What if one or two changes in your leadership behavior could transform the way you feel about the work, inspire your team, and achieve new levels of success?

I spend a lot of time with nonprofit leaders of all different sizes of organizations in all different niches. And what I've noticed is that there are very specific leadership behaviors that tend to produce extraordinary results. And then there are other leadership behaviors that tend to hold organizations back. And what's fascinating is that a lot of the time, the behaviors that are holding organizations back are the ones the leaders don't even realize they're doing. 

So I think it's time to take a look under the hood and examine the behaviors that make a huge difference in one direction or another. I'm flagging five behaviors to lean into and five to leave behind. There just might be one or two that will be the key to taking your leadership and results to the next level.

In this episode, we share:

• Leadership behaviors that attract exceptional players to your team (and behaviors that repel them)
• The brain science behind why certain leadership behaviors are so effective
• High-value expectations to set for your leadership team
• One behavioral key to ensuring innovation within your organization
• Two common productivity-sapping behaviors that can be hard to give up, and how to leave them behind
• How to get everyone on the leadership team operating in their “zone of genius” as close to 100% of the time as possible

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

None of us has gotten where we are alone. And none of us are going to get where we're going alone. We always have others who are helping and supporting us, whether we realize and acknowledge it or not. Whether it's a formal arrangement or not. 

We all just had the wonderful experience of watching the Paris summer Olympics. If you've ever wanted clear convincing evidence of the power of coaching, all you have to do is look at and listen to these extraordinary athletes. Who will be the very first to tell you that they could not be where they are, they could not have achieved what they have achieved without the guidance and the support of their coaches. Of course they have to put in the work. Our coaches can't do our pushups for us. But they can show us the most powerful, most effective ways to get to that next level, whatever that is for us.  

I've gotten increasingly clear about the power of coaching as I have deepened my commitment to seek out the coaches who are the best fit for me to take me to my next level. 

 In this episode, we share:

• The hallmarks of great coaches, and what separates them from the rest
• Where resistance comes from, and how to get to the bottom of it
• How your rational brain will argue for your limitations
• Why your desire for more credentials may actually be blocking your success
• Using the power of silence and connection to uncover the answers that are already within you
• How a community of peers can help you grow faster
• How to practice mudita (sympathetic  joy) to elevate the culture of any group

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

The energy you bring to an encounter with a decisionmaker has a huge impact on your ability to engage and influence them. You can be as prepared as you want to be with all your facts and messaging. But if you don't bring an energy that engages, you're likely to be disappointed in the outcome. 

The problem most of us face is that our energetic frequency fluctuates throughout the day. And often we find ourselves in an energetic state that does not serve us. If something happens that pulls us into a low-frequency negative energy state right before we talk to a decision maker, we're liable to bring that into that encounter and wind up pushing them away. 

The good news is it doesn't have to be that way. We can do a lot to determine what our energetic state will be. And we can actually cultivate an energetic frequency that consistently serves us.

In this episode, we share:

• The four types of energy that influence your energetic frequency
• The most common energy depleting habits that may be costing you more than you realize
• The critical role internal dialog plays in influencing your mental and emotional energy
• How and why much of your internal dialog is running on autopilot without you realizing it – and the problems it may be causing
• How to rewrite key elements of internal dialog that will shift your energy to a much higher frequency 
• Three perspective shifting questions you can use to elevate your energetic state
• How to create a consistent practice that will keep your energetic frequency where you want it

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

Tell me if this sounds familiar. You have some key pieces of data that you know should speak to your decision maker. It's obvious to you that these data points basically scream, our stuff solves your problem, and it solves it in a big way with a big impact. But then you share it with the decision maker and they don't really see those connections. They don't see the significance. They don't connect it to their problems and concerns. And you're left wondering why they can't see the obvious. Maybe they just don't care. 

The problem you're up against is that statistics and data are typically the least compelling way to convey important information. All the experts who've been telling you that you have to have [00:02:00] data aren't wrong. They just left out a really important detail, which is your data won't help you if you don't communicate it in a way that engages and compels.

In this episode, we share:

• Why decisionmakers rarely perceive the significance of most data you show them
• The one common mistake that could be causing you to communicate your data ineffectively
• Why less is more when it comes to data
• How to take your big impressive numbers and bring them down to human scale so decisionmakers can easily visualize and understand the meaning
• How to “do the math” for decisionmakers so they can see how your data mean something important to them
• How to connect your data directly to the decisionmaker’s most pressing problems, and show how you solve those problems

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

One of the frustrations I often hear from nonprofit leaders is, yeah, we got a handful of great allies and champions, but we can't seem to grow the bench. We'd love to build even more of those powerfully influential relationships, but we simply haven't got the bandwidth. 

I'm already devoting 60% of my time to this, and I still have to run the organization, and there's only so much of me to go around. I hired a policy person or a contracting person, and between the two of us, we're able to get a lot done, but it's not enough and I can't afford to hire more people right now.

There's a solution that’s hiding in plain sight. There is a resource that is very seldom used, and yet when it's used correctly, it can 5 to 10 X your relationship building capacity.

