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Clearer Organizational Goals: Start Now

February 5, 2013 in Ideas by Betsy Garside | No comments

Bill Shore of Share Our Strength is arguably one of the top five leaders in U.S. nonprofits. For years he has set big hairy audacious goals, gotten hordes of people in business and other nonprofits to throw their strength behind execution of those goals, and then set new goals.

So I was paying attention when Bill Shore blogged about goal-setting on Harvard Business Review.

The piece is interesting — Bill lays out both how things did and did not work, and acknowledges that setting and sticking to tough goals is not easy. He also points out the painfully obvious, which is that now more than ever, nonprofits will need to know what success looks like and communicate it clearly to their stakeholders. What he didn’t acknowledge as a specific factor is something that Share Our Strength already has that many other nonprofits would kill for: Tremendous credibility, leverage and funding support in the corporate sector.

Over the next few years many — if not all — nonprofits are going to see all their funding drop as need for their work rises. Nasty pinch. So one could argue that now is the time for bold action. But if the funding relationships with those who favor bold, bottom-line-friendly action — the business sector — are not already there, the funders one has — individual donors, foundations expecting a certain scope of work, government contracts with strict deliverables — may constrict said bold action. (Share Our Strength ran into this thinking when they laid out their big goal to 50 partner organizations.)

Don’t let that thinking stop you. Set up a board-staff task force to consider what a clearer set of organizational goals could be, and how you might measure them. Charge that task force with talking to key funders about their hopes and fears for the mission (you may be surprised at what you find). Then lay out a sustainable, focused plan that has a very sharp illustration of success.

And keep in mind that Share Our Strength, one of the most entrepreneurial nonprofits in the country, took years to come to this current big clear goal. Sure, it would have been great if you had started five years ago. So start now.

You can read Bill Shore’s thoughts on goals here.

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Setting goals

December 24, 2012 in Ideas by Betsy Garside | No comments

‘Tis the time of year when many leaders turn their minds to next year’s goals. Whether you’re setting your own or those for a whole team of people, there are at least three ways to tackle goal-setting.

Roadmaps

The first roadmap approach is what it sounds like: A clear line from point A to point B. Need to hit $750,000 in revenue? Trying to get a piece of legislation passed? Great, here are the things you will do and measure to get there. Here are the milestones you will hit (or not). It’s all laid out for you, how many calls or contacts, how many cans of beans you will sell to get there. Things happen in order: A left, then two rights and another left, 93 miles total, one stop for gas.

This is a great way to set goals if you have tried and true strategies and tactics in place, if you know that what worked last year will work again this next year. It’s also a great way to set a team goal, particularly if it is easy for you assign different aspects of the trip to different members of your team.

You can build this set of goals by walking through facing forward — then we’ll do this, then we’ll do that. Another approach, however, is to look backwards from success. Start by seeing yourself standing at your end state; get a clear picture in mind of what it feels like to be there. Now, how did you get there? What steps had to happen last, and to get to those decision or action points, what had to happen before that, and before that?

Both roadmap approaches are good ways to set goals. Sometimes, however, that approach has felt like pushing a huge weight in front of me through the year. And often, those goals written so carefully at the beginning of the year are never revisited.

Areas of Focus

This is what I tried this past year for my business, and it worked. At the beginning of the year, I knew where I should focus my time — I had  several big buckets — but I wasn’t quite clear about what should happen in those areas. I couldn’t map out the steps to success in part because I was treading new territory. So instead of writing goals on the left-hand side of the spreadsheet and pushing them forward to the right-hand side by December 2012, I wrote areas of focus at the left-hand side, and I wrote some metrics for those areas of focus on the right-hand side. The idea was to focus on connecting the left with the right side over the course of the year. If I really could focus on those seven areas over the course of the year, would it feel like a good year, one in which I really stepped forward?

It would. I revisited my areas of focus every quarter (monthly felt like too much) to see if I was getting things done or — more telling — not getting things done. By consistently reviewing areas of focus, I could see why things were or were not happening, and what needed to shift for success. For example, in my “volunteerism” area of focus I realized mid-year that I had to completely reframe a commitment…or I would not deliver. The systematic reconsiderations also allowed me to incorporate new tools, new ideas, new approaches. Given how fast the world of business is changing, that flexibility is vital.

