 In episode 40 of Mission: Impact, Carol and her guests, Monique Meadows and Terrill Thompson, discuss:
Guest bio: Monique and Terrill are long-time friends and co-owners of Banyan Coaching and Consulting, where they partner with clients to create healthy, vibrant, and sustainable cultures through holistic coaching and facilitation. Our love for the natural world is integrated into all that we do. We invite you to tap into your inner knowing as we together transform and expand in ways that are electrifying, unpredictable and imperative. Monique is a lifelong student of energy healing, channeling and a Reiki Master. Terrill lives in a community on a permaculture farm where they draw energy and joy from producing food, nurturing healthy ecosystems, and offering respite to activists, artists, and organizational leaders. Both earned Master’s degrees in Organization Development from American University, where they were awarded Segal-Seashore Fellowships for their commitment to social justice. Important Links and Resources:
Transcript: Carol Hamilton: My guests today on Mission Impact Are Terrill Thompson and Monique Meadows. Terrill, Monique and I talk about what organizational culture is and why it so often trumps any policies and procedures that you may write, what it really takes to shift organizational culture, and what are some signs that an organization is really ready to engage in culture change? Mission Impact is the podcast for progressive nonprofit leaders who want to build a better world without becoming a martyr to the cause. I’m Carol Hamilton, your podcast host and nonprofit strategic planning consultant. On this podcast we explore how to make your organization more effective and innovative. We dig into how to build organizational cultures where your work in the world is aligned with how you work together as staff, board members and volunteers. All for this is for the purpose of creating greater mission impact. Welcome. Welcome Terrell. Welcome Monique. It's great to have you on the podcast. Terrill Thompson: Thank you. Carol: So I'd like to start out with a question of what drew you to this work? What motivates you and what would you describe as your, why Terrell, why don't you tackle that one first? Terrill: My story of how I got into this work was I started as an executive director of a nonprofit and I was one of those EDS that really never should have been an idea right out of college. I got hired as an administrative assistant and then the ed quit. And so the board promoted me to be the ed. And in that experience, I learned a lot on the job and really loved the nonprofit sector. But what I was really passionate about was figuring out how to create and shift the culture within the organization. And so that landed me in graduate school, getting a degree in organization development, which is where. Monique. And then we have been, even though our degree and organization development is much more of a for-profit oriented degree. Most of our colleagues work in the for-profit world. Both of us have always been in the nonprofit sector and passionate about social change. And so we have just applied all of that learning, translated it into non-profit language and have been applying it in a nonprofit. Monique Meadows: Yeah. So, so similarly, I come to this, having worked for social justice organizations for about 25 years now. And initially I was a development director, so I was responsible for raising the money and all that, which is so not what I'm oriented for. And we, I was part of a management team that was really. Struggling. And we brought in a consultant to help us and figure out what was going on and why everything was breaking down. And there was a moment where I thought, I wonder what he's doing. I was like, that's what I'm wired for. Right? Like how do we heal relationships? And how do we make sure that we're working together in ways that really foster collaboration and so, went to graduate school, met Terrell and yeah, I've been really loving it ever since. Carol: Yeah. And, full disclosure: I went to the same graduate program, not in the, in the same cohort as the both of you, but and, and it, it somewhat of a similar thing that instigated B two. Moving into organization development was, yeah, working at a number of different nonprofits where they had incredible missions, incredible work that they were doing in the world. And, and yet there was this gap between. How, what the change that they wanted to see outside themselves, but then how they were treating, how we were treating each other, how, how the culture of the organization was. And so I didn't actually, I don't know when I finally, just started getting intrigued with. Why, why is there that gap and how could we work more effectively together and finally stumbled upon, oh, there's a field where people do things about this and I can learn more too. So yeah, so similar and. Your work really focuses a lot on that organizational culture change. Just to begin, how would you, I mean, and we've talked, I've talked a lot about organizational culture on this podcast, but I'm curious how the two of you define organizational culture. What are, what are the kinds of things that you're talking about and thinking about when you're, you're looking at an organization's culture. Terrill: We define culture really broadly. Right? It's really, I mean, the essence of it is what does it feel like to work there? Right. Every organization has a different call. And the people who can most clearly see the culture are often the new folks, because once we're in it, we're just, it's like the fish in water that doesn't know they're in water. It's, it's all around us all the time. And so, newer people who are coming into organizations can often tell you a little bit more about the culture. The other thing is that oftentimes our practices and policies are really down that should define a cartoon culture, often contradict the culture. So for example, we'll see policies that say things like everybody takes an hour for lunch, but then when we look around the office, everyone's sitting at their desks, cramming food in their face while they're typing emails, right. And culture often Trump. Everything else. And so when we're looking at culture, we're really looking holistically, how are people behaving in the organization? How do they treat each other? What are the relationships like the level of trust? What is the culture around, what do we do about birthdays or holidays, all of that. Even how we dress is part of. Okay. And so we're really taking a broad approach. And when we enter organizations to learn about the culture, our processes, predominantly observation and talking with people, because while we do read all the policies and procedures, that's not going to tell us that culture, right. It's really about the people. The people make up the culture. Do you want to add anything to that money? Yeah. Monique: Yeah. And so once we've done some of that observation, like we reflect back to the organization, like here's what we see. Right. Here's how you're relating to each other. How here's, how you're sharing information. Here's how collaboration is or is not happening. And it's fascinating to see how just the reflecting back, what we see, how that in of itself. The culture, right? Because as Tim said, there's the ideal that they hold and then there's what's actually happening. And so we're coming in and assessing that and reflecting back, really. So we start talking about energy, right? Really shifts the energy in the group and. Work with they're like, oh yeah, okay. This, this looks like us. And this isn't quite where we want to go. And so they're, they're ready to make some of those changes in some of the groups that we work with. Aren't right. And so our work is to, to meet them where they're at, so that we can help guide them through a process that turns their culture into the one that reflects their values and who they say they want to be. Carol: Yeah, I think that's, that's where, I don't know there was, there was a point at which there are these cynical posters that came out when we, with the values thing and, and, and just the, the, the worst of what it could be. And, that's all a joke because so many organizations have gone through that process of, or maybe articulating values, but then, there can be that gap between what we think we are, but what's, what's really happening day-to-day. Monique: And part of the thing that we've seen, that's such a challenge is that group say they want to do the organizational culture work. Right. And so they bring in folks and. When they realize that the depths of time, like the amount of time, like the commitment and the vulnerability that is really present, they shut down. Right. And so groups also don't always have the resources to really invest the time. Right. Folks are pulled in a thousand different directions. And so we found that to be one of the challenges. Are you really able to commit the time and the resources, the people power to be able to dig in and do this. And so some groups are like, yes, and some aren't able to, but, but that's where I think some of that cynicism comes, right, because there's so many starts and stops to this type of work, but it really does require just like really diving in deeply. Carol: What are some things that can help? Yeah, I mean, I think realizing how long a process like that takes and how, how challenging it can be to shift culture, even when you want to, what are some things that help that process move forward and go more smoothly? Monique: Well, the first piece of television mentioned a minute ago was that, we do the data collection, right? So we go in, we talk to folks, have focus groups, interviews, and really pull together what summarizes who they are. Right. And then we reflect back to them. What our work is, is to introduce concepts and models that resonate with them. Right. And use language, because we know when we're talking about culture, like there's some groups we can go in and work with. And they automatically, when we start talking about how our organizations reflect the natural world and they're like, yes, Instant resonance and we're able to do the work. Other groups were like, what the heck are they talking about? These hippies are crazy. Right? So, so we have that. Right? So, part of it is finding. Specific activities that resonate with the group and help them to connect in new ways and create a safe enough container where people are willing to take some risks with each other, because they're often we find there's a lot of injured feelings, right. A lot of hurt feelings, right. And a lot of old narratives. Become concretized and some of the systems. Right? So, what we do is let's surface this and find where the opening is, right? That's the piece like where the opening is so that we can go in and help shift. So it's really about making sure that we have exercises and activities that they're willing to engage in, right. That matches their culture and, and just moves them through the process. And I think part of it too, is at the beginning, like making it really clear. This is a process that is particularly long sometimes. Right. And so, are you already, and cause so gauging organizational readiness is a big piece of that. Terrill: I'd love to jump in with a little bit about dating the readiness because a lot of our work is in racial equity and equity more broadly. And we often get organized. Well, we get a lot of organizations reaching out to us. So we're in a really fortunate position of being able to be really selective about who we work with, which is nice. But a big piece of that is really figuring out is the client ready to do the work that they say they want to do? Because oftentimes there's a belief that, well, we can bring in someone and do a few training sessions and that's going to shift our culture. And training is great as educational tools. They do not change culture on their own. They have to be embedded in a whole culture change process. And so we do a whole assessment process in our interview process to decide if we want to work with a client. And some of the things that we're looking for is do they have leadership who's really invested in an equity change process and are they willing to learn? And both of those things. And that means that they're going to make mistakes. And so are they able to handle making a mistake and learning publicly in front of their staff and are they willing to invest time and resources into this? And that includes staff time. And so most of our clients we've been able to work with set aside a portion of their time each week for every staff member to do equity-based. Right. And that ranges and the clients who our clients are doing 10%. So if you're 40 hours, four hours a week is going into really learning and engaging in an equity way that gets self-defined on what their