Life is too short for painful meetings. No one has time for a group meeting that is anything short of on-point, clear, and moves a goal forward. While there is no shortage of expert advice about running efficient and effective meetings, as a consultant who plans, facilitates, and debriefs between 5 and 15 meetings per week, I want to share some brief meeting tips and techniques. My hope is that your next meeting is great, or at least better than your last one!
 
We’ve all participated in awful meetings. They are the ones where you show up and are never quite clear of the purpose, or the content does not match your role or expertise, or you have a good discussion but there are no specific next steps. These meetings often feel like a huge waste of time. They are frustrating and may cause people to lose confidence in the person or organization leading.
 
Since social sector professionals are super busy people who are tasked with moving mountains, they certainly do not have time to waste in bad meetings.
 
Done well, meetings are powerful, productive, and even enjoyable. Participants should leave feeling like they connected, contributed, and clarified. Good meetings make people feel like they moved toward accomplishing something worthwhile, because they have.  
 
Good meetings don’t just happen; they have good facilitators. The role of a facilitator is to plan ahead and then make clear points, listen and ensure all voices are heard, connect dots, clarify action steps, hold people accountable, and offer support as needed.
 
Solid meetings are designed with an intentional format, a clear purpose, a specific set of goals and a time-blocking structure to ensure success. Here are some time-tested techniques for how to plan your next meeting:

1. Know your meeting purpose: Determine the meaning of pulling people together, make thoughtful decisions about who to include, and know what you are driving toward to make the best use of each person’s time and wisdom.  
2. Establish super clear meeting goals:  Most meetings can only accomplish 1-3 goals. Each goal should be on-point with the purpose. Set a clear agenda that works toward accomplishing each goal. 
3. Structure your meeting design: Consider whether the meeting needs to be in-person or whether it can be virtual – some things to keep in mind are the outcomes needed, complexity, sensitivity, need for relationship-building vs tasks, time-needed. (see the resource link below) 
4. Plan your format: I use this break-down as a guide of allocated time for a 60-minute meeting: 

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•  Relational (10%) – ongoing trust-building to connect each other as professionals with good intentions. The initial 6 minutes are relational. This might look like informal conversations or a more planned ice-breaker. Consider appreciative inquiry as a guide.
• Tactical (75%) – The middle 45 minutes are the main work and discussion of the meeting where everyone contributes. This includes clarity of the goals and moving conversations to achieve them.
• Practical (15%) – clarifying actions for accountability. The final 9 minutes should include a summary of decisions, tasks, responsible parties, deadlines and a clear date for the next meeting or check-in.

 
By the end of the meeting, participants should feel energized. And you as the facilitator should feel proud for leading a productive, well executed meeting. Meetings are the means to powerful results, and I wish you much success!
 
For additional ideas, feel free to email me.
For more information, also check out Beth Kanter’s awesome Resources for Room, Zoom, or Hybrid.

Strategic Planning is a big deal for an organization. Far too often, it is just an exercise that results in a shiny product for external audiences. Done well, it involves challenging assumptions, questioning the status quo, reflecting on the opportunity for change, bringing others along for a journey into the unknown and emerging out the other end, not finished but better informed, energized and ready to implement a new direction with clear strategies and priorities.
 
It’s a ton of work, but like many challenging undertakings, it’s a worthwhile endeavor. Yet, to fully glean the benefits of the process and the results, front-end preparation is required.
 
After over 15 years of consulting, I’ve refined relevant preliminary steps for organizational leaders to consider. Preparation touches on several important parts of the process, including:

• establishing an expectation that the consultant isn’t solving the organization’s issues, but rather serving as a guide;
  
• bringing the organization into the process as accountable partners and leaders;
• distributing responsibility for implementing the resulting changes.

 
Planning for strategic planning has multiple benefits – for nonprofits and foundations, they gain a better understanding of the process, time commitment, flow and results. For consultants, a significant part of our success depends on the organizations we work with being ready to engage in a change process. Their groundwork leads to much better outcomes.
 
Strategic planning is a huge organizational learning and engagement opportunity. The discovery process involves fact-finding, sharing, and sense-making involving several steps to guide those involved. Done well, it builds energy in the potential for what will change and become in the future.
  
These are the planning steps I highly encourage prior to an engagement, where the Board Chair/president and the Executive Director/CEO should consider and complete together.
 
1.  Read the Performance Imperative as a way to provide context and spark thinking toward this effort and the role of the Board and senior leadership. If the organization has an annual budget of $3M or less, also read Small but Mighty – a short framing for the Performance Imperative for smaller organizations.

2.  Share key materials with your consulting partner, including:

• Most recent strategic plan
• Theory of Change
• Strategic priority documents and comments to help the consultant to understand what is still relevant and what needs updating
• Staff chart/list and Board list with history of involvement.

 3. Clarify the goals of the process 

• Where are you going (dreaming of going)?  
• What are your strategic challenges?

 4. Consider who should be part of the Strategic Planning Task Force (Board, staff, potentially other internal or    external stakeholders) – establish a manageable number of people, where each person should: 

• Care deeply about future of the organization (over personal needs)
• Dedicate time for a multi-month process 
• Contribute to collective wisdom as a collaborator
• Politically make sense (now and for future buy-in)

 
In my experience, these planning steps are critical pieces for organizations to fully engage and reap the benefits of their investment.
 
If you have questions or comments or need help clarifying and achieving your goals, please reach out to me - post a comment or contact me via email.

On the journey to high performance, a mindset for continuous improvement is critical for sustained success. For some, this disposition comes naturally and for others, it’s a muscle that needs to be trained. For all leaders, putting mindset to action needs practice, learning and feedback to be maintained. Although counter-intuitive, there is no time more important than now to build this capacity.
 
But how to focus on high performance when even the best leaders are exhausted after a year of deep uncertainty fueled by the multiple crises affecting each facet of our lives – physical health, mental health, financial health, spiritual health?
 
My answer is carving out time, over the New Year and through the winter, to exercise and embrace the self-knowledge that comes through reflection, integrity and discipline.

For those struggling to make this real, the Performance Imperative’s preeminent pillar on “Courageous, Adaptive Executive and Board Leadership” provides some guidance.

