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| 9 Nov 2020 | |
| General |
Simone P. Joyaux, ACFRE, Adv Dip, FAFP, Certificate in Phil Psych
www.simonejoyaux.com | spjoyaux@aol.com | @spjoyaux
This article originated from my presentation at the Charities Institute Ireland 2020 Charity Leadership Summit, October 2020. The summit theme was “Leadership in Uncertainty”.
Uncertainty…Hardly New
First, a product warning: This is a challenging article. And pretty full of some anger and certainly some sadness. But, I’ve also suggested strategies for improvement. So here goes…
Everyone keeps saying that this (whatever “this” is) is the “new normal”.
But I don’t think that’s true. It’s not new. It’s simply normal.
There have been pandemics before[1]. For example:
And that’s just a mini overview of some healthcare issues.
How about the climate stuff that’s happening? Destroying swaths of land around the world. Making people homeless. Killing crops – and killing people. And, still, some people question the validity of climate change.
Let’s not forget stupid political behavior just about everywhere – far too much of the time.
How about some war – big or small – somewhere? And of course, big wars like World War I and II. What happens if there’s WWIII?
Oh, another thing: financial stuff. There’s a recession mostly on schedule every 7+ years. Mostly global economic recessions because we’re so well connected these days. I assume you regularly consider this, plan for this, get ready for this?[2]
None of this is any “new normal”.
This is our world. Uncertainty.
This is what we’ve made and keep making. Or at least, it’s unclear how well we’re anticipating and planning for and getting prepared.
“One thing I’ve learned is that downturns expose organizational weaknesses, poor practices and downright neglect.”
That’s a statement from Roger Craver[3] in his Agitator Blog of April 20, 2020, “Donor Preservation in the Pandemic”. I fully support Roger’s statement.
So let me elaborate.
It’s you and me and the others: Our governments. Our for-profit corporations. Our beloved nonprofit/NGO sector that shares responsibility for those organizational weaknesses, poor practices, and the downright neglect.
Yes. As a society, community (and often as individuals), we are responsible.
Consider Roger’s three areas:
1. Organizational weaknesses: How often does your entity monitor, identify, examine – and then fix its weaknesses? For example: Monitoring short-term, mid-term, and long-term finances. Tracking the implications of elections – from local to national and international? Evaluating community needs and your organization’s responses. And on and on!
2. Poor practices: Do you see elected officials and business leaders and our nonprofit organizations learning? Are these organizations, entities, and leaders lifelong learners? For example, are they always reviewing the new academic (not just practitioner!) research?
I don’t see very many (or certainly not enough) lifelong learners. In the nonprofit space where I work (as an expert in fundraising, management, governance, strategic planning) – I hear too many board members denying the expertise of staff and consultants like me.
I hear so many nonprofit CEOs directing their staff not to follow well-researched best practice – because the CEO doesn’t like the research…because the CEO is the CEO and s/he/they know best[4]. And because the board members – who of course know more about everything and anything, especially if they are wealthy – don’t agree.
3. Downright neglect: What’s that? Failing to care for something/someone properly. The dictionary actually describes “neglect” as a form of abuse. I see lots of that in nonprofit fundraising and governance.
For example, one of my pet peeves – liable to cause some level of Joyaux fury – using the term “major donor” or “major gift” in my presence. How insulting and inequitable and exclusionary that language is. Shame on us fundraisers.
What I think is happening
Poor performance on the part of governments, for-profit corporations, and even my beloved nonprofit sector.
Intentional – yes intentional! – ignorance in the three sectors.
Too “busy” to learn. Too “overwhelmed” to reach beyond the narrow confines of one’s own comfort zone. Confident in one’s own knowledge, experience, expertise – by virtue of position, race/ethnicity, gender identity, affluence/wealth – and on and on.
The really big question
Do you – individually and personally – want to change?
Does your organization/entity want to change?
Are you and your colleagues willing to question, challenging long held (and even new) assumptions? Do you and yours embrace lifelong learning? Are you committed to diversity, inclusion, and equity?
So what’s your plan to do this very hard work, this adjusted way of living and performing and?
Next steps: preparing for any future that could come along…a specific tool
I’ve been wrestling with the ever-changing “normal” for years and years. Fighting to build an organization’s capacity to question, learn – and if necessary, change.
