Identify Nonprofit Staff Groups To Help Drive Organizational Change

Identify Nonprofit Staff Groups To Help Drive Organizational Change.

By Eugene Fram     

Nonprofit executive directors Board Members tend to think of the staff professionals as individual contributors. These individuals are persons who mainly work on their own and increasingly also have to contribute as team players – for instance, counselors, health care professionals, curators and university faculty. However, many executive directors fail to recognize that these individual contributors can be grouped according to identifiable types, with differing work-value outlooks. Each group needs to be motivated differently to drive change in today’s fast moving social, political and technological environments. Nonprofit board members can use these groupings in their responsibilities for overseeing promotable staff members.  

From years of observation of a variety of nonprofits the late Robert Pearse, a psychologist, and I have identified four major groups that have been labeled “Nostalgics,” “Maintainers,” “Producers’ and “Builders.” Executive directors and board directors who do not recognize the existence of such groups and the special needs to motivate and evaluate them differently may not achieve the forward motion or the performance goals that are required in the 21st century.

An identifiable group may dominate a department or it may have members in different departments. In many cases, a single group may include professionals with disparate personalities but whose work-value systems are similar.

Meet, for example, Sarah Thomas, a congenial department head who has spent the past decade in a nonprofit trade association, and Jack Engels, a brusque cost accountant in the association’s financial division. Sarah is well liked by the members of her department, while Jack is largely left alone in his work.

On the surface, Sarah and Jack appear to have little in common. Closer observation, however, shows that they are alike in one important aspect. Sarah’s department, which she has headed for the past six years, performs at a satisfactory level. Over the years, Sarah has tended to hire staff professionals who have  work-values like her own. They are good – but not outstanding – performers. The group gets regular work done but rarely exhibits creative efforts or critical thinking.  A recurring complaint from Sarah and her people is, “The department has too much to do.”

Jack Engels, the brusque accountant, also gets his work done, even though he shows little enthusiasm for his work. It is just a job, and he is averse to any change, except that mandated by accounting requirements.

Both Sarah and Jack are Maintainers, for both are comfortable with the status quo. If the executive director and/or board members were to allow the Maintainers standards to pervade the entire organization’s performance, it would likely stagnate and eventually decline.

Nostalgics are generally easy to recognize because they identify so strongly with the organization’s past history and culture. Many of them tend to be long tenured professionals whose performance has leveled off over time. They tend to take pride in being dedicated to the nonprofit but are uncomfortable with changes they perceive as breaking sharply with tradition.

The following strategies are helpful in working with Nostalgics:
• Respond to their need to revere and emotionally relive the past.
• Encourage the “willing worker” value system of group members.
• Show how proposed changes will perpetuate past glory by contributing to organizational longevity and prominence.
• Recognize that Nostalgics lack vision and prefer to avoid direct confrontation about the future direction of the organization.

Maintainers constitute the largest group in virtually all organizations, as illustrated by Jack and Sarah, they are average performers who typically have less tenure but also possess more currently useful skills than Nostalgics.  They do only what is required by a job description or implied contract. Although they appreciate having a professional position, they have not internally accepted the self-directed performance behavior one typically associates with being a professional.

Several guidelines are helpful in working with Maintainers.
• Be alert to the strong “legacy” value system at work in this professional group-all established processes can be successful in the future.
• Depend on group members for low to average productivity but be aware that requests for increased productivity or increased self-management are likely to generate resentment and hostility.
• Emphasize the pressures in the organization’s external environment that require professional performance improvement. Indicate how such improvements are important to long-term job security.
• Set modest but attainable performance improvement goals on an annual basis. (Note: If a complete turnaround is essential, for the organizational survival, this slow improvement will not be adequate.)
• Expect some continuing hostility whenever Maintainers feel new standards put pressure on them for sustained higher performance and commitment.

Producers are a varied collection of highly individual “type-A” workaholics who are motivated by their own goals. They tend to work on their own, but can be useful as team leaders if required for time limited projects. Because work output is the core of their existence, they see few differences between their personal and professional lives, sometimes leading to an unhealthy work-life balance.  This can be a larger challenge if work forces are increasingly working from home.   Producers will support changes initiated by the executive director that they perceive will enable them to produce more efficiently as individuals.

