A Dysfunctional Family

How many times have you heard a co-worker use the phrase, “Oh, we’re like family around here. A big dysfunctional family, but family.”

I cringe when I hear people say that.

If I’m in a job interview and someone who works for that company uses that line, I would run out that door faster than you could blink. I don’t need dysfunction in my life, and I definitely don’t need it in my office. And yet, team dysfunction, for so many organizations, feels like a wicked problem – an intractable, unsolvable issue that you just have to learn to deal with.

As an aspiring or current manager of a nonprofit, you should definitely be familiar with Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. First published in ’02, it’s been a best seller and source of management tools for more than a decade. Lencioni lists the five dysfunctions that keep a team from working together as:

• Absence of trust—unwilling to be vulnerable within the group
• Fear of conflict—seeking artificial harmony over constructive passionate debate
• Lack of commitment—feigning buy-in for group decisions creates ambiguity throughout the organization
• Avoidance of accountability—ducking the responsibility to call peers on counterproductive behavior which sets low standards
• Inattention to results—focusing on personal success, status and ego before team success

Have you been a part of a team where these dysfunctions existed? When I was younger, I definitely tried to keep conflict out of a team environment, but the older I get, the more I see it as a necessary tool. I recently talked about the importance of conflict to a team’s creative process, and you’ll see here that Lencioni agrees. He specifically mentions fear of conflict, not conflict itself, as a dysfunction of a team.

If you’re witnessing any of these dysfunctions in your organization, I recommend taking action immediately. Don’t underestimate the value of team building. Make sure your team knows that you recognize the dysfunctions are there and are committed to making them disappear. Get started by watching this awesome TED Talk about The Marshmallow Test!

The Case for Conflict

In the nonprofit world, we have a tendency to want everything to be warm and fluffy all the time. Sometimes we deal with gritty issues, but they’re touching and moving, and it makes you feel good to make a difference. I’ve heard a lot of people complain that sometimes the work environment doesn’t reflect that positivity. “Why can’t we all just get along? Why can’t be FRIENDS?” The answer? If you never argued, you’d never get anything done.

Okay, so you’d probably still get work done. But it probably wouldn’t be the best work your team is capable of creating. In the past few weeks I’ve started listening to the HBR IdeaCast podcast from the Harvard Business Review. (Side note: I put these little 10-20 minute gems on par with TED Talks. They’re informative, entertaining and full of brilliant ideas. Please start listening immediately.) I recently listened to an episode that was published back in April, an interview with Leigh Thompson, who’s a professor at Kellogg School of Management and author of Creative Conspiracy: The New Rules of Breakthrough Collaboration.

Thompson talked about how conflict can increase creativity. She talked about the value of conflict on a team. It’s not really a new concept in management, but I really like the way she phrased the value of conflict:

On the one hand, conflict can bring a team to its knees with back biting and excessive argumentation, and back stabbing. And that’s kind of referred to as the bad type of conflict. Some people call it personality conflict where you attack the person.

The good type of conflict is what’s known as cognitive conflict, and that’s in some sense kind of what scientists should be doing. So they kind of debate ideas fiercely, but they don’t attack the intentions or personality of the person. There’s a lot of research in the management science literature that says, gosh, the only way you avoid group think and excessive like-mindedness is to have some kind of conflict in a team or group.

 I would definitely encourage you to listen (or read – the link I gave above includes a transcript) to everything Thompson says about conflict enabling creativity. It will really help you reframe the way you think about team conflict. And the important thing to take away here is to encourage cognitive conflict at your organization, not just between staff members, but with the board of directors as well. Make it clear that personality conflicts are unacceptable, but that your organization actually benefits from the diversity of ideas that healthy debate creates.

Everyone’s got needs

I know you. You’ve got expectations. You’ve got wants. You’ve got needs. Don’t we all? With a liberal arts education, I think I heard about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs no fewer than 15 times a semester during my undergraduate program. You’ve probably seen it, too:

A needs theory you may not be familiar with, though, is David McClelland’s theory of needs that puts things into a managerial context. His theory consists of the need for achievement, affiliation and power. I learned of this theory a few weeks ago, and find it to be an important and relevant concept to apply when motivating employees in a nonprofit organization.

As I’ve talked quite a bit about in this blog, employees in nonprofits tend to be motivated by much, much more than a paycheck. They tend to be very invested in the advancing the mission of the organization and motivated by the sense of fulfillment they receive when they know they’re supporting a cause they believe in. But a good manager doesn’t leave it at that.