Back in 2012 or so, I was planning a two-day masterclass to present at the IFC.[5] The masterclass theme? Planning for any future that could come along.
So, I developed a tool. See pages 5 and 6 of this handout. Check it out. I hope it might help your organization.
And if you have questions – or want to engage – contact me. We can talk.
The tool includes a series of questions for board and staff to consider – and not just maybe once per year. Questions for managing today, anticipating tomorrow, and planning for the future. Perspectives for board and staff to consider pretty much regularly – and sometimes more often than other times.
The tool, “Planning for Any Future That Could Come Along” is based on several key criteria:
· Understanding and applying several of Peter Senge’s[6] business theories: Systems thinking and learning organization business theories. Conversation (rather than discussion) as a core business practice.
· Applying different lenses and various vantage points for thinking and exploring, learning and changing.
· Valuing the criticality of organizational culture, introduced by management guru Peter Drucker. The phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast and lunch” neatly summarizes the primacy of this theory in any operation.
Check out this fundraising book, Fundraising 401: Masterclasses in nonprofit fundraising that would make Peter Drucker proud. Author and fundraiser Laurence A. Pagnoni (LAPA Fundraising), was a student and member of the Peter Drucker Institinte in the 1990s.
In conclusion…please please please
There’s always a new normal. Changes big and small.
Uncertainty is life. Yesterday. Today. And tomorrow.
All sectors – government, for-profit business, and our beloved philanthropic/NGO sector should and can be prepared – or at least better prepared.
Surely that’s our moral, ethical, and legal responsibility as individuals, governments,
for-profit corporations, and definitely for our beloved nonprofit philanthropic sector.
Indeed, my favorite definition of philanthropy is “voluntary action for the common good”. That statement comes from Bob Payton.[7]
So how about we really push to avoid Roger’s organizational weaknesses, poor practices and downright neglect?
How about we ask the challenging questions and foster meaningful conversation. And learn and change and act.
Please. There’s always a new normal – equally full of uncertainty. Are you ready? Will you be ready?
Planning for any future that could come along
(2012; 2017)
Using questions and conversation. Applying different lenses. Monitoring the environment.
1. Exploring issues from various vantage points: think big and think small.
· How useful are the various vantage points/lenses below? How can these guide information gathering, create conversation, build a stronger nonprofit? (Or for-profit or government!)
· How can you use these concepts to explore issues from various vantage points? How can you use these concepts to build a nonprofit that effectively prepares for any possible future?
· Foreseeing & preparing. Anticipating & preventing. Intervening & fixing. Worth it or not?
a. Paying attention to gradually and suddenly[8]
i. How do you lose value? Gradually: What are you missing? Which opportunities? Which problems? And suddenly you notice, usually too late.
ii. How does an organization “see” the gradual to avoid the sudden? Gradually is actually the only think we can do something about.
b. Foreseeing the unforeseeable
i. What issues – in our local and global environments – might we have anticipated as governments, nonprofits and corporations? How?
ii. What might be unforeseeable in our sector, in the external environment, for your nonprofit – but we must foresee to remain strong and effective?
iii. How will you build an organization to help foresee the unforeseeable?
c. Anticipating unintended consequences
· How effectively does your nonprofit identify unintended consequences now? How can your nonprofit improve this?
d. Imagining that the inconceivable becomes inevitable
i. What are examples of this in society? In the NGO sector? In your NGO?
ii. What makes something that was once inconceivable become inevitable? How/why does this happen?
iii. To what degree is this inevitability a result of a, b, c, and d above?
e. “A form whose end is discernible (if not imminent.)”[9]
· Rather like “inconceivable and inevitable.” But different…
f. Distinguishing between concern and alarm
i. If you’re a nuclear power plant: Three Mile Island is concern. Fukushima Daichii is alarm.
ii. What criteria can your nonprofit use to distinguish between concern and alarm?
g. Differentiating between risk and gamble
i. The military describes risk as having a way out. But gamble? There’s no way out.
ii. How do we create shared understanding of risk and gamble within your nonprofit?
iii. What criteria can your nonprofit use to differentiate between risk and gamble?
iv. What is a good process to effectively manage risk and avoid a gamble?
v. How does an organization identify the stop-loss moment?
h. Navigating uncertainty and chaos…managing conflicting obligations…[10]
i. How do we incorporate this into our organizations, mainstream this into our lives?
