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Nonprofit Radio for October 23, 2023: The Surprising Gift Of Doubt

 

Marc PitmanThe Surprising Gift Of Doubt

That’s Marc Pitman’s book. It’s stuffed with strategies to help leaders—and future leaders—lead better. Marc is founder of Concord Leadership Group. (This originally aired on August 2, 2021.)

 

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[00:00:11.68] spk_0:
And welcome to tony-martignetti Nonprofit

[00:00:46.62] spk_1:
radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. I’m traveling this week so I may not sound up to my usual. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d get slapped with a diagnosis of coccidioidomycosis if I had to breathe in the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate with the highlights.

[00:01:13.59] spk_2:
Hey, tony, it’s the surprising gift of doubt. That’s Mark Pittman’s book. It’s Stuffed with strategies to help leaders and future leaders lead. Better. Mark is founder of Concord Leadership group. This originally aired on August 2nd 2021 on Tony’s Take two.

[00:01:16.36] spk_1:
Goodbye. Marian

[00:01:52.67] spk_2:
were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters generosity. This giving season donor box, the fast flexible and friendly fundraising platform for nonprofits, donor box dot org and buy Kila grow revenue, engage donors and increase efficiency with Kila. The fundraisers, CRM visit, Kila dot co to join the thousands of fundraisers using Kela to exceed their goals. Here is the surprising gift of doubt.

[00:02:44.96] spk_0:
It’s my pleasure to welcome Mark Pittman to the show. He is founder of Concord Leadership Group. He helps leaders lead their teams with more effectiveness and less stress. His latest book is the surprising gift of doubt, use uncertainty to become the exceptional leader you are meant to be. You may know him. Also as the bow tie guy, Mark has caught the attention of media organizations as diverse as the chronicle of philanthropy, Al Jazeera Fox News Success Magazine and real simple. The book and the company are at Concord leadership group dot com and he’s at Mark a Pitman, Mark Pittman, an overdue. Welcome to non profit radio.

[00:02:48.81] spk_3:
It is an honor to be here. Thanks tony

[00:02:51.09] spk_0:
and I’m not sure why you haven’t been on years ago and, and many times before. So I uh I feel bad about that because you’re a smart guy and you have lots of good, you have lots of good content, lots of good ideas. And uh that’s why I say long overdue.

[00:03:03.92] spk_3:
Well, thank you. And my head may not fit out of the office after this kind of word. Don’t get carried away,

[00:03:27.54] spk_0:
but you do. You do have a lot of good ideas, including the uh the ideas that are in your new book. And I want to start with having you explain how agonizing doubt can be a gift. Please help us understand that.

[00:04:48.45] spk_3:
Um It’s I’ve been an executive coach for 18 years now and it’s one of the things that really surprises people the most is the fact that high performers, first of all, don’t tend to know how to ask for help and then they get derailed when they start feeling down because they start feeling like they’re, they’re faking it. The that they’re the, you know, the wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain, they don’t look at him um because they’re, they’re producing results, but they’re not sure how. Um and that doubt can be very destabilizing, but the gift is it can force us to look internally for our own cues. Uh Look to look, to look in areas where we’ve been told they’re soft or, you know, they’re, they’re woo woo. Um look at things that make us unique and it actually clarifies our, our leadership because it’s very much about the, the grain of our wood, the way that we put a spin on things as opposed to just doing all the best benchmarked activities that are out there. Um Yeah. So the surprising gift of that is it, it can make it to me what I’ve seen it do is instead of having that inner critic saying I must be broken, I must be just, I must, I probably shouldn’t even be in this position. It shifts the conversation to why might I be perfect for this role? Why might my organization be exactly the voice that the sector needs to have right now?

[00:05:00.90] spk_0:
And there is a lot of introspection involved in the I guess the overall work that you’re describing and we’ll go into some detail about, about. But uh you, you, you need to be reflective,

[00:05:58.28] spk_3:
introspective, right? Which often is something that a lot of leaders don’t. There’s not a lot of, there’s so much need in, in organizations that there’s not often a lot of time given for professional development or leadership growth. And so people don’t think of the time as, as doing reflection as legit leadership work. They feel like um when we’re in early in careers, we’re, or even in school, we get graded on what we accomplish, we take tests, we do tasks, we complete tasks and that becomes how we are promoted as we move into management and leadership. It’s taking that time to reflect uh is so incredibly important, but we haven’t seen it modeled that much. Um So there is, you’re right. Absolutely right. There’s a lot of introspection, but there’s also, that’s what leaders do. They no longer, they provide, they, they no longer are just making sure things get done. But they’re also looking forward to see where should we be going? Where, where should we skating to where the puck is? I guess even though I’m not a sports guy, I grew up in Maine, so there’s a lot of hockey there.