learning curve is. We also know that we need to have access to the full organization. So any organization that says yes, but you can't work with us. That's a flag for us, because if you want to create culture change, it has to be organization wide or else. The default is to pull back to where you've been. So if you have any group that's not moving, it can pull the whole organization back. That's not to say that we can't do work with staff and board, just oftentimes we have to do it separately at first, because they're in two really different places, but we've gotta be moving. And the whole organization, and that can include volunteers depending on how engaged volunteers are in the organization. So those are a couple of the things that we look for. We also talk very directly about clients, about the need for transparency with us. So we need to know that clients are going to tell us for real what's going on when it's happening, not a month later, right? Because we, by definition of the work we do, we come in and stir the pot. Right. Which means that things are going to come up and if we're not informed, because we're not there day to day, we're not going to hear it at the water cooler, which I realize is different in zoom world, but we're not going to pick it up in that same way. And we need to know that information is coming to us so that we can address things in the moment. It's really important to us, to not be the consultant that comes in, stirs everything up and then leaves. We have seen that happen so many times and it's really, really damaging to organizations. So we take a slow and steady long-term approach with our clients. We would much rather have you move like an organization, move an inch and stay there. Then move three inches and go back to where you were. It's really about that slow and steady progress. Always moving in the direction of equity. Carol: Yeah. A couple of points are built there. I, I thank you for going to the point of readiness, because that's exactly what I was going to ask you about. Like, what are those signals or what are the things that you're looking for to know that an organization is ready to, to engage in the type of work and type of culture change that you're talking about? And one of the things I really appreciated is when I think when. We're talking about culture, people, it can feel very amorphous for folks, but the fact that you get as concrete as we're going to need, X percentage of staff, time to be dedicated to this over a period of time is it. I think that that's what makes it, that makes it real for folks we're not going to, it's not just an add on, it's not an extra, it's not a special thing. And, and your point around, training obviously is important and education is important. And yet it's not sufficient to change culture. Can you say more about what you've seen in terms of stirring the pot? And then I think it's, sometimes it's even just opening things up and not having enough time for some closure that can also give people just. Either hurt or confused, or just like, what was that all about? So lots of different things that some negative impacts that consultants can have, if they're not careful or haven't haven't to really help the client understand, help the organization, understand what partnership is needed to really make the change that they're looking for. Terrill: To clarify a little bit about what we regularly see coming into organizations is that oftentimes we very often are the second, third, fourth consultant group that a client has worked with. And the pattern that we see is consultants coming in, asking a lot of questions, getting folks to bare their souls about what's really going on there. And then. Moving out without real change happening. And so we're finding people are really discouraged, particularly folks of color who have just put themselves out on the line to say, this is how racism is impacting me in our organization. And then it falls on like it just falls. It doesn't get held. And so part of what our approaches is that the trust building has to happen. At, in par with the level of racial equity work that we're doing, if that makes sense. So we can't, we can't go in and do a race like racism 400 when trust is not present. Right. We've got to have the trust to hold what comes up so that when the group is ready to actually hold the experience, then we can bring that in and start to make those shifts. But it's really, really damaged. To open it all up, bring people's hope up and then nothing changes. Right. Monique: And it's really, I mean, just the level of hurt that we encounter and some of these organizations post multiple groups of consultants, and this is not to, in any way, like denigrating the consultants. Right. Because, they may have only been able to come in and there was only a certain amount of time that they were given right there constraints that they're working with. Right. But it's. Remarkable. Like how. Just how much, how many tears there are, that's present right. In the, in these groups and for both the folks of color. And then of course the white folks have a lot of fear right around, am I going to say the wrong thing? It's just okay. Like, what, what are the, what are the lines. They do feel like they're constantly changing. Right. And so, so our work is, like I said earlier, it's like, we really do see it in a lot of ways as healing work and, and really creating a space for folks where they are willing to take the risks with each other. But first it means acknowledging that there's been injury. And whether that injury. Intentional or unintentional it's there. Right. And, and we've worked with some groups where they're, they're ready to acknowledge that and release it. Like we even sometimes have done work activities that are like released rituals, right. For people to really name it and let it go. And as long as it works, What the heck are these people talking about, but again, where we're exploring and experimenting too. And then we have those groups where it's like, they hold on so tightly to the injury. And so we move even more slowly. Right. But, but as we're doing. We're naming, like, here's what we're seeing. And here's what, so we're constantly reflecting back to them so that they first don't feel like they're crazy, right? Like this is actually happening. And what agency do you have? What power do you have within the system to make the changes? That's also a part of our work is to see at all levels within the hierarchy that there's some power there. And so how. With the role that you have, how can you move this along so that you can move closer to fulfilling your mission? And I think the other piece is around talking about culture in general, because it's so invisible. Often we find that folks can dismiss its significance, right? Like how much it really impacts, how far you're getting along in your work and how you're able to. Really fulfill your mission. And so naming it and, and really identifying this is why it's so important, and there are moments where you see the light bulbs go off and you're like, oh, okay. This is why we do this work. Right. But yeah. Carol: And I can imagine coming in after multiple attempts with different consultants to, to move the needle and having things, not, move forward. I can imagine that For some organizations, and clearly as you're, as you're describing, it really ends up creating harm in the organization. And at the same time, I'm guessing that it's also part of what unfortunately helps organizations be ready to receive. Commit in a way that they perhaps weren't in the first or second or third try. Yeah, I just, I mean, that's the story I'm making up, but Monique: They're like, okay, we gotta do it, the stack, Carol: Or they thought, well, if we just have these three trades, then we'll be good. And well, no, that wasn't, that isn't quite it. Monique: Yeah, we're very clear with organizations that we don't come in and only do training, but that's just not our style. We really want to go in and build the relationships and, and help folks see how the training applies to their work. Because sometimes there's this disconnect, like, why are, why am I getting this training, on equity? When we're doing something that's completely separate. So we work to really show how it's integrated in. Carol: And you talked about the process of building trust and going slow. I'm curious, especially with organizations that have gone through a couple of these processes, probably, multiple people have already asked them many questions, had those focus groups and had those interviews talk to people. They're like, oh my goodness, are we doing this again? Do I have to tell that story again? I'm curious how you approach that in terms of helping people open up again. Or to, to really build that trust. Monique: Well one of the things we do is just first put it out there. Like, we know you have been asked these questions multiple times. And so sometimes depending, particularly on the length of time, that's it? This is between when the last group of consultants came and when we were coming in. Sometimes we take the reports to the other consultants. And really put that upfront. Like here's what we already know about you. Right. And we want to build on that. Sometimes there's been a good chunk of time. And so we do have to ask those questions over, but again, it's just putting it out there and being really transparent about it. And one of the things that Terrell and I do Is that we're working with the groups so that the groups are willing and able to make mistakes, like we demonstrate that like, we, we are very in the moment with our groups and particularly, oh yeah. I was going to say virtually, but just across the board, we're very. Present. And so in the moment, there are times when we're making mistakes with each other or stepping on each other and we just put it out there, right. Just show, Hey folks, we are going to make mistakes together. Right. You've done this before. You'll keep doing it. And, and we, we can do that and move forward. Right. So it shows them that we're not coming in assuming that they're all wrong and we have all the answers. Right. We're making sure that they don't have that perspective. Cause we, cause we demonstrate it. But, but we really. We, we, we, I think I keep going back to things and things, but we just, we can, we name like here's what's happened already. Here's where we're going to go. And here's where we'd like to go with y'all. So I feel like I might've been repeating yourself. Terrill: No, I'm going to repeat what you said too. Because it was too. Then, to not say again, it's like a big chunk of our work is showing up and being really present with people and being really transparent. And that alone builds a lot of trust. So when we come in and say, we've heard all of this, we know we're the fourth consulting group to come in. We know the other ones haven't been successful and we don't want to leave you in that place. So help us figure out how we can be successful here. People. They shift their tone. And when we show up as full human beings who make mistakes, who are learning along with the client, people trust us more because we're not robots and neither are they. Right. And so we need to be all in it together. I think another important thing is that we move because we move slowly. I think that helps build trust. And that includes in the interview process. So we have had, multiple months before we've ever signed a contract where we're meeting with different groups of staff to make sure that they're comfortable with the decision to work with us because that's, especially if staff have been really burned in the past, that's an important process because we want them to be. Comfortable with the decision to hire us. And if they're more comfortable with another group, then they should go with another group. We know we are not the best consultants for every organization out there. No consultant is right. It's about finding the right fit. And so we encourage organizations. In fact, we push really hard. If people reach out and say, someone referred you, we'd like to hire you. I didn't say you should really talk to a couple of groups and make sure that we're right. We have the right approach for your organization and where you are, and we can help with that assessment. But ultimately clients got to make the decision when more staff are involved in that, I think the better. Carol: Yeah. And so you're, you're almost starting the process by, by having that Len lengthy kind of, pre discovery, if you will. As, as you're working through, should we even be working together? Right. Monique: I remember in our program, one of the classes said that. Every point of contact with the organization as an intervention. Right. And so like, I keep that in mind, when we're doing the interviews and when we're doing the interviews to be hired