Ruckus at Vinnies

St Vincent's NSW have recently experienced their State Board being replaced by its national body, amid claims of 'corporate bullying' and counter claims of 'political interference' and 'wanting to get hands on monies'. Likely the truth will never come out.

The aim of this blog is not to engage in debate about St Vincents or any other church based charity, but to highlight what I believe to be the bigger issue and one that is being faced by many other nonprofits, regardless of their origins throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Most nonprofit organisations are mission-driven, yet increasingly pressure is being placed upon them by funding bodies to become more accountable, to have in place appropriate systems and processes and to maintain a triple bottom line. These demands clash with the mission of many involved in these charities. In short many people cannot grasp the connection between systems and sustainability. They continue to believe that somehow, money will always appear from somewhere and that the service they provide will continue ad infinitum. This issue is compounded by the increasing gap between those that volunteer their services and those that are paid for their services. This issue is not going to go away - despite the best efforts of volunteers to try and achieve just that. The reality is that if charities want to perform to their best ability, by achieving the high possible funding from various sources and providing the high level of service to those in need then they need access to people with appropriate experience and skills.

Is there a way to reduce this tension? Yes there is and the answer lies in doing something different to what is being done at present. The corporate model doesn't sit comfortably with mission driven organisations. Yet elements of the corporate model are necessary to achieve transparency and accountability. The gap between volunteers and paid employees, in particular managers, doesn't sit comfortably in a nonprofit environment; yet these people are necessary as they have the experience and skills to provide transparency and accountability.

I am not laying the blame at the feet of funding bodies either. They disperse public monies, as a donor I expect them to do so in a transparent and accountable manner. Public money is not money to be wasted. Yet I don't believe funders fully understand what it is they are funding or properly fund all aspects of service delivery.

Firstly I believe it is important board membership is made up of people with passion but who also have business skills in areas such as finance, marketing, fundraising, strategic planning and volunteer management. All board members should have a good understanding of governance best practice. Such skills and experience in themselves do not constitute a corporate model; these are simply the preferable degrees of experience to ensure transparency and accountability.

Secondly the time has come to stop treating volunteers as volunteers and instead treat them as unpaid staff members, subject to exactly the same standards and expectations that apply to paid employees. It is time for volunteers to understand that they don't own the business; it does not belong to them, they, as do paid employees, serve the greater community.

Thirdly management groups need to develop the ability to lead through collaborative actions, not through 'command and control'. This means managers need to learn how to engage everyone, at all times, in all aspects of operation, by creating an environment of sharing and continuous learning. This requires an investment in learning and development at every level of the organisation, including volunteers.

Finally, funding bodies, especially Government funders need to recognise the long term benefit of investing in development, of having in place effective systems and processes and having in place people with appropriate experience and skills. They in turn need to fund the development of people. A for-profit organisation funds this development from its sales. In the non-profit sector, Government is the chief source of revenue (so that nonprofits can do the job that Govt doesnt want to be held accountable for) and therefore have an obligation to provide sufficient funding to enable investment in people. To do otherwise is to short change both the sector and the community. Funding bodies claim to have the interests of stakeholders at heart, in particular the needs of clients. They need to understand that there are internal stakeholders as well as external stakeholders; staff also are stakeholders and clients.

Lastly, nonprofit organisations needs to develop hybrid models that enable them to maximise revenue from business activities, without compromising mission, to that they might have sufficient funds to invest in the development of their people. Which of course means, that they will need to build capacity at all levels in business development and business management (which most do not currently have) and so the cycle goes on . . .

Let The Journey Continue
John Coxon

Taking You From Frontline Manager to CEO

Acres of Diamonds

The Baptist preacher Russell Conwell wrote the original story titled 'acres of diamonds' about a farmer that sold his farm to seek his fortune in diamonds only to fail; yet the person that purchased the farm discovered what he thought were crystals in a creek; that turned out to be diamonds in their raw state. The very diamonds the orignal farmer sought were on his own farm - if only he had taken the time to study what diamonds in their raw state actually looked like. Many of us chase the gleaming, polished gem that others have already discovered while we fail to look for the raw, undiscovered gems in our own backyard.

Earl Nightingale expanded upon the story in his series of motivational lectures where he asked the following questions (which I have adapted and modified for managers)

1: How well do I do what I do at present? Think in terms of customer satisfaction.
2: Can I call myself a first-class professional at work? Think in terms of continuous improvement.
3: How does my management compare to other managers? Think in terms of best practices.
4: How well do I understand my sector and its environment? Can I link impacts of emerging events?
5: How can I improve customer service? Ask how do my customers use our services?
6: How can I increase my customer service? Ask my customers how I might better help them.
7: Do I understand what a 'rough diamond' looks like in my sector? Think in terms of customer benefits that remain unexplored.
8: Have I broken down my work and removed barriers and blockages that impede effectiveness and customer service?
9: How well do I understand how we might serve customers in 20 years time?
10: How can I look ahead, do the things that are not yet being done and lead the way?