In my consulting practice, I’ve reflected and gained some perspective by focusing on the historical context of leadership in crisis and overlaid the learning with my experiences working with social sector executives and teams. In addition to reading numerous articles, listening to podcasts, and participating in and leading webinars, these books have provided me with foundational ideas to combine with the tactical experience I gain through reflecting on my client work. I highly recommend each of them:

• Leadership in Turbulent Times, Doris Kearns Goodwin
  
• Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
• A Failure of Nerve, Edwin H. Friedman
• Lessons in Leadership, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

 
And yet, for as much as I continue to read and reflect, I’m believing more and more in one of the quotes that has inspired my work for well over a decade: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. (Albert Einstein)
 
Leadership is a complex art – it requires rational thinking, decision-making, emotional intelligence, managing relationships, understanding political motivations, and navigating power dynamics. At its foundation and simplest form, leadership requires a solid sense of self, so that leaders can lean into their strengths, surround themselves with others who complement their skills, and blend strategic and authentic communication. It takes self-knowledge to lead with integrity, to find the personal and professional principles that define you as a leader and then to have the discipline to stay true to them.
 
As the distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine is rolling out and with a change in national leadership, we can begin to shift from crisis-response mode towards a gradual period of restoration. Leaders will need to continue considering options and methods for survival, even as they clarify their plans to re-imagine and rebuild their organizations for the longer-term.
 
This rebuilding effort will take time and reflection. It may appear less dangerous than the initial crisis phase, but it may prove even more challenging. Consider the following questions as a guide:

• What have we lost or relinquished collectively that might not return?
• What opportunities or perspectives have I gained through the losses?
• Even if I made early staffing decisions based on an ethical compass (to not let anyone go), do I now need to reconsider for the sake of the organization and our long-term sustainability?
• What do I need to reform and restructure to make sure we can continue to achieve our mission for the people and causes we serve?
• How might I recognize what really matters and imagine what has the potential for new possibilities?
• What’s working well that I can build upon? Where can I build momentum where there is already energy?
• How can I better delegate the day-to-day and carve out time for the longer term needs to connect, plan, re-imagine and rebuild?

 
A leader’s goals should be clear and can be top-down, but the ways to achieve the goals should be informed by a wide-range of diverse input.
 
Where the social sector prides itself on inclusive and empowered styles of leadership in normal times; in a crisis, there are times that call for more “command and control” decision-making. Many leaders made difficult yet necessary decisions in 2020 on short timelines and with limited input. Yet, achieving the best results into 2021 requires that decisions are inclusive and expansive – including listening to staff, communicating clearly and providing transparency about the safety of the organization and people’s jobs - it is the executive leader’s imperative to listen, learn, and lead.
 
Listening can be hard when executives are pushing toward goals that may be hard for staff to swallow. But no one has all of the answers in this mixed up crisis-laden environment, so leaders must build psychological safety for staff and be open to their feedback.
 
Staff have critical insights, since they are closest to the clients and causes that organizations are in the business to serve. Your role as a leader is to ask and to listen. Although some ideas may initially seem disruptive, they are likely perceptive and may provide the right options for moving forward with strength.

The leadership needed to optimize dynamic and flexible responses, as the phases of crisis play out, consists of the following attributes:
 
1.  High self-awareness and self-care. Our messy private lives are now intertwined with our professional lives. We are all in each other’s personal spaces; we have experienced overt distractions (toddlers, dogs, construction projects) and leaders need to accept their own and others’ vulnerability, express compassion and adapt. What have we learned about ourselves and our colleagues that we should take forward?
 
Leaders also need to restore themselves each day – carve time and space for reflective practices that allow them to have a balcony or longer-term view. Now more than ever, leaders need to make the very best use of “self”, as it remains their most important resource. The Hudson Institute of Coaching suggests: Slow down, take a step back, and pay attention to the inner gifts you have that will help you focus on what you can control in the midst of all this chaos.
 
2.  Deep sense of Integrity. Leaders need resilience, openness to creative ideas and to harness opportunities toward the possible. They also need to lead with their personal, professional ethics, always in tune with their sacred principles. For leaders who are unsure of their north star, this is the time to gain clarity about why you are leading in the social sector, and to consider the type of leader you want to be, remaining steadfast to your purpose.
 
3. Discipline. Leaders were forced to gain comfort with chaos and ambiguity in 2020, identifying and then using tools for real time adaptation. This continued period of uncertainty needs to be balanced with keeping mission at the forefront. They need a willingness to engage in ongoing scenario planning and risk assessment – likely increasing risk tolerance in this time of great challenge. For organizations that have a Strategic Plan, this is the time to revisit it and break-it-down into manageable sections - ideally that represent 90-day prioritization cycles. This requires a highly functioning, adaptive and disciplined approach.
 
This is a challenging time and leading in a time of crisis requires relentless optimism in spite of the difficulties.
 
I hope this inspires you to carve out time and space in the quiet of winter, to reflect on the lessons of 2020; shoring up self-knowledge, focusing on what best defines your personal integrity, and finding the energy and discipline to rebuild. The social sector needs you and the mission of your organization to succeed!
 
If you need help clarifying and achieving your goals, let me know: Debra@DBNassociates.com
 
I want to thank the amazing client leaders I work with; they inspire me to continuously learn and improve. A big shout out to my fellow Leap Ambassadors, and brilliant and wise thought-partners: David Marzahl, Valerie Black, and Val Porter Cook for many conversations that helped develop these ideas.

In January, I shared the first of this 4-part blog series, to highlight current client engagements and their “journeys to high performance”. Each client organization had different challenges to overcome and each has a leader who was dedicated enough to start and maintain a journey to high performance. I’m hopeful that you’ll find the learning process, including the reflection on blind spots, helpful as you approach your own journey. This is even more relevant now as we enter the phase of the pandemic when many leaders are shifting from the necessity of a “reactive-only mode” to a more proactive, scenario-planning phase for their organizations. 
 
Each engagement highlighted is grounded in the The Performance Imperative: A Framework for Social Sector Excellence, which provides a north star toward clarity and the various pillars to get there. The definition states that high performance is: “The ability to deliver – over a prolonged period of time – meaningful, measurable, and financially sustainable results for the people or causes the organization is in existence to serve.”
 
