Leading Organizations That Matter

I often find interesting (and unexpected) inspiration and lessons from the most unlikely of places. In this week's episode, I draw from the world of art, specifically music-making and film directing.

All leaders want to be proactive, not reactive. But here's the thing: Just because you want to be proactive, be considered by others to be proactive, and do proactive seeming things, that does not mean that it’s true. In this week's episode, I point out a simple way to frame up a discussion that can help leaders make sure that everyone is on the same page for critical organizational decision making.

Optimism is a good thing, right? Absolutely! But... and this starts innocently enough... a sincere desire to be (and seem) optimistic can, over time, give way to something that is... not so good.

You have blind spots. I have blind spots. And they can impact our approach and our success. Remember, blind spots are only problematic when we ignore them.

I've seen it happen and often to tragic effect. Boards will hire a leader to bring about substantive change... only to find out later that the process of creating that change caused more friction and tension than anticipated. This week's brief episode is a reflection on how best to prevent this sort of unpleasant surprise from happening. Thanks for listening.

Some of us kittens look into a mirror and see a mighty lion staring back at us. Some of us lions see little kittens. Honest and clear-headed self evaluation is important... but alas this is a podcast about leading mission driven organizations and I'm no pop psychologist. Nevertheless, I believe that the parallels to leadership are worth thinking about. In this week's episode, I describe how gaining external feedback can be helpful.

In my book, Saving Organizations That Matter, I describe the importance of "storytelling the mission", that is, describing the work of an organization and its mission in a compelling and even emotionally stirring manner. In this week's episode, I describe three quick tips for improving your ability to storytell the mission.

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For-profits... non-profits... what's the difference? 

In this episode, I provide six reasons that the movement toward for-profit health care has had some negative impacts on all of us. 

I suspect this is going to be a bit controversial but... I've seen what I've seen.

For many nonprofit organizations, merger and acquisition strategies are viewed as desperation moves, as a proverbial Hail Mary scenario. This is... quite different... from their for profit counterparts who see M&A options as a way of cashing out of the business or as a means to grow and increase shareholder value. In this week's episode, I argue that many nonprofit mergers fail because they were set up to do just that from the start.

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You're preparing your strategic plan and hoping to reflect your organization's top tier priority around DEI and anti-racism... so, you make it one of your named top tier priorities or "strategic pillars". Hm... not so fast. This week's episode offers an alternate approach and, as I state, I have come to believe that this is a best practice.