To often during a recession we hucker down into our bunkers and try to protect the status quo while all round us the status quo is changing, being taken away or ceasing to remain the same. When we emerge from our bunkers we discover that what we were trying to protect has gone and we are all alone.

All to often when times get tough we begin to look at other people's gleaming gems (cars, houses, jobs, holidays) and we leave our farms in search of riches. What we fail to understand is that they got what they have by being ahead of the game, in the past.

Your farm is yourself, yet the one thing we neglect to develop is ourselves. We are to busy following the development of others. On your farm you have an undiscovered diamond mine of opportunity. For a start you are in control. You can choose what you want to do. You can make your own decisions. You own your farm, noone can take it away from you. Others can take your home, your car, your passport, even your freedom but they cannot take you away from you. They cannot take away your ability to choose a future for yourself.

No matter how difficult your life may appear you have options, lot of them. Start by looking at yourself. What do you have to offer? How could others benefit from what you have to offer? Look at your work situation. If you could do something better for a customer, what would you do? Then go and do it. So many of the things we take for granted today started with an idea in a garage, a pub or a kitchen. Yes money invested made the idea big - it was passion and self belief that got the idea off the ground. Someone said, bugger the world, I'm going to do it anyway. There is something very satisfying about giving the one-finger salute to those that would rather you drowned in mediocrity!

Stop thinking about you. It will only make you miserable. Instead think of others, think of customers. Instead of saying to yourself, this is what I want or this is what I need, change it around and ask yourself what am I interested in? You will soon discover others interested in the same thing. They become your initial customers. Change how you perceive a customer. Many people perceive a customer as being someone that purchases something from them. This is wrong. A customer is someone that benefits from your services. It's not about money dummy, it's about what you can do to help others obtain their 'polished gems'. In helping others to succeed they then help you to succeed.

Let The Journey Continue
John Coxon

Taking You From Frontline Manager to CEO

Why They Change Jobs

Recent research conducted by Catalyst and reported in Harvard Business Review, March 2010, showed that almost 25% of women, and 16% of men left their first job due to experiencing a difficult manager.

This serves to underline the importance of those in frontline management roles and in line management. This is often a new employees first experience of working with a manager in a full time work environment. Your experiences here impact upon us and form our perceptions for a long time, maybe forever. It is feasible more talent is lost at this stage than at any other stage. Yet now more than than at any time in the past 30 years we need to focus on retention rather than recruitment.

The initial direct report relationship is critical. The development of frontline managers is critical and it is important those in such management roles develop the ability to build effective manager-employee relationships.

The traditional 'sink or swim' approach is a dinosaur, a rock around your organisation's neck. When you fail to develop the potential of your frontline management team you risk the future of your organisation.

What can managers do to build good workplace relationships? The first thing is to ask questions and listen. People want to feel they are valued for their experiences and their ideas, they want to contribute. Collectively those in your work group have a better understanding of any issue than you, alone will ever have. Tap into that collective knowledge. Your team will perform well, they will achieve their outcomes and you will get the brownie points because you have the title of 'leader'.

The second piece of advice I offer frontline managers is to 'shut up'. No one cares about your opinions, and rightly so. Your role is not to tell others what you think, it is to facilitate a process of collective decision making. That doesn't mean you abdicate responsibility for making a decision; it means you make an informed decision. How? By asking questions and listening to what others have offer.

Thank people for their input and provide them with feedback on progress. When it comes to the workplace, it is preferable to over-commmunicate than to under-communicate.

Take time to learn about the people on your team. What are their individual strengths and weaknesses? What does someone do well and where do they need development or support? Encourage people to use their initiative and support them through the learning process than comes with making mistakes.

Get out of their way and let them get on with the job. If you want to do something then remove or minimise the impact of organisational barriers that get in the way of actually doing stuff.

Lastly, celebrate every little win as if it were a landing on the moon, give credit to those that did the work and came up with ideas; then start the cycle all over again.

The benchmark has been set. The challenge is in place. What can you do to ensure you minimise the loss of new people and continue to build the experience in your team?

Let The Journey Continue
John Coxon


Taking You From Frontline Manager to CEO

Dare To Dream

Over the past few months I have followed the progress of Jessica Watson in her epic sail around the globe. From the outset their have been those intent on knocking this young girls adventure; these are the couch potatoes, sitting wrapped in their own mediocrity. Living in a world where it is easier to criticise than it is to actually get up and do something positive and innovative themselves. These are those with unfulfilled dreams. Yes Jessica Watson has done something a little daft, even silly. yes she is very young, almost too young. Yes it could all have ended in disaster, with a couple of weeks to go, it may still, but so far it has not, but she followed her dream.