Although the needs of the people we serve are changing in some unknown ways due to the evolving implications of the COVID pandemic, we need to gather as much feedback as possible to know how to deliver programs and services that have meaningful results. From there, we focus on how to measure achievement for continuous improvement; and how to sustain financially. The Performance Imperative is a helpful framework, with a clear assessment tool to start the journey. And in this time of COVID-19 uncertainty, clarity and focus on high performance is paramount to survival and success.
 
In this second blog, we explore a small (under $3M annually) direct service agency. Their scope, reach and resources are vastly different from the foundation profiled in the first blog; however, the two decisive factors in making progress on the journey are similar, namely: 1) the leadership readiness, willingness, and energy to start; and 2) leaders harnessing their role to guide the culture of the organization toward learning, for the long-run. 
SHALVA: A domestic abuse agency

Background: After SHALVA solidified new leadership in the Board president and Executive Director six years ago, the two leaders felt urgency to bring the organization to the next level, and they jointly decided that they wanted to push toward high performance. The organization had an almost 30 year history of strong governance and a positive reputation, but they were emerging from a challenging financial period. They needed to ensure services were aligned with both feedback from their participants and clients and that they were structured with a solid strategic direction as they headed into a new decade of existence. After solidifying multi-year funding, they started their journey - a strategic effort to clarify and define what success looked like, determine how to measure their progress and to identify what data would be needed to balance their anecdotal stories moving forward.

Progress:  Starting in 2016, they engaged the full Board and staff to re-define their vision, mission, and guiding principles. Determining the “destination” facilitated much clarity and energy. From there, they codified their Theory of Change for long-term clinical therapy, defined a set of results for community education and outreach, and defined and documented a shared language.
Knowing what was meaningful to measure and manage, SHALVA implemented solid tools to learn about actual results – the progress toward their desired outcomes. Over time, the staff shifted from paper notes and organizational knowledge only captured in the brains of a few people, to a phased approach to implementing a comprehensive data system.
They incorporated a listening process – not only for Board and staff, but also to learn from “client voices”. Through confidential interviews with clients, they designed feedback surveys for both departments. They also implemented a clinical assessment protocol tied to the Theory of Change.
 
Through all of this work, staff gained an understanding of the importance of consistent and accurate data collection, and they entered intakes, surveys, clinical assessments and updated demographics into a common Excel spreadsheet. 
 
Once they determined which data was most meaningful based on analyzing the Excel information and format, they researched and implemented a robust data system to capture the collected data and imagine various elements of analysis to use for both the internal learning and external dissemination.
 
Mistakes and Course-corrections: In the data analysis and curation process, SHALVA identified a data integrity issue and the need to focus on additional internal training and data ownership to ensure more consistent data for reporting and communication.
Over time, SHALVA experienced staffing changes, which caused capacity challenges in maintaining ongoing training, documentation, and data curation. New employees often did not understand the learning mindset needed to make best use of the data, and for some staff, the process was reduced to an exercise for the benefit of funders.
By including a “data report” into staff meetings and engaging a mix of board and staff on a High Performance committee, they are navigating the continuous process of creating a culture that values learning. Part of the journey is the learning that emerges from digging deeply into results. They are looking forward to a calmer phase of the pandemic that will allow for additional questions and solutions to emerge.
 
Current state: Since analyzing hundreds of survey responses and clinical assessments of clients on their “healing journeys”, SHALVA continues to try to carve out the time to provide ongoing formal and informal training to streamline and best use the data system. Especially in the time of COVID-19, and at time of writing, this is a significant challenge.
Working with SHALVA’s internal data manager to monitor the data system for accuracy and integrity, we are considering significant updates to the survey tools, mainly to simplify, streamline, and ensure relevance with phone therapy (rather than in-office sessions). They are also streamlining useful interactive data reports for staff and Board. The “High Performance Committee” is working to ensure continuity of the multi-year efforts, as well as to maintain progress. The goal is knowledge management and data use - to create on-demand reports as learning for staff and Board.
Based on interest from the funder and their Board, SHALVA prepared to present their clinical theory-of-change and supporting data at a national conference, in a broader field-building effort (postponed due to COVID-19). They are now re-purposing that data visualization for internal learning and improvement efforts.
Based on intentional engagement with SHALVA’s community education and outreach staff, they uncovered a need to focus specific efforts on programming for third parties – friends, family, clergy, colleagues who know someone experiencing domestic abuse. With special innovation funding, they developed a series of scenarios in the form of interactive videos to provide guidance to third parties and how they can help. This month, SHALVA released an online tool as part of their new website, specifically targeting the community effort needed to assist survivors of domestic abuse. They are also offering more counseling services to help friends with the secondary trauma of having a loved one in an abusive situation.  
If you are interested in learning more about SHALVA and their journey to high performance, they are featured as part of the paper Small but Mighty; in this GuideStar webinar; and in this blog. These resources provide answers to some key questions about the Performance Imperative for small nonprofits.
One specific way to start your own journey to high performance is to read the Performance Imperative and make use of the many free tools on the Leap Ambassadors website.
 
I hope you find these mini cases useful and informative as you chart a path forward through this pandemic period of uncertainty and into a bright and clear future. Let me know what you think!

We all seek clarity. 
If we have a clear destination, that clarity guides our actions from professional uncertainty to a targeted energy and sense of purpose.  And yet, gaining clarity is not a singular measure like 20/20 vision – it involves organizational leadership dedicated to a process, a journey – with new inputs that need to be integrated with frequency and adapted with finesse.
 
This is the first of four blogs to share summaries of current client engagements and their “journeys to high performance”.  Each client organization had different challenges to overcome and each has a leader who was dedicated enough to start a journey to high performance.  We’ll review the learning process and how it pushed each organization to move toward greater clarity, resulting in increased energy and improved results.
 
Why consider a journey to high performance?
High performing leaders are driven by a powerful urgency to achieve their mission.  They want to improve results for their clients and to get there, they need to change their organizational culture toward learning.  They understand the potential that is unlocked when they have a mindset to meet the challenges of change head-on and drive toward continuous improvement.

How to get from Point A to Point B.
The Performance Imperative provides a grounding framework for the journey to high performance, and the definition of high performance provides a north star toward clarity.  It states that high performance is: “The ability to deliver – over a prolonged period of time – meaningful, measurable, and financially sustainable results for the people or causes the organization is in existence to serve.”
 
