavelli was right, when he said. There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Wow. He sure nailed it on the head. If you've...
When Good Intentions Get Derailed
When good intentions get derailed. I'm on the board of a nonprofit contemplating a new initiative, and it's been taking us a long time to come to a conclusion. When the chair said, Thanks, Gina, for nudging us back on track, I remembered something that nonprofit...
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