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A Buddhist monk, a leftist guerrilla warrior and a technology executive walk into a bar called Changes. “Ah the nature of change,” the monk says, “the world is always in flux, permanence is an illusion and attachment to permanence is the cause of suffering.” The leftist guerrilla replies, “But Mao said there must be a great leap forward.” The tech executive says, “Fast Company says change is happening faster than ever and we must always be the next big thing.” The bartender shrugs her shoulders and asks how each of them is planning to pay for their beers. “Everyone with ATM money again?” she says, “Go somewhere else to make your change.” Can you manage change?Sorry for the poor attempt at humor. People talk about change management and say that that is what they do. But can you really manage change? I believe you can be intentional about moving toward change. Yet saying you are managing change gives an illusion of control that I do not think is real in dynamic human systems. Organizations are human systems and are describes as “intelligent, creative, adaptive, self-organizing, [and] meaning-seeking” as Meg Wheatley described. While you can force change on people, I do not believe you can force people to change. Yet saying you are managing change gives an illusion of control that I do not think is real in dynamic human systems. A sparkThere typically is a spark that initiates the change. This could come from outside the nonprofit organization – a crisis, a major shift in the market, a new mandate or regulation. Or it could come from inside the organization in the form of a vision championed by either formal leaders or through a bottom up effort of informal leaders. Focusing the effortWhen done well, the organization will take advantage of the spark by being intentional in focusing the change effort. Is the organization ready to change and makes the best of the challenge or opportunity? How will leaders choose to invest the time, energy and resources into envisioning and implementing change? What new structures need to be created to support the desired change going forward? Meaningful dialogueCreating organizational change intentionally means taking time to thoughtfully design and engage in meaningful dialogue. Does the past need to be mourned before a new beginning can be imagined? Is the environment safe enough for people to bring their whole selves to the endeavor? If not, what will increase those conditions of safety? Systems of supportOnce the change is implemented –whether it is new goals and aspirations envisioned in a strategic plan or implementing a new technology system or building a new program – ensuring you have systems in place to support the new change and allow it to take hold is key. Identifying, harnessing and sharing stories of success can be a powerful way to help the change stick.
What change are you trying to make in 2020? Let's talk about them When you suddenly learned that a key staff person at your nonprofit organization just got a serious medical diagnosis and was going to be out for an extended period or that their spouse just got offered their dream job out of state, would you be ready? There are a variety of ways to get started with succession planning that prepare the organization. These include emergency back up planning, departure-defined planning, and shifting to a model of shared leadership. Are you ready for an emergency?Have you determined who will step in on a temporary basis if your leader is out suddenly? Include both board and staff roles in this planning, not just your CEO role. Do you have someone designated to step in for each of the roles on your leadership team? Once you have the ‘who’ determined – will they know what to do? What documentation do you have on the projects and processes they manage? If the person has been in the role for a long time, asking them to write everything down rarely works. Have another staff person or volunteer interview that person and then write up what they heard. This gives the person something to react to and likely they will identify gaps to fill in. Are there ways you can do cross training? Nonprofits are usually pretty lean and rarely have much duplication built in. How can you ensure that your staff knows what colleagues do and what key priorities are coming up? When you do have to ask a staff member to double up and do more than their job, how can you reward them for that extra effort? Run a fire drillI recently heard of an executive who decided they were going to run a fire drill to see whether their emergency succession planning was sufficient. She would call a person on her executive team and tell them not to come in, not to check email or respond to inquiries – could the designated staff manage on their own? What did they still need to learn? This real time exercise puts these questions to the test. Planning for a departureWhen your executive or someone on the leadership team know they are planning to leave in a defined amount of time, you can plan ahead. This is typically in the case of retirement and often the time frame is between 1 year to 4 years. Preparing for this process has multiple stages and I discuss each of these in these posts: Should I stay or should I go?Even though an executive may be planning to leave – they may be ambivalent about leaving. This may mean that they give mixed messages about their plans. As their feeling shift between excitement for new possibilities and fears about the future their timing may fluctuate. This is often especially true for leaders who are founders or have been in their role for a long time. Their identity may be caught up and entwined with the role. Thus they may have a hard time letting go even though on most days they feel they are ready. A coach can help a leader work through these feelings. This can help keep the organization’s anxiety at a minimum by getting clearer about their intentions.