[00:06:12.61] spk_0:
Uh Thank you. Yeah. Any, any sports analogy will be largely lost on me, sports

[00:06:18.01] spk_3:
ball. So I, I’m

[00:06:26.47] spk_0:
not familiar with basketball. So I wouldn’t know that skating in the park uh uh metaphor now. And I want to reassure folks that this is not only material for current leaders but future emerging leaders.

[00:07:22.91] spk_3:
Absolutely. When part of what um what we, when we’re going through our leaders journey, if we can identify the earlier, we can identify what makes us different, what makes us unique. Where are our limits? Where, where are we really good? Um Where do, where can we excel? It can help us position our leadership roles so that we’re not being squeezed into somebody else’s box, uh as much as possible, the organizations are clear are artificial. They’re, they’re not um they’re not perfect. So we’re always gonna have to do things that we don’t enjoy or we don’t like, but we can definitely, there are things we can do in our environment and in our, our schedules and the people that are around us that can help us or can really hinder us. So the earlier we know, even as, as people are going through their own personal growth journey, uh the more that they can identify these, these uniqueness is uh that they, that they bring to the table, the better thinking somebody was asking in a previous podcast, can’t you throw these conversations? Can’t you throw some of the, you know, if you’re being interviewed for something, can’t you just answer the questions the way that you think they want them to be answered and you could, but you may get the job that you don’t want.

[00:07:50.98] spk_0:
Right. That may not be in your, your, your best self interest, your own self interest. Um, you know, I can see how, uh, you would, you, you’d be soothing as a coach, just your voice. I have that. I have that in New York. I grew up in New Jersey, but close enough to New York City, Stone’s throw. I got that, uh, east coast. But you have a, I mean, you’re northern. You said you grew up in Maine now. You’re in South Carolina. You have a, you have a soothing way about your

[00:08:11.83] spk_3:
voice. Well, thank you, Mark after dark was gonna be my, uh, my DJ handle Mark

[00:08:19.61] spk_0:
after dark. You and Alison Steele the Night

[00:08:21.44] spk_3:
Bird, then it turns out there was already a mark after dark. So I’d have to spell dark with AC. Ok. So we do it. Here

[00:08:27.68] spk_0:
we go. All right. Claim it. Yeah, you just, your voice has a, uh, a softening calming quality

[00:09:00.51] spk_3:
to it. I’ve been told that I’ve had some people come to me and want, um, they kind of want me to be their boss, uh, some business owners and some nonprofit executives or, well, I want a coach that’s gonna tell me exactly what to do and make it, you know, make it hurt to not do it and that’s not who I am. I’m sure there are those coaches out there that are drill sergeants but um I believe most leaders are really hard pressed and doing the best they can. And so I like to be able to encourage them and, and kind of blow on the coals that are the fire that’s almost going out and rekindle their, their passion to do it themselves. Coaching with compassion. Nice. Wow dot com. I’ll get that coaching

[00:09:31.50] spk_0:
with compassion, the compassionate coach, the bow tie guy and the compassionate coach. Um I wanna dive into something that uh very interesting to me but you have it buried, it’s buried on page 98. Ok. It’s the Pittman family homework that you used to do. Tell me about that you uh you, you covered in just a couple of sentences. I to me it was a little bit of a gloss over because I’m very interested in what got you to where you are and what informs your coaching and, and I got to believe that the Pittman Family homework is, is integral