i. Using disruption, intentional or not.
i. What is disruption? How can we use it, intentionally, to stimulate change?
ii. What is the distinction between change and disruptive change?
iii. To what degree – in what ways – is disruption essential to change?
j. Is that the best we can do? The better question: “What resources would enable us to do even better?”[11]
i. How can we do better? What will it take? Is the ROI sufficient?
ii. And if we cannot do better – and no one can help us do so – then what?
k. How do we build into an organization the concept of regularly discovering and exploring what we don’t know?
i. What don’t we know?
ii. How do we recognize that there’s stuff we don’t know – and we don’t know that we don’t know?
iii. How do we confront that we don’t even know that we don’t know stuff?
2. Why would we say “no?” Seth Godin said it so well: “If you believe that you must keep your promises, over deliver and treat every commitment as though it's an opportunity for a transformation, the only way you can do this is to turn down most opportunities. No, I can't meet with you, no I can't sell it to you at this price, no I can't do this job justice, no I can't come to your party, no I can't help you. I'm sorry, but no, I can't. Not if I want to do the very things that people value my work for. No is the foundation that we can build our “yes’”on.”[12]
3. In summary: preparing for any future that could come along
a. How do we avoid being reactionary and be more proactive?
b. How do we move from strategic planning to incubating innovation?
c. How do we decide – and what are the criteria for determining – the key leverage points for action for the next several years? What is the rate of risk or gamble for each leverage point?
[1] P.S. “It turns out that U.S. public health leaders and scientists have been planning for a catastrophe just like Covid-19 for decades. We didn’t just write the pandemic playbook, we exported it to the world.” (The New York Times, 10-29-20: “How America Helped Defeat the Coronavirus – Just not in the United States.”) Some Americans were planning ahead.
[2] Here’s a not-so-funny story: A few years ago, I began asking my clients and presentation audiences if their organizations were talking about Brexit. First, some people (obviously USA-ers) asked what Brexit was. And pretty much all of them asked “Why is that relevant to our organization here in the USA? I explained what Brexit was (and is!) – and its financial implications for the European economy – which would impact the global economy. And and and … And pretty much most (if not all) of the organizations said that Brexit was irrelevant to them.
[3] Roger Craver is an American fundraiser and campaigner for progressive causes. He’s a pioneer of liberal political and movement direct mail… One of the first fundraisers to apply direct mail methodology to movement and political fundraising… He helped launch fundraising programs in such organizations as the ACLU, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Sierra Club, Amnesty International, Greenpeace and… [Wikipedia] Read his book Retention Fundraising: The New Art and Science of Keeping Your Donors for Life. Also check out his daily free blog, The Agitator.
[4] See my article “Opinion Vs. Expertise” in the Free Download Library on my website.
[5] The U.K.’s Resource Alliance has hosted the International Fundraising Congress for many many years. It’s truly an international conference – with attendees and speakers from every part of the globe –Asia, Africa, South and North America, Eastern and Western Europe, Oceania…
[6] Senge is an American systems scientist and senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He’s also the founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning. Senge emerged in the 1990s as a major figure in organizational development. (From Wikipedia)
[7] Robert L. Payton was the co-founder and director of the world’s first Center on Philanthropy. His influence on philanthropy – through teaching, writing, and interactions worldwide – were immeasurable. By the way, Bob was also a jazz musician, president of two universities, and the American ambassador to Cameroon.
[8] Seth Godin’s blog, Friday, January 17, 2014, “Gradually and then suddenly.” Godin is a serial entrepreneur, author, blogger, and…
[9] Frank Rich, New York Magazine, April 11, 2014. Commenting on the future of late-night television.
[10] NPR (National Public Radio, USA) conversation with Dr, Mihir A. Desai, Harvard University. Author of The Wisdom of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return.
[11] Seth Godin’s blog 01-23-14. Responding to “Is that the best we can do?” No! The answer is always “no.” Obviously, the better question is, “What resource would enable us to do even better?” Seth concludes: “When the cost of the resource (time, people, money, freedom, boundary easing) is worth the benefit, then sure, go for it. If you can’t make it better, hire someone who can.”
[12] Seth Godin’s blog of 05-13-14.
If this article was of interest to you then please check out Simone’s webinar on the same topic. Click on the button below to register to view this on-demand session.
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