It’s not a perfect system, but that’s what 2013 is for, right? Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

 

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Fallen Gingerbread (or, Sometimes Down is Up)

December 20, 2012 in Ideas, News by Betsy Garside | No comments

It’s a gingerbread time of year. I’ve been thinking about my grandmother’s gingerbread, feeling like a little spicy dark cake would help round out the grays of winter.

Grammy made her gingerbread in a bundt or tube pan, creating a round cake with a big hole in the middle. When you serve this for any sort of occasion, that big hole is a perfect “bowl” for a pile of lightly sweetened whipped cream.

That’s not what made this gingerbread stick, though. What I remember best about this O-shaped gingerbread was the lament. Almost every time Grammy made it, her gingerbread fell. A sunken crease deflated the ring. Grammy wondered what on earth had gone wrong. According to her, this dessert was a failure every time. She’d apologize, she’d agonize, she’d throw her hands up.

She completely missed the fact that everyone loved her gingerbread.

I envisioned fixing Grammy’s perennially collapsed gingerbread, solving its issues. But really, why? It tastes delicious. It’s an excellent foil for whipped cream and for homemade applesauce. It always stays moist, a challenge for many gingerbreads.

So rather than say the cake needs fixing, let’s just call it like we see it: Fallen gingerbread. Go ahead and smile when you see that crease. Tell people this is exactly the way the gingerbread should be.

Fallen Gingerbread from Baking Family

Fallen Gingerbread

Serves 6-8

  • ½ cup butter (1 stick) at room temperature
  • 1½ cups brown sugar
  • 1 egg, well-beaten
  • 1½ cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon ginger
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup molasses
  • ½ cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter and flour a 10-inch tube or bundt pan. (Do this even if the pan is nonstick.)

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg. In a medium bowl, mix all dry ingredients together; in a small bowl or measuring cup, mix water and molasses. Add the dry and the wet alternately to the butter and sugar mixture, about half of each at a time, mixing well between additions.

Pour batter into the pan, and transfer to the oven. Bake the cake for 35-40 minutes, or until a cake tester, skewer or broom straw inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool for 15 minutes in pan, then loosen around the edges and turn out onto a serving platter. Serve either warm or at room temperature.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Things that should stay in kindergarten

October 31, 2012 in Ideas by Betsy Garside | No comments

Remember when Robert Fulghum wowed us with the simplicity and common sense of “All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten?” Such basic ideas: Share everything. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess.

Sometimes basic behavior from kindergarten days is not so good. You know, the acting out that was gently corrected by Miss Jennifer several times over. Yet some oddly familiar behaviors crop up in offices and boardrooms, with a whipsaw effect — “did that really just happen?” — because they are so retrograde. Right back to the playground. Does your office ring with any of these terms?

“Make me.”  The recalcitrant three-year-old who is testing his limits and learning the power of saying no — arbitrarily, too often, and usually with a pout involved. The words may vary, but the meaning is the same. And your urge to put that person in a time-out is justified. Perhaps the time-honored parental trick of offering two choices might work: “You have the option to do this, or to clear out your desk. Which do you choose?”

“Did not.”  When things start to fall apart, some people still have the instinct to deny. It can be tricky if your organizational culture tolerates blaming or denying (and that’s something you’ll want leadership to think about fixing). In the meantime, “did not” is a diversion. See if you can’t turn this into a blame-free zone just for the moment and stay focused on your original project, question or idea.

“But she started it.”  Close cousin to “did not,” this is almost always unspoken, and between two people. It’s the silent simmering that makes it poisonous. You don’t care who started it, you want it over. Take the two off into a different room — or to lunch or for drinks, whatever will break the pattern — and talk to them about the big picture. The health of the workplace (and your organization’s success) depends on uncovering the adult in these two. Give them a chance to hear the other’s perspective. Then ask them to imagine three scenarios where they will have to work closely together in the future, and get them to visualize how they’re going to do that differently, better. And if they are key to your team and the relationship is still not working, get a professional to intervene.

 

 

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Three magic message ingredients

October 4, 2012 in Ideas by Betsy Garside | No comments

Ah, campaign season in DC. Messages floating through the air like pet dander. There have been some confusing messages out of both presidential campaigns recently, which makes one pause. These campaigns have data galore at their finger tips. The little men behind the levers know that pushing the orange lever forward one notch will make their candidate appealing to Hispanic voters; back two notches, and he’ll pick up some midwestern female voters. Yet messages — ideas and facts wrapped up into a package to be delivered to someone — are dropping  with a thud.

