Organizations and their executive leaders today face incredible challenges, and while boards typically focus on the necessary changes they hope to see from management, they must not forget that adaptability is often the best way to influence constructive leadership throughout the organization.
Getting the right people on the bus is a well-known concept developed by Good to Great author Jim Collins. Leaders who build great organizations make sure they have the right people on the bus in the key seats before…
Questionable character costs money. When new hires don’t possess character, businesses and nonprofits lose billions of dollars every year. Yet many leaders continue to rely on impressions and assumptions based on an applicant’s behavior during…
Your responsibility starts with developing a best-candidate profile, focusing on important attributes of the character, competence, and connections you’re looking for in candidates.
Our society has experienced a reawakening during the last two years. Social and political unrest combined with a global pandemic have caused us to reexamine many aspects of our personal and professional lives. The shifting…
Work for most organizational leaders is like living in a whirlwind. The multitude of demands for our attention can be paralyzing. We live in a world where a priority is placed on brevity, speed, and…
Many of the organizations I’ve worked with over the years can tell me what their mission is, but they’d be hard-pressed to articulate their strategy in a simple statement. They’re not alone. Nearly 85 percent…
When faced with skyrocketing attrition, nearly half of employees actively job searching, and boomers taking early retirement, it’s hard to be a leader today. Atomic Habits author James Clear says, “Most situations in life have a…
It’s poorly skilled managers who present the greatest risk because they exacerbate most other risks. When managers are not engaging in regular, meaningful conversations with employees, their mental health and clarity of the organization’s purpose…
The last few years have been fraught with loss for many of us. COVID alone has added to the stress, yet it is only part of the experience of loss during our lives. From the…
Three Simple Steps to Overcome the Curse of Knowledge One of the reasons we linger on the importance of conscious reflection—especially in the new year—is that it offers us the ability to achieve emotional distance…
“We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience.” John Dewey The power of reflection is often underrated despite its incredible benefits. In fact, a Harvard Business School study reported that when employees…
This is the second installment in a two-part series. Read part one by clicking here. In part one of this series, we discussed how in our newly emerging era of human-centered management, there are competing opinions regarding…
This is the first installment in a two-part series. In this newly emerging era of human-centered management, there are competing opinions regarding effective use of meeting time. The “who, when, how-long” equation regarding meetings isn’t…
This is the second installment in a two-part series. Click here to read the previous post, “Want to Get the Best from Your Team? Start with a Personal Audit.” Change starts with ourselves As discussed…
I was in conversation with a senior executive I’m coaching. She was experiencing a common challenge for many leaders, a disconnect between how she was seeing herself in workplace interactions and how others were experiencing…
This article was originally published by Directorship magazine and is republished here with permission from NACD. Experience as a nonprofit board member can be incredibly satisfying, regardless of experience level. It can offer a sense of purpose, provide the…
Over the past year, I have been working with three nonprofit capital campaigns. One has launched, one was to be launched right when social distancing was enacted, and one that is still in the planning…
Creating a productive, collaborative board culture is critical to effective governance. Boards that don’t pay attention to their culture can experience several problems: from difficulty in recruiting and keeping high quality members, to cliques that…
I have been so impressed with my colleagues and clients throughout the sector who have shown extraordinary stamina and a positive mental attitude in the face of the global pandemic. Still, there are a number…
Every fundraiser that I’ve talked with is experiencing a lot of stress. Most anticipate a drop in contributions in the coming months. And most are wondering what they can do. My simple advice is: Talk…
This post is a follow-up to one I wrote on laughter a few weeks ago. You can find that post in the blog section of my website. For starters, it’s important to understand that the…
“She what?!?!?!” Those were the first words out of my mouth as I grappled with regaining my composure. How? Why? No way. Really? Oh, my god. I know this person… I thought. When I served…
“After all I’ve done for him. How could he say such a thing! ‘Failure of leadership?!?’” !*&?#^%3!” These are some thoughts going through Jill’s (not her real name) mind as she reads to me from…
Core values determine how a company acts in the world, from the formation of its vision and mission to the way it constructs and delivers its products and services. They are not something toward which…
A number of clients called me this week, all asking for support on developing contingency plans to deal with the impact of the coronavirus. In particular, “What do we do about scheduled stakeholder events, board…
Finding a great consultant can feel daunting. Being one myself, I admit that the number of us can seem endless and the approaches are quite varied. But if you go at it methodically, you can…
The other day I met with a client in the restaurant of a hotel. After the meeting, I realized that I had left my sweater on the back of the dining chair. The next day…
For many not for profit boards, the first response when faced with raising philanthropic support is: “We need to have a fundraiser!” Though some fundraising events are extraordinarily successful and raise a lot of money,…
David Hirsch talks to special father Jim Mueller. Jim and his wife Margot are parents of three children, Jessica, Lili and Luke, who was born as a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy. Jim tells David of his journey raising a special needs son and how it helped enrich his and his family’s life. Sadly, Luke passed away in December of 2016 but the Mueller family moves forward and Jim shares with us his many insights he learned from being Luke’s father.