The executive director can try to motivate Producers’ effectiveness in the following ways:

  • Channel Producers’ vigorous efforts into organizational priorities by linking Producers’ special interests to the mission and goals of the nonprofit.
    • To the extent possible, provide Producers with the resources needed to be self-managing and productive.
    • Wherever possible, remove bureaucratic roadblocks to their productivity.
    • Agree annually on goals, and let Producers achieve them with a minimum of supervision and with appropriate rewards .

Builders, unlike Producers, are committed to furthering the goals of the organization, even at the expense of his or own personal goals. A senior nurse, who agrees to become an administrator, even though he or she prefers to care for patients, is an example of a Builder. Builders fall into two categories: vague visionaries and organized progressives. The former group’s attention span shifts rapidly from one detail of a proposed change to another. They lack sustained capacity for completing long-term performance improvement. The members of the latter group, organized progressives, are systematic thinkers who think quickly. Once they have a picture in mind, they can provide the executive director with knowledgeable and strong support.

An executive director can motivate the Builder group in the following ways:
• Use the vague visionary Builders to help sell others when launching new performance programs.
• Explain to organized progressives how their Builder values can contribute to a long-term systematic improvement plan.
• Give organized progressives strategic follow-up assignments to ensure the new program will move forward.
• Provide Builders with superior performance rewards..

If nonprofits are to continue to serve the nation in the current turbulent difficult time, executive directors and volunteer board members will need to provide strong support to their Builders and Producers and their work-value systems. In addition, they must also motivate the Nostalgic and Maintainer groups, using the suggestions cited above.

We hope this blog will spur board members, executive directors and president/CEOs to identify these four groups in their own organizations.
Sources
Eugene Fram & Robert Pearse (1991) “The High Performance Nonprofit: A Management Guide for Boards and Executives,” Families International, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Judith Gordon (1991), “Organizational Behavior: A Diagnostic Approach,” Allyn & Bacon, Boston, pp. 205-207, 742.

More Than Passion Needed in Prospective Nonprofit Directors

More Than Passion Needed in Prospective Nonprofit Directors

By: Eugene Fram         

What nonprofit selection committee would reject a candidate who demonstrates passion for the organization’s mission?   I can attest to the fact that in many recruitment processes, an interviewee who shows strong empathy for the cause is a “shoe-in” for a board position regardless of any obvious weakness in skill areas. By contrast, one who appears less than passionate about the organization’s mission can be overlooked or even eliminated from the list.

Being emotionally overly attached to the organization’s cultural tradition can also trump objectivity when a change in board format is proposed.   I once interfaced with a board member who was so attached to his organization’s cultural norms he attempted to block moves towards a more efficient but more formal operational mode, protesting the changes would erode what he thought to be the nonprofit’s sense of family.

Founders’ Syndrome: A sense of ownership resides in some long-term board members that can lead to poor decisions that are in the best interest of the organization.  Founders of nonprofits, for example, often fail to delegate operational authority properly while they are building the nonprofit. Many even try to retain micromanaging control as a board member after their retirement. This results in continual board crises and has the potential of eroding all the accomplishments of the organization. Alignment with the mission is always desirable in board members.

Following are some tactics that will help boards to:

Become More Entrepreneurial:  Nonprofit boards can hesitant to develop an entrepreneurial management environment when they are dependent on governmental funding. However on an oversight basis, boards need to make certain opportunities are being evaluated by management.   

Some board members may fear being charged with misusing these types of funds when entrepreneurial efforts fail. But progress in the 21st century requires small experimentation. It allows the nonprofit to examine new systems, ideas, and understandings. Committed board members can help the CEO to seek additional funding to support these types of activities. For example, I encountered an insurance agent who I can describe as having some passion for the agency’s mission. But he energetically raised funds by using his knowledge of promoting insurance products. He later moved to chairing the board of a major health foundation that was very successful in meeting its objectives. 

Become More Effective in Strategic Planning: I have frequently noted nonprofit strategic planning that is entirely based on a simple SWOT analysis—simply listing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats without analysis critically reviewing them.  Many nonprofits, such as human service and health organizations recruit their board members from different career backgrounds and are not willing to question or research changes suggested by peers.  Two board members, I observed wanted a nonprofit to use an  Management by Objectives process.  Without any due diligence, the nonprofit adopted a process that was so complex that the staff was over burdened with writing and reviewing objectives that client service levels declined.