[00:11:11.48] spk_3:
in, in here. Absolutely. As I look at my bookshelf, they all, many of the books are things that I, I grew up reading. So in my family, we had uh school work because we were students at school. But my sister and I also had uh homework for being pitman’s. So we were had to read positive mental attitude books and to listen to motivational speakers. Um and we had to go to events, seminars, rallies, the sort of things where people were talking about goal setting and, and uh living your dream and, and all, um, my parents were just amazed that they hadn’t been taught this. They were learning it with us and they were shocked that they’ve never been taught goal setting or dreaming or leadership or people skills and they didn’t want us to, to be inflicted with missing that before we left the house. So, um, I didn’t know other people might, I thought everybody had homework because they’re in their family. But I was started to read is I, I had been reading Dale Carnegie how to win friends and influence people. Uh, Frank Beers’s how I raised myself from failure to success in selling Charlie tremendous Jones. Life is tremendous. Listening to Zig Zigler Florence Let Tour, uh, Les Brown growing up that part of the part of the way, one of our kind of traditions too was having a motivational speaker on while we were in the shower. So we would always have a stack of tapes next to the, next to a, uh, a kind of boom box. And, uh, we would just put them on while we’re doing our thing. And then, you know, the person’s done when the tape goes off.

[00:11:18.65] spk_0:
That’s when you know your shower is done. Wow. So, yeah, I mean, this was the days before, uh, waterproof, uh, uh, phones and, and I ipods.

[00:11:45.86] spk_3:
So my wife knew that she said, she said she knew she was when we were dating, she knew she was dating an entrepreneur because I had a whole bunch of tapes. She had to clear off for the passenger seat of the car. I was just so used to listening to different tape series and uh you know, Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, poor dad. And yeah, all sorts of different, always learning. Trying to, always

[00:11:47.65] spk_0:
after Kawa, what did you say,

[00:12:33.18] spk_3:
Kyi? Uh Robert Kiyosaki wrote a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad in a series after that poor dad. Yeah, just different ways. People keep different uh mindsets, people have about money and um security and, and it’s really helpful and going into fundraising was really helpful to have this kind of being able to speak the language of your donors is one of the most important things um in fundraising and having been exposed to this literature that the other leaders were being exposed to, made it a lot easier to, to talk to them. In fact, my first talks in um first professional talks were translating marketing things in sales for fundraisers cause sales was the s word 25 years ago. And um so I would take like Seth Seth Godin’s idea, virus information, marketing and make it. So I’d fully attribute it, but I’d make it so that it was understandable to how this could work in a non profit.

[00:13:28.39] spk_2:
It’s time for a break. Are you looking to maximize your fundraising efforts and impact this giving season? Donor box’s online donation platform is designed to help you reach your fundraising goals from customizable donation forms too far reaching easy share, crowdfunding and peer to peer options. Plus seamless in-person giving with donor box, live kiosk. Donor box makes giving simple and fast for your donors and moves the needle on your mission, visit donor box dot org and let donor box help you help others. Now back to the surprising gift of doubt.

[00:13:47.56] spk_0:
So this Pittman family homework, which obviously, as you’re describing, you know, evolved through the, through the decades, you’re continually, continually learning to even today, you say that in the book a couple of places. Um But this was like elementary school. You were, I mean, they were, they were probably considered this indoctrination.

[00:14:34.22] spk_3:
Oh Absolutely. Yeah. Looking back on it, it totally was. And when Charlie, totally, well, my uh my Charlie tremendous Jones became a mentor of mine, which he’d been a hero of my universe cause I, I love his book. Um and he said, when I was looking with our kids, he said, oh, I would never do it that way with, as your parents said, I would teach, have them do stories, I’d have them. Uh have your kids read biographies and be inspired by, by stories as opposed to reading the how to literature. But um I probably because of my upbringing, I love, I love nonfiction. I love reading a good how to book on, on leadership or in goal setting or vision casting storytelling. Yeah. Credit to credit the

[00:14:35.26] spk_0:
pitman parents. Well,

[00:15:05.88] spk_3:
one time Sandy Reese was in interviewing me and she, uh, years ago and she came up with a, she cataloged all the books that I referenced in the talk. Uh, and my, just in a conversationally because I still read 50 to 75 books a year. Um, to, and, and I had to set a goal years ago to read nonfiction because that’ll make me a better storyteller. But I had to set it as a goal. Now. I can fully enjoy reading nonfiction. I mean, reading fiction. Sorry, reading, sorry. Yeah, reading the fiction books. Um, that are enjoyable. I always thought I was cheating but now it’s a goal. So I’m ok. I said a certain number of goals for fiction books I want to read in a year and 50 to 70