When was the last time you followed your heart? When was the last time you sang like noone was listening, danced like noone was watching and loved like there was no tomorrow? When was the last time you took a risk that made your heart pound with excitement? I don't mean taking out a mortgage on your house either. I am talking about the sort of risk that you find so exhilerating that you want to share with the world. The sort of risk where the sheer absurdity of it makes you want to laugh.

There are a lot of Jessica Watson's in this world, but not enough. There is vast untapped potential in any organisation, in every community, yet instead of fostering and encouraging people to be innovative, we put in place processes to actively discourage them.

There are some lessons to be learned from Jessica's achievements. She didn't try to do this alone. Yes Jessica sailed alone, yet at the same time she is surrounded by a support team of managers, sponsors, family and supporters. She may have been physically alone but she was not alone. Innovation often fails because the person with idea is unable to gather the support team around them. The support team has a dual function, it not only provides support, it acts as unofficial media and it champions the change. The support team provides reassurance and demonstrates safety.

Jessica's support team utilised a variety of media, constantly, to inform, to education and to enable multi directional communication. Jessica did not function in isolation. At all times she, and her support team were guided by the feedback of thousands of others, including the couch potatos.

At the end of the day Jessica chose to not sit on the couch and dream about the possibilities; instead she got off the couch and did the things that needed to be done to make the dream a reality. Each of you has exactly the same choice. You don't need to sail around the world, there are so many other things you could do that will provide you with the same amount of excitment and satisfaction.

Imagine what Jessica will be talking about for the rest of her life, imagine the stories she will have to tell her grandchildren, her mokopuna, imagine how in 80 years time she will look back and smile. Will you have able to do the same?

Let The Journey Continue
John Coxon

Taking You From Frontline Manager to CEO

Will You See The Change Coming?

I lifted the following from http://bit.ly/aX7HiM - Mike Myatt's blog on Leading Change. The image is courtesy of FutureMakers a not-for-profit organisation based in south west Victoria.

Why didn’t Folgers recognize the retail consumer demand for coffee and develop a “Starbucks” type business model? Why didn’t IBM see Dell and Gateway coming? Why didn’t more established social networks see Twitter coming? How did the brick and mortar book stores let Amazon get the jump on them? I could go on-and-on with more examples, but the answer to these questions are quite simple…The established companies become focused on making incremental gains through process improvements and were satisfied with their business models and didn’t even see the innovators coming until it was too late. Their focus shifted from managing opportunities to managing risk, which in turn allowed them to manage themselves into brand decline…

As a manager in a not for profit organisation you may be asking what has this 'profit making' stuff got to do with me? Here is a question for you to ponder. If you were a Government funding organisation and you had on your desk two funding submissions, both from non-profit social agencies, both with established history and both seeking funds to achieve the same outcomes. The difference is one of these agencies is a social venture operation, it generates revenue from business units, it doesn't rely upon Government funding to remain viable and it is seeking a lower input from Government. Where do you think the funding is likely to end up?

Your response to this question may determine whether your organisation continues to provide a service into the future or whether historians will look back and ask, why didn't they see this coming?

For decades now, not for profit organisations have stuggled for adequate funding and they continue to do so from an ever diminishing pool of funds. For the next 30 years Governments will face severe pressure on taxation revenue and increased costs, in particular associated with ageing and health care. This will place pressure on funding for disability, mental health, AOD, Family & Children, community capacity building and so on. Service providers will also face increasing costs, in particular labour costs. This will place pressure upon financial reserves for many.

Is the answer to engage in social ventures or to create business enterprise units that generate cashflow and supplement Government funding? I cannot answer that. This is an issue for every Board and Management team in every not for profit organsiation to begin to address - NOW.

To achieve this will require a different mindset and a different set of skills at both board level and management. This will be the age of the social entreprenuer. The high energy, visionary that sees community needs and understands that these needs cannot be fully met from Government funding alone. Instead of being trustees of community funding, Boards will become strategic planners for the future. Instead of being passive managers learning how to work within severe financial constraints, management teams of the future will push their Boards to plan ahead, they will demand their boards work with them to find the means to adequately fund people and service delivery. It will be a brave new world where many current and passionate community-minded people will struggle and a new breed of leadership will emerge, along with new operating models.

Many people involved currently with non-profit organisations will struggle with this concept and likely prefer to not read about it. Many will experience conflict between passion and mission and profit. Many will say it shouldn't be about making money and they are right. It isn't about making money per se; it is about making sufficient money to firstly attract and retain the best people for the future and secondly developing customised service delivery that actually meets the needs of the community. Do you truely believe this is being achieved to its fullest potential under the current funding models? Will you be a part of the future or will you be looking back with a sigh and asking, What If I had . . . ?

