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Strategic Thinking

Jan 14
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Courageous Leadership:  A Delicate Balance

By Inspirations, Managing Change, NonProfits, Strategic Thinking No Comments

I’m going to start with the moral of the story:

“Warriors” are what you get when you treat action-minded “worriers” with respect and don’t just try to work around them.

Visionaries are what you get when you treat dreamers with respect and don’t just try point out the potential pitfalls in their ideas.

It is nearly impossible to be both a warrior and a visionary at the same time.

Navigating any worthy initiative needs both types of courage, and they both frustrate the other.

Yesterday, I posted this observation (and the header image here) on Facebook:  “Our clients come in all shapes and sizes, but the one thing they have in common is courage. Remarkable passion fuels these small business, higher ed and nonprofit organization leaders as they fling themselves into the gap between where they are and where they want to be: it’s an honor to support them as they blaze new paths, create better practices, make difficult decisions, have the tough conversations, and generally find ways to defy fear, embrace change, and inspire their teams to do better tomorrow than yesterday.”

As a response to that post, a long-time friend, client and one of my favorite provocateurs reached out to me by email to continue the conversation. For the sake of this discussion, we’ll call him “TJ”.  He was the one who crafted the “moral of the story” (above) and I have asked for his permission to post his thoughts here (orange italics) for the sake of furthering an important discussion:

“Courage is an appropriate word for those leading organizations or teams or families or just themselves.  Not everyone is courageous, but not everyone who is brave is the same.  I would suggest there are two types of courage.  The bold innovators, the true game changers have what I call the Bobby Kennedy style of courage, “I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”  This group is blessed with the ability to see beyond the apparent hurdles to the magnificent horizon.

I would argue many more of us muster a different brand of courage, the courage born from the fear of messing up, the fear of embarrassment, the fear of failure.  Despite all the obstacles they can see and imagine, this group gets out of bed each day and takes the responsibility to keep the ship in the channel, heading to the destination.

My experiences tell me that both types of courage are needed for an entity to succeed, but that very few people have both types.  In fact, I’m not sure it is possible for one person to be both visionary while at the same time sweating the details.  That seems intuitive to me.  But what happens when someone is perceived as fearful because his/her courage is different?

In the best organizations, this difference is recognized, embraced and respected.  In many more organizations, this difference leads to resentment.  I would argue that dreamers need to be challenged to better appreciate those in their organizations that give them the time, space and freedom to dream.  Worriers (for lack of a better term at this point) should be challenged to better recognize the value of those who create the vision and destinations that give organizations meaning, purpose and a future.”

My response:

I would call the latter category — the brave ship steerers you refer to — Warriors instead of Worriers. They muster a different brand of courage, waking up every day, conquering their fears to head back to the project/company/work battlefield despite all the minefields that they know exist (and a whole lot more that are just imagined.)

What too few people understand, and you rightly point out, is that organizations desperately need both the visionary’s courage and the warrior’s courage to successfully find the open blue waters to navigate.

It’s a delicate balance – one represented by a different photo.

Too much or too little of either side’s courage, and the whole operation collapses.

As leadership teams, we must understand that each side doesn’t just benefit from, but RELIES ON the other side to bring their best strengths to the table.

Believing that either brand of courage alone could lead the ship safely is a false confidence that will surely run the ship aground on one path or another: into waters too rocky or shallow to survive or so deep and stormy that the ship will be submerged.

Just acknowledging that there ARE two types of courage (and probably more!) is a huge step towards embracing the balance, and the momentum that can come when that balance is in harmony.

If you are a visionary leader, resist the urge to view the warriors on your team as “worriers.”

If you are a warrior leader, resist the urge to dismiss the “dreamer” side of your visionary colleagues.

We can all navigate more wisely, when we can see how to use all the talents available on the team to their best use.