If one has all that marketing information at hand, and STILL confuses audiences, how on earth can a message from, say, a small business or mid-size nonprofit get through? What will cause the jaded, over-saturated listener, reader or watcher to pause and say the magic words: “That makes sense. I buy that.”

It’s a bit of wand-waving, but there are three ingredients that can help a message stick. There are much more complicated ways to say this — and many much-costlier consultants who can help you uncover your magic message ingredients — but start with this:

Authenticity. Seems so simple, and yet, and yet…CEOs and other leaders can get wrapped around the axle of political correctness, or fear of boldness, or whatever it is that makes them get caught in the fuzzy. Stop. Listen to what’s in your head AND what is in your heart. Write that combination down. Harder to do the larger your organization is, but a blend for which to strive. And if you’re worried that what you wrote doesn’t say what you mean, test your new core message with a trusted advisor first.

Repetition.  The people you want to reach — if they are in America, say — get exposed to between 500 and 5,000 messages (ads, notices, calls to action) per day. And guess what? That stat is from 2007, light years before Facebook and Twitter. So you cannot say something once and hope that the person who heard you will absorb what you said.  Sometimes repetition is presenting your information different ways (say it on a video, link to that video from Facebook, cut the video into little bits for Twitter, post the whole thing on the blog). And sometimes repetition is just repetition — as in, I have worked this exact piece of information into 16 sets of talking points already. Anyone with a fourteen-year-old is nodding along with me now.

Values.  I’ve saved the best for last: Your audience has values — ideas or world views they believe in and carry with them always. Those values are lenses through which they view anything new. If Jane loves everything historic, you’ll be able to sway her with a “save history before it’s gone” message. If you know John believes in family, figure out the family story in what you’re saying. You need to know what values your audience-members hold dear, and how they align with your values. You are not bending the truth; you are finding the bridge you can walk across carrying the truth. Not simple, but well worth doing.

 

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The Power of “Why”

May 3, 2012 in Ideas by Betsy Garside | No comments

The questions I ask my clients often lead with one word: “Why?”

Why do you want to reach more people? Why are you starting this new program? Why do you want to partner with this company?

Sometimes we gloss over the answers. Intentionally or not, “because” or “obviously” become dodges. The conversation moves on, and we get to good and interesting places in the end.

I wonder, though, what would happen if we lingered on the “why.” Really thrashed it through, and considered what comes next after that. If there is not a business reason for why, then, um, why do what you’re proposing? Does the answer suggest an organizational weakness or blind spot? If you don’t do what you’re proposing, what else CAN you do?

Asking why can sometimes seem like saying no. It is not. It’s a powerful question that drives you straight to where value lives. It is a question worth asking AND answering.

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In on the first conversation

March 21, 2012 in Uncategorized by Betsy Garside | No comments

Though the emphasis is mine, Seth Godin’s header says it all: “When Should We ADD MARKETING?”

For years, the assumption was that marketing happened at the very end of the chute. All of you who work in communications or marketing and have been handed a completed report along with the line “okay, this is ready for PR…,” raise your hand.

This approach was easier — if not smarter — when the channels we used for marketing were controlled, and the audiences all watched or read the same things, and discussions happened in pretty predictable ways around common cultural themes and issues. That was about a half-century ago, folks.

Now, conversations about products, services or ideas happen whether your organization is generating them or not. And those discussions are definitely not under a company’s or nonprofit’s control. For those watching this is illustrated every single day, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad.

Even with the crazy shifting flow of information out there, there are ways to position and market products or ideas effectively. They all start in roughly the same spot: At the table for that first conversation.

“We’re considering focusing on land more than animals next year.” (A nonprofit looks in a new direction for program.) “What if we expanded to serve kids who are older?” (A social entrepreneur considers extending her product line.) “Our new olive oil is great; we should promote it through this partnership.” (A CEO considers a cause-related opportunity.)

What IS “the first conversation?” It occurs anytime someone in your enterprise starts to talk about reaching a new audience or developing a new product (whether that product is a research report, a packaged good or a service).

You’ll want to have a marketer or communicator or anyone focused on your enterprise’s audiences or markets at that table. They should be able to help you think through why, who and what for. This is not a question of organizational size or capacity, it’s a question of mindset. Do you want to build something compelling, and true, and valuable to your audience(s)? Or are you aiming for your version of New Coke? The first conversation matters. Get your marketer in on it.