[00:15:14.91] spk_0:
five a year. Do you still

[00:15:34.33] spk_3:
read? Yeah. I, I’m cranking through books this year too. I don’t know why. But I love, well, part of it is, there’s just, I want to keep fresh when I’m writing a book. I try to not to not read in the genre that I’m writing it. So I didn’t read a lot of leadership books. So I was doing surprising gift of doubt because I didn’t want to, um, mistakenly, like I take, take over somebody else’s thought that should be attributed to them because I really do think crediting the source is really important. Um which this book even get more, more to the point. The editors were even more insistent that I, I double and triple checked my, my references, which I thought was wonderful. Yes, there’s a bunch of end notes. Yeah, I haven’t been pushed this hard in a while. So I’m really, really pleased with the team that helped me with this one,

[00:16:05.77] spk_0:
something you say early on is that the motivation is within you expand on that for us.

[00:16:11.89] spk_3:
Well, the um part the, I don’t remember exactly. I know that was part of the chapter. Sorry, you have to flip through the pages, you know, you write a book and then it’s a quiz

[00:16:19.84] spk_0:
on page 16 or something, but you talk about the motivation, the motivation for leadership and, and good and just good intentions is is within you.

[00:17:31.76] spk_3:
Yeah, I think part of what we um we spent so much of our life and another part of the book, I do this map of the leader’s journey where it’s a four quadrant section uh where we start off on the confidence scale, which is the vertical scale and we go down to unsure, we’re gonna talk about the leader’s journey. OK. Well, that’s part of it is that we are so used to looking externally for our cues that the, we forget to look internally and find out what, what are, what, what do we value? What are we passionate about what are two things we forget, we forget to, to actually give them air. And often we don’t really permit ourselves to, to define what we value or what we hold on to because we’re looking for others in uh for cues, either the culture or systems. But the other thing that we somehow don’t do is we don’t credit them as being unique traits. We think everybody must be like us. Uh, you and I both wear glasses and it’s almost like we forget that we’re wearing glasses at times. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the experience of trying to find your glasses and they’re right there on your face. They’re not even on your head, on your face. You, um, I get fingerprints all over my glasses when I do that. But we often, the stuff that’s within us is often the stuff that makes us unique, makes us, um, a, a valued part of the team and we just kind of write it off as a weird quirk of our own. Not something that’s worth giving attention to.

[00:17:54.92] spk_0:
It’s, it’s some of it’s among those natural strengths you talk about natural strengths versus learned skills.

[00:18:02.28] spk_3:
Well, yeah, some of our

[00:18:03.78] spk_0:
natural strengths. You, you’re right. We, I guess we, we, uh, we minimize them thinking everybody, everybody’s that smart or everybody

[00:19:48.77] spk_3:
thinks about that or if I can do it quickly, then it must not be work. Um, I remember being in a early job. I, I loved, I was fundraising for prep school and I loved it. I just loved the traveling. I loved the, you know, when I was home at the boarding school, being at the table with the 10 other students, the 10 students and my, my wife and I were the faculty parents. And um I love the kind of matching school’s mission with donors values and trying to see if there was a fit and being ok if there wasn’t but being excited if there were that all excited me, but I didn’t think I could enjoy work that much. So I was talking with a, with a faculty colleague and I tried to make it sound really hard, you know, because there’s a lot of stuff that is hard. The travel isn’t that in inspiring, there’s delays and all. So I tried to really accentuate the bad stuff and he looked over at me and he said, you love your work, don’t you? And I felt so guilty because I totally did. And then I found out he didn’t, he would never want to do what I was doing because every day was different. Every day I had to come up on the spot with different answers. And um and I didn’t know what I had no idea who’s gonna call what I was gonna, who I was gonna see what opportunities are gonna arise. He liked being in his classroom and knowing this is the curriculum and this is where I can adjust if we go too long on one area or if we go too fast on another. He, he loved that stability. Uh, and that’s where I started realizing that the stuff that I thought was just kind of everybody would want to do this. And I, you know, I kind of got lucky is, no, not everybody wants to do this and any fundraisers listening to this knows that because we’re usually the oddballs out the non profit. We’re the ones that are outward focused in ways that others aren’t. Why don’t we talk about

[00:19:49.68] spk_0:
the, the four quadrants of the leader’s journey. Um You have some self assessments that folks are just gonna have to buy the book to do. We’re not going to be able to talk through the details of self assessments, but, but the leader’s journey through the four through the four quadrants, I think that’s valuable and especially moving from quadrant 2 to 3.