Planning for succession can feel challenging with all the immediate demands of work. Yet it is just a matter of when a succession will make this more urgent. Emergency planning and documentation is a good place to get started. Too often when a search committee has selected the organization’s new leader, they are weary from the work of the search. They then forget that getting the new leader launched is a critical last step of their role. Many organizations miss this important final stage of the process. What will your launch plan be? How will you do announcements about the new person in the role? How will you plan for the arrival and orientation of the new Executive Director? What will the role of the outgoing ED be? How will information be handed off? Beware of the temptation of pointing the new person out the bathroom and wishing them well. Outgoing executive directorOften the board will want the outgoing executive director to stay on and orient the new person in the role. While this is an understandable instinct, avoid having the former executive director stay on for too long. A short (1-2 week) overlap should be sufficient to get the new person acquainted with where they can find important information, etc. Then often the former executive director will be contracted to be on call as the new person needs their assistance. Leave it within the new person’s control how and when they reach out to the old executive director. If the old executive director stays on too long, board members and staff will likely continue to reach out to the former leader instead of the new leader. This undermines the authority of the new leader and stalls an effective transition. Social network of the organizationHow will you introduce the new leader to the key stakeholders of the organization? The outgoing leader can be helpful in this regard. Or board members could take on this role and provide introductions to key people. Ensuring key relationships continue to be nurtured is key in a transition. Establishing new leader with the boardEarly on the new leader will want to have a conversation with the board about expectations. What are the goals and targets for the first 3, 6, 12 months? How did the former executive director work with the board? What does the incoming leader see as their role and the board’s role? Getting clear about roles and responsibilities and expectations is a place where a facilitator can be helpful to ensure that a full conversation about these key topics happens. Support & FeedbackHow will the board provide ongoing support and communication to the new leader? What are the professional development goals for the new leader in the first year? Ensure there is a plan for regular feedback. How will the board provide feedback on performance and expectations?
Shying away from this important responsibility is easy for boards but too often a source of serious trouble. Plan to provide feedback at 90 days, 6 months and 1 year in first year. If this has not been a regular practice, building assessment and feedback in for both the board and the executive can provide useful data and early warning signals of trouble that can then be addressed before they become truly problematic. Making a plan for onboarding the new leader is key. What are their goals? How will they connect with key stakeholders? How will they work with the board and how will the board provide feedback. Dig into these issues early for a greater likelihood of success. Nonprofit eExecutive transitions have three essential stages. Tom Adams dubbed these as prepare, pivot and thrive. In my last post, I focused on the first stage -- the things that you need to do to get ready. When people think of leadership transitions, most often they think about the middle stage – the search for the new executive. And I will focus on that below. The third stage is crucially important to help a new executive succeed. Search teamAs part of the preparation, the organization needs to create a transition or search team. One of the first tasks is to create a position profile. When creating the job description, you will need to separate out what is essential to the leadership role and what was part of the last leader’s role simply because of their particular strengths and capacities. Compensation ResearchThe team will then need to start compiling outreach lists. You will also need to complete compensation research so that you set your salary range at a competitive rate. You may use salary surveys available from your field’s association. There are also consultants who specialize in this type of research who could provide support on this important task. Many teams, especially larger organizations, choose to hire a search firm. A search firm can broaden your reach in terms of possible candidates. They often do much of the initial screening as well as guide your group through the search process. Hiring tasksYour team will need to do the typical steps of hiring including:
The entire search committee may not be involved in all of these steps. A smaller group could take on some of the initial tasks. Decide at which stage the full board will be brought into the process. Will the search committee offer one final candidate or will the board be part of interviewing the finalists? Hiring your new leaderThe executive director is the board’s only employee. The search committee will bring their final candidate or finalists to the board for its approval. A subgroup of the board should work on the details of the employment agreement. This group would likely benefit from the support and guidance of a lawyer. While one group is negotiating details with the new leader another group could be working on planning for the arrival and orientation of the new executive director. CommunicationsThroughout the process, the search committee and board will want to plan for communication with the rest of the organization. While they will not be able to share confidential details of who the candidates are, keeping stakeholders up to date on the group progress is important. This is especially important if you hit snags or parts of the process take longer than anticipated.