 

Dec 01
Love0

Make it Better

By Associations, Brands, Inspirations, Strategic Thinking, Uncategorized No Comments

Here at MonkeyBar Management, we have (precious few) guiding principles.

One of them essentially is, “When we don’t do it right, we make it right.”
(Another is that we don’t work with bullies or jerks, but that’s the subject for another post.)

In case you missed it, in advertising news this week, Arby’s somehow had missed honoring a detail of their advertising deal with PepsiCo:  feature Pepsi alongside Arby’s food in two commercials. (That specification was likely in “the fine print,” and clearly it had fallen off of someone’s radar screen and it got missed. It happens.)

And someone at PepsiCo (rightly) called them on it.

Arby’s did three things:
1) they acknowledged the mistake
2) they collaborated with their agency to fix it in a way that didn’t jeopardize all their other creative efforts
3) they took a risk to be human

Their agency (Fallon) went out on a limb and suggested a new ad (if I had to guess, crafted by a probably exhausted and possibly frustrated creative team). An ad that could have been rejected by “the suits,” but one which the savvy humans on the team Arby’s (and then Pepsi) both agreed to run:

And it’s kind of brilliant*.

(*Brilliant, if you know the backstory.  But even if you don’t, it surely accomplishes MORE THAN the letter and the spirit of their agreement with PepsiCo, which surely was the primary audience for this “fix it” job.)

How you behave when you’ve screwed something up is a measure of who you are.

Do you reluctantly fix it, or do you go above and beyond?

Do you “blamestorm,” bluster, make excuses and generally become a pain to work with?

Do you awkwardly try to cover up the goof, or do you own it, ask for forgiveness, and make it right?

When you have the opportunity to make it right, make it memorable.

Don’t just make it right — make it better.

Mar 13
Love0

Scheduled Succession: A Cardinal Sin of Management

By Associations, Managing Change, NonProfits, Strategic Thinking No Comments

Despite my marginally clever play-on-words, this isn’t a post about Pope Francis I. (A man whose qualifications for the job he has just been elected to I am woefully incapable of evaluating.)

What it is a post about is a dangerous phenomenon:  one that I have witnessed in nonprofit associations, in city governments, in businesses large & small, in families, in volunteer committees of all shapes and sizes.

It’s a phenomenon that – given its pervasiveness in society – I could surmise might have plagued the Papal Conclave as well.

It’s His Turn

You’ve surely witnessed this plague in action:

• Susan was the Vice Chair of the event last year, so she’ll become the event Chair this year.

• Max has ‘paid his dues’ on the board for 5 years so he should ascend to the Vice Chairmanship.

• Mary has been the Coordinator in that department for 3 years, so now that Bob has been promoted to Director, she should logically take over his position as Manager.

• The current city council members have an off-the-record conversation that “If Gene wants to run for Mayor, we won’t run against him…”

• He’s the first born (son), so he’s going to take over the family business (country).

I suppose it is statistically possible that the ‘next in line’ actually IS (by coincidence rather than design) the best person for the task at hand.  But particularly given the pace of change in the world today, my observational experience says it’s more-than-likely not to be the case.

Worse than just not ideal – allowing an “It’s His Turn” philosophy to flourish can truly be a kiss of death for an organization. Even the perception of this ethos at work can signal that the company is not actually responsive to client/constituent needs. That merit and skill are less valued than time served. That we are out of touch with what is actually going on in our community. That we are not transparent about our process.

For the sake of the Catholic Church and the 1 billion + people worldwide that they serve, I hope that the College of Cardinals asked questions like these when considering whom to elect:

What specific skills does the organization need today?

What are the biggest obstacles we face on the path to success?

What kind of personality traits are best suited to address our needs and challenges?

What communities will be emboldened or disenfranchised by the selection?

What changes are coming rapidly that we need to prepare for, who has the vision to see them clearly?