[00:22:23.96] spk_3:
Sure. So the uh what I loved about creating part of, I’ve been trying for 18 years to explain what I do with, with as a coach. And this was the first time when I created this four quadrant methodology. It was the first time it, people repeated it back to me and they understood it. And my wife looked at it and said, well, this is me as learning, this isn’t just leadership, but the axes again are confidence uh vertically and then inputs horizontally quadrant one is where you’re high confidence and you’re looking externally. So we most leaders only get half the map. We don’t get the whole map, we only get the external half. So we, we start in a quadrant where we’ve seen other people lead and so we start copying them, somebody gives us the ability to run a project or to, to lead a team, um some sort of leadership and either we’re super excited because we’ve known we’re a leader and finally somebody else sees it or we’re scared, but we have the confidence from the other people that they’re gonna do it. That’s, and that’s where we just try to do what they’ve done. Um Some of the people that I listened to growing up, some of the motivational speakers would say if, if you’re leading a team and you turn around and there’s no one behind you, you’re just out for a walk and that’s when your confidence starts going down, which I dipping into the quadrant two, which is the experiment quadrant where you start trying to figure out, OK, what worked for tony didn’t work for me like tony has his own way of doing things and it’s not clearly not working for me. When I say jump, people don’t say how high, what do I need, where are the deficiencies and how do I fix them? And that’s where you start taking courses. You start getting cer certifications, reading books going to seminars, going to conferences, listening to podcasts. So it’s people skills or um closing uh on sales or fundraising. Um Anything. And me, most leaders kind of stay in quadrant too lurching from success to success. They have so much success that the people around them feel like. Oh yeah, this is they’re gonna pull the rabbit out of the hat again. We know that whatever she does, she’s an amazing leader. Um but she, the leader herself is, is wondering, is seeing all the deficits, all the deficiencies, all the stuff that they don’t have measured up. And that’s where the doubt builds up inside them to think. Well, maybe I’m not the right person. If they have the opportunity, sometimes it’s just through strain and stress, sometimes it’s through coaching to see that there’s a whole map. And the other half of the map is all the internal cues. So the external cues are great because it tells us how we learn. And there are good systems that we can learn from. But when we move

[00:23:10.83] spk_0:
before you, I want to just make sure folks are clear about what the, what the horizontal and these are labeled. So the, so the the the vertical is confident and unsure. So confidence is on top, unsure at the bottom and then the horizontal is external and internal. So when you’re in quadrant, when you’re in quadrant one, you’re uh observing and you’re, you’re confident and that’s the confident external quadrant, quadrant two, that’s the unsure external

[00:23:14.55] spk_3:
and you’re trying to fix this wrong.

[00:23:15.92] spk_0:
That’s what we’re talking about right now. I just wanna make sure

[00:23:35.59] spk_3:
everybody’s clear and that’s the cusp. So I find the magic happens at the, when people are moved from quadrant two to quadrant three, which is the, they’re still in the unsure half of the map, but you’re moving internally to figure out. So let me illustrate like this. Have you heard getting things done by David Allen? Uh No, I haven’t. Ok. Well, it’s 13,000 listeners. They’ve heard of it.

[00:23:40.71] spk_0:
The audience is better read than the host.

[00:24:57.94] spk_3:
So the uh if you, if you read a book, like getting things done is all in time management and you only implement 10% of it in quadrant two, you’re gonna think. Wow, I failed at another thing. I can only get 10% of this. The book says it changed people’s lives. It’s not changing my lives. I just write lists. That’s all I get out of this. Quarter three is where you shift the question to. Huh? I wonder why either. I wonder why that didn’t work for me. What is it, uh What is it about the book or it’s shifting the focus to? Wow, I got 10% that 10% is really helpful. This writing list things with the next action item really actually is, is really helpful. And as one of my mentors said, years ago, eat the chicken, spit out the bones. All right, the chicken for me in getting things done is writing lists. I don’t have to do the whole reviews and the files cabinets and all this other stuff that has helped other people. It’s not gonna help me. And as you start building in quadrant three were looking at your hard wiring, looking at your stories. You tell yourself, looking at your goal, setting your mission, your vision, your values, your personal style, it starts building up your confidence again because we in quadrant two, you’re just seeing all your, what you lack in that. You’re afraid somebody’s gonna figure out that you’re really just faking it. In quadrant three, you start seeing why some of the things work the way they do for you. Um Why your organization doesn’t necessarily do whatever all the other organizations are doing, but you don’t have it just a, it’s not just a whim or a feeling, it’s, you start being able to have the language to be able to express what, why you do what you do. And that builds your confidence back up to Quad four, which is a focused leader. Quadrant. OK?

