The 5 Talents Of Great Nonprofit Organizations

The data backs up what I've observed over all these years.  Great nonprofits (and great leaders) posses these five characteristics.

1. Gift For Articulating Easily Understood Mission, Goals and Objectives

Not sure I even need to comment on this one.   Remember how you were taught the 'elevator speech' in your professional development course?  Great organizations have that ability , and it's not just the Director.  Staff and volunteers easily rattle off their reason for being, where they are going and how they will get there. 

2. Capacity To Honestly Evaluate Effectiveness

Call this the Anti-Lake Woebegone Effect (where all the children are above average).  Illusory superiority causes many nonprofits to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities.  Great organizations have cold, objective eyes with which to view program outcomes as well as effectiveness of individual members within the organization

3. Knack For Locating and Recruiting 'A' List Talent

With a corollary of having zero tolerance for underperformance.  Correlates with Hire Slow, Fire Fast.  Jim Collins in Good To Great emphasizes getting the right people on the bus...and getting the wrong people off the bus.  I'd add to that the importance of getting people in the right seat.

4. Competence For Efficiently Coordinating Tasks Among Various Board, Staff, Volunteers

Moving everyone in the same direction with a minimum of friction.  Nothing kills morale like having people work at cross-purposes.  Tania Bogatova and Joyce Miller in their book on Lean Operations for service organizations document the chief wasteful activities which eat up resources and degrade the talents of your people. 

5. Ability To Draw Resources From Surrounding Environment

This is not just money, but the subtler things such as knowledge, materials, networks.

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9 Steps To Coaching Millennials In The Workplace

Ah yes, leadership back in the news again as Gallup finds Millennial employees are seriously disgruntled at the poor mentorship they get from their Boomer and GenX supervisors.  Their conclusion: Growing professionally will mean moving to a new job.

 

I once worked for an Executive Director who often would say 'My real job title is Head Coach".  And right she was.  It's a point I emphasize in my series on The New Executive Director.  The idea that if you don't coach them, your best employees will look towards another organization.

 

While there are several thousands books on being an effective coach to your employees, I find they mostly boil down to nine basic principles:

• Put the employee at ease. This step is important when the coaching session is a response to poor performance--it's not as important in other situations.
• Find out what they already know. There are two reasons for this. First, there's little use in telling them what they already know. Second, prior knowledge serves as the foundation for new knowledge that's acquired. Hence, you want to link the "training" to what they already know and correct any misconceptions that could interfere with their learning.
• Present information or demonstrate work methods. This is the point where you deliver the content of the training.
• Repeat. Repetition enhances understanding and retention.
• Evaluate learning. Test whether the employee understands the information or can perform the skill.
• Provide feedback. Let the employee know what they have successfully learned and what they still need to learn.
• Correct. Show the right answers or methods again.
• Evaluate performance on the job. Periodically check to see whether the employee is using the knowledge or skills effectively on the job. Gradually increase the interval at which you check. The employee should eventually take responsibility for monitoring their own performance.
• Reward. Provide praise or other rewards for successful acquisition and use of the knowledge or skill.

 

What Your Employees Secretly Want From You

Google is cutting edge management, right?  Well, for most of its history, Google prioritized in-depth technical expertise as the most important quality in a manager. They thought that the best leaders left their people alone, and that their primary function was to support technical problems when people got stuck.

Ah, but then came data.  A firm was brought in to conduct in-depth employee surveys, focus groups and interviews.  The results were shocking for the tech heads.  When the chiefs at Google examined what employees valued most in a manager, technical expertise ranked dead last.   Far outpacing techy knowledge, staff valued characteristics such as emotional stability (staying even-keeled), asking good questions, taking time to meet with staff and caring about employees’ careers.

In the end, Google found that managers who did these things led top-performing teams and had the happiest employees and least turnover (and remember, turnover is a HUGE hidden expense). So Google made changes in how it selects and coaches managers, devoting particular effort to improving its worst managers.The result, for the first time in many years Google beats Facebook in employee satisfaction.