Assessing Risky Strategies

Just got off the phone with an organization I've been advising for years.  They are, like some others, in a panic due to a reduction in their state grant....resulting in a loss of 55% of their income.  Yes, it's a crisis, but it's one of the most predictable crises imaginable.  Their work is tangential to core education, so was always likely to feel the ax....and when the financial meltdown came in 2008 I thought it would provide the motivation for the Board to take some risks in order to diversify funding. 

Although we looked at several projects and concepts, the Board never was willing to move in a new direction.  For them, Business As Usual was the strategic choice...and now there's hell to pay.  In the end, the Board was always reluctant to strike out on a different path lest they encounter failure.  It was easier (and more comfortable) just to keep on what they were doing in the past.

I've said it over and over and over, The Status Quo Is Not An Option.  So how can you encourage your nonprofit to open up to new possibilities.  I find a facilitated discussion of these five questions extraordinarily helpful:

• Why is this risky?
• Why is our new initiative better than doing nothing?
• What's the worst that could happen if we fail?
• Even if we fail, what can we learn from the new imitative?
• Is there expert opinion about our initiative?  What do these experts have to say?

If you're working with your Board on strategic discussion which will really push the boundaries of the organization, try these questions.  You'll make progress.

The idea of 'Career' is transforming

We talk a lot about Nonprofit Transformation  but also acknowledge it's our careers that have to transform too. 

Almost every employee today has to consider him- or herself to be, at least partially, an entrepreneur. You should be looking frequently over your shoulder for competitive threats and opportunities. You should continually be updating your portfolio of skills and assets.

Great piece by former editor of Fortune details how organizations are increasingly looking at their people in a short term fashion.

Key Quote: "For about five years now, particularly after dinners that featured wine, human-resources executives have been telling me, "We've come to realize we don't really want most employees for the whole of their careers. We want their particular set of skills when we need them — but then things change so fast, we don't need that particular skill set any more."

ROWE as competitive advantage for nonprofits

Writing in the Boston Globe, Joana Weiss notes that a few companies have embraced a radical form of flexibility: the Results Only Work Environment/’ which posits that when and where people work is irrelevant, so long as the work gets done. But far more often, a pliable schedule is a benefit reserved for a lucky few, or carved out on a case-by-case basis. Instead of treating flexibility in the work place as an added benefit, perhaps we should be thinking of it as a competitive advantage.

Board Effectiveness Starts With the Chairperson

Even the most extraordinary nonprofit CEO cannot achieve the enterprise's fullest potential without a good board chair, as explained by Alice Korngold in Fast Company