Let The Journey Continue
John Coxon

Taking You From Frontline Manager to CEO

The NFP CEO of the future

Over the next decade the majority of existing nfp CEO's will retire. You might shrug your shoulders and say, so what, the same happened in the past decade. Probably not. Even if it did, the next generation of CEO's will face a different environment to those currently in the hot seat.

The next generation of CEO's will be faced with generational change on an unprecedented scale, with labour shortages, rising costs, reduced government funding, greater accountability and greater scrutiny from Boards of Governance.

What does your organisation need to look for when recruiting its next CEO?

Any CEO works at three levels. The first level is the governance team. The second level is external stakeholder groups and the third level is with people working or volunteering in the organisation. This is not an order of preference or priority. Most CEO's would be working with all three levels simultaneously.

When working with the governance team a CEO provides two services, the first is to provide information on the emerging external and internal environment that enables the governance group to make informed decisions. The second service is to facilitate the strategic planning process. Increasingly governance groups are comprising experienced professionals, many with considerable strategic and management experience gained in the corporate world. Such people have greater expectations of the CEO;they do not believe they are there simply to rubber stamp operational decisions. They expect to be able to question the CEO as to intent and plans and progress. The CEO of the future will need to be able to demonstrate an ability to tap into the collective wisdom of the governance group while also understanding the needs of this group.

A large part of any CEO's role is liaising with external stakeholder groups. These can range from funding bodies to end users in the community. The CEO that isolates themselves from external stakeholders does so at their own peril and to the disadvantage of the organisation. External stakeholders provide access to broad collective wisdom. They provide an indicator of the emerging environment and its potential impacts.

The third group of people that a CEO is required to work with are those employees and volunteers in an organisation. Here the key skill of the CEO is the ability to listen, to explore, to understand how systems and processes act as barriers to progress, develop more effective processes and people and nurture a pathway between vision, mission, strategy and outcomes.

What should you look for in your next CEO? Firstly the ability to learn constantly from experience. A CEO who believes they know it all is a liability. CEO's do make mistakes. Many mistakes made by CEO's are errors of judgment, bought about by their inability to sense the emerging environment or their inability to develop open and transparent channels of communication. The ability to reflect upon past errors and point to the learning and development. An understanding that they as an individual can never know all the answers and have the ability to tap into the collective wisdom of all stakeholder groups.

Look for someone able to demonstrate their ability to recognise potential and to develop that potential. This is a sign of someone able to develop trusting and respectful relationships amongst employers and volunteers. This is essential for future succession planning. It will be essential for attracting and retaining high quality employees.

Nfp organisations are a business. Yes they are mission driven, yes they often have a unique set of values; yet only those with a focus on outcomes will remain around long enough to deliver on their mission and vision. A CEO must be able to demonstrate their ability to balance revenue and costs and where necessary increase one and/or reduce the other. A CEO must be able to demonstrate a record for achieving outcomes and results consistent with strategic direction.

The challenge when recruiting your next CEO is to find someone able to demonstrate their ability at all three levels. Should your CEO turn out to be deficient in one of these three areas then the success and potential of your organisation is at risk.

Let The Journey Continue
John Coxon

Taking You From Frontline Manager to CEO

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The truth is not always important!

A couple of years ago I publicly slam dunked a colleague in a manner that was cruel - even though the sequence of events as reported were factual. At the time another colleague said to me, the truth isn't important, you cannot treat others in this manner. At the time I apologised for the method used (email) but not for the words used. I still believe the truth is important yet I have learned there is more than one way to speak the truth.

A few weeks back the CEO of the colleague I attacked approached me and said 'you were right, this person has been nothing but problems'. Revenge isn't sweet, it isn't about being right and I write about the experience as both a means of reflection and a way of sharing the experience for the benefit of others.

We should all aspire to tell the truth; yet sometimes the price for doing so can be high. Look at the number of whistleblowers who have lost their job, despite being supposedly protected by legislation, simply for telling the truth. I recently read a report of someone being prosecuted for posting slanderous comments online on social media. Tempting as this may be for some people, it is a practice to be avoided. Stuff you place online can come back to bite you long after you thought it had disappeared.

As a management coach a part of my role is to guide others to 'see their own truth', regardless of what I believe, it not my perspective that is important it is what the client sees that is so. When I slam dunked my colleague some time ago I neglected my hard earned coaching skills and went on the attack. Despite being right in essence, the consequences to myself were significant. While it didn't cost me any loss of revenue, I certainly damaged my personal credibility and had to work very hard to regain it.

We need to think before we speak. We don't need to think about whether we should or shouldn't; we need to think about how we should, what means will be most effective while least damaging? Regrettably the world is full of liars and cheats and while none of us is perfect, when the time comes to stand up and tell the truth. Remember this, the truth is important.

Let The Journey Continue
John Coxon

Taking You From Frontline Manager to CEO