Archive for September, 2007

Executive Director Evaluation (and Evaluating Everything Else You Do!)

Published
by
Hildy
on September 24, 2007
in Capacity Building, Changing the World, Nonprofit Planning and Stop Signs on the Road to Changing the World
. 2 Comments

“We are about to evaluate our Executive Director. What should we ask him?” Ah, one of my favorite questions in the whole world!

Or here - one of my favorite meeting scenarios:

“Joe, you were going to get hold of Mr. Smith last week to move the project forward. What’s the status of the project?”

“I left him a message. He never got back to me.”

And the project is no closer to being done.

This series - Stop Signs Along the Road to Changing the World - asks, “If this is the sector that was supposed to change the world, what’s stopping us?”

And if ever there were something stopping us, it is that we keep focusing on what we need to DO, rather than what we need to ACCOMPLISH.


STOP Sign: Doing vs. Accomplishing
Let’s look at Joe’s situation in the meeting. Joe didn’t see himself as responsible for accomplishing something - he saw himself responsible for doing something. He made the call, he was done - even though nothing was accomplished.

Community Benefit Organizations* are really good at doing. We feed hungry people. We put on performances.

We are really good at measuring what we do. We fed 3,000 people. We had 400 people attend our performance.

And unfortunately, we are not aiming at accomplishing something; we are aiming at doing something.

When we see the purpose of our work as the doing, we get vested in the doing - even when our vision may be that we not have to do that work anymore!

“We fed more people at the food bank this year than last year.” If you see the purpose of your work as the doing part, that is good. If you are about accomplishing, however, that news may be good, or it may not be good. It may be better if fewer people needed the food bank!

“We had more people attend our performances this year than ever before.” That news may be good, or it may not be good. Were those people excited about your core mission of producing homegrown avante-garde plays? Or did you finally just give up on that core mission, and instead produced a season of musical sing-alongs to fill seats and pay the bills?

When we focus on what we want to accomplish (and especially who we want to accomplish that for), we do what we need to do.

The reverse is unfortunately not true. When we focus on what we do, we are not necessarily aiming at what we want to accomplish. More often than not, when organizations are focused on the doing part, they believe they do not have time for the accomplishing - and especially not “accomplishing on behalf of the community.” We don’t have time to think about building a prosperous, healthy community - we barely have time to house the homeless coming through our doors now!

(And even looking internally, how many organizations have we consulted to, who don’t feel they have time to focus on accomplishing Sustainability because they are too busy doing stop-gap fundraising to survive another year!?)

So how does that translate to evaluating our efforts? Evaluating our Executive Director, evaluating our board meetings, evaluating our organization’s performance? The first step is that we begin asking different sets of questions.

Instead of evaluating our ED on what he/she did, we will begin asking what he/she accomplished - and for whom. And we will begin to see that what the ED accomplishes is what the organization accomplishes.

Same goes for the board. Instead of using checklists to determine if the board did this or that, we would ask what we want the board to accomplish this year for the community.

If we expected accomplishment from our organizations, that would be what we would expect from our Executive Director, from all our staff, from our boards - from each other. We would know how to evaluate our ED, we would know how to make staff meetings actually move us forward. We would know how to do planning, and we would know what board meetings should look like.

There is a mile of difference between doing and accomplishing. One gets us closer to our dreams for our communities. The other is a Stop Sign along that road. Which path are you on?

Part 2 of this article is 11 Ways to Transform Your Organization from DOING to ACCOMPLISHING.

Are you new to this series - Stop Signs Along the Road to Changing the World? The archives may just open your eyes!

*Curious about our use of the term “Community Benefit Organization?“

11 Ways to Focus on Ends over Means

Published
by
Hildy
on September 10, 2007
in Changing the World, Nonprofit Planning and Tools to Use Now
. 4 Comments

Last week I talked about (ok, ranted about) the misguided emphasis we place on means over ends. And because ends are where our aspirations and passions lie, and means are where our fears lie, I thought it would be helpful to have 11 Ways we can focus on what matters most - the end result of creating an amazing world (which, BTW, also help in getting around those fears!).

1 - Have the Board Talk About End Results
Have your board spend ½ of each meeting talking about what they expect the organization to accomplish for the community in the next 5 years. Start with this prompt: What would amazing look like for our community in 5 years?

2 - Create a Community Impact Plan
If your mission were 100% successful, what would your community be like? And what concrete steps will your organization take to begin creating that? If we are creating the future, every day, whether we do so consciously or not, you can start consciously creating the future you want, right now. So what’s your plan?

3 - Deal with Fear Head On
Look fear in the eye, recognize it for what it is, and deal with whatever is causing it, once and for all. We tend to focus on means over ends when we are scared. So work to ferret out the fear and proactively address what is scaring you.

(Bonus tip: If your board or staff or volunteers are acting badly, fear is likely at play. And if there is a topic that seems to be talked about ad nauseam, always causing a sense of frustration and/or endless cycle, that is an indicator of fear-based work as well. Who is afraid? Of what? Why? And how can we address that proactively and compassionately?)