There are two decisive factors in making progress on the journey:  1) the leadership readiness, willingness, and energy to start; and 2) leaders harnessing their role to guide the culture of the organization toward learning, for the long-run.

Carol Dweck’s seminal work, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success describes some of the attributes of the type of leaders that might be ready for the journey.  In a nutshell, she defines a person with a growth mindset as someone who views intelligence and learning as an endless process: the person who is eager and willing to learn new skills; the leader who is constantly gathering new information, as essential ingredients of success.  Leaders with a growth mindset are the opposite of the cliché if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  They recognize there is always room for better.

Progress on the journey to high performance requires that leaders are internally driven toward continuous improvement, with a sense of urgency to learn the results they are achieving and asking questions of themselves, staff, and data about how to improve upon those results on an ongoing basis. 

What does the journey to high performance look like?
There are a myriad of ways for the journey to manifest.  This blog series exemplifies four different social sector organizations and their journeys.  Although quite diverse, all have leaders with growth mindset who both believe in high performance and understand that getting there is challenging.  Where they have a vision for change, these mini cases exemplify the background challenge they sought to tackle; progress they made along the way; mistakes and course-corrections faced; current status on the path to achieve goals and stay within time-frames needed to maintain energy and focus toward high performance; and finally, a leadership tip that might be considered by other organizations. 
 
This first blog explores a community foundation journey.  The second one will focus on a small direct service agency.  The third blog will illuminate an umbrella educational organization, and the final post will comprise the journey of a large multi-service agency. 

The work is informed by The Performance Imperative’s Pillar 1: Courageous, adaptive executive and board leadership and an intentional drive toward developing Pillar 5: A culture that values learning.  They all include the clarity achieved through a strong focus on mission – which raises energy through shared purpose - and feedback loops that lead to the actualization of continuous improvement. 
 
Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Chicago (JUF)

Background: For over 100 years, JUF has been a steward of community resources, and the senior leadership felt the weight of that responsibility.  One leader in particular wanted to know the impact of their giving.  He started asking questions that would lead to a slow but methodical shift – generally-speaking from outputs (# of agencies supported) to outcomes (the results they were achieving for their direct clients). 
Although JUF had spent decades collecting data from grant partners, the data was limited, focused solely on demographics and activities (Eg: # of programs, # of people touched, # of meals delivered) and was largely used for communications and marketing purposes. 
They wanted to maintain the momentum of data collection but move to a set of data that would serve more meaningful purposes for capacity-building, learning, planning and strategic communication.  This meant re-thinking what data was collected, how it was reported and used by grant partners as well as the basis for system improvement in funding the allocations.  The effort was championed from the top and designed to be supported financially for a long-term strategic shift. 

Progress: Starting with the senior leadership in 2014, we designed a strategy for long-term change in two streams:  first, to shift from collecting output data to gain an understanding of meaningful client change, outcomes.  And second, the process of involving “bottom-up” collaboration for all relevant partner agencies to come together and develop shared outcome frameworks.  An important part of the process was defining clear and explicit goals and referring back to them regularly.  These goals continue to guide the work five years later and they are: 1) Program development for continuous improvement; 2) Improved planning/allocation of resources; 3) Strategic reporting and communication. 
To maintain the long-term nature of the effort, we needed to define both the strategy and process for change.  The foundation understood the need to focus on recruiting, developing, engaging, and retaining the right internal talent and leadership to maintain, expand and continually improve the effort.

Mistakes and Course-corrections:  This was a huge undertaking, and rather than starting with a cohort of agencies that would be small, nimble, and non-threatening, we started with an ambitious population-level effort.  Although the intent of the strategy was to have JUF serve in a facilitation and convening role, we neglected to operationalize the idea of a lead or principal partner agency from the beginning.  We also underestimated the challenges in bringing different agencies together into a learning community and to forge trust – both with each other and with JUF itself, based on the very real power differential.
In hindsight, which is 20/20, we found that it was useful, if ambitious to start with a broad population and then narrow for future cohorts.  We also learned that trust was possible but would take time to nurture and grow.  Part of the eventual success derived from the determination, professionalism and dedication to engaging in formative or process evaluation for ongoing learning and course-corrections.  The foundation learned from feedback about blind-spots and made explicit changes.  One of the needs they identified was gathering internal support for the effort and creating a position to carry it forward.

Current state: About two years into the process, JUF hired an internal senior level leader for evaluation and learning and more recently, they expanded to an assistant director position. The evaluation leader developed a process and format to document definitions and changes throughout, making it possible to bring on and bring up-to-speed new people at the agency level. JUF built an internal data team, a data working group made up of the data managers at each partner agency, and a management system to maintain a consistent data structure and knowledge base. 

JUF is dedicated to facilitating peer learning, providing technical assistance, and supporting participating agencies with funds for professional development tied to evaluation. Recently, participants started requesting more opportunities to connect around the data.  The process continues to hone data collection toward the most meaningful information and knowledge curation.

Leadership Tip toward Implementing Clarity and a Culture that Values Learning:

Listen to your team.  It is impossible to have all the answers in the C-suite or around a conference room table.  Ask data managers and field staff to provide ongoing feedback.  Consider encouraging them to keep a change log or idea log when they notice potential improvements in efficiency or effectiveness – they are the critical “boots on the ground”. Create space for practice-based innovation toward better mission achievement.  Then circle back to the executive or Board level to prioritize what to implement and when.
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As you work to gain clarity and then to operationalize it in your actions as a leader – consider these three ways to start on a journey to high performance – borrowed from a mindful yogi, who I have found great inspiration from for my business and family:
 
1.  Begin.
2.  Continue with intention and energy.
3.  Commit and practice for a sustained time.
 
I hope you’ll find these mini cases useful and informative; I’m wishing you a productive new year, guided with clarity. How might you incorporate the extrapolated tips and patterns into your own organizations, when determining next steps for your own journey to high performance?  Please let me know what you think!

Have you ever had a break-through idea just when you finally let your head hit the pillow?  Or in the moments just before waking up?  Or in the shower?
 
Often, when we are most relaxed and our mind calms from our constant to-do lists and daily obligations, only then do we have the space to formulate answers to tough questions, solutions to complex issues, and new ways to consider approaching situations. The problem is that we sometimes have these epiphany ideas in one moment and then can’t recall them when the opportunity arises to use them! 
 