[00:25:26.40] spk_0:
Before you go to four. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people get stuck in in the second quadrant and the transition from 2 to 3, you find a lot of people in your practice and generalize beyond that stuck in that second quadrant, what we working with, working with external systems that are not not being rewarded

[00:25:35.40] spk_3:
or not looking for the next guru looking for the next framework.

[00:25:38.37] spk_0:
Why is it, why is, why are so many people stuck into looking for this external help? That’s it’s routinely not not fulfilling for them.

[00:26:38.23] spk_3:
I think part of it is because we are, we were raised that way. We look for parents for cues, we look for coaches, for cues, we look for, we look to externally to teachers uh to grade our work uh bosses to give us um you know, performance reviews. And I think we’re taught probably at least in the cultures that I work in to not really trust ourselves to not trust the inner voice, the nudges that we’re getting because those are soft. We should look for hard data, we should look for benchmarking, we should, we should see what others are doing. Um There, there are good things with looking at others, but it’s just not the complete picture. I think it really needs, it’s like an introvert that is trying to copy an extrovert boss. So the extrovert uh mentor walks around the office, talks to people gets energized by doing that has a high level of energy with the personal relationships. Um an introvert boss, this introvert that’s trying to be, you know, an emerging leader maybe will get drained from that. It’s not that they can’t be social and be engaging, but it’s that it’s not energizing for them. So they’ll need to take a lot of time to recharge their batteries but they won’t necessarily give them the, if they don’t look internally to realize. 00, I wire differently. They’ll try to keep forcing themselves into somebody else’s mold. Um, you know, the, the, the proverbial square peg in a round hole.

[00:27:01.64] spk_0:
Ok. Somebody else’s mold being based on the way we grew up, like you’re

[00:27:05.48] spk_3:
saying, the external. Yeah,

[00:27:06.71] spk_0:
teachers, parents, bosses you’re trying to fit into, we’re accustomed to trying to fit their molds

[00:27:40.92] spk_3:
and think about it nonprofits too. Yeah. Boards, every board member seems to come in with their own kind of mold for how a nonprofit should work or how a leader should work or how something should get done. And what is incumbent on us as, as nonprofits to help with the boards is to on board them, to train them to. This is how our, our nonprofit works. These are our values as a nonprofit. This is how we do things. This is the communication styles we’ll have, we will not go back behind each other’s back and gossip. That is not how we operate here. Um But that often that on boarding and, and board uh board orientation of often doesn’t happen. So you’re stuck with a bunch of people that have these external moles that they want to try to force the leaders and the staff and the nonprofit into that aren’t necessarily helpful or in line with what the nonprofits there for

[00:27:58.12] spk_0:
or even worse than not helpful.

[00:28:00.05] spk_3:
Yeah. Thank you.

[00:28:05.47] spk_0:
Detrimental, hazardous, toxic, you know. So then moving from 2 to 3, I know you, I know you, you already did this but because you were ready to go from 3 to 4, but I

[00:28:11.95] spk_3:
go for it. This is great. You’re suffering a lackluster

[00:28:27.57] spk_0:
host. So I, I’m, I’m, I’m just processing it. You’ve been thinking about this for decades, but I’m still, I’m still processing. So the movie from 2 to 3, I I kind of saw that as, as a synthesis of all these different systems that you don’t call it synthesis.