Recruit More Effective Board Members: Add to the traditional nonprofit skills grid several career dimensions to recruit, many of whom may be described as being merely empathetic about the mission:
1. Seek recently retired people, both those traditionally retired and those who retired early, who may have time to be candidates for both governing and consulting with boards.
2. Seek individual contributors who may have more control of their time, such as doctors, lawyers, professors and small business owners.
3. Seek successful entrepreneurs who can schedule their own time, can resonate with the organization’s mission, vision and values and who want to give back to the community.
4. Beyond the time requirement, seek persons with experience on profit or nonprofit boards so they can share their board knowledge and become models for those having their first board experience. Their questions and behaviors can teach as much or more than formal seminars.

There is no doubt that passion for a nonprofit’s cause drives action. But how that passion is framed–with what degree of respect and objectivity it is presented–can advance or disrupt the organization.

Posted in Associations, associations, audit comitttees, Board agendas, Board Culture, Board Learning Opportunities, Board meetings, Board micromanagement, Board Recuitment, board self assessment, Buidling personal relationships, Corporate Governance, Donations, foundation boards, Founders syndrome, nonprofit executive director, Nonprofit governance, Nonprofit impacts, Nonprofit mangement, onboarding, Passion for Mission, Strategic planning, Trustees, voluneers 

Board Member Networking Pays Off for Nonprofits

By Eugene Fram    

Over decades of nonprofit board membership and consulting, I have rarely observed volunteer board members effectively networking with their peers to develop best board practices. Also rarely do I see them accompany management to regional or national conferences related to the nonprofit’s mission. These types of exposures are necessary to have groups of board members capable of making generative suggestions.

For board members who are willing and able to network, I suggest the following: 

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Once Again!! A Nonprofit Board’s Most Important Job!

By: Eugene Fram

Many people believe as I do that a nonprofit board’s job is to find the best possible person to act as CEO of the organization, then stand back and let that person manage. If your board is in agreement, here are guidelines for action:

• Recruit Widely: Develop a rigorous vetting process. Well before the search begins, make certain that potential internal candidates have had an opportunity to demonstrate management acumen. If an internal candidate is somewhat less qualified than an external one, don’t let the decision be swayed by the fact that the internal candidate would be less costly to employ.
• Understanding The Partnership: The need for the CEO and Board to operate within a partnership framework is well documented and accepted. However, the CEO is both the senior staff manager and a de facto representative of the board-staff relationship. Normal communications to the staff must be through the CEO. The CEO can’t be an insecure manager by withholding negative information from the board.
• A Nonprofit Board Has An Overview Responsibility: Sometimes, this responsibility can devolve into micromanagement of the management and staff. If the overview, policy or strategy functions of the board are not being adequately executed, a lead director may need to be appointed to help focus on them.*
• In terms of organization and CEO measurement, the board must seek data and information on outcomes and impacts, not become overly involved with process details.
• Nobody Does His/Her Job Perfectly: The board needs to be highly tolerant of inconsequential CEO mistakes. However, if these mistakes persist over time, the board needs to assess reasons for their continuing. Major errors need immediate investigation, and the board members also must be honest with itself about their own culpability in its due diligence process.
• The CEO And Staff Must Be Evaluated Fairly: In a nonprofit situation, this must be done in partnership, not hierarchically. Everybody must understand the “rules of the game.” Outcomes and impacts need to be related to the mission of the organization.
• The Board and CEO Must Partner On Fundraising: An effective CEO must, in the 21st century, be the face of the organization to accomplish its mission. Nonprofit board members are part-time stewards. Consequently the CEO must accept a significant responsibility for fundraising.

These guidelines can be useful to nonprofit boards in self-evaluation projects. They can determine whether or not the board is facing the realities of standing back and letting the CEO manage. The CEO should have full operational authority, and the staff should function without an atmosphere of board micromanagement.

*International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law / vol. 14, nos. 1-2, April 2012 / p.57.

Can Using Imperfect Data Assist Nonprofits in Defining Impacts?