The purpose of this blog is to encourage you to capture these ideas by writing them down.
 
Several months ago, I shared some initial ideas on reflective practice; specifically how to start carving out time within your daily routine to reflect.  If you haven’t started yet, tomorrow is the perfect day to begin.  If you have started the process as an opportunity to slow down and think more thoroughly about your experiences – weaving them together into patterns to make more internally informed decisions - I hope it’s having all kinds of positive effects, both personally and professionally.
 
This month, with the renewed possibilities that arrive in Chicago every summer, in the many festivals, music, art, fireworks and flowers, I’m exploring a second suggestion which is to take the personal insights that you’re gathering over a cup of coffee/tea, in the shower, or on walks with your dog and to write them down. It may seem simple, but the act of writing down your reflective ideas is actually a critical part of the reflective process. 
 
Find a journal or a dedicated notebook and capture some of your ideas.  The ideas may come to you at random times, and without the tools to capture them, a potentially profound idea can simply disappear as a fleeting thought.
 
Life and work can seem like a series of random, disjointed events.  We may feel like reacting to crises outside of our control is our daily reality.  But I’m suggesting a radical idea – that carving out the time to consider the events, reflect on the causal patterns and our options for response – and then to explore the possibilities in writing, presents an opportunity to transform them.  We may change a single event or our whole approach to life, really.  If only we make the time to reflect and then consider the meaning of our reflections.
 
Here are some suggestions on how to get started:  you can email ideas to yourself or enter them on your calendar for later reference.  If you create a calendar category or note, label it “Ideas” or color-code it yellow, to allow for ease in finding them later.  If you’re working through a complex idea, you might even develop a PowerPoint with pictures and words that you can add to over time.
 
Several years ago, I had been considering a job transition and needed to fully explore the practical implications (finances, health insurance, intellectual property) as well as the reputational ones (status and relationships).  I needed to work through my sense of loss and explore new potential.  This was a huge decision to consider and my reflective practice alerted me to many ideas, but as they swirled around in my head, I felt more overwhelmed than clear.  So, I created a PowerPoint presentation for my professional strategy and labeled it “Next 10:  A targeted approach to the next decade”.  One of the things I wrote on a slide titled “Core Influences” was “ongoing learning by doing and then reflecting and course-correcting leads to growth, success, fulfillment, and better client outcomes”.  The process was incredibly helpful and even now, on occasion, I refer back to those slides as a reminder for the break-through ideas I fostered.
 
Shinichi Suzuki, Japanese violinist, wanted to develop joy for children after World War II.  He studied language acquisition and developed a method for music acquisition.  His break-through idea, now famous as the Suzuki Method, encourages sensitivity, discipline, and endurance.  He found that through constant repetition and loving encouragement, every child could incorporate music into their life, finding the connections between heart and mind. 
 
I am arguing that reflective practice, like music acquisition, is available to everyone.  That focus and discipline around carving out the time for it can lead to incredible changes that are intuitively informed.  Not to mention the importance of the practice in an age where so many decisions seem to be made based on external validation factors rather than internal thoughtfulness.  
 
In a recent learning session that I facilitated, I spoke about the differences between mindfulness meditation and reflective practice, where both are about conscious lived experience, everyday awareness, and developing curiosity, and a learner orientation.  I explained that meditation is more about letting thoughts pass by in order to develop a sense of calm, more about creating empty space and allowing peace to seep into being. 
 
Reflective practice, rather, is the idea of sitting with thoughts and allowing the big picture to emerge - forging break-through ideas – teasing ideas apart, considering long-term views, and turning ideas into strategic possibilities.  Even thinking about a simple repetitive activity and bringing more meaning into it, expanding it, adding other ideas to it and developing it into something awesome. 
 
Whether you buy a journal that inspires you, enter ideas into an online file, or jot ideas down on a legal pad, the concept is to capture your reflections in a written format that you can refer back to and further develop over time.  In my journaling practice, I am often amazed to look back on where my thoughts meandered and to watch how they evolve over periods of time.  Often, the process leads to a break-through that I would not have anticipated.  Many of those ideas represent my best thinking, and from those thoughts, my best-informed actions.
 
With the long summer days, the lovely green leaves filling bushes and trees, and the symphony of flowers continuing to bloom, the beach beckons and I feel joyful and excited.  Here’s hoping you find the time to channel the energy of summer into your own reflective practice, writing your thoughts and exploring strategic possibilities.

Opportunities for learning require reflection.  One interesting definition describes the state of being reflective as the ability “to mentally wander through where we have been and to try to make some sense out of it.” (Costa and Kallick’s chapter “Learning Through Reflection” in Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind).
 
But how does one find the time “to wander”?  Frankly, how does one even find the time to pause between the fast-paced, “whack-a-mole” productivity required by life in the digital age?  Is it possible?  Is it necessary?  Is it valuable?  
 
After a very full 2016, I have been reflecting on the reality that between work and family, life is super busy but there is so much more I want to do and accomplish.  So how do I squeeze more into an already packed schedule without increasing stress and strain? I think the answer is actually carving out more down time, more time to both “catch my breath” and learn from previously created wheels.  This may seem counter-intuitive, but I have growing confidence that more negative space, more unscheduled space, more reflective space will allow me the critical time to be even more productive and to accomplish more, better.  I’m now consciously working on making the connections from my personal reflective time, often in the form of jogs with my dog, journaling, or mindfulness meditation to my professional work in outcome management, where the reflection is more a practice of connecting dots into a systemic whole.
 
This connecting dots idea is an intentional effort to open receptors, consider past life experiences, and then incorporate the resulting “ah ha moments” into current efforts.  It is the counter-balance to the evaluative notion of “evidence-based practice”, where reflective practice would fall into a category termed “practice-based evidence”. 
 
I was first introduced to this phraseology, “practice-based evidence” at the 2014 Symposium on the Future of Evidence in a talk by Tony Bryk, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as he and the other Friends of Evidence discussed the limitations of RCTs and the need for a broader acceptable definition of evidence.  “Practice based evidence” has been more formally defined as “high-quality scientific evidence that is developed, refined, and implemented first in a variety of real-world settings” (Duke University Health Sciences, 2007).  For purposes of this blog exploration, I am using it to describe the necessary balance with other forms of evidence that comes from thinking deeply about how personal experiences tie together into patterns of meaning that can inform and improve future practice.
 