in the interviews with the staff and look at each step, I remember that, right. So that we know that we're impacting the system right. Each time, each time. Carol: Yeah. And I think just the, the part that I think for any consulting project that thinks, oftentimes at least in my experience, organizations think, well, I'm just gonna hire a facilitator and you're going to come in and help us have a good conversation. And don't realize there's that whole process of talking to a lot of people getting a sense of where you are. And then, being able to reflect back to them, This is what I'm hearing. This is the snapshot of your organization now, so that, so that there is a common ground of that naming that you're talking about of and, and being able to just that act of being able to describe the organization to itself, to be so that it can say, or the folks in it can say, Yeah, that resonates or that piece doesn't, but I could see, just to be able to start that conversation. Terrill: So we try to engage staff at every step of the entire. Process it, depending on the size of the staff that has to look different, right? A four-person organization of 400% organization looks really different when we're talking about staff engagement, but that's also part of it. It's leadership does not have the answers, right? The answers need to come from the entire organization. And so we try to engage staff as much as possible, along the way to get a lot of feedback. What is their vision? What do they want to see? How do they want to shift themselves? And what, what training and education work do they most feel like they need? Right. So we can build all of that. And we really deeply trust that the folks in the organization are the ones who know best what's needed. And our work is really to help synthesize that and open the door for them to be able to do that work. Carol: And how does that show up in terms of equity work? Because sometimes I feel like there's a stance in that work that doesn't necessarily have that trust that the organization knows what it needs. Monique: Well, in terms of how we approach equity work to kinda, to, to build the trust that we've been talking about and to really open the minds and hearts of the folks that we're working with, we generally have the philosophy that well, one. Equity work w we don't only focus it on race. Right. We look at the multiple aspects of identities. And so as we do that, we invite people to look at the places where they have identities that are privileged identities and the places where they have identities. Oppressed. Right. And so in terms of the modeling and the transparency and that Terrell, and I do, like, we share like our full selves with folks. Right. And acknowledging that, I have certain identities that are very privileged. I'm U.S. born, English speaking. I live a middle-class life. Right. And I have identities that are oppressed, right. I'm black, I'm a woman. I. I have a disability. So, what we do is we invite people to look at their whole cells, not just through a single, a single lens. And that really shifts how the conversation happens for groups. Right? So you've got, white folks who are used to being in the conversation where they are the oppressor, right. I mean, that's, that's what we're working with here. And we're saying, well, actually, you're more than that. Right. like you have many identities that you're holding where you're impacted by systems that. Take power away from you too. So, we bring that conversation into a group when we're talking about equity and we find that for the folks of color, for the trans folks, for the LGBT folks, It's a, it's a new way of looking at ourselves. Right. And that is, I mean, it's, it's really powerful to be part of those moments where the group's like, oh right. Because there's so much fear going into conversations around equity. And so we've found that that type of approach that's what causes the fear goes away, but it definitely just creates Compassion for each other. Right. That's one of our values that we really work with, but like, how do we create more compassion within these systems so that folks can see each other as whole beings and not just, you are the oppressor. I am the oppressed, like, that we're more than that. Terrill: That's great money. I would, I also would add that to your question, Carol, about like, Do we trust that the organizations have the knowledge internally? Right. And, and what we have found is that yes, because they know enough to know what they don't know, or to know that they don't know at all, if that makes sense. Like, no, I mean, none of us, none of us have that knowledge that we need to. Right. Right. But we hear a number of our clients are predominantly white organizations that are really early in their learning journey. And we can absolutely work with them to help equitable culture when they come to us and say, we're early in our life, when they have a knowledge that they're early in their learning and they have a lot to learn and they can help us figure out what is it that they need to learn to be able to create this culture. Right. That is, that is actually a lot easier to work with in the organizations that come to us and sort of say, well, we already know everything Carol: Might be one of your red flags. Terrill: Right. Cause we're all learning. There is no end point to an absolute journey, right? We are all on the journey. The organizations, individuals, teams, all of us consultants as well are on a learning journey. And so I think when we really open up and tap in, we do know what we need to learn and where we need to. Carol: Yeah. I love that that compassion piece is key in the work, ultimately it's about being a better human being and that's certainly a lifelong should be, hopefully it's a lifelong, if you're like check I'm good. I'm a good person. I'm missing out on what you might be learning. Right. So at the end of each episode, just to very much shift the focus here a little bit, I do ask an icebreaker question as a facilitator. Everyone looks to you and says, well, what are your icebreakers? And, and I say, well, they're in a box. I have, I have a box of cards that I use. So to, to, to go pretty opposite of where our conversation has been, I'm going to ask you this one. If you could arm wrestle any historical figure, who would you choose and why Monique: I'm like, who am I willing to lose? Terrill: Okay. I have a response. Also, you can keep these deals to give you some time, Monique. So my answer would be Bayard Rustin, and because I would love to be able to be in his presence so that I could do anything arm, restfully shake his hand, whatever, but he has, he has been a role model for me forever. I mean, I think I was first exposed to his work when I was probably 18 or 19. I actually worked at a summer program for kids from LGBT families and one of our tent circles where the kids lived was the Baird rest. Circle. And so just to know, like he was such, he was the brain behind so much of what Martin Luther king was able to do, but yet he wasn't recognized for it because he was gay. And the fact that at one point Martin Luther king basically kicked him out of the movement and then said to him, nevermind, come back. I can't do this without you. I just think that the amount of adversity he experienced that kept fighting for the rights of his folks, of people, of color, of black people in this country, even as he was facing homophobia within his group is really. So much of what we're dealing with today as well, and that we have to bring that stick to it. of even though. We are not perfect in any of our movements there isms all over the place in our movements. We have to both be addressing those and continuing to move the work forward. It's not an, it's not an either or, and I feel like he held that and balanced that so well, thanks. Monique: I would say Harriet Tubman. Yeah. I mean, there's so many reasons why I would be more than happy to lose to her, but the main thing is that I found out maybe about five years ago that she had seizures and I have epilepsy. Right. And so whenever I start to feel afraid of. Facilitating in front of a group. Am I going to have a seizure? I've got like those tapes start going. I remember her. And I'm like she, 17, 18, 19 times went back and forth and freed people, right. Led them to freedom with the, without meds, without comfort, without all the things that I have. And so I'm like Monique. Get over yourself like you, that the blood that she has, you have to, like, you're made of the same thing. And so like, I would love to just be in her presence and just soak up some of that power. Cause she was just, I mean, Carol: Awesome. Awesome breaths, two very powerful people that yes, we're willing to, willing to lose our arm wrestling match with. So for the two of you, what, what are you excited about? What's coming up> What's emerging in your work these days? Monique: Well, we were just starting in the second phase with an organization that is a very nature based organization. And we have the privilege of being able to work with them for like a year and a half. So we're really able to dive in deep with them and we can integrate all of our. Things like when we talk about the natural world and how that reflects what's happening within the organization, it's like we can do this in a really direct and explicit way with this group in a way that we can't with some others. So I'm so excited about where we get to go with them and, and how we'll get to go out and hug trees together. Terrill: I'm also excited for the ability to have in-person retreats again, like I, I thought it was here and then it wasn't. And so I'm holding onto the hope that it will be here. Again. One of the things that we've learned over the last year and a half is that we can do really deep work remotely. And it really surprised me. I will completely acknowledge, I didn't think we could do it. And we have, and. It doesn't feed me as the facilitator in the same way, because we put people into breakout rooms on zoom and they just disappear and we have no idea what's happening. Right. And then they come back. And so to be in the room where we can feel the energy of the group in a completely different way and be fed by that, I'm really looking forward to being able to do that and cross my fingers. It will be relatively soon. Yeah. Carol: Yeah. Although I do, I do love being able to hit a button and have everyone come back. Well, thank you so much. It was great talking to both of you. I really appreciate the time you spent with me and my wireless. Terrill: Thank you. Thank you, Carol. It's been really, really fun and I'm really appreciative of the work you're doing and this podcast. Yes. Yes. Monique: Yep. Fantastic. Thank you so much. Awesome. Carol: I appreciated the unique perspective that Terrill and Monique brought to our conversation about organizational culture change. Especially that so often they are coming in after 2 or 3 or 4 attempts have already been made to shift culture. Those may have started with doing a few training sessions, perhaps a few facilitated conversations. And then wondering – why haven’t things changed yet. They underscore what it really takes – the full investment that is needed to change your culture and create a healthier, more intentional, more equitable culture. And why so often after several rounds of attempts, slowing down and attending to relationships – building in time for healing is so important. And showing up as full human beings who also have made and will continue to make mistakes is so key. Thank you for listening to this episode. I really appreciate the time you spend with me and my guests. You can find out how to connect with Terrill and Monique as well as any links and resources mentioned during the show in the show notes at missionimpactpodcast.com/shownotes. I want to thank Izzy Strauss-Riggs for her support in editing and production as well as April Koester of 100 Ninjas for her production support. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it on your favorite social media platform and tag us. We appreciate you helping us get the word out. Until next time!  In episode 16 of Mission: Impact, some of the topics that Carol and her guest, Rosalind Spigel discussed include:
- Organizational values and the best method to decide on them - How to welcome diversity on the board and mitigate microaggressions - How to implement values in the day-to-day life of an organization Guest Information: Rosalind Spigel believes in the difference nonprofits can make. Her vision is to increase the effectiveness of organizations and coach them – and the people in them – to grow and prosper. In consultation with her clients, Rosalind designs and facilitates strategic planning and implementation, leadership development and coaching, professional development, and capacity building interventions. Links:
