by Susan Detwiler | Feb 24, 2014 | governance, leadership, mission, nonprofit, Standards
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 2010; the second in 2013. Very different titles, but very similar premises. A satisfied customer is one whose whole experience is satisfactory. Not just a single episode of customer service; or a single phone call experience. It is the gestalt of the experience with the company that either keeps a customer loyal, or sends her away.
The same is true for Board experience. Have you seamlessly delivered what you promised your Directors or Trustees when they first joined the board?
Did you set out Board expectations before they accepted a Board position? Are you holding them to it?
Did you promise to keep them regularly informed? Are you delivering?
Did they expect to have meaningful, generative discussions about the future of your organizations? Are you creating an atmosphere so that can happen?
Were they passionate about your cause when they joined? Are you feeding that passion?
Did you tell them you needed their wisdom and insight to plan for the future? Are you actually using that talent?
In the course of two, four, six years of board service, there are bound to be times when a trustee’s experience on a board will be less than satisfactory. There are going to be times when finances are tight, or a capital campaign stalls, or an Executive Director leaves, or there are obnoxious people taking up board space (no, never!). But overall, have you made their Board experience worth their time and talent?
The nonprofit world focuses on the competition for dollars. But the competition for good Directors and Trustees is also fierce. Good board members ask hard questions before they join your board, and will hold you to the answers. But they’re worth their weight in gold, because with an engaged, passionate, knowledgeable board, you can aspire to higher heights.
But they’ll only stay if their Board experience keeps them coming back for more.
______________________________________________
*Read Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers
**Read The Secret to Delighting Customers
by Susan Detwiler | Feb 3, 2014 | collaboration, leadership, management, nonprofit, Uncategorized
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 explicitly or implicitly; there seemed to be a whole track of sessions that demonstrated appreciative inquiry in different settings.
On a very simple level, Appreciative Inquiry begins with:
- appreciating and valuing what is;
- envisioning what might be;
- engaging in dialogue about what should be; and
- innovating to create what will be.
So what does Improv Comedy have to do with Appreciative Inquiry? Good question. Two main rules of Improv Comedy are Yes, and¦ and your main focus is on your partner.
First, whatever is thrown at you, you have to accept it and build on it. 
For example, if someone picks up a banana and uses it to call you on the phone, you can’t say, you idiot, that’s a banana! You have to go with the flow, answer the phone, and say, Hey! I was just about to call you “ your Mom’s here and wants to know what you did with her gold-plated antique chamber pot she inherited from your Dad’s Aunt Phoebe in Alaska! The point is, you have to accept what has been handed to you, and figure out what to do with it.
Second, with every sentence being a potential surprise, you have to focus closely on your partner, listen to whatever is being said and try to understand where she’s going with it.
In a nonprofit setting, if a board member says, our students aren’t showing up for tutoring, the response is yes, and let’s figure out the ideal situation. If you can envision an ideal situation, then you can work towards that ideal. If you say, yes, but they’re dealing with issues at home, the buses aren’t running at the right time, their parents don’t push them¦. you’re not adding to the conversation. You’re focusing on problems and seeming defensive, instead of hearing that the board member cares about the situation and inviting him to a shared vision of a better future.
Yes, and…
acknowledges that the comment was made,
appreciates that it is a concern,
inquires into what would be better.
And starts a dialogue about creating a better future.
by Susan Detwiler | Jan 19, 2014 | collaboration, governance, management, nonprofit
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 stamp I was given, that said, Great idea! Assign a committee to foul it up!
There is an image of nonprofit board committees as the place where ideas go to die a slow and lingering death; where process overcomes inspiration; where group-think strangles innovation.
But if you’re running an organization, it’s really hard to get anything done if you can’t segment off a group of people to work on specific jobs. How do you get people to work on these jobs? You invite them. Nicely.
The problem with committees is that word: commit.
That’s especially true in today’s society. Sometimes I feel so rushed and overwhelmed, that the thought of taking on another commitment sends me screaming in the other direction “NOOOoooooo!!!!! You mean, I have to come to meetings and be obligated for two whole years???
But if someone said to me, Hey, Janet has this great idea; Joe and I are going to help her make it happen. Can you join us? my answer is probably going to at least lead to a query for more information.
Asking someone to join the Finance Committee might be deadly. Asking someone to help figure out the best way to maximize the dollars we have available for our mission¦? Well, that’s intriguing.
Being offered an idea for engaging new supporters and telling them to give the idea to a committee is disheartening. Being asked to explore the idea with others and generate ways to make it work is an invitation.
Committees aren’t inherently bad. It’s how we ask people to serve that creates the deadly atmosphere surrounding them.
Invite people to MAKE THINGS HAPPEN. Let’s change the conversation.
by Susan Detwiler | Jan 1, 2014 | governance, management, nonprofit, Uncategorized, work
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 Directors and the staff. It makes you focus on making the most of your time, and helps you make best use of the talent around you.
