Archives
April 2024
Categories
All
|
Back to Blog
THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING11/23/2022 A few months ago, a CEO told me that it seemed, 'everything is in order.' They are moving into a new building, operations have been reconfigured to accommodate an enlarged mandate, expanded personnel, and with secured funding, it is looking promising. When everything is in order, is it not the best opportune time to plan your next steps? Here are eight issues that CEOs of social purpose organizations spend their time on: -Board Leadership and Governance -Staff/Personnel Issues -Financial Sustainability -Stakeholder Concerns -Communications and Reputational Issues -Operations/Programming -Strategic Questions -Innovations, Adaptation and Resilience Which of these eight issues are focused on putting out fires and which are for innovation and building capacity for the future? They are all areas to look for innovation, adaptation, and resilience. Let your managers and staff know that they can lead to innovate in their departments. These are systems and they all overlap for the organization. Wherever you are in the chart, change happens when people and systems change. Anticipate that something will come up when you're putting things in order as a cause and consequences of those actions. Growth requires vigilance to outcomes and the resoluteness to continue in the direction of change. Ultimate, it's about minds, hearts, and systems in complete synergy and harmony.
0 Comments
Read More
Back to Blog
PERFORMATIVE STRATEGY10/14/2022 How many organizations have strategies that are unimplemented? You will never know unless you get inside the cubicle. This is not just prevalent in the profit sector, not for profit organizations are as well not implementing their strategies. I question this: if the strategies are not implemented, why are they expending their staff time and managerial attention on something that will not be used at all? There is simply no logic to this! When I asked an Executive Director why not? The answer I got was: "We just make this because of our funders. We have to wait for the funding cycle to begin to really create a strategy that will restructure the way we work. For now, it will be just a transitional one." Fair enough. I get the point of transitional strategy. Emergent design is what the current climate calls. Managers and executives must adapt to the rigors and demands of modern organizations where supply chain issues, financing and sustainability, climate and diversity challenges, impact day-to-day decisions. But non-implementation is a totally different issue. I vehemently challenge the notion of doing something for something else's and not for the benefit of the creator. What drives this performative action is a culture of obligation, 'looking good,' and conformity. In my book Provocateurs, I discussed how the culture of conformity creates conditions for organizations to punish early-warning signs of problems and issues, which leads to you know, failures. The same culture of conformity outlaws innovation, creativity, and simply rebellious thinking that shifts control and power. Your donors do not know you're doing this. Probably, I bet, that this practice is not something that is generally accepted and outwardly legitimized. But because this is what's happening, I also bet that this is not a one-off deal. More organizations are acting this way despite what management books are saying. Practice defines organizations. Tell me who's not implementing their strategy, and I will tell you there's more to the strategy than meets the eye.
Back to Blog
DIAGNOSING YOUR OWN PROBLEM6/20/2022 Leaders of on-purpose organizations are trying hard to diagnose their own problems. They may get to symptoms but it will be way off from the mark in terms of what's the cause of their miseries or wasting the opportunities they should be claiming. In short, value left on the table.
It's like trying to be a doctor and treating your own illness. Or doing your own surgery for which you're not trained or even qualified to do. They want to get the cheapest doctor or specialist. They think they can do it themselves. They look for commodities as against the right resource for the right kind of value-increasing proposition facing them. This is not a question of money or the question of time or competency of staff, Board, or executive to undertake. This is about the political will and the right measure for risks. This represents the overabundance of caution based on a fear-based leadership. Are you leading based on fear by being afraid to expose your own truths to yourself? Change readiness is the attitude, motivation, and drive to change. It starts with you, now, and not tomorrow. |