This concept of reflective practice and the resulting practice-based evidence stayed with me and in the same year as the Evidence Conference, I began to develop my thinking around the ideas while writing a speech for a social sector impact conference in Sydney, Australia.  I used the theme of “breathe, think, act outcomes” as a recipe for sustained energy and breakthrough results.  I encouraged practitioners, funders and consultants to connect their learning from one project to the next and to draw out the learning, both successes and challenges that may be patterned.  To use those now conscious patterns to inform a better next round of programming and decision-making, as a necessary supplement to other forms of evidence.

As part of my own learning process, I revisited some of these ideas and further explored them for a different audience last fall during a keynote address at the University of Illinois, for over 100 continuous quality improvement (CQI) professionals.  At the CQI conference, my kick-off talk sought to frame the topics in the broader terms of creating a learning culture.  Many of the primary questions being asked and addressed throughout the sessions tended to be technical, detailed, and micro-level or tactical in nature.  While these questions and sessions are critically important to the accomplishment of everyday tasks, my argument was that a wider toolkit, including reflective practice, leads to more and better answers, adaptive approaches that facilitate the solving of broad-based concerns.  Reflective practice can lead to more satisfying and longer-term solutions on the journey to high performance, including strategic decisions, organizational development, issues of team cohesion, and even program design, when combined with other forms of data and information.  The best way to arrive at answers to these complex questions is to drill down deep into the question, to gather as much data and evidence as possible to inform the answer, and then pause, pull back, breathe deeply, and consider personal and professional lived experience – practice-based evidence.  This last step is the most important and in some ways the hardest.  We need to consider all of the rationale, subject-specific research, siloed approaches and funding streams and then reflect, consider past experience, and trust our own wisdom.  
 
In addition to discussing growth mindset and other generally accepted notions of learning, I also quoted the 1995 Alanis Morissette hit song, “You Learn”, where she emotionally sings, “You live, you learn, you love, you learn, you cry, you learn, you lose, you learn…”  I pondered what was missing from her equation and concluded that I don’t think you actually learn much, certainly not enough to change course, unless you reflect on all of those life experiences and actually integrate them into an understanding of what they are teaching.  Continuous quality improvement has to start with making our lived experiences conscious.  By taking the time to gain the knowledge that comes from experience is when wisdom forms.  We can then consider what could have been different and to cause a different result in the future.
 
So intellectually we can accept that decision-making is better in work and in life if time is taken to reflect, at the least to truly consider the potential benefits and consequences.  Yet, in our harried existence of reflexive, reactive decision-making, it’s far too easy to rush this step and miss the opportunity for strategic, proactive decision-making.  Sometimes we get it right, but if we get it wrong, it can mean the difference between failure and success for medium to long-term decisions.
 
Even if it makes sense to carve out the time and even if it might lead to greater results, you may be left thinking, “Who has time for reflective practice?”  How does one translate a theoretical goal into tangible practice?  Well, I am not arguing for a full off-sight retreat or even a 90-minute meditation (nice and powerful as both of those may be).  Instead, I am making the case for taking time, small bits of time, protecting time, on a regular basis to think through key decisions in a way that draws upon inner wisdom.  And I am arguing that this time for reflection needs to be formally linked to our work and lives, as an integrated daily practice. You can’t run a marathon, without building upon tens or hundreds of smaller runs, and the same is true with reflective practice. 
 
And what is incredible about breakthrough thinking is that it often happens in a flash!  All of a sudden, it clicks and the pieces seem to fit together.  The understanding of the pieces took long, hard focused effort, but the brilliance and elegance of seeing how they all fit together requires a quiet mind and quiet space.
 
So, how do we do initiate this reflection, given all the other things on our plates?  I’m proposing some low-impact, simple ideas to get started.  There will be time to develop this theme in blogs throughout this year, so I hope you’ll let me know how it’s going for you.  The key is to find ways to apply past experiences to new situations, to learn from past experiences and appropriately apply that core learning to new and unique situations.  Without the reflection, true learning becomes difficult and lasting improvement really challenging.  Reflective practice works as a catalyst for proactive change when it’s simple, small, sticky, and sustainable.
 
So, here is my first suggestion for everyday awareness and reflection:  When you  have your morning cup of coffee or tea, rather than gulping it down while checking your phone and catching up on email or the news headlines, what if you closed your eyes and focused on a specific organizational or programmatic issue? What if you let the warmth, pleasing smell and familiar flavor create an opportunity for space, protected time to envision a series of paths to mitigate that issue?  Perhaps it’s a process of setting a positive intention, something you could even accomplish by the end of the day.  What if you considered other past experiences tied to this issue, directly or loosely, and what worked well and what did not and started to infer some meaning?
 
Then, what if toward the afternoon, when you enjoy your afternoon cup, you reflected on those early morning thoughts and considered how far you moved toward your issue or intention, what got in the way and how you might get back on track, perhaps even before you finish your work for the day/night? 
 
My goal in this suggested practice is two-fold:  first, from a content perspective, that one takes the time to consider a specific learning goal and then reflect on how you made incremental movement toward its achievement, considering your past experiences and applying your own wisdom to the new situation.  And second, that this effort toward reflection is baked into your daily practice rather than an added burden, such that it becomes common practice.  Instead of adding one more thing to an already long list, simply harness an already habituated small activity and infuse it with the negative space for connective, reflective thinking.
 
I consider reflective practice as inextricably linked to outcome management.  Better results happen if we take the time to learn from the difference between intended/desired outcomes and actual results.  If we accept that that results in the social sector always have twists and turns and are rarely sustained exactly as predicted, then the necessary complement to having the right people in the right positions, solid program design, and celebrating successes, is making sure there is time to think about what isn’t working and most importantly, the reasons why.  This represents key learning and allows real experiences, mixed with a necessary dose of adaptability, to work their way into the next round of improvement efforts.
 
Although I have explored various techniques of reflective practice for many years, I believe it can be accessible to everyone.  I’ve seen many clients and colleagues over the years who desperately want to carve out this type of time but cannot figure out how it would work in reality. So, this initial idea is an attempt to meet you where you are, with a morning cup of something wonderful and to slow it down, even for a few moments.  Make it more intentional.  Think about a past experience that worked well.  Build on that idea.  Breathe and think about how you want your day to unfold. 
 