Dinner with Alice

January 31, 2012 in Ideas by Betsy Garside | No comments

I had dinner with Alice Waters last Sunday night.

When I first went to Alice’s restaurant Chez Panisse back in the late 1980s, the local-food “movement” was anything but. If as a restaurateur you had good sources nearby — for produce, for seafood, for meat — you kept it pretty quiet. There was often not enough to go around, or you were seen as a little “out there.”

Today, we love local, and we talk about it A LOT. We’re swinging back hard from all the processing we so revered in the early-t0-mid 20th century, when Tang was king.

Some of us saw this movement beginning and helped it grow. I worked for restaurants and for retailers that actively sought and marketed local, fresh foods. I worked for a nonprofit that strives to keep the best farmland in America in farming — not growing tract houses or industrial strip malls.

Around the table that Sunday night were 40 people who are all somehow participating in getting good food onto plates, whether those are hundred-dollar plates at fancy events or hundreds of plates for people who have nothing. Everyone at our big table that night believes that America can eat better, can cook with real food, can raise children who know where their food comes from and what to do with it.

The dinner was a benefit for two great organizations here in Washington, Martha’s Table and D.C. Central Kitchen. These organizations didn’t exist when Alice Waters founded Chez Panisse. There are many other organizations — for-profit, nonprofit and social enterprises — that have cropped up in the past forty years to help feed the country well. Wise people are using the marketplace, advocacy, philanthropy, education and many other disciplines to fill America’s plate with real food.

It helps, tremendously, to lay your fingers on a touchstone every once in a while. Alice is one such touchstone; I imagine that there are human touchstones for every cause around the world. In the end, if you’re working in the realm of “making good food,” it all comes down to dinner — sitting around a table, trading ideas with people, eating well. Sunday night’s dinner was downright magical because we had the REAL Alice to talk to us and answer our questions.

Who’s your touchstone, and can you get him or her to the table with you soon?

 

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Add up the Small Wins

January 9, 2012 in Uncategorized by Betsy Garside | No comments

This is the time of year when many of us sit down and make BIG plans. We lay out enormous goals. Last year’s goals get recycled  (even if we aren’t quite sure why we didn’t hit them on the first go-round). Heck, we recycle from the last century: “I’m going to get in shape.”

What can get lost in all of this is an understanding of PROGRESS — where, when and how we’re making it.

Recognizing progress — small wins, little steps, milestones — is one of the most important things anyone can do. It’s particularly important for leaders, however, and this year, with tighter budgets and stretched staff at almost every enterprise, it will be crucial. If you don’t recognize and reward progress, you’re missing a really easy way to inspire and motivate.

If you’re the boss, put a little yellow sticky on the side of your computer screen that says “what progress have I praised today?” (If “praise” makes you squeamish, skip the alliteration and go with “recognized.”) If you’re not the boss, put up a sticky that says “what was today’s small win?” — and then answer the question as you power down for the evening.

And whether you’re the boss or not, read more from the authors of The Progress Principle on Harvard Business Review’s blog. 

 

Corporate social responsibility: Biceps versus toupee

August 15, 2011 in Ideas by Betsy Garside | No comments

Michael Porter is a man of big ideas. His latest is particularly intriguing. It’s the idea that companies can move beyond corporate social responsibility — often perceived as do-gooder revenue drain or window-dressing, depending on where you stand — to something that puts solving public problems on the same platform with other revenue-generating parts of the business. He calls it “shared value.” Cheesy name, great pragmatic approach.

This makes creating social good part of core business practice — muscle — rather than an add-on like a toupee. Anyone who’s worked in CSR can attest to that stapled-on feeling at times. It seems like a more integral approach could benefit companies at all scales. Might be an interesting question for a nonprofit board to chew on, too, as a way to reverse-engineer the answer and perhaps identify potential partners.

From the business end, I’d start with two basic questions: What social problems could we address using our core business? And how can we make the answers to Question One generate revenue?

From the nonprofit end, I’d ask what aspect of the nonprofit is investment-worthy, what might become a revenue generator for a partner or for the nonprofit itself. More of a traditional CSR approach, yes, but chances are the question has been approached the charity hat on — as in, “they should partner with us because we’re worthy.” Perhaps asking anew might generate fresh thinking.

If you want to ponder this more, check out the piece in The New York Times business section from Sunday, August 13, 2011.

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