[00:28:32.18] spk_3:
I don’t, that’s me

[00:28:56.84] spk_0:
doing all your work. You’ve been thinking about it for decades, you call it analyze, I call it synthesis. I like it. You, you, you’re free to call it analyze. Of course, I, I thought of it as a synthesis of all the things that you attempted in, in these external systems, the books, the webinars, the, the, the week long leadership conferences, whatever they were that were only partially or maybe not at all helping you, you, but you extract out what does, what does have values you and, and you make sense of it and you emerge in a better place. And that’s to me that was the synthesis of I

[00:29:51.51] spk_3:
like that. And the next quadrant and you also learn some of the um some of the patterns that you fall, fall into. You start reflecting enough to say, oh, wait, I’m doing that again. Does that mean I’m stressed or? Um, there’s one of the assessments of he’s ability battery, um, which tests you on how you actually perform on things. It’s not, how do you feel about, would you rather read a book or go to a movie? It’s not questions like that, but it’s do this task under time pressure and it shows what comes quickly to you. One of the things that came out for me early in my career was rhythm memory, which is a kinesthetic type of learning. Um It’s a and it’s also tied to a desire to move around. So I’ve always looked for jobs that involve moving around because I knew that that would be more life giving and energizing for me. What that meant was that I never work at the, at the

[00:29:53.51] spk_0:
prep school.

[00:30:59.38] spk_3:
Right. Absolutely. Right. But that also changed my career trajectory because I realized many of the major gift fundraisers that I’d seen that went into management became very frustrated because they had to manage other people that were doing the work and they actually wanted to do the work. So I, I took some ownership of my own career path and moved into positions that um allowed me to still have that kind of external, I mean, extrovert um you know, movement. So that kind of synthesis is also the internal synthesis of this is my way of operating in the world and I want to try to put myself as much as possible in ways that work with that. Um Not that I don’t wanna grow, not that I don’t wanna be stretched or, or challenged, but I also don’t wanna put myself in a position where I’m just gonna languish. Although that’s sometimes what the right career path should be when the head hunters call, they, they want to see, you know, a paper, career path of associate to the manager, to director to senior VP or something, which may not be the way that is realistic for, for people talking from experience.

[00:31:50.54] spk_2:
It’s time for a break. Kela increase donations and foster collaborative teamwork with Kela. The fundraisers, Crm maximize your team’s productivity and spend more time building strong connections with donors through features that were built specifically for fundraisers. A fundraiser. CRM goes beyond a data management platform. It’s designed with the unique needs of fundraisers in mind and aims to unify fundraising, communications and donor management tools into one single source of truth visit. Kila dot co to sign up for a coming group demo and explore how to exceed your fundraising goals. Like never before. It’s time for Tony’s take two.

[00:31:53.76] spk_0:
Thank you, Kate.

[00:34:27.70] spk_1:
The downside of doing planned giving fundraising is that you working with older donors. Most most typically folks in their eighties nineties and these folks often die while you’re working with them. And that happened. I had the oldest donor that I’ve ever worked with. Her name is Marian. Uh, I met her when she was just 96. She was young. Um, and she just died a few weeks ago, right on her 1/100 birthday. The actual birthday where she turned 100. That’s the day that she died. Of course, you know, that is sad. Uh, but there’s a lesson that I’m taking away from my four years with Marion. Lots of times when I would ask her how she’s doing, she would say I’m content, I’m content. And I, I always thought about that, not just now since she’s died, but that contentment was just what she was looking for and was very content with, was very satisfied with, you know, she had her opera recordings on records, of course, with her phonograph. Uh she had her daily newspaper, she had WQXR, the public radio, classical music station. Uh She had her memories, she had her lovely one bedroom apartment with a view of the Hudson River and always well kept, I mean neat, very neatly kept. She was very, very capable of taking care of herself. So contentment, you know, she had these things and she was just content. And II, I feel like that’s something that I am striving for contentment, contentment. So, so uh Marian, I, I salute you, I admire your contentment and, and I thank you for passing on something very, very valuable for me that is Tony’s take two Kate

[00:34:29.83] spk_2:
she seems like a wonderful woman. And that story is very touching and the words that you said were very touching. And so she lives on in your memories, which is

[00:34:38.59] spk_1:
wonderful. She absolutely does. And, and the idea of striving to be content will always stay with me from her.

[00:34:51.82] spk_2:
We’ve got Buku, but loads more time. Let’s go back to the surprising gift of doubt

[00:35:15.75] spk_0:
you at least would, would be, uh would look good on paper and do look good on paper. I, I would, I would never be, I, I can’t be an employee. I, I would, I would fail the, I would, I would fail the screening interview with the, with the, with the headhunter, uh, assistant assistant. I, I wouldn’t even get to the associate level.

[00:35:18.81] spk_3:
I remember the managing director. I don’t know how I get the head hunter.