Perhaps you will feel guilty as it may feel like an undeserved luxury.  Perhaps, it will feel like stolen time.  Or, perhaps it will feel like a warm embracing blanket, a clean desk, even an epiphany.   Just maybe, this simple reflective practice might catalyze some positive changes in your attitude, actions, and accomplishments.  And once you own it personally, it might just change the results for your program or even your whole organization.

Changing jobs is always a transition; changing sectors even more-so.  When I transitioned from the private sector to the social sector, I thought a lot about my desire to shift away from the secretive, competitive landscape and to enter a sector that valued collaboration.
 
Now that I have been in the social sector for nearly 15 years, I have often heard the value of sharing but I find the reality of collaboration is less than optimized.  There are a lot of external conversations about the importance of working together, but until leaders internalize the benefits, it will fall short of its true potential.  Collaboration is hard for anyone to do, especially leaders.
 
In my January blog, I wrote about the critical leadership skill of a mindset shift toward openness, iteration, evolution.  I offered the suggestion to start by asking one new tough question about results.  Then, relentlessly seek the answer from as many people as you can engage.  This questioning requires an attitude that admits to peers that you do not yet have all the answers or openness to the possibility that your answer could be improved upon.  In considering this topic of connecting, collaborating, sharing, I am left wondering, is it the opposite of ego? 
 
I do not think it necessary let alone possible to check our natural sense of self and confidence at the door, but I do think to truly become change-agents, we need our internal compass set at “open to learning”.  To do that effectively, we need to accept that in this complex world of social change, we cannot possibly have all the answers ourselves.  We live in the information age, yet we all get stuck and wish we had more or better information to make educated decisions.
 
We need to constantly strive to remain open to client and staff feedback, research the wheels created before ours, and gather the knowledge that allows for data-informed action.  Although there are some constants in the social sector, environmental norms are in constant flux.  Informed adaptation is the way for organizations and therefore clients, to thrive. 
 
So, taking my own advice, upon reflection I realized that I gleaned this concept from several sources and people including, a former client who expressed “You’ve always been really great at unsticking my thinking.  Any chance we could connect for 30 minutes in the next week or so?”, my yoga instructor, Jim Collins Good to Great, several articles from the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and even my son’s piano teacher. 
 
Consider the great conceptual plan you had, which fell flat due to an untimely key staff change; an amazing strategy that can’t be implemented due to a state budget impasse; a brilliant new program roll-out that is postponed based on an operational issue. 
 
If we are in the mindset of gathering information, developing relationships, filtering for importance and truly learning, we can adapt much more easily.  When we have networks to collaborate with, trusted resources and people to turn to, we can achieve much more than if we operate in a vacuum.  Best to end our soap box ideas with the simple yet powerful line, “So, what do you think?”
 
So what is informed adaptation?  My working definition is “a methodical habit of taking information from various sources in, recognizing and interpreting the intersections, and drawing informed conclusions.”  It requires us to have a “connectors” mindset.
 
A key example on a more systemic level is the academic innovation of nonprofit management courses and degree programs.  They require the influx of inter-disciplinary approaches – combining business school management classes with social science research, political science, and human-centered design.  This confluence of knowledge necessitates traversing the traditional silos of academia.  It makes sense in a world where broad understanding of complexity readies us for collective efforts, which hopefully result in greater impact.
 
What we haven’t fully tapped are the hidden jewels that lay beyond the strategic approaches – the people behind these successes.  We need to understand what allows real leaders to succeed. 
 
When we published the Performance Imperative, there were a group of Leap Ambassadors (the collective authors) who argued that the first pillar, “Courageous, adaptive executive and board leadership”, should actually be an entryway to the other six pillars, rather than an equal part of the seven total pillars to high performance.  We argued that leadership provided the gateway to pass through before access to high performance was possible.  We titled this pillar and discussed the importance of responsibility, stewardship, accountability, clarity, learning, informed decision-making and external resource development.  We did not specifically call-out the idea I am proposing here – connecting.  But, I think it appears as a thread throughout the document and certainly in this bullet:  “Executives and boards are humble enough to seek and act on feedback on their own performance and that of their organization.  Even the highest of high performers know that they haven’t figured it all out and acknowledge that they still have a lot of work to do.”
 
I am suggesting that solid leadership requires a "connector mind-set".  That cultivating relationships by thinking outside of silos is an important skill.  So how do we get there?
 
In working with a client recently, I noticed the limitations of very smart professionals, based on their inadequate knowledge of the field beyond their specific agency.  We need to get out of our echo-chambers and understand that we are stronger, better, smarter, and more effective, when we access, learn, expand, and incorporate varying inputs  - we create stronger new possibilities.
 
In the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell points to the Yiddish word for Maven and defines it as “one who accumulates knowledge”.  Diverse sources of information, mixed with our own experience become wisdom, and we all know that knowledge is power.
 
I leave you with the simple words of a woman I have much respect for in my community: “one idea plus another idea creates a greater idea.” 
 
I encourage us all to reach beyond our own program or organization and learn from another initiative in the broader programmatic space/field/ecosystem.  I feel inspired by the idea that we are all connected – all we need to do is be willing to open ourselves to learning and to connecting the dots into a larger whole.

I recently had the honor of speaking on the plenary panel at ARNOVA, the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action.  The experience provided a real opportunity, as the moderator, Dr. Alnoor Ebrahim, a Harvard business school professor and fellow Leap Ambassador, asked each of us to consider what advice we would offer to academics; specifically, “What is the one critical skill we need to teach students in nonprofit management programs?”
 
My response centered on the need for solid theory-of-change skills, explaining that future executives and governing board members need these tools to understand how to ask and answer the right questions regarding outcomes.
 
Upon reflection and hindsight, I’m now clearer about what else I might have shared.  I maintain my response of building a solid theory-of-change; one that includes clarity on target population, purpose, market need, and evidence-based programs that lead to improved client results. 
 
But I would add skills consisting of a mindset shift toward openness, iteration, and evolution. 
 
This means becoming a leader who genuinely wants to learn, is open to client, staff, and community feedback, understands that environmental norms are in constant flux, and that informed adaptation is the best practice for organizations to thrive; and, in turn, for clients to thrive as well. 
 