First, write down everything you are responsible for. Everything. That includes bringing in office snacks, managing the $5000 library fund donor and organizing the annual gala. Making thank you calls to major donors, reviewing the copier contract, meeting board members for coffee and writing the copy for the eight page monthly newsletter. Writing the development and communications plan, keeping the FAQs up-to-date, hiring, evaluating and firing staff and developing the employee handbook. Whatever it is, write it down.
Now, make three columns next to the list: Do, Delegate, Discard.
For each item on the list, decide if it’s something ONLY YOU CAN DO, something you can DELEGATE TO SOMEONE ELSE, or something that doesn’t have to be done, i.e., DISCARD.
Caution! Even if you think that only you can do it right, that doesn’t mean that only you can do it. This is where perfectionists stumble. Consider “ an Executive Director earning $80,000 a year (plus benefits), and ostensibly working 40 hours per week (ha), is earning $48/hour. Does it really make sense for you to be the author of every article for the newsletter or to maintain the FAQs? Or should you be focusing on staff development, major donors and board interactions? If you honestly believe that only you can do the job, then mark the DO column. These items should be where your organization will derive the greatest benefit from your time.
Control freaks stumble when they contemplate handing off to a subordinate. Delegating is scary, but successful delegation ultimately pays off. Staff get the chance to shine and the satisfaction of being responsible for jobs well done. So into the DELEGATE column put reviewing the copier contract, keeping FAQs up-to-date, managing and writing the newsletter, reviewing lower level staff, drafting new handbook pages. It may mean time to train your staff, but developing your staff is ultimately what will make you – and your organization – even more productive.
Superwomen and Supermen stumble on DISCARD. There is a subconscious fear that you will be thought less of if you don’t do every. single. thing. But DISCARD may be the most powerful action you can take. It forces you to stop and think about why a job is done at all. Maybe the 8 page monthly newsletter should drop to 4 pages, or bimonthly, or not even exist. What purpose does it serve; would something else serve that purpose even better? Should stewarding the library fund donor be woven into the general donor stewardship program? Are all the board reports needed? Can you move to consent agendas? Should you drop the gala that nets $20,000 but has hidden labor costs of $50,000?
Deceptively simple, Do, Delegate, Discard is a powerful tool for managing your time, and empowering your staff. It’s a great way to begin the new year, and make room for all those NEW resolutions.
by Susan Detwiler | Dec 10, 2012 | governance, management, mission, nonprofit, Uncategorized
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 to standing on a soap box and expounding with great assurance about the relationships between boards and executives. But every time I hear a professional presenting outdated ideas about board service, I am still shocked.
What she did was no different from so many other professionals, who know their fields very well, but are less informed about trends in governance. In this case, she launched immediately into the legal duties of care, loyalty and obedience, without setting the stage of what the whole point of a board is. She declared that board retreats could be done maybe every two years, or three if that’s when the full board has turned over, and used the word boring to describe board meetings. She referenced the never-changing agenda of “minutes, financial report, directors report, old business, new business,” and said that sometimes there just isn’t anything going on that’s important for the board to talk about.
There is so much I’ve learned from these professionals. An attorney describing the validity of term limits in ways that other attorneys can understand them; the legal ins-and-outs of confidentiality. But I cringe at the depiction of board service that they’ve conveyed. No one in their right mind would want to be on a board, if they thought that board service was as they describe.
So I have a new challenge. Apparently, I’ve been living in a bubble, where I communicate regularly with like-minded individuals. We see board service as a noble investment in our communities while being fully engaged with others who also see value in the mission, ensuring that nonprofit organizations have the resources with which to continue their work.
The challenge is, how do I—how do WE—get the word out to other professionals, so instead of undermining our work, they are also missionaries for the role of boards and board service?
And, since I’m living in a bubble, what misconceptions do I have, that I need to be disabused of, so I can reciprocate in my work, and provide an accurate picture of their field?
Any ideas?
by Susan Detwiler | Jul 8, 2012 | management, nonprofit, Uncategorized
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.
Frankly, I still feel that way. No, I don’t cringe when I hear the song, but the philosophy that we should never worry just doesn’t work for me.
Stress isn’t your enemy! Stress can be good! It’s how we grow!
Stressing about stress is your enemy. Stressing without release is your enemy. But stress isn’t bad in and of itself. In fact, in orthopedics, there’s something called Wolf’s Law “ bone that is subjected to some stress, grows stronger in the area of stress. The same thing with muscles. That’s why we’re told to do cardiovascular exercise “ so our heart muscle grows stronger.
It follows through into our work lives. If we’re constantly working in our comfort zones, then we don’t grow. But working outside of our comfort zones is stressful.
So what?
You didn’t learn to ride a bike by not taking terrifying first peddles and falling down a few times.
When it comes to our nonprofit work, we have to face the fact that working outside our comfort zone is the only way we’ll grow beyond what we’re already doing. It may be stressful, but as long as we periodically take some time off to relax and look at what we’ve done, then the stress is good.
If you want to work explore how a coach or mentor can help you or your staff embrace the stress “ and work with it instead of against it “ let me know! I’m happy to talk about it and see if there are ways that you can put stress to work for you.
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