By Eugene Fram

Nonprofit boards need to expand their evaluations of nonprofit managers and their organizations adding more behavioral impacts * to their evaluations.

For example, a nonprofit might count the number of volunteers that have been trained. But boards must go to the next level in the 21st century.
In the case of volunteers, they must seek to understand the impacts on those trained. They need, for instance, to understand how well these volunteers are assisting clients and how they are representing the nonprofit to the clients. The training is a process, but it determines their relationships with clients and yields impact data.

Qualitative data must be developed to the next level, and the average nonprofit CEO will argue that he/she doesn’t have the staff or expertise to develop impact data. Engaging an outside organization to complete a simple project can cost thousands of dollars.

Yet funders are asking for these types of data because they know in the nonprofit environment that good program outcomes do not necessarily mean that the organization is creating impacts related to its mission. As one analyst reported: ** Clear measure of performance and impact will be required by donors (in the coming years). Over and over donors are looking for performance metrics. They want proof that you are doing a good job with their money. …. They want efficiency and effectiveness. Some nonprofits are:
• Talking about their accomplishments in meaningful and measurable ways.
• Demonstrating clear results for the people and causes they serve.
• Turning their annual reports into “impact reports.”

Are Nonprofits In a “No Win” Situation?

They are not in such a situation if they are willing to use imperfect metrics to track progress and drive change. Most funders will accept such measurement if the organization shows it is trying to develop impact data and learning from their experiences over time. With the data, nonprofits can assess impacts on such honorable but vague goals such as “enhance quality of life,” “elevate artistic sensitivity,” or “community commitment.”

The following five-step process can be utilized: ***

• Agree on relevant outcomes: The board and management should agree that the metrics reflect organizational impacts, not activities or efforts. Impacts should focus on a desired change in the nonprofit’s universe rather than a set of process activities.
• Agree on approaches to evaluation: Many way to measure—personal interview, mail questionnaires, sampling client records, comparisons with other agencies, comparing imperfect data with similar types of national data.
• Agree on specific indicators: Develop behavioral outcomes desired. Example: Mentions in the local newspapers can be used as an indication of public presence.
• Agree on judgment rules: Board and management need to agree at the outset upon the impact metrics the organization would like to achieve for each specific indicator that contributes to the desired mission related objective.
• Compare measurement outcome with judgment rule: Assess impacts and then compare results to mission related objectives to determine contributions to strategic objectives.

Who implements the process?

Few nonprofits will have the person-power or budget to implement the process, but there are other ways to accomplish it to develop impact results.

• Seek a local university class that will assist under the close direction of a professor or a knowledgeable volunteer professional.
• Engage a recently retired professional volunteer, provide him/her with an organizational title (e.g., Director of Measurement Projects) and seek funds from local foundation to cover costs.
• Ask a local service organization, like Rotary, to fund the project, as a demonstration for X number of years. A business organization might also agree to such funding.
• Seek a doctoral or masters student who might conduct the project in exchange for the ability to publish an article about it. Submit a funding grant to cover costs.

Without some ways of measuring their impact on clients, nonprofits can easily degenerate into monitoring staff activities, mistaking outcomes for impacts. That danger is much greater than the danger of using imperfect metrics. Efforts involving process can easily be measured, but an imperfect metric can be improved with experience over time to reveal impact.

* See– http://amzn.to/1OUV8J9  

**http://boardassist.org/blog/top-10-fundraising-trends-and-predictions-for-2016/

*** https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2012/07/24/using-imperfect-metrics-well-tracking-progress-and-driving-change/

Lifestyle & Behavioral Information–Some Added Ways To Seek High Performance Nonprofit Board Members

By Eugene Fram

I have conducted nonprofit board recruitment projects. The boards with which I worked had rather similar challenges

.• They had concerns recruiting sufficient numbers of board members to fill their needs.

• Current board members, largely composed of younger people, in the 30-40-age range, had significant problems balancing work and family obligations and attending board and committee meetings.

• Attendance was sporadic. Although the boards were small, members really did not know each other. Another board member sent a work subordinate to attend board meetings. In anopther case, a nationally known board member never attended meeting and only occasionally met with the ED to offer advice. One one board member with decades of board experience admitted she did not know other members. The EDs and board chairs had significant power. One ED complained she was doing the work of operating the organization and operating the board, and She had too much potential liability.