With equal rigor to the technical skills, our academic institutions and professors need to teach flexibility, creativity, nimbleness.  We need to infuse ethical behavior, power-sharing, and humility into our next generation of leaders.
 
These “soft” skills are notoriously hard to teach, but they are vital for executive leadership as well as anyone in or entering a governing role in the social sector.
 
I acknowledge that this may sound unattainable - how do you teach emotional intelligence, self-reflection and self-knowledge?  Can they even be taught or are they innate?  The question that Dr. Ebrahim posed was brilliant in trying to expose the ideal skill-set.  Similar to client outcomes, we need to identify what defines success first, and only then should we tackle the challenge of how to measure and manage toward that success.
 
My hope is that the academic community will step up and find ways to teach these soft skills, perhaps looking outside the business/management school faculty to incorporate other disciplines. 
 
We need to allow social sector leaders to maintain their “dreamer” status, while forging priceless inter-personal and organizational skills.  The technical skills can then build upon this foundation. 
 
In the face of either super complex social issues or super challenging financial issues or both, this informed adaptation, combined with self-knowledge, optimism and humor will keep us energized and ensure our colleagues remain engaged and motivated.   
 
I believe that these critical skills will guide emerging leaders in the social sector to forge real and lasting social change. I look forward to learning from academics if they are up to the challenge.
 
I write this at the start of a new year, with a wish that 2016 catalyzes your learning journey.  May it be iterative and reflective. 
 

A dozen years ago, when I started my journey of pushing (and occasionally dragging) parts of the social sector toward results, first as a researcher, then as a trainer, and ultimately as a consultant, it was clear that the ideals of shared measurement, benchmarking, and addressing the under-capitalization issues were too big and too daunting to gain real momentum.  The sector was not ready.  Now, largely post-recession, there is exciting and significant movement underway, representing real potential to change the landscape toward results.  It’s actually happening.

There are three specific initiatives I’m involved in that I believe represent catalyzing efforts to shift from the “nonprofit sector, expanding activities and efforts” to “the social sector, managing to results”:

1)    Full cost/Real cost funding toolkit
2)    The Performance Imperative momentum
3)    Local examples of infrastructure and commitment to change

I’ve summarized these actions, which transform the conversation from theory to practice.  Each is closely aligned with my vision for DBN & Associates:  “Social change is defined in terms of client outcomes, rather than well-intentioned programs and activities.”

First, the Donors Forum is making headway on a strategic initiative called “Full cost funding”.  I am passionate about this topic.  I have been a strong proponent starting around the time that GMN’s Project Streamline published “Drowning in Paperwork, Distracted from Purpose” and pre-dating Bridgespan’s work with Donors Forum, resulting this short video on “Real Talk about Real Costs”.  Since then, Guidestar, Charity Navigator and BBB Wise Giving Alliance published “The Overhead Myth” and the message of effectiveness beyond earlier definitions reached a wider audience.  As co-chair of the Donors Forum initiative, we are taking the foundational concepts and bringing them to life.  As the process continues, the Commitment to Full Cost Funding, will grow from a manifesto into an action-plan for Illinois funders and service providers – transforming from an idea at the conceptual phase to an actionable set of beliefs that will translate into practice.  To reach beyond the early adopters, there are several educational tools and resources planned that will guide funders and service providers on how to use “Full Costs” in both culture change, communication, and budgeting processes. With a parallel effort in California and national interest from organizations like Guidestar and GEO, this has great potential to become a sustained campaign for change. 

Second, I wrote in my Spring blog about the ground-breaking publication of the Performance Imperative.  Since planting the seed, great new action steps are blooming.

·         Harvard Business School is using it in an MBA course;
·         Large social sector organizations like Building Changes are baking it into their theories of change;
·         Grant-makers, like St. Luke's Foundation, are using the PI to guide the organizations they fund in asking themselves the right questions toward high performance.

Third, there are many great examples emerging of the culture changes needed to truly achieve social change.  The momentum that Collective Impact catalyzed should not be understated.  While the PI is focused at the organizational effectiveness level, sustainable social change happens when high performing organizations come together with shared outcomes, and widely varying yet complementary strategies to forge large scale results. In my current work with the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, it is clear that a culture of trust and long-term relationships lead to investments that represent true partnerships and a focus on continuous improvement.  Their commitment to population change, via agency support is inspiring.  It is exciting and energizing to facilitate and witness agencies and leaders who serve the same target populations to come together and learn from each other.  From this listening and learning, shared results and contributions will lead to a greater understanding of gaps and opportunities. With hard work and good planning, the result will be even better, more streamlined programming and services for the people that the whole eco-system aims to benefit.

Why should we care about this?   

Immersed in the nuances of implementing outcome management, I spend significant time thinking about the connection between the true costs of running a nonprofit organization and the vast difference between the cost of running activities and achieving outputs and the need to invest in participant results and achieving outcomes.  Outcomes are expensive AND represent the level that all social sector leaders need to aim for, in both time and resources.  Yes, this may mean more focus, more support, and greater scrutiny, but it WILL forge the social change that we are all in this to achieve.  It will mean healthier people, organizations and communities. 

We know the benefits of flexible funding models, of trusting and investing in courageous, adaptive executive and board leadership (First pillar of the Performance Imperative).  So, what is on the horizon to help the funding community embrace investing in results and in fact, implementing it as the new normal?

Increasingly, really smart people are writing and speaking on these issues.  So, even if you are new to this conversation or have been following the trends for many years, the question is:  what can you do?

Three things this month (follow the wisdom of Nike and “Just do it”):

1)    Read and share the Performance Imperative with your organization at every level – it is short, straight-forward and credible.  Get it in the inboxes of your CEO, board, and management team.

2)    Focus on a specific program in your organization and ask the question:  Are people better off now than when you started?  This is beyond a single anecdote (even though every changed life matters) but focused on whether the program is systematically achieving positive client outcomes.  Simply ask the question and consider how you might find out the answer.

3)    Keep the faith that our sector is shifting, that funders are embracing the need to invest in full cost funding and longer-term results and that providers are defining success and managing to achieve it.  There are increasingly smarter tools to assist service providers to embed outcome management and continuous improvement into their very DNA.

I leave you with a One Minute Manager Kenneth Blanchard quote:  “There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient.  When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses - only results.”