Serving on the board of directors is the highest office one can hold in the nonprofit sector. Yet, when it comes to board member recruitment, many times insufficient attention is paid to the qualifications required to fulfill the fiduciary obligations that are the heart and soul of the job.
The purpose of an effective planning process is to deeply understand your organization, to develop sound strategy, and understand your purpose in the context of the community you serve. An effective planning process never leads you to a place where you have such narrow options that you freeze in a crisis. It’s just the opposite.
But you have to stop doing ridiculous things… and start taking time to do the important things. Here is a link to a great article from Forbes about flawed HR practices in the workplace, “Ten…
In this series of posts, I’ve discussed some of the challenges managers face as they help team members negotiate organizational change. The series has a light-hearted approach, using pseudo-scientific names: Benightedness, Phobia, Obliviousia, and Xenoskepticosis….
In this series of posts I’ve been discussing some of the challenges managers face as they help team members negotiate organizational change. The series has a light-hearted approach, using pseudo-scientific names: Benightedness, Phobia, Obliviousia, and…
In this second installment of a four-part series, I write about how to manage the fear of change. Fear as the Fight Response Whenever confronted by change, all of us experience some degree of fear that…
Four Conditions of Underperformance A few years ago, I wrote two chapters for the book You and Your Nonprofit Board: New Thinking from the Field’s Top Practitioners, Researchers, and Provocateurs. As I’ve reflected on one…
There are an array of tools available on the market to help organizations build strong teams. I’ve been exposed to a number of them and each has a unique approach. I use the Axiometrics version…
Managing change is a challenge that organizations constantly face. This was brought home to me again recently as I was reviewing resumes for a client—with the majority of the applicants describing how they are “effective…
Not-for-profit board members, volunteers, and staff members often get very pragmatic advice on how to get over the fear of fundraising. Those approaches include: conduct role-plays, practice “the ask,” use a script, go for a…
We have had two family members living with us supported by in-home hospice care. It is a deeply moving experience that combines the undying, heartfelt love of members of the family with the competence of…
The workplace is changing—employee expectations are no longer what they were a few years ago. There is a lot of evidence that this movement is being fueled by the influx of Millennials, who are…
Converting a strategic plan into effective action is a challenge for many organizations. So much so that there is an anti-strategic planning movement afoot. Proponents say that strategic planning takes too much time and energy. That in today’s…
Since we’ve had requests for a written strategic plan template, here it is. However you craft a plan, it should not be too complex or overblown with lots of narrative. Be concise. The written…
Though the planning template is laid out in phases, strategic planning is not a linear process. It is more of a conversation, with each element informing the other, and through an interactive process, the best…
We receive a number of requests for strategic planning templates. Over the many years I have been involved in strategic planning, I have seen seemingly limitless approaches. On the face of it, one might think: this…
As older generations give way to younger leaders, shifts in leadership styles and effectiveness can leave us at wits end about what to do. The expectations of the younger workforce feel diametrically opposed to the…