• Although these organizations, with budgets in the $8-$10 million range were operating successfully, the EDs involved realized that they were in line for long-term problems if board recruiting didn’t change.

What to Do

• Consider establishing two boards, a board for governance and a consulting board. For the governance board, make certain the typical directors in the 30-40 year age range they have a good understanding of their work-family obligation to be able to devote time for the organization

.• For the consulting board, ask volunteers to work on projects that have a defined time limit. They will not be asked to be involved in more than one or two projects per year, an ideal inducement for millennials who are used to short bursts of activities. It may be necessary to recruit several persons with the same skills to provide coverage for several projects.

• Keep communications flowing to the consulting board like one would to the governing board. Have occasional social and educational events that allow the groups to meet informally. If the organization has a volunteer manager, this person should be charged to keep the communications flowing. Members of the consultingboard will only have occasional contact with the organizatio

• Overlay the traditional nonprofit skills grid with several time dimensions to recruit for both types of boards:

1. Recently retired people, both those traditionally retired and those who retired early, who may have time to be candidates for both the governing and consulting boards.

2. Seek individual contributors who may have more control of their time, such as doctors, lawyers, professors and small business owners.

3. Seek successful entrepreneurs who can schedule their own time, can resonate with the organization’s mission, vision and values and who want to give back to the community.

4.Beyond the time requirement, seek persons with experience on profit or nonprofit boards so they can share their board knowledge and become models for those having their first board experience. Their questions and behaviors can teach as much or more than formal new board seminars.

Summary:The traditional nonprofit board skills grid can still be helpful in the 21st century. However it needs to be extended to lifestyle and behavioral information for each board candidate, such as experiences with strategy development and critical thinking abilities. A more time consuming practice.

How Do Boards Develop Successful Business Practices In Nonprofit Organizations?

By: Eugene Fram    

Every nonprofit needs a business plan to implement marketing, financial, human resources, etc. activities. The goal of the nonprofit business plan is to maximize the achievement of the organization’s mission within existing resources.

Strong service and business practices should be the hallmarks of any nonprofit board that effectively focuses on four business factors: 

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What attributes does a nonprofit board member need to be a Change Agent?

By Eugene Fram

Be well acquainted with mission arena of the organization — This can range from current or previous employment in the arena or being a board member of an allied organization. The change agent must be able to “walk the talk.” Example: Ask the CEO of a counseling organization whether or not the treatment modalities used by the staff are current.

Must have a proactive style — Uninterrupted attendance at most board and committee meetings; asks questions that his/her board colleagues recognize as being perceptive ones; be well respected by peers internally and externally; responds well to the “give or get” policy of the organization and has a professionally cordial relationship with the CEO.

Needs to be patient and flexible — The frequent rotation of board personnel may mean that a process of convincing new board members that the change is in the best interest of the nonprofit’s clients. Be ready to change when outside circumstances require a modification of the shape of the effort.

Has excellent people skills — He/she will need to understand the various reactions to the change(s) being driven. These can range from board colleagues to management personnel, staff and even external stakeholders like funders.

Will “stay on message” in comments related to the change — Will be required to present arguments in a concise and understandable manner. Will be seen as a strong, but not overbearing, champion for the change.

The time issue — Most nonprofit board members are volunteers with full-time occupations and family responsibilities that must take time precedents. Becoming a nonprofit board change agent often requires these additional time commitments:

• Chairing a major board committee for a substantial time period.
• Possibly taking personal responsibility for research/ background efforts.
• Specialized training efforts may be required for other board members.
• A continual process of updating colleagues and seeking allies to whom some of the work can be delegated.
• Constantly being alert to legacy minded people who may impede forward moment toward the change goal.

Not every nonprofit board change agent will have all the qualifications cited above and all the time necessary to devote to marketing the change. But from those who have succeeded, others need to know what is potentially involved.

* https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/champions-change-agents-advocates-dr-jack-jacoby/

How Nonprofit Boards Can Support Management & Staff and Refrain From Micromanaging!

How Nonprofit Boards Can Support Management & Staff and Refrain From Micromanaging!