To the public eye, the College of Cardinals had the opportunity to choose anyone (well, any Catholic Male) to lead them.  I am hopeful that with days of prayer, reflection, holy wisdom-seeking that they didn’t simply select the person who was the ‘first runner up’ to Benedict during the prior voting. Given the secrecy and lack of transparency surrounding the process, we can’t know. Surely he is being lauded by the media (and Catholic friends of mine who are more equipped to gauge) as the “right man for the job” – with traits that do seem to answer at least some of the questions above.

Decisions in your world may not attract such scrutiny or media attention, but if it feels like “It’s His Turn” for something in your world, ask yourself – ask your team:  SHOULD it be?

And if the answer is no, I pray that you have the courage to vote differently. Your business depends on it.

May 04
Love0

The Naked Truth

By Inspirations, Strategic Thinking 3 Comments

The best ideas, and the truest epiphanies, come to you in the shower  (or so ‘they’ say.)

This morning, I noticed that I held my breath for a moment as I washed my hair.

A new client has given me the opportunity to join a team helping a small business launch a line of organic, toxin- and silicone-free beauty products. Our role is to help them craft a strategy to go from startup to success – to help get them  from where they are to where they want to be. At the conclusion of the first meeting, the team was sent home with sample sized versions, to “see for ourselves.”

I really like the business owner. She’s passionate and genuine, and her product seems to be compelling, legitimate, and fit a need in the marketplace. She’s got incredible energy, a great story, a vision, and is willing to do the work. She knows she needs help. As I poured a quarter-sized dollop into my left hand, I realized that for me, it was the moment of truth.

What if I hate it?

What if it smells funny? What if it leaves my hair feeling limp and disgusting? (One of my few true vanities is my hair.)

I chastised myself for being overly dramatic; I made quite a ridiculous picture standing there stark naked debating this dollop of gel in my hand: “So what? It’s shampoo. There are a million.  If you hate this one, there are others.”

… but my job is to help THIS one.

I found myself whispering a little prayer that it would lather.  As the bubbles formed beneath my fingers, the tension in my shoulders eased and I took a deep breath. I was palpably relieved when the scent of the shampoo mixed with the steam was a pleasant herbal – citrus, the resulting effect a kind of aromatherapy sensation. I’m pretty sure I have never paid that much attention in the shower in my life.

I’m not arguing that every piece of work we do has to be an all-encompassing, life-fulfilling, purpose-driven one, but rather proposing that (for me, at least) I do my best work when I care about, believe in, and like the people / products I’m working with. I recognize how fortunate I am to have a career that has provided me a wealth of opportunity to work with products and industries I genuinely like, doing work that makes a difference in the lives of individuals who I care about.

There are only so many hours in the day, and so many days in a lifetime, a number which none of us can know. Can you pour your heart , effort, and your most precious resource of time into something you don’t genuinely like or believe in?

Some people can: they believe in the process or art of what they do without necessarily finding a kinship with or liking the product, company or person itself (criminal defense attorneys, for example, representing a distasteful or possibly-guilty client – but believing in the bigger picture of the justice system). Others can’t detach their personal self-identity from the specific people & products they choose to work with.

Can you?

For me, the answer came in the shower.

Photo credit: Alex France

By the way,  the client here is anonymous, in keeping with the ‘Rules of the Game’. 

Apr 26
Love0

Scorched Earth: Can You Survive?

By Community Management, Event Design, Managing Change, Strategic Thinking 3 Comments

A few years ago, my husband and I became fascinated with the TV show The Colony. It created a mostly-realistic (it’s TV, people, let’s suspend a little disbelief) post-apocalyptic disaster environment, put real people with a variety of skills in and told them to figure out how to survive as a group over a series of weeks. Each person had to look inside themselves and ask, “what skills did I have in my old life that are relevant here to our group’s mission of survival?” As the season unfolded, the group gathered food, built shelters, started fires, filtered water, created small engines, protected themselves from marauders, and generally figured out how to survive. It’s a modern day interpretation on surviving the military ‘scorched Earth’ philosophy.