I will address the third stage – “thrive” – in the next post in this series. Executive transitions for nonprofits are tricky. It is more than just a straightforward hiring process. The executive transition process has three essential stages. In his seminal work on the topic, Tom Adams describes these three stages as prepare, pivot and thrive. Most people only think about the middle stage – the search for the new executive. Yet the first and the third are really the underpinnings of helping a new executive succeed. They prepare the organization grow and learn through the transition. I am going to explore the first stage in this post – “getting ready”. Get OrganizedA key first step to managing a key leadership transition is to get organized. The board needs to appoint a transition team. Team members should be able to think bigger picture and longer term for the organization. Recruit for a variety of skills including strategic thinking, emotional intelligence and project management. Decide whether the team will consist of only board members or might include some staff leaders as well. Should we continue as we are? Don Tebbe, a leading expert in leadership transitions, urges all nonprofit organizations to consider a key question before getting caught up in the details of managing a succession process. Should we continue as we are? Where do we stand in terms of the organization's mission? What has changed in the landscape since we last chose an executive director? Is our organization, with its current programs and services still relevant? Or should we consider closing down? Or is a new organizational form needed? Should the organization consider merging, being acquired or some other strategic restructuring? AnxietyThis team will need to address both the needs of the departing executive, the needs of the board and the needs of staff. Transitions almost always create some anxiety in the organization. Just pretending that people are not having the emotions they are having about the upcoming changes does not actually make them go away. The team should plan on educating themselves about the types of emotions that people typically experience when going through these kinds of changes. A consultant familiar with leadership transitions can also help normalize this experience. Staff roleAnother key consideration it to get clear about what role staff will play in the search process if any. It is important to clarify expectations, especially if staff are involved. Are staff involved simply for their comfort? Will they have input on the decision? To what extent? Who ultimately is responsible for making the decision about whom to hire? As the team thinks about how to involve staff, they will also want to talk about their approach to retaining key staff. CommunicationsThinking about your communications plan at this stage is also important. Who are the key stakeholders who need to know about the transition? How will you let key funders know? When and how will they be informed? Consultant help? Interim?Considering whether it would be helpful to have a consultant guide you through the process is an important conversation. A coach for the departing executive, especially if they have been in the role for a long time can be helpful to help them let go and think about their future. The consultant when hired often plays this role as well. Would the organization be better served with an interim executive instead of jumping immediately to a permanent hire? Organizational assessmentDuring this preparation stage, you should conduct an organizational assessment. This is a piece that is particularly useful to have outside consultant help. What are the organization’s strengths, challenges, direction, and priorities? Often this review will consist of board, staff and stakeholder interviews and surveys. As part of this review, you may find that the organization needs to be stabilized and key deficiencies identified in assessment process need to be addressed. Do not leave these for the new executive director to fix. When the deficiencies are substantial, an interim director can be particularly helpful. Strategic leadership sessionAfter the assessment is complete, hold a leadership strategy session. This session should not be designed to tackle a full blown strategic planning process. Topics would include answering questions, such as the following: Is board clear about strategic direction? What does the organization want/need in a new executive director? What are the priorities for the first 12-18 months? What are the issues to be addressed before new executive director is on board? Facilitating this session is another place that is helpful to have consultant support. DocumentA final task in the preparation stage is to create a search plan.
Need help thinking through how to get started with a leadership transition? Reach out for a coaching call. |
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Grace Social Sector Consulting, LLC, owns the copyright in and to all content in, including transcripts and audio of the Mission: Impact podcast and all content on this website, with all rights reserved, including right of publicity.
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