By: Eugene Fram                   

The dilemma is common to nonprofit organizations. As start-ups, everyone aspires to do everything. Passion for the mission and determination to “get it right” imbue board members with the desire to do it all. But once the organization starts to mature, board roles shift to focus more broadly on policy and strategy issues. With the advent of qualified personnel to handle operations, there are many overview activities, sans micromanaging, available to board members. Following are some ways that boards can assist and demonstrate support for operations, CEOs and staffs without interfering.

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6 Approaches to Innovation for Nonprofit Boards

6 Approaches to Innovation for Nonprofit Boards

By Eugene Fram                    

The Bridgespan Group, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation,  completed an exciting research study. The results identified “six elements common to nonprofits with a high capacity to innovate” * Following are some suggestion how to implement these elements.

  1.  Catalytic Leadership that empowers staff to solve problems that matter. This involves the board to lead with committed and generative leadership. **  Board members must be ready to ask tough questions. They must require management to respond to the classic question, “Who would miss the nonprofit if it were to disappear?” Board members should be able to suggest new ideas drawn from business and the public sector that can be adapted, assessed and tested by management and staff
  2. A curious culture, where staff looks beyond their day-to day obligation, questions assumptions, and constructively challenge each other’s thinking as well as the status quo. This, in my view is difficult to achieve, but boards should attempt to take every advantage to develop it. Boards that question the status quo are hard to find in all fields. They should, at the least, involve the staff in strategic planning efforts and pay close attention to its development. Staffs then are in an excellent position to challenge the status quo. One staff person in a human services agency, for example, challenged the status quo by observing the nonprofit did not have a “safety net” mission, but in reality had a “sustainability” mission. The agency was not only helping clients on a day-to-day basis but also was trying to assist them to achieve sustainable lifestyles.
  3. Diverse teams with different backgrounds, experiences, attitudes and capabilities—the feed-stock for growing an organization’s capacity to generate breakthrough ideas.

As the Bridgespan Group has noted, it is necessary to have board members, “who are diverse across their dimensions: demographics, cognitive and intellectual abilities and styles with professional skills and experiences. In my opinion, nonprofits have been successful in recruiting board members in all of these categories except two—cognitive and intellectual abilities. I have encountered nonprofit boards without a single director with strategic planning or visionary abilities. Board members’ full time occupations often do not require them to have these abilities. As a result, strategic planning was just a SWAT (strengths, weakness and threats) review without any real analytical depth. To rectify the situation, nonprofits need to add these abilities to their recruitment grids. Unfortunately, this makes the recruiting effort more difficult since the abilities don’t appear on many resumes. Candidates must be assessed from an in-depth interview process.

  1. Porous boundarieswiden the scope for innovations, by allowing fresh ideas to peculate up from staff at any level—as well as constituents and other outside voices—and seep through silos.

Because many nonprofits have small travel budgets, they may operate in “bubbles, ” consisting of themselves and similar neighboring organizations. In addition, they can acculturate board members to the “bubble” traditions and environments.   For example, they may ask a new board member, with strong financial abilities to help the CFO with accounting issues, instead of asking her/h to develop a strategic financial plan for the organization. Perhaps as national webinars become more available to nonprofit managements and their staffs, these information flows will help to change the innovation roadblocks. Then they can, “generate new ideas systematically, test ideas using articulated criteria, metrics methodologies and prioritize and scale the highest potential ideas.”

  1. Idea Pathways that provide structure and processes for identifying, testing and transforming promising concepts into needle-moving solutions. For example, the process of Lean Management can allow testing of new ideas quickly. Instead of waiting for a new strategic plan to establish a pathway for something new, a nonprofit can test it with a series of small-scale efforts to determine its viability. The idea can be dropped if positive results are not developed after a couple of tests.   If after successive tests with viable information results, the idea can be moved quickly to an implementation stage when the nonprofit has the necessary resources.
  2. The ready resources—funding, time, training and tools—vital to supporting innovation work. To fully take advantage of most of these six innovation guidelines, fundraising is critical. But each board and staff cannot do it alone. It must be a partnership between the board members and the CEO that recognizes fundraising for innovation is a necessary part of the nonprofit’s resourcing efforts.

*https://ssir.org/articles/entry/is_your_nonprofit_built_for_sustained_innovation

**https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/EJC-967dbda2e