Interview Transcript: Carol: All right. Well welcome Rosalind. It's great to have you on the Mission: Impact podcast. Rosalind: Great to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Carol: Just to give people some context, I'd like to ask you what drew you into the work that you do? What motivates you, how would you describe your work? Rosalind: Well getting ready for the show today, I thought about my values, right? Because we were going to be talking about values. I want to help give organizations and the people in them a better understanding of where they are and where they're going. Why they're stuck, how they can unstuck themselves. But certainly the bigger - and I'm sure that I've heard your guests say one version or another of this - we want to help make the world a better place. That's the big picture. Then specifically with organizations, just to help them fulfill their missions more effectively, productively and joyfully. Carol: You mentioned that you really use center values when you are doing work with organizations. Why do you think they're so important? What's so important about values and people being clear, not just about their personal values, but then collective values within an organization? Rosalind: For sure. I was listening to some of your other [episodes] - and by the way I really love these conversational interviews that you do. Folks out there, if you haven't heard other episodes, I encourage you to do that. Because, when I listen to other consultants do what they do and [explain] how they do it, it's really helpful to me and anything I can do to bring more value to my clients by listening to shows like yours I think is really good so it felt like values were really a resting place for many of the conversational interviews you've had so far. I really wanted to stir this values conversation up and talk about that more explicitly because it's not just that we work with these non-profits that have terrific missions and visions. It's how an organization goes about fulfilling their mission-vision programs. That is as important as the mission itself. So how an organization treats its people, how an organization treats its clients, its members, its vendors, its board, its funders. It's all that. Everything an organization does should be driven by its values, including what an organization says and no to. We can talk about that a little bit later on, also the values and how that organization defines those values really gives people a sense of, ‘yes, this is an organization I want to be a part of.’ As a consultant, ‘this is an organization I want to consult for with my own values.’ My values include equity, engagement, and capacity building. So if I'm doing some strategic planning work with a client, the process of getting to that strategic plan really includes capacity building, it includes sharing some process. It includes implementation and planning because I want an organization to be able to fulfill its plan. And if an organization expects me to drop a strategic plan on my way out the door, then that's not really a client I'm interested in working with. I just can't stand all the time and effort that goes into a strategic plan and then not have it go anywhere. But engaging levels of the system in the plan itself, I know you and I share a value that people who are impacted by the change should be a part of the change process. That’s just a good idea to help give the strategic plan some legs. So I think that that's part of why I want to talk about values. Carol: Then we can talk about how organizations decide those values. That’s important, I think sometimes people are a little bit leery and maybe even myself, as a consultant about having those group processes around writing a mission statement or a vision statement or value statements and being afraid of it being too abstract. Anything written by a committee, you can just see it in the language, that disjointed stone soup sentences that you end up with everything in the pot. I'm curious about how you approach that so that people really get a chance to dig into what's important to them in terms of their values, without it feeling like it draws momentum out of that planning process. Rosalind: Yes. Well, that's so great, right? Because the way an organization comes up with its values is in and of itself a reflection of its values right? So if you've got three leaders in a room coming up with the organization's values and they say that engagement and collaboration are values, then that's off. That's inauthentic, unless your values are domination and control, then it's okay for three people to dictate what those values are, but probably that's not the case. So how you do bring people in from different levels of the system to come up with the values and, and then that's just the first piece. One of the things I've done while in the before times, but even in these times, when I'm doing a check-in for a values conversation, I'll have a list now. We could write another long story about how we're working online, but I'll have a list of values that I've either inferred from the organization or that may even be listed on their website. If you've worked with a client before and they have agreements that they sort out at the beginning of meetings, you can infer what the values are from those two, but I'll put a list together in such a way that at least a couple of individuals are picking the same word. So in the check-in when people talk about ‘here's the word I picked and why I picked it, why it resonates with me.’ You can already hear that one couple, or three people can pick the same word and it's different. They define it differently. It resonates differently. So it's the same in organizations, right? Let's find out what those words are. We can talk about how to do that in a second, and then how do we as an organization define those words? So one way I've done this is to have people think individually about a big, huge success the organization has had like this big, hairy victory, this great thing that we did, and it ticked all the success boxes and think on that for a minute and then mix people up into small groups. Again, how that's done could be a reflection of the values. Do you mix people up across departments, across functions, just by whoever's sitting next to each other, whatever. Then in those small groups, they think about what was going on that had things be such a success. How are we operating, how are we treating each other? What was happening? Who else did we include? Were there people we included we didn't normally include? Did we show up on time? What was it that happened? So they're having these small conversations and then the report outs when you've gotten the whole group back together, that consultant can begin to list these things. Because often you have to get to values backing into them through behavior, right? So then the consultant can begin to make a list - and I got this from another colleague of mine, Stacy Heath, who said on the West coast, she's like values on one side of the flip chart or Google doc, behaviors on another and really have the client think about what's the behavior and what's the value. How are you defining these things? Because respect could be both for example. So, how were they defining all that stuff? Then you begin to get a sense of what the words are and what the behavioral indicators are. So hopefully at the end of this process you've got, let's say 5 values because I know you've seen this too. You've seen websites that have 14 values and that's meaningless because you just can't keep track of all that. Carol: Can you give people an example of what might be on the value side and what might be on the behavior side? Rosalind: Sure. Like for respect, for, for instance. Everybody wants it and everybody experiences it differently. And that's, oh my God, we're getting, that's a whole other thing about how we bring equity into systems as well, but right. So respect could be showing up to meetings on time. Doing what you say you're going to do, you don't roll your eyes when somebody makes a comment. Those could be behavioral indicators of respect. Really getting specific about what that means and that's definitely part of one of the next steps too. So once we've got the words, how does this organization define those words? Respect could mean something different in a women's organization than it does to an education organization, or a social justice organization, or a homeless organization. So how do we define these words for us? Then what are those behavioral indicators at an individual level, at a group, team, or department level, and at an organization level? You've got all that going on, but wait, there's more! Then how do you begin to operationalize those and what are the mechanisms? What are the practices that we can adopt to make sure that we're adhering to those values, that we're behaving in a way that's consistent with our values? Carol: Can you give me an example of what some of those practices that organizations can start when you've been working with a client, what you've seen through that process? Rosalind: Yeah. There's a great one that I got from Robert Gass who does the art of transformational consulting. He's got a lot of great resources on the website, the social transformation project website this one's called outshine educate. And it's basically a feedback loop. It's basically ‘when you said X, I felt Y because...’ I mentioned equity a little bit earlier, that's a little bit of a soap box of mine, but often nonprofits are white-led, right? They're white-led boards. And they want to have BIPOC folks as part of their leadership, which is great. But the step that they skip is ‘how do we prepare ourselves to welcome others on to our board?’ You don't just start doing equity when you've got a BIPOC person sitting on your board. Then they leave in a year and you wonder why. So educating as a way that organizations and boards serve. Staff can begin to practice what they preach. So let's say you and I are at our board meeting with a bunch of other white people - who are mostly white men - and you say something, and nobody pays much attention to it. Then like three minutes later, Charles says the same thing and people go ‘hmm. That's a good idea.’ I'm sure you've never experienced that. Carol: Right. Never, ever. Right. Never happened. So I might not catch it. Right. I'm just as susceptible to sexism as everybody else. Rosalind: And white women can tend to be a little competitive, so I may or may not even notice it and not know what to say. Right. But if you've got something like a commitment in place for collaboration, engagement, respect, equity, whatever and a mechanism like ‘ouch and educate,’ then you could say ‘Hey, Charles when I said that three minutes ago, nobody really paid any attention to it. And now when you said something, I noticed that people thought it was a great idea. And because of that, I'm feeling invisible’ or ‘that made me feel invisible.’ Or I might have the wherewithal to say, ‘hey, Charles, I noticed Carol said that a few minutes ago, and I'm really glad you amplified it, but I'd kinda like to hear, Carol's original thinking around that,’ The trick here is that, and here's the thing about this ouch and educate process. The trick is for Charles to say ‘oh wow, thanks for pointing that out to me. I'm sorry. I missed that. I know we have a commitment to this and I'm going to try and do better next time.’ That's the right answer. The wrong answer is for Charles to go. ‘No, I didn't mean to, you're misinterpreting me, that wasn't my intention.’ Because that's a showstopper. So if the commitment is to practice these values, then there's also commitment to learning from, ‘I said this thing, thank you for telling me this thing felt off to you and I'm going to try and do better next time, because we're all part of this team and we all want to make sure that whoever's part of the team feels heard.’ Carol: It's so interesting that you describe it as an ‘ouch and educate’ because I'm in a group where - I don't know whether it's organically, or somebody was already aware of this, but we've come to literally say ouch when something like that happens. In a way, it's a gentle way of saying, ‘oh, something just happened.’ before it might've been just feeling tight or something, but just having a very simple thing to say to acknowledge what's just happened can then create the space to be able to say some of the things like you talked about ‘when you said X, I felt this and the meaning I made of it was Y,’ and I wished that you would do Z in the future. Just having that simple thing in the very moment when that happens to you, you just kinda shut down or, you’re flooded with emotion. So you may not have that tool of that lovely little madlib to fill in at your fingertips while you're in the moment. So, having something simple like that gives people a little bit of breathing space to then articulate what they need to say. Rosalind: Yeah. I love that because you could feel it. It's like, ‘Oh, something about that didn't feel right.’ but in that moment you might not be able to really put it together. Just to say that out loud and then give yourself a minute to think about why it was an ouch and yeah. I do love that. That's awesome. Carol: Yeah. And I love what you're talking about in terms of behaviors and practices because it's interesting, when you described that process, I've done a similar process. It was with the intention of coming up with a charter or agreements for a group that's working together and starting again with that good experience of when you've worked either with this team or a different team when you've worked on one that worked really well, and then what made that work well, and what were those elements? When I first did it, I think I stopped at that first level. Then when it was literally the conversation around respect, where we pushed it one more level to the behaviors of how that's demonstrated, how do you experience respect or how does that demonstrate it to you? We have people who talked on the same team completely diametrically opposing answers. One was ‘people don't interrupt me, another person. It was ‘I get into the flow of the conversation and we can interrupt each other and it's great and that's fine.’ So, it was like, ‘okay, well, what do we do with that?’ If we hadn't had that conversation, we would have left in a respect, one person thinking, ‘well, that means no one's ever going to interrupt me.’ And the other person's thinking, ‘wow, that means we can have this “juicy conversation” where it's just flowing and I can interrupt anybody I want.’ Rosalind: Oh yeah that's perfect. Really giving people the freedom to have those conversations, to give people a way to have those conversations. It just reminded me, I worked with these grassroots, social justice organizations, super progressive, really awesome. They had BIPOC and white folks on the board, and at the strategic planning retreat, one of the black board members said ‘I love you guys. I love this organization. I love the mission. I love what we're doing. But there's almost never a board meeting that goes by where I don't experience some microaggression.’ And that was so sad to me. You could just see people groan because they're all about that. They're all about equity and social justice. Carol: Can you define what a microaggression is like? Rosalind: Yes! It's small, so maybe an example would be if we're in a meeting and one of the guys says, ‘hey Carol, can you go get us some coffee?’ It's a behavior and action, a request, a demand, an interaction in which one person feels like they're being subordinated in some way. Carol: Absolutely. I just want to make sure that terms get defined so thank you. Rosalind: Yeah. Or, ‘why don't you take the minutes,’ right? Not that I’m speaking from experience on that either. Carol: Wait a minute! I think we're rattling off all the common ones for women. Rosalind: Yeah. Especially me since I'm of a certain age, I definitely experienced that. It's interesting. So there's another thing that I was thinking of too, when we're doing values work because we do process consultation. So we go into organizations with some great process, some great question because we believe that the client can come up with its own answers and solutions. Maybe a whole other conversation, about to what degree clients to consultants come in with recommendations, with the guidance, with whatever. So I actually do come into these values conversations with a list of values. I know organizations can come up with them or people can come up with them too, but it just seems to be very helpful for folks to have a page or a friend of mine put together like 500 values cards. That's maybe a bit much but a page where people can go, ‘oh yeah, patience or generosity or empathy or courage’ so that they have those words and I think it makes it easier for them. I don't know if you’ve found that as well. Carol: When you're saying that you're looking at and, and what's so interesting for me about this conversation, as I think about the things that I've experienced in the nonprofit sector over the years is that disconnect between a mission with good work out in the world, and then how people are treated inside the organization. I think part of that is that you're able to look at the statements that the organization is making, the conversations that you've had with folks already. So you already have a sense of taking all of that implied information and then making it explicit and putting it down on a piece of paper and saying, ‘okay, these are the 5, 6, 7 values that I'm seeing.’ So what it sounds to me like is that you're tailoring it to the organization based on what your experience of them is versus a generic sheet of ‘here's 50 values, pick three of the most important ones for you.’ So I think that it often does help to not start with that blank slate but give something to people to react to. Rosalind: Yeah. I want to pick up on something else you just said too, because once you've clarified the values; defined them, indicators, mechanisms, all that. Then it really is — I think Tip talked about this too, Tip Fallon, one of your other guests — how does this look into how, how our values are embedded in our processes and practices? How do we treat each other, who gets promoted and why. What kind, or do we even subsidize professional development and what professional development, and where do we put out our job postings? Do we make sure that the language isn’t excluding any particular identities? So there are all the ways in which this can really get embedded in processes as well as organizational processes. So when you look at how you embed these things at all levels of the system, you just reminded me about that too. Carol: Then the example that you were starting to talk about in terms of the social justice organization that you mentioned, and the black board member saying, ‘yeah, we have all these values. We have this mission, we do this work and I'm still experiencing this.’ So I'm curious then what came out of that conversation? I don't want to suppose what might've happened. How did that become an educational moment? I'm sure people just work, but I can imagine how much chagrin they felt of ‘Wow, we really think we're doing the good thing and we're still susceptible to these.’ Rosalind: Yeah. And they are, of course, right. That board member didn't assume any bad intention. I mean, he felt that he was welcomed in many ways. It had been part of it for a long time, but it did highlight ‘okay, well then. if these are your values and this tension, then what are you going to make a part of your strategic plan going forward?’ What board development, what board training, what are the actions you need to take that are going to ensure that you stop doing that and start doing something else that welcomes people in so that they don't experience that. It was a real gift. That's the thing, if someone says, ‘hey, when you said X, I felt Y.’ It is such a gift that that person has given you. How else are we going to learn? Right. I mean, we've all got our work to do. We're not going to be able to get any better unless someone is generous enough to point out where we are sticking our foot in it. Carol: Yeah. And even if the reaction in that moment isn't the perfect one — I certainly can think of many times I've been given feedback and my immediate reaction is to get all defensive and come up with 6,000 reasons why that was fine and I should have done it and all that. Then later, I calm down and sit with it, think about it, and come back to the person with something a little more rational, a little more reasonable and absorbing it and being able to learn from it. We're human and it's not always in the moment, but the closer it can be, I think that's what I'm striving to do is have it in the past, I think probably between the moment, if it happened to me. And then when I talked to the person, it might be very far apart. So just trying to get that closer and closer together. Rosalind: I have spent years and years cultivating my ability to get feedback almost into a superpower because I'm right there with you. I can feel it in my body, I can feel that panic tension, whatever it's like, ‘oh god’ and part of that is how much of that is white perfectionism and all the rest of it. It's, ‘oh man’ So we were just grappling with all kinds of stuff, but being able to calmly hear the feedback and just be grateful for it. Carol: I don't know if it's generational, but I certainly didn't grow up learning or having that model for me. It was all about the debate and proving that you're right. It's unlearning all of those very well-honed ways of thinking, ways of being, it's unpacking that and relearning it, unlearning it as an adult just takes even longer. Rosalind: Yeah. And that's where some coaching can come in. So let's say you're going back to your system now. You've got all these great values in place and you've got somebody in the development department who is really raking it in. They're doing great, they're raising all this money. It's really awesome. But they're stepping on people along the way. They're really not being collaborative or respectful or whatever. Their actions are very inconsistent with those values. So the options are: you coach that person into changing their behaviors and you go through this delicate process of getting the feedback and integrating the feedback. But if that person doesn't change their behaviors, then you've got to let them go. You can't have somebody in the system who is flagrantly stepping all over people and disrespecting them and not acting in a way that's consistent with the values and get away with it. It's horrible for morale. We'd talk about values and what that represents. That's part of an organization's reputation, right? So word gets out and this person's getting away with all this stuff and morale is really bad and you're about to mutiny. Now there may be a hit in the short term if that person needs to go, but in the long term, you've really made the right decision because you can't have somebody acting out and then expect other people to behave consistently with the values either. So that's really hard, but that is also part of how you promote people, how you reward people. It all has to be consistent with the values Carol: If you've actually had that conversation and you've defined what the values are and how those show up, how you’re going to demonstrate those. Then everyone's come to an agreement when that person then acts that way. you have so much more of a platform to work from because you've had an explicit conversation about what behaviors are acceptable and which aren’t. It's just so much easier to start from there then to have started from no conversation at all. Where you infer something, or it doesn't feel right, or it seems out of alignment. But then the person might be able to argue, in some way that it is right from their point of view. Rosalind: Or they just may not see it. Maybe nobody's ever called them out on it before. There could be some level of obliviousness. I mean, they think they're doing great because they're looking at the numbers. Right. Carol: And may have believed that that value of bringing in the money is the most important, whatever the means. Rosalind: Right, yeah. Well, we're starting a new year so it's a good time - I mean, it's always a good time to assess - but generally the values get revisited when you're doing strategic planning. I mean, a lot has happened in the past year. So what I do sometimes with clients, and when you're doing strategic plans, obviously there should be something in place where there's regular checks on progress to the plan. If an organization is about ½ to ⅔ of the way through their strategic plan, then it's a good time to maybe take a moment to really think about how you're doing. How are you doing with the mission, vision, and values? I got this actually from Scott Blanchard, who - and I've done this too with strategic planning - basically there are four questions. If you're looking at this, it can all be framed through the values. So you're taking a breather and you're reflecting on the plan and how you're going through with the plan. So one question is, of course: what have we done that we meant to do? What were those things that we planned to do? We did them, we can check them off the list and claim some victory and go forward. Then, especially given this past year, what were the things that we did that we didn't set out to do, that we didn't plan to do, but it's really, really great. We did that, right? Like we learned about online virtual collaborative learning and we revamped our communication strategy or whatever it is. It's really great. We did that, given the events over the past year, and then you can claim those as accomplishments and celebrate those as well. Then, what is it that we plan to do? Is there anything that we don’t need to do anymore for whatever reason? Like those things that we thought that the moment has passed. We thought we needed to do them, but we don't need to do that anymore. You could just cross that off. Then of course there are the things that we plan to do that we still need to do. Do we need to adjust those things or do we need to adjust how we're doing those things? So that's where the values conversation can come in as well. So I think that that's another way to begin to bring values into the conversation and also check to see where the organization is because, you know, mission impact and martyrdom and all that. There's so much that nonprofit staff does, they're so overwhelmed all the time. Giving the organization a break to reflect on this stuff and think about how they're doing, and what they do as well as why they do what they do. I think it’s a great break. Carol: I've experienced working with clients sometimes, there seems to be a fear with strategic planning that it might just pin you down or that you have to get everything in there to make sure all the bases are covered, but I tell clients to not only finalize the plan, but finalize the process that you're going to do exactly what you're talking about in terms of those regular check-ins. It doesn't have to be all the time, but at some point, some set period, whether it's a year, halfway through, to check in, ‘where are we?’ Ask those questions that you're asking, ‘what what do we need to continue doing? What've we done? What do we need to stop doing?’ And then, what did we do that we didn't expect is really, really useful. You talked about the implementation planning, I think mapping out how you get started, but not trying to map out every detail all the way through does anything because you end up with this binder that goes on a shelf or holds up computer monitors and doesn't get much use otherwise. Rosalind: Right. You're reminding me of a client I had. I love this client. One of their values was to be a learning organization. And one of the ways that they put that into practice was the. The strategic plan itself was an opportunity for staff to do that. So the ads themselves came up with their own mini strategic plans that were all aligned with the larger mission, values, objectives, and they came up with their own implementation plans as well. So here's the goals, here's the strategies. Here's the tactics, here's the timeframe notes about when we need to do this and who's going to be responsible accountable with the measures of success are what the budget impact is, you know? So that was really interesting that was part of a way in which they really brought that learning organization to life. They're doing their own research. They decided to take the organization in a particular direction and have become wildly successful, really a mature organization doing some groundbreaking work and in creating all these feedback loops between the client and researchers and staff. And it's just amazing. They're doing great work, but they're really putting their money where their mouth is. It's really paying off in every way. Carol: That's awesome. Well, at the end of every episode, I play a little game and ask people an icebreaker question. So I'm curious, what was your first job? Rosalind: This is a good one. I want to know what your first job is too. So, I grew up in a little bitty town in Canada called Niagara on the Lake. There's a little ADPD town and it had a theater called the Shaw festival theater. In between the matinee and evening performances on a couple of days a week, can't remember what they were now, the cast and crew didn't have time to go out and get their own dinners so they needed to get fed. That was my first job. My name is Rosalind and I found a friend of mine named Celia and Rosalind and Celia are characters in a Shakespeare play by the way. So the actors always got a kick out of that, but we had our budget and we would do the shopping and we did the cooking and the serving. We did that twice a week. I think we might've done it for at least a couple of summers, and that was a really fun first job. Carol: That's awesome. Mine was a little more boring. Being a babysitter was my first. Rosalind: I was a terrible babysitter. Carol: I didn't claim that I was a good babysitter. I just said I was a babysitter. Rosalind: I can't remember. It was certainly pre-driving, so I must've been like 12, 13, 14, somewhere in there. Well, that's very entrepreneurial of you. Carol: I guess I did my Babysitting gig because I specialized in - I have a brother with special needs - I babysat for families who had kids with special needs because they often couldn't find a babysitter. I got double the rate of like, instead of just $1 an hour, I got $2 an hour. I actually found most of the time that those kids were easier to take care of then typically developmental kids because they saw me as an authority figure, so they would listen. I felt like I was doing one over on the parents cause I got paid more to take care of kids who actually listened. So, what are you excited about? What's coming up for you and what's emerging in your work this year? Rosalind: Well, I'm actually moving.I love doing the strategic planning work, and making sure that there's some implementation piece and check-ins for the organization as they go. I’m also moving into a little bit more professional development work. I've been working with a colleague of mine. This year we've begun open forums on race. So we're having these open conversations every couple of weeks, and we'll continue to do that this year which I'm loving. So I’m deepening, my own work around race and privilege and my professional work on equity. I think those are the things I'm excited about. How about you? What are you excited about? Carol: I'm working with a number of clients on strategic planning and really enjoying that because I think as you said, it provides that time to just step away and look at the bigger picture as you described the overwhelm of non-profit work it's hard to have that space and time to step back and think differently or think critically about the work that you're doing. My hope is really to help organizations turn down the noise and turn up the signal, like focusing a lens that, and, and it just gives people a chance to have those conversations so that they're not all working from different assumptions. Rosalind: Thinking about one of your other guests, Nyako, who talked about mindfulness, and each of us individually really have to take a little bit of time for our own clarity. I'm thinking, in terms of how an organization engages in mindfulness, just by stepping back and getting that clarity as an organization, I love that. Your clients are lucky to have you. Carol: Thank you. So how can people find out more about you and then get in touch? We'll put the links in the show notes. Rosalind: Oh, sure. Well I am on Twitter @SpiegelConsultin without the G. Twitter didn't let me put the G in I dunno. So a little bit on Twitter, I'm on LinkedIn, I have my own website Spiegel Consulting. I think those are the big three for now, then of course, my email Rosalind Spiegel Consulting. Carol: All right. Well, thank you so much. It's been a great conversation. Thank you so much. Rosalind: Thank you.  There is a brief discussion of police brutality in this episode around 16 minutes in.
In episode 14 of Mission: Impact, some of the topics that Carol and her guest, Keisha Sitney, discussed include: - Why leaders need to be role models for their staff and lead by example - Why organizations need to start with individuals when working on equity - How to build the leadership capacity of people who haven’t traditionally been promoted to leadership roles - Why it is important to not just teach people of color to be like “traditional” white leaders but encourage them develop their own leadership style - How professionals focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion experience profound fatigue in continually educating people about racism and other forms of oppression.
Keisha Sitney is the Chief People Officer for The Y in Central Maryland and the founder of Golden Key Coaching. She works to ensure the people strategies and resources support and match the strategic priorities of the organization. Keisha is an executive leader who has been with the Y for 30 years, both at the national and regional levels. With in-depth experience in coaching, talent management, strategic visioning and planning, and facilitation, Keisha has served in operational roles at the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington, led the national multicultural leadership development movement as well as served as an internal consultant for C-Suite leaders from Ys across the United States. She holds a Master's Degree in Organization Development from American University and a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from Howard University. Links:
Interview Transcript: Carol Hamilton: Welcome Keisha, great to have you on the podcast. Keisha Sitney: Thank you. Thanks for having me, I’m really honored to be here. Carol: I want to start out by asking, just to give people some context, what drew you to the work that you do? What would you say motivates you and how would you describe your work? Keisha: Well, I have worked for Y the organization for [30 years and I’m] celebrating my 30th year there. And being only 35, it's hard to fathom that I've been in that place 30 years. But in all seriousness, I really enjoy helping people to reach their potential. I think that I started off working with young people, and directing childcare centers, and doing team programs and things, and after decades of operations, I really found that my passion is for the people, the associates, the leaders that are doing the work and helping them make sure that they feel equipped, that they feel energized, that they have all the tools and resources, that they have the confidence to do the work that they're supposed to do. Nonprofit work can be grueling, and sometimes we may give and forget that we have to also pour in to ourselves. So that's a part of my why is making sure that people are able to pour into themselves? Carol: Yeah. What are some ways that you help people do that? Keisha: Well, I think that a lot of it is in coaching and reflecting and going through and finding ways to reflect on situations: ‘how did I respond to this, how am I going to do this differently in the future?’ I think that that emotional intelligence and self-awareness is really key. We can get so caught up in the doing of the work, and I find myself telling leaders all the time through our organization: the work is not just the work, it's not just the tactics and the processes. It's how we get things done. It's who we work with in order to move things forward. I think that a part of that is how we are aware of our own selves and how we impact that. So it's important, that critical part of leadership, in my opinion. Carol: I don't know if leaders are always aware that the folks around them, their staff, are paying very close attention to everything that they're doing. And oftentimes, leaders are relying on what they're saying or what they're communicating in an email, but what they're doing, that is always more powerful, for people to watch behavior and, start to unpack, and doing that reflection so that you can think about, ‘okay, well, these are the things that happened.’ someone's telling me what they saw and that they made some interpretation and it maybe wasn’t what I intended, but that was the impact it had. So it's really key to always remember that, as a leader, you're in the spotlight Keisha: Yeah, you're accountable, regardless of your intent. Maybe the impact is still being impacted. When you're mentioning leaders and people looking up to you or watching, how do we take off? How do we use it, how do we sharpen the saw? How do we develop ourselves? We tend to say, ‘Oh, we're going to send them to training or we're going to make sure you use your leave,’ but then, ‘Oh, well, no, I'm so important, I've got to work. I've got to be here’ or, ‘call me, I know I'm on vacation, but I'll still be a participant in that meeting.’ And it's risky to, to be the person that says ‘I'm scheduled for leave during that time. Can we reschedule that? I really want to be a part of the conversation, but I've scheduled this time and it's really important to my family.’ Not to say that as a leader, sometimes you don't need to just be there. If it's something that's come up, that's an emergency, but every emergency isn't an emergency. So I think that leading by example and taking care of ourselves and our families is really critical. And it's something that I constantly work on. I can't say I've got it down pat, but it's something that I strive to improve every year. Carol: Yeah, those are hard boundaries to keep, even when we know that's in our belief, I know that's certainly what I believe and I try to do for myself and then to demonstrate to others. And I have the luxury of being an independent consultant. I used to give the explanation of why I'm on leave. Now I simply say that I'm not available. It's a little easier for me to do that without someone having access to my calendar, et cetera, but it's still hard to maintain those boundaries, and even if you're working, just keep some time for thinking and for analysis, for stepping back and not being in meeting after meeting after meeting as leaders are so often in. Especially now, in COVID, the day can never end sometimes. But I think being aware of what really is an emergency, when is it really critical, and when is it not so that you have those reserves when those emergencies come up. Keisha: And one thing that I try to remember is, as women, and leaders, and moms, sometimes there's a thought you're supposed to be super-woman or super-mom, and I don't try to ascribe to that. I try to remember that, I'm juggling a lot of balls, but. Every ball is not a glass wall. So, there might be some things that I can let drop and they're going to bounce back and I'll just pick them up wherever they are. Or maybe I can pass it to someone on my team or something like that. But things like my children, or my husband, or my health, those are glass balls that I can't get back. If I drop them, they're shattered. That's been helpful for me to prioritize those things that'll be fine until next week, but this is the priority and takes precedent, so I need to calm myself. Carol: I love that image because we so often hear ‘I'm juggling a lot of things,’ but remembering that all of those balls that you're juggling don't have the same impact and are not all precious in the same way. You don’t have to be the one juggling all of those things, and you can pull other people in, help them grow by giving them a stretch assignment that you may be in charge of, and maybe it can really help their development. Keisha: Exactly and people want to help. They want to come through for you. So I think it isn't for us to share those opportunities with others and prioritize for ourselves. Carol: So, part of your work has been working on building a more multicultural increasing equity within the Y. What would you say has been missing in past efforts to address equity in the nonprofit sector? I mean, there are a lot of organizations that are trying to address that in the outside of their organizations, but I'm talking about inside organizations. Keisha: We have to start with ourselves internally. If it can't be just a process or a policy, or procedures, we have to start as individuals. We come to work with our own beliefs, the way that we are raised and how we see things. And we are all born with biases and it impacts how we show up and impact how we treat others at work. What we value, who we value. Knowing where people's ideals come from and why they make the decisions they make, or the way they behave. It's helpful in us being more empathetic to one another. I feel like the conversations that are being had nowadays, with the pandemic of coronavirus and COVID-19, and the epidemic of racism, people aren't able to ignore it. I think having these uncomfortable conversations, leaning into the discomfort, and committing to doing it again and again, is what's going to make the difference. I've led multicultural leadership-development efforts at a national level for our organization. And there were some times where I felt like we were just teaching the diverse leader how to be within this larger structure that is not necessarily welcome. So, teach you - as a person of color - to straighten your hair, to get in, get the interview, say the right things, and do all those things. But how do we change the system so that it doesn't expect me to conform in order to be successful, that I can be valued for. However, if I choose to wear my hair this way, and I know that sometimes it seems like a small thing, but those small things, they just add up and there seem to be many ways where, as a woman of color, I felt like I haven't always been able to bring my whole self to work. So I do think that it's important that we allow folks to bring themselves, and their culture, and their beliefs, to work and not have to hide who they are. Those conversations are key. And in that leadership development that you're talking about, it's essentially like we're refining code switching or refining, basically teaching whiteness. I feel like that's probably replicated across not only programs within organizations, but many, many programs that are offered as not capacity-building, but just different levels. So that's essentially what the program is about. How is that really helping us get to equity. We need to teach white people to be okay with people who are different. I know that there's a lot of books and things talking about being anti-racist. But we have to continue to just work on dismantling the systems. It's not just teaching one group how to be, or how to respond. It's educating ourselves on how things got to be the way they are. And they didn't just start with us here. Here's the impact of those things, here's how this group might've benefited from these laws and these systems. And then here's how this group may not have benefited or how they might've been kept back as a result of those. And then getting people to make change, how do we bring it to the forefront and then start to dismantle it. But it's in the long haul. It was built over time and it won't be dismantled overnight either. Carol: Yeah. And it's interesting. I was listening to one of Brené Brown's podcasts, she now has two, and I'm not remembering who the person that she was talking to was, but the person she was interviewing was talking about how, when organizations try to start working on diversity, equity, and inclusion. They'll often go to the policies, the practices, and she described that, as the transactional part of the work. And that was interesting to me - because so often it ends up being posed as somewhat of an either/or of either you're doing transactional, or you're doing transformational and what she was saying, which I found so interesting was you have to have both. So you have to deal with all those practices and systems and how that's all embedded in the code of how we work. That's not enough, it's not sufficient. You also have to work at the relational level and then other work. We're trying to come at this from a conscious part of the brain that actually is not triggering a lot of this. That so much is about the unconscious bias that we've been taught over years. And how that's embedded in our limbic system. Keisha: It is. We have to do something to consciously stop it and be aware that, ‘okay, this is what I'm thinking.’ This is what I'm hearing. This is what I'm saying, what I'm replicated. I found that one-on-one conversations have also been very, very helpful with - and I can't speak for every person who's like me - but I can tell you how this impacts me. I can tell you how this impacts my children. I can tell you how this impacts my family, and it's exhausting to share. There have been times when I'm like, ‘I'm tired of educating everyone else. I'm just going to do me.’ I've got to preserve myself. Diversity fatigue is a real thing. I’ve found relationships that are important to me and I've really tried to develop those, whether it's professionally or personally, but by sharing, this is the impact of this. When I hear of another police killing a black person, I think about how that could be my son who is 17 now, who's 6’ 4” and it could be my daughter, who's 17 and just a black, young woman. It could be me, it could be my husband. And sharing conversations with folks. One of my colleagues said, that really hit me when you talked about your kids and my kids, because it's always, that's that family over there, but it's like, we have these things in common, but yet our kids can be doing the same exact thing and mine will be killed and Rose’s will not. So I think that that's one way that I've tried to personally make connections with folks and help them to see things in a different light. Carol: Yeah. I appreciate that. And I appreciate what you're saying, that there are just sometimes when I'm not going to engage. I need to preserve myself. Keisha: Yeah. I can't always engage in conversations, and it's not always fruitful. There are some folks who, it doesn't matter what you say, and I'm not willing to sacrifice myself for those types of conversations. Carol: Yeah. And sometimes I find it can be helpful to identify some bright spots, or people who are operating under those same circumstances or constraints, within the same context, but somehow are having better results. In your work, have you encountered some of those bright spots because I think that that's a place to start working from. Keisha: Yeah. I mean, I've encountered quite a few bright spots. We have a movement of leaders of color throughout the national Y and we call it our multicultural leadership development. It's mentors, coaches, and supports. And we've created safe spaces, similar to the employee resource group models where you have groups of people who may be able to come together and work on policies. You've got the affinity groups, those types of things, but ours is more of a mixture. Not just African-Americans with African-Americans. So you might see African-Americans, Hispanic, Latinos, and Asian Pacific Islanders. There you might have indigenous folks of which we need to improve our numbers versus nationally as an organization with regards to leadership, reflecting the communities we serve. But for those of us who are members of those communities, finding the commonalities and being able to support one another, educate one another, and to be with one another, and developing our own cultural competence, just because you're a person of color doesn't mean that you're going to be culturally competent as well. The things that we're asking from other groups that we should be able to model those things as well. So it's definitely been a great support system. And we've seen a lot of folks who've been able to engage and advance their careers within our organization. In connecting the dots where they're not just at one small organization, that they can be connected to our larger network of organization. So really a lot of success there. We have seen some increases in our numbers nationally of leaders that are at the top level, in the C-suite CEO position that are of color. But then we've also had some challenges that go on the other side of it. We've done a lot more work on bias and undoing institutional racism. Anti-racism work, a lot more equity work and looking at the systems. And I don't think that that's something that, as national non-profits, a lot of us do. Recognizing that we are a part of those systems that we talk about, a part of this country. We have the same kind of history as we've evolved in these 175 years that our country has evolved. So, I think we're doing a lot and there are a lot of folks who are committed to it. There's much more to be done. Carol: Sure. Sure. And for the Y particularly, you're a federated system and that can - I'm guessing - make it particularly challenging, but there are many other national organizations that are set up that same way. Can you just briefly say what a federated system is, and then maybe talk about how some of this work has either been able to move forward or, or been challenging. Keisha: Sure. We're federated meaning each organization, each Y, is its own independent 501 c3. You're all members of the national YMCA, and there are some guidelines that we need to adhere to in order to be a member. But we each have our own boards of directors, our own financial leaders, those kinds of things. And we can make our own decisions. There are a lot of benefits to that because the work that's happening in each community is different. So we don't have to be bound by some national perspective or priorities that are not appropriate for our community. The benefits of being a larger, federated organization, our brand is something that's recognizable that we work hard to have some things that we say are in common and that when you go to a Y, no matter where you are, that there should be these types of things. For us, that healthy, living youth development and social responsibility are three of our big core areas that we do our work. Carol: So there was a second part to that question. I'm just also wondering, with that federated system, there's also the autonomy of each organization. So, trying to move forward, something at the national level may take longer because you essentially have to persuade or pull in every organization within the system. Keisha: We're a very diverse country. We have, in some ways, a lot of division and something that we all believe in. And then there are some areas where we're not all on the same side and our organization is not any different from that. so for us to all rally around the same thing, it is not always very easy. It can be painstaking, but I know that there are some things we do believe in equity and inclusion as a national organization. We believe in the safety of children and young people. And there's just certain things that are no-brainers for us. But how that gets implemented in each area is sometimes very different and can be difficult. I'm not speaking on behalf of our organization nationally. It is an area that I've seen that, when we’ve pulled together, it's very impactful. Carol: You've actually developed your own leadership model. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and what you've found wanting and other models that spurred you to create your own? Keisha: Sure! Thank you for asking about it. It's interesting because I've coached leaders for many, many years, and also had a lot of focus on learning and development. I feel like we tend to highlight leaders who seem as if they arrived; as if they just showed up and they were perfect, these flawless leaders and I've done presentations, and I've done a little riff on Beyonce’s flawless music. We don't really highlight leaders who mess things up or who are learning. When I see someone who's in a position that's at a high level I think, ‘man, how do I get there?’ I don't hear about the times that they failed four times, that they were rejected for six other positions that they've gone for, you just get to see where they've shown up. So I really try to encourage my colleagues to share some of their failures, some of their flaws so to speak. The model is that leaders are flawed and they are not perfect, but we do learn from things. So the [idea is that] we're failing forward. Everyone makes mistakes. And how do we utilize those to propel ourselves and our learning, or whatever it is that we learned from those failures. Then maybe we prevent some of the failures in the future, or maybe they'll be a little smaller. But recognizing that all of us will fail at some point and how we fail forward? the lesson for lifelong learners that we constantly have to sharpen that saw, we have to learn more. Part of it is reflecting and getting better, learning about what we do and how we can improve, learning about our field, our craft, just continuing to [learn]. There's no point where you've just arrived so we need to always be lifelong learners. The A is for authentic! I think authenticity in leadership is very important for us. If you want people to follow you, you want them to trust you. People don't want to follow someone who doesn't seem genuine. And a part of that authenticity is [admitting] that, you’re not always right. I may not be perfect, but sharing more of our why, our story, why we do things or what's motivating our decisions and things like that. Sharing a little bit of a vulnerability. So if we were to talk about Brenè Brown, vulnerability is just super important. So I think that that's all tied to authenticity. And then the W is for work. You can't be a leader without doing the work. You’ve gotta roll your sleeves up and get your hands dirty. I do believe in working smarter, not harder. I'm not going to try and take the hard way, but in leadership, you definitely have to put in the work wherever it's needed. That's my model: leaders of LAW. Carol: I love it. I think it was one thing - I don't think much goes viral on LinkedIn - but this one probably did where someone actually wrote their failure resume. Yeah, so when you write your bio for when you're speaking or whatnot, you rarely include: “and right before I got that job, I was the runner-up for four of them.” [You don’t include] where you were laid off here, or where you got restructured out of that job at that. We're resilient. Those are the things that we need to reiterate that, especially with this generation coming up and I hate to sound like the old person in the room, but you want folks to know it's okay, you gotta be resilient. We don't know what's going to happen next, then COVID, and what this next iteration will be, but we will band together. We will be resilient. We'll make it through and figure it out. Keisha: Yeah. And I think folks have a lot more resilience than they realize, and it's part of it. It's looking back and seeing, ‘that kind of sucked at that time, but I picked myself back up and got back on the horse’ or whatever and [you need to] try it again. And I think just the way our brains are wired, we learn so much more from those failures than we do from all those successes. So, we have such a negativity bias that those are definitely more memorable. But then not only keep it as our own private learning, but I think what you're saying is, for leaders to actually share those with the folks that they're working with so that folks really know that it is okay. We don't want to make a lot of mistakes. Nobody wants to make mistakes. But on the other hand, if there's a culture where making mistakes is punished, then it just has so much impact on folks willing to take risks. That has to be there for innovation [so it] can really have a chilling effect. So yeah, pretending that you're perfect, it's exhausting for the person who wants to work with that anyway. It's not realistic. It doesn't have to be perfect. We're not expecting it to be our final product, but you're going to put this bad boy out, see how it works, and we'll fix it. We'll continue to hone in on it. Carol: So, you allow people to be okay with, like you said, innovating and we don't want to make huge mistakes, but we know that's a part of the process. Then we can build our confidence in knowing that it's a part of the process that I may stumble. Keisha: Yeah. And I think, also for organizations to look at who's allowed to make those mistakes within the organization and who it has higher consequences for. And I'm sure in most cases there's probably already research that shows this, but the more male and white you are, probably the more you can get away with. Yup. Very much so. And I didn't necessarily see it myself. Being in HR, coming from operations in so many places that I'm really drawn to making sure that we're consistent with how we handle those situations. Like you said, are we doing the same thing if the person is white and male that we would have done if they were young and female, or a person of color, or something like that. It’s super important that we have that consistency. Carol: Yeah, well I want to shift focus a little bit. At the end of every episode, I do a little game where I ask a random icebreaker question. So, what is one family tradition that you'd like to carry on in the future? Keisha: I created a family tradition of cookie baking for the holidays, and I'm not a person who cooks nor bakes. So it was interesting for me to come up with that, but I just love the idea of my children coming together, and having other cousins over, and us getting flour all over the place and making cookies from scratch. It's just a great way to set the holiday season off. It's a big mess, and every year I say, ‘why am I doing this?’ but I'm really trying to figure out how to do it during COVID. I'm like, ‘okay, pass out flour and it could be making an idea, or you do something via zoom. It's definitely one of the traditions that I hope my children pass on and that they continue to do it. Carol: All right. Well, thank you so much. I hope I get a box of cookies. Keisha: You may not want them! They've gotten better over the years. Like I said, I'm not a baker but, fail forward! I've gotten much better, but I've been failing forward for some years. Carol: All right. Well, thank you so much. Keisha: Thank you. Appreciate you, Carol. Good to talk to you. 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. A sparkThere typically is a spark that initiates the change. This could come from outside the 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  The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups By Daniel Coyle What creates successful group and organizational cultures? That is the question that Daniel Coyle pursues in his book. “Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It’s not something you are. It’s something you do.” US culture tends to focus on the charismatic, visionary leader yet Coyle’s research finds that successful groups tend to do lots of small things towards success rather than large dramatic things. Three key skills emerge – build safety, share vulnerability and establish purpose. Like Jim Collin’s Good to Great, Coyle finds a lot of quiet, observational leaders who cultivate a healthy ecosystem and group around them through lots of questions at key points to help team members learn to think on their own. There are lots of useful and actionable points in the book. I wish for a future when business books highlight as many women as men in their examples without having women in the title!  Design Thinking for the Greater Good: Innovation in the Social Sector By Jeanne Liedtka, Randy Salzman & Daisy Azer Design thinking is a problem solving approach that is human centered. It prioritizes really getting to know the people involved in your challenge and looking at the world from their perspective. It focuses on multiple options, experimentation and iteration. This method has served to democratize design and Jeanne Liedtke’s model makes it particularly accessible (What is? What if? What wows? And What works?). While the process originated in Silicon Valley, Liedtke and her team profile how design thinking has been used in the social sector. They include case studies from government, national, state and local nonprofit organizations – from the US and internationally. Each instance showcases the real experience – from the excitement at the start of the project to the dead-ends and false starts to results that in many instances could not have been envisioned from the outset. Using design thinking, the professionals highlighted get to see their organization from the perspective of whom they serve. With this, they are able to identify the ways in which the system is not made for the client. Then they are able to imagine how they might make things better. This is all in the service of having clients have a better and more humane experience while getting the help the organization is designed to deliver. If you have just heard about design thinking and have wondered how it might apply in your situation, this book is a great place to start.  An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization
By Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey “In most organizations, everyone is doing a second job no one is paying them for…Most people are spending time and energy covering up their weaknesses, managing other people’s impressions of them, showing themselves to their best advantage, playing politics, hiding their inadequacies, hiding their uncertainties, hiding their limitations. Hiding.” (pg1, An Everyone Culture) What if this were not necessary? An Everyone Culture describes a few unicorn organizations that have truly put people at the center of their purpose. Developing and investing in people. Not as an afterthought or bonus for just for a few people – for everyone. Where the culture revolves around helping everyone recognize, acknowledge and learn from their mistakes, build on their strengths and stretch and grow. Lots of organizations give lip service to the idea that people are their most important asset. Yet they rarely act as if that were really true. Each of the three organizations the authors describe as deliberately developmental organizations (DDO) do this through a multitude of practices that center transparency, regular feedback across all levels, team building and professional development – at the individual, team and organizational level. While the authors went into their research assuming that being a DDO would contribute to the business success of these organizations, they concluded by the end that in fact being a DDO is the cause of the business’ success. Much has been written about how emotional intelligence and people skills will be the key differentiators as work continues to morph and shift. Learn from these leaders what that might look like. |
carol HamiltonMy passion is helping nonprofit organizations and associations have a greater mission impact. Archives
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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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