One of the major challenges I see facing nonprofit organizations today is that many are surviving almost entirely on momentum and history. They’re doing things that have always been done (electing the new committee, producing the annual report, running the tradeshow at X venue) because inertia and momentum keeps things moving. Multi-year contracts exist. Some volunteers feel entitled, others go unengaged.  Staff resources are stretched thin. The infrastructure is complicated and relies on many people playing their individual parts, not unlike an assembly line. Staff and volunteers generally are not incented to ask “what should we be doing differently?” In the meantime, the for-profit world has stepped boldly into direct competition for community, eyeballs, subscribers, participation, sponsor/ad revenue. The competitors are leaner, hungrier, and have cultivated better skills for the fight ahead. (With some slight nuance, this is true for both charitable nonprofits and trade association nonprofits.)

Honestly, I doubt that most traditional nonprofit organizations could survive a ‘scorched Earth’ scenario. Most have cultivated neither the creativity nor the competitive spirit to survive. Joe Rominiecki observed in a blog posting this week that Associations by nature have “a workforce that discovers, likes, and comes to depend on the comfort of the status quo. And it goes without saying that comfort breeds complacency.” 

Your team’s creative skills, sense of competitiveness, and risk tolerance might be sharpened with a little ‘scorched Earth’ exercise. Ask yourself: if literally every dollar of revenue (and expense obligation) that your organization has coming in was gone tomorrow, what would you do?  Where, precisely, would you start rebuilding?  (I’m betting it wouldn’t be a 2 hour staff meeting with highly paid executives debating whether or not your annual report should be printed magazine-style or delivered in an interactive video series.)

In a scorched Earth scenario, you’d ask:

  • What provides the most revenue? Currently? Potentially? (What giant potential revenue source have you not explored because “resources are too tight”?)
  • What do we do that’s most unique in the marketplace today? (If you “used to be” unique and everyone’s copying you now – go forth and figure out how to be different again.)
  • Who do we really need on the team? (Similarly but more painfully, whose skills aren’t useful to us anymore?)
  • Where are the empty places on the map? What will it take to get there? (reference with a hat tip to David Brooks’ New York Times article on the Creative Monopoly)
  • What’s your competitive advantage?  Is it healthy or damaged? (If it’s your members, do you treat them like they are a critical part of your mission or an annoying afterthought?)

When you can answer these questions with some tangibles, list them and prioritize where and how you would start to rebuild your community.

If there were such a thing, the "Doomsday Clock" for old-school nonprofits has ticked notably closer to midnight in recent years.

With the competitive landscape for most organizations out there today, is this really such a far-fetched scenario? Sure, it might not evaporate overnight, but with very few exceptions, the revenue is drying up (let’s stop kidding ourselves that it’s just economic constriction, a lot of it is shifting to other outlets.) If there were such a thing, the Doomsday Clock for old-line nonprofit associations has moved notably closer to midnight in recent years.

If these answers to the ‘scorched Earth’ exercise don’t align with your current organizational structure and division of resources, you have just found the opportunities to make some difficult and likely very painful changes. But the roadmap you have just created is an alternative to near-certain death. You can’t go back to the ‘good old days’ but you can find different ways to thrive that WILL turn back the hands on that Doomsday Clock. A three-or-five year plan isn’t going to cut it. Revenue victories are going daily to the nimble. Are you among them?

Just as the post-apocalyptic scenarios may be a little farfetched (for all but the least optimistic among us,) I do still feel a little comfort knowing I have multiple gallons of freshwater and a generator in the basement. With some courageous leadership, virtually ANY organization can create a team that will not only survive, but thrive in a ‘scorched Earth’ scenario – but you’ll have to burn some old ways of doing things & be ready to eat some of your sacred cows for nourishment along the way.

(Stay tuned for Part II – How to Start a Bonfire & Grind Up the Cow)

Cover photo credit:  George Schick