McClelland, who was a psychologist that published his theory in the ‘60s, believed those who are motivated by a need for achievement are great with tasks. They like being able to check things off their list, and feedback on those tasks is extremely important to them. Others have a need for affiliation; they care a lot about social interaction. They want to be accepted by a group and like to collaborate. Finally, there are those who have a need for power. That sounds kind of sinister, doesn’t it? It’s not, I promise. These folks want to influence, teach or encourage others. Their status does matter to them, and they work well in competitive environments.

These are easy-to-understand categories, and it’s a pretty simplistic way at looking at what motivates your employees. But I think it works. If you couple an understanding of these motivations with an employee’s intrinsic investment in your nonprofit organization, you should be able to motivate your staff in ways that they can relate to. So, yes, your staff may be needy, but when their needs are so easy to meet, can you really afford to ignore them?

Reflections on Carnegie and Cialdini

Dale Carnegie and Robert Cialdini are giants in the management world. Carnegie’s seminal book How to Win Friends and Influence People was first published in 1936, and is a rare gem that has continued to be relevant and useful more than 75 years later. Cialdini’s less well known outside of the business world, but has been lauded and hailed since his 1984 publication of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

Both of these management icons present useful arguments on how to motivate people to do what you need them to do. But they go about it pretty differently. Carnegie penned his classic before a ton of scholarly research was done on the matter, and his points are more personal than Cialdini’s. I won’t go over each and every point from both books, but I want to point out some of my favorite concepts.

Carnegie says that when you’re handling people, you shouldn’t criticize, condemn or complain, but you should give honest and sincere appreciation. Isn’t that lovely? Don’t you wish those were just The Rules for Life? That pretty much sets the tone for every other suggestion Carnegie makes. It boils down to being genuine and kind and generous with praise. Be polite and respectful. That’s pretty much it. Carnegie’s book is a great for leading a Fortune 500 business or for raising children.

Cialdini has a much more academic approach to influence. He lists the key principles as reciprocity, commitment & consistency, social proof, authority, liking and scarcity. I don’t love the approach that Cialdini takes, though. The framing of his content feels like more manipulation than persuasion. It’s a thin line. Jonathan Winters, the author of Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance, blogged about it recently, saying:

The difference between persuasion and manipulation lies in:

1) The intent behind your desire to persuade that person,


2) The truthfulness and transparency of the process, and 


3) The net benefit or impact on that person

Do you think a good manager persuades or influences? Or is there room for both?

What Makes a Good Leader?

There’s a lot of debate about how you define a great manager. Is it someone who effectively manages projects? Someone who knows how to get the best out of his people? Maybe it’s someone who has a consistently happy team.

Jack Welch writes in Winning that “good leadership happens – and it comes in all kinds of packages.  There are quiet leaders and bombastic ones.  There are analytical leaders and more impulsive ones.  Some are tough as nails with their teams and others are more nurturing.  On the surface, you would be hard-pressed to say what qualities these leaders share.  Underneath, you would surely see that the best care passionately about their people – about their growth and success.”

Leaders and effective managers can learn the skills to make them more effective. Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman co-wrote a short blog post on the Harvard Business Review website, which is definitely worth a read, but it boils down to this: Managers can learn how to be inspirational leaders. It’s sort of a crazy idea, right? When I think of inspiring leaders, I tend to think it’s a trait people are born with or not. Now, I certainly think that anyone can learn to be a great leader, but I think an inspiring leader is an entirely different ball game. It’s about charisma, the x-factor, the intangibles that make someone special. Not really the case, say Folkman and Zenger. They looked at a large pool of managers and pulled out 100 who were inspirational leaders.

“Some of what they did was specific and tangible. For example, they set stretch goals with their team. They spent time developing their subordinates. They engaged in highly collaborative behavior. They encouraged those about them to be more innovative.”

Those seem like doable things that achievable by anyone who is willing to learn. The authors (who have done a ton of research on the matter) agreed. So they put it to the test by finding 822 executives who were measured in their leadership competencies.

“Focusing on the 310 who chose to improve their ability to inspire others we found that as a group they made impressive strides — moving from the 42nd percentile (that is, below average) to the 70th percentile. This is a statistically significant positive gain, and compelling evidence that when leaders use the right approach they can learn to become more inspiring.”

Pretty spectacular change. So now that you know you can take conscious steps to make yourself into a good leader, instead of accepting that perhaps you weren’t born as one, will you do it? What barriers stand in your way? How can you make the change in yourself happen?

Strategic Planning or Plugging Away?

The Benefits of a Strategic Plan for Nonprofit Organizations

There’s a common theme when it comes to team building, board retreats, strategic planning and SWOT analyses in the nonprofit world: It would be nice to do, but who has the time or budget for that? When your primary concern as an organization is feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, or any other high-minded cause to better the community, it’s easier to plug away at your mission than to hit pause for a strategic planning session.