4 - Another Board Discussion
Have your board discuss these questions:
a) What is the best decision you made all year?
b) What made it the best decision?
c) Did that decision have to do with means or ends?
d) What decisions did you make in the past year that had specifically to do with ensuring the community was a more amazing place to live, through the efforts of your organization?

5 - Make Staff Evaluations About Results
Focus staff evaluations at ALL levels on end results first, and means second. (And when you do focus on means, make sure you have a code of values against which to measure those means. You don’t? This may help. )

6 - Executive Director Evaluation
Before doing your Executive Director’s evaluation, review the board’s minutes to see what the board has instructed the ED to do. During the evaluation, jointly determine how the board and the ED can establish more community-focused goals, so that next yea’s performance evaluation is focused on making the community a better place to live. Make this a team effort!

7 - More Board Discussion
Back to the board. Decide how you will measure community results. What will success look like, and how will you know if you got there? What could you measure? (Remember, measurement does not have to be data - it can be stories of significant change.)

8 - Deal with Money, Once and For All
Focus on the real end result of resource development - dependable, renewable income - rather than constantly chasing the shortfall. Do you have a plan to make your efforts sustainable, so you can focus your attention on creating the future of your community? Or are you hoping to just make it through another year (and destining your organization to live in ongoing fear)? (And if you think your work will never sustain itself, this may help.)

9 - Ending Something Negative vs. Beginning Something Amazing
Express your desired end result as a positive, not a negative. Not “ending poverty” or “ending homelessness” or “ending this or that.” After you end poverty, then what? What will amazing look like? (One of the most linked-to posts from this blog is all about focusing on end results - Are We Ending or Beginning?)

10 - Access is a Means, Not an End
Access to whatever is not an end result - it is a means to an end. Access to healthcare, access to the arts, access to the natural environment. What is the REAL result? What will it look like when those individuals have that access? What amazing thing will happen then? (Here is an example of what that looks like in practice.)

11 - Another Board Discussion
Have the board discuss this question: What future are we creating? For whom? Is that the best we can do? And if not, do we want to settle for “not the best we can do” or do we want to aim for amazing?

12 - Bonus: What has worked for you?
Please share how you have helped move away from a focus on means, and out towards a focus on creating amazing end results!

When we focus on means over ends, we wind up constantly whipsawed by circumstances, feeling like a hamster in a wheel, desperate and frustrated and wishing things were different.

But when we aim towards what inspires us, we are better able to face our fears and create plans to eliminate their cause.

So tell us - what has worked for you, to aim at results and finally put means in its place?

I Only Hurt You Because I Love You

Published
by
Hildy
on September 5, 2007
in Changing the World and Nonprofit Planning
. 2 Comments


Oh goodie - another one from the files of I Swear I’m Not Making This Up!

Headline in my local paper: Ranks of Hunters Show Signs of Sharp Decline

According to the Associated Press story, “Hunters remain a powerful force in American Society, as evidenced by the presidential candidates who routinely pay them homage, but their ranks are shrinking dramatically, and wildlife agencies worry increasingly about the ______________.”

Can you fill in the blank? My mind went to things like thinning herds, animal population control - the sorts of things a wildlife agency is charged with worrying about, and that hunting has been said to assist with over the years.

The answer? Here’s the end of the quote: “…and wildlife agencies worry increasingly about the loss of sorely needed license-fee revenue.”  The article goes on to say that “Most of the 50 state wildlife agencies rely on hunting and fishing license fees for the bulk of their revenue, and only a handful receive significant infusions from their state’s general fund.”

Now let me get this straight: Can it possibly be that we care so much about those animals that we bemoan there are not more people willing and able to kill them, to raise the money to care for them?

The topic of the book I have been holed away writing is “Why Nonprofits / NGOs Have Not Changed the World and How They Can.”  For months, I have been feverishly writing about what happens when we put greater value on the means than the end results - money over mission. I have been writing about what happens when we rationalize, using situational ethics (”If we don’t focus on money, we won’t be able to afford the mission.”)

And then this amazing gift falls right into my lap!!!!

Here is a quote from a representative of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies: “They’re trying to take care of all wildlife and all habitats on a shoestring budget.”

Hey, I’ve got an idea. If we value having incredible natural environments with a rich abundance of wildlife; if we think that is an asset we might want to, as a nation and a planet, cherish for posterity, so our grandchildren and their grandchildren will also have incredible natural environments to nurture their souls - what if we were to aim our policies at THAT?

I am tired of being told the only way for me to get good healthcare is to get bad healthcare (and go broke trying to get it.) I am tired of being told the only way for us to have peace is to have war. Now I can be equally tired of being told the only way we can have an abundance of wild creatures is to kill them.

Hey lawmakers - please, oh please, stop rationalizing the higher value you place on means over ends, and start aiming higher. Personally, I have higher expectations for what my country (and my planet) can be. Why don’t you?

Click here for 11 Ways to Focus on Ends Over Means

Photo credit: US Fish & Wildlife Digital Library

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