In this episode, we share:

• What’s stopping potential relationship builders on your team from stepping up to take on that work 
• The three most important beliefs that develop an organizational culture that centers strategic relationship building 
• The four most common hidden obstacles to expanding your strategic relationship building team 
• How to up-level your leadership team’s role in growing your strategic relationships
• How to engage and support your mid-level staff in taking on strategic relationship building responsibilities that align with their other work
• The easiest and most efficient way to accelerate any team member’s strategic relationship building skills

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

One of the biggest challenges nonprofit leaders face is engaging decision makers around the information and data that we know make a compelling case for the policy or money decision we're asking for. But we know from experience that simply presenting that data and information and explaining why and how it supports our argument rarely leads to a decision maker leaning in and saying, tell me more. Much less having them say, you're right. This is a no brainer. 

One of the best techniques for translating data and information into something that's engaging and compelling is the use of vivid parallel or contrasting imagery. There are plenty of other tools in the messaging  toolbox. But this one is especially effective -- once you learn how to use it.

In this episode, we share:

• Why your most compelling data and information often don’t get through to decisionmakers 
• What makes imagery “sticky” and memorable
• The two most powerful types of imagery that will shift decisionmakers’ perspective
• How to combine imagery with story to make the biggest impact on decisionmakers’ thinking
• The hidden obstacle you must overcome to make your imagery work with decisionmakers
• How to take your image-creation skills to the next level  

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

On this 4th of July week, it’s a good time to pause and reflect. Democracy has always been messy, always imperfect, and always a work in progress. If we’re paying attention, we know that democracy is an ongoing project. 

What’s easy to overlook is that the success of that ongoing project requires the active participation of all of us.  And when that participation wanes is when opportunities arise for those who would undermine democracy or bend it to their own self-interested purposes. 

We are in such a time right now. If ever there were an all-hands-on-deck moment to protect and defend and expand the promise of democracy, this is it.  And nonprofit leaders are in an extraordinary position to help expand that participation for those who stand to lose the most if democracy is subverted any further.

In this episode, we share:

• The five main reasons people don’t vote
• The key ingredients that will help clients to reliably show up to vote
• The most important thing you should do before you begin engaging clients around voting
• Three simple actions you can take this week to raise awareness around voting
• Four key pieces of information to share with clients to make it easy for them to register and vote
• How to engage clients around beliefs that their vote may not matter
• The basic rules on what 501(c)(3) nonprofits can and can’t do around elections and voting

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

Pilots can be a great strategy for setting the stage for sustainable funding. Many nonprofits have successfully leveraged a pilot project to unlock millions of dollars in funding and to achieve key policy changes that ensure those services are always available going forward. But too many pilot projects end with no discernible impact on funding or policy. And that's a shame because it doesn't have to be that way. 

The truth is if a nonprofit makes one or more key mistakes when setting up the pilot, it'll probably fail to generate meaningful change. But with proper strategic design, you can dramatically increase your chances of turning a pilot project into long-term funding and policy gains. But it only works if we set it up to successfully prove the case for investment.

In this episode, we share:

• The fundamental thing decisionmakers need to know from your pilot
• The four major mistakes that can doom your pilot project
• How to define success for the three most critical entities in your project
• The two keys to getting impactful data from your pilot
• How to get the full engagement and cooperation of all partners in the pilot
• The biggest danger to your organization, and how to avoid this common trap inherent in pilot projects

Links:
Episode 09 - How to Get Decisionmakers to Pay Top Dollar for Your Organization's Services

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

One of the most underappreciated and overlooked factors that go into successfully engaging decision makers is identity. Identity is so powerful. It shapes how we see the world, and ourselves. It shapes how we relate to the world. And in the context of advocacy, it shapes how the decisionmaker sees the issues and problems we're engaging them on. 

There can be an important difference between identity and role or title. Both matter, but we often assume they're the same, and wind up just speaking to the decisionmaker role. That risks missing out on a huge engagement and messaging opportunity. And we just can't afford to do that. 

In this episode, we share:

• How to read the identity cues decisionmakers are giving you
• The three key things decisionmakers are telling you when they reveal their identity
• How to engage the decisionmaker when their identity framework is different from their role framework
• Key identity elements you can research ahead of time 
• How to prepare and practice your framing for a given identity
• The worst mistake you can make when engaging a decisionmaker’s identity, and what to do instead
• One highly effective technique to instantly engage a decisionmaker around their identity

If you found value in this episode, please share it with other progressive nonprofit leaders.  And I’d be grateful if you would leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts, which will help even more people find out about this podcast.

Thanks!

As a nonprofit leader, you probably have a lot of experience with public policy that often fails to serve the best interests of the people you serve, and the work you do to help them thrive.  And when the time comes that you decide you want to create better policy, you want to make sure that the new policy does what you really need it to do.

But getting from your great policy idea to finished policy that actually does what you need it to, is not automatic.  The devil is always in the details, and you have to be on top of all of them. In last week’s episode, we talked about all the keys to preparing your successful policy proposal. 

In Part 2 of this two-part series, we take you through the complete process of turning that proposal into finished, enacted policy that gets the results you’re looking for.

In this episode, we share:

• The first critical step in engaging your allies and champions before you start talking policy details
• How to leverage your allies and champions even when they aren’t the key players for this policy area
• How to choose the most strategic home for your policy when there’s more than one option
• How your most powerful asset can create a blind spot that hinders your effectiveness with policymakers
• The most critical policy players that you may not know exist, and how to work with them to craft your ideal policy language
• The 4 most important words in policy language that can make or break your results
• The most common hidden obstacle to successful implementation of your policy and how to overcome it

 If you missed Part 1 of this series, be sure to check out Episode 50!