Another reason organizations may ignore the importance of strategic planning is because they believe it has primarily to do with mission and vision planning. While it’s true that those are traditionally important elements of strategic planning, it’s certainly not the sole purpose or outcome of such activities.

Sue Waector,director of Cornerstone Consulting Associates and a great voice of best nonprofit management practices, blogged about several reasons why strategic planning is crucial for nonprofits. These activities can:

 

• Help organizations prepare for the future: As the popular saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up someplace else.” A strategic plan outlines the steps to achieve a desired future for an organization. It is comforting for board, staff, and volunteers to have a roadmap to follow. The planning process prioritizes the work to be done. Strategic planning facilitates making short-term decisions based on long-term implications. Most important, a strategic plan provides a series of agreements about what needs to happen. It is a dynamic document that lending flexibility to the organization so that when change occurs, the plan can be adapted to accommodate the changes.

• Promote effective stewardship: Practicing good stewardship means being accountable to others. In the case of charitable organizations, clients and funders of a nonprofit organization assume they will pay for services or donate money, respectively, to the organization, which will re-invest the revenues to address the social need. Similarly, association members and foundation board members and grantees assume that funds will be used for the greatest impact. Because strategic planning helps nonprofit organizations fulfill their missions, it also helps them be stewards of the public’s trust.

• Align the board and staff: When there is shared purpose and direction (“we’re all in the same boat,”) there is the basis of a high-performance team. When individuals are focused on the same goal or outcome, they feel a certain amount of synergy and often set aside differences, help each other, and become invested in a common purpose. An organization’s mission cannot be achieved without board members and staff who agree on a common direction and are committed to achieving success for the organization.

So even if a nonprofit’s staff, board, volunteers and other stakeholders all understand and are fully committed to the mission of the organization, any nonprofit can still benefit from the exercise.

Another element of strategic planning that is often ignored in nonprofits is the analysis that can happen centered around special events. While there’s great debate in the nonprofit community right about the general effectiveness of fundraising events, the reality is that many nonprofits still host regular special events – whether for fund or friend raising. I believe these events can have their place in many organizations’ development plans, particularly when analysis occurs afterward. A particularly useful tool in strategic planning that can be applied to event planning is a SWOT analysis. After an event is over – the sooner after the event, the better – staff and volunteers can examine the strengths and weaknesses of the event, as well as opportunities and threats. The critical thinking and conversations that occur with SWOT analysis can help improve future events, or in some cases, may tell an organization that the event is not serving the purpose it was intended to serve.

Does your organization believe in strategic planning or plugging away at the mission and daily activities that keep your services running? Which do you think is better? Are there organizations out there that wouldn’t benefit from strategic planning or SWOT analysis?

Substance or Fluff? Why Team Building Matters

When you work in a nonprofit, a cohesive team is arguably the most crucial component to fulfilling the organization’s mission. The stresses, heavy workloads and low compensation rates associated with being on staff at a nonprofit can create a perfect storm for dissatisfied employees, heavy turnover and the expenses related with training, hiring and lost productivity. Nonprofit employees tend to be heavily invested in the cause of their organization, which is a great thing – but can also lead to emotions running high and disagreements running rampant.

Many nonprofit managers take this as an unavoidable part of the nonprofit world, but does it necessarily have to be? What steps can a manager take to build a happier, more productive team? A case study done for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) indicates that one component of successful team-building is making a purposeful activity in the strategic plan of the organization. The study, which is published on the The Center for Association Leadership‘s website, says AIAA was facing tough decisions regarding how to make the organization more efficient during the downturn in the aerospace industry in the early ’90s. So,

“In 1996, as part of the reengineering process, AIAA decided it was necessary not just to adapt the association to the changing trends, but also to create what would eventually become an entirely new corporate culture.”

The organization decided to focus on facilitating teamwork, fostering a continuous learning environment, and being more flexible and adaptive. AIAA discovered several benefits of effective team building.

The positive outcomes that resulted from this training approach included:

• Reduction in number of required meetings as communication takes place in other forms with other tools.
• Reduction in necessary supervision, as competent managers emerged from the team structure to handle situations more quickly.
• Reduction in wasted resources, as most tasks are completed efficiently and right the first time since a plan was thought out and implemented.
• Perhaps most importantly, operation under a unified, concise, and understandable strategy with supporting tactics.

Can you think of a single organization that couldn’t benefit from these kinds of results? And yet, in the nonprofit world, team building is often seen as an added cost, time away from work, and an unnecessary distraction from the mission. I think that self-assessments are an important part of the team building experience. Yes, it’s important to know what motivates us and why we respond the way we do, but understanding the same thing about our coworkers has a revolutionary impact on the team dynamic. It’s much easier to tolerate someone’s different method for achieving a task when you understand that they process information and their environment completely differently than you do.