[00:35:22.43] spk_0:
I’d be 20 minutes late just because I, I felt like why should I be on time for you? And then if I ever made it to the, if I ever made it to the interview, which I never would. But if I met, if I met a principal in the organization, I’d be showing, I’d show up late. I’d be in sneakers. No, I just, I

[00:35:38.50] spk_3:
do everything

[00:35:43.91] spk_0:
I could because I know I’d be, I would be a shitty employee. I just don’t fit them up. So I, I would, I’d be doing them a favor by wasting their time.

[00:35:50.62] spk_3:
That’s awesome.

[00:35:52.31] spk_0:
So move us into the fourth for those uh for those who are, are more suited to uh work in an organization, you’re moving to a level of you mentioned at one point, grace you’re leading with grace and finesse, I think you say

[00:37:37.78] spk_3:
right? And, and there’s a the, it’s because you’ve got the kind of confidence and the peace of mind of knowing why you’re doing things differently. So instead of just thinking about, I must be so bad because I can’t get energized. I don’t like going to all those social events night after night. Um You start realizing why, what fills you up and what fills your organization, your team, your, whatever your organization is. Uh And that grows your confidence to that fourth quadrant which I, I called focus. Um But I don’t want to make it sound like it’s Nirvana. Uh It’s not all blissful because we’re still dealing with human beings and we’re one ourselves. Leadership is still a challenge. And yeah, but you now have a much, you have the full map you can look at and look at. Do I need to find somebody to copy? Do I need to learn skills from people? Do I need to uh go to a class or get a podcast or read a book or do I need to actually figure out what, what the synthesizing do I need to analyze what I’ve consumed already? Or our organizations consumed to figure out why are we doing it differently. Um, one of the things I also want to be clear on is that the data can be helpful. So, I don’t want to discredit external stuff with fundraising, in particular, uh, when fundraising letters, we know if they’re chat and they use you, they get better response than if they’re, uh, boring things. Essays that would get a, uh, high school, a grade a, from a high school teacher. Um, and we know that we know that and there are some nonprofits that might be tempted to say, ah, we don’t, we want to be more business like, um, and so it’s not just throwing out all the data that’s out there, but uh synthesizing it, I’m really stuck on that word. Thank you for that tony. Oh,

[00:38:14.13] spk_0:
the third quadrant synthesis. Yeah, that’s the way I, I’m one reader, just one reader that, that’s the way I conceived of it. Um All right. So, all right. So we got these quadrants that sort of progression. The four quadrants sounds like something out of the Matrix. But, um I didn’t watch much of that series, so I can’t go beyond that. Uh That. So let’s leave it there. That analogy. Um You talk about ST and you mentioned early earlier storytelling and you talk a good bit about different stories, stories that we tell ourselves, stories about the organization, talk, talk some about uh the stories we tell

[00:39:47.79] spk_3:
ourselves. That’s one of the things that I, I think a lot of us don’t reflect on is the kind of the self talk that’s going on in our head all the time. Um, the two that I talk about in that are the, I call them stock stories. They’re either the ones that you tell people when you’re meeting them for the first time. So we often have kind of go to stories where it helps position, helps people position us in their mind. Um, so maybe some people like Laline, some people like, uh, you know what their education history is or their career history, there are certain things we go to as we start paying attention to those, we can start seeing if they really reflect what we’re trying to do. Often we get stuck in these from a different time in our life and we just kind of tell the same stories because we think we’re gonna get the same response. The one that the other type of stock story that that happens is, um, with Jessica Sharp here in Greenville is really cat, has her clients just catalog the self talk going through and just for a day or a couple of days listing all the different things that enter your head and that takes some discipline, especially to do it non judgmentally. But things like, ah, I always fail, I always mess that up, but I can’t, I’m never good at that. Um, writing them down on a piece of paper. And then after your time holding that paper up and just asking, well, reviewing them and then she asks her clients to say, would you talk to a friend like this? And oftentimes our thoughts are so toxic, we’re, we’re actually filling, we’re polluting our heads because we’re so hard on ourselves. We’re saying to

[00:39:55.86] spk_0:
ourselves that we wouldn’t even say to others, right

[00:40:11.52] spk_3:
ourselves with them. Right. Exactly. So her, her invitation is, why don’t you become a better friend to yourself? Um, which I, I think it’s really, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this today but it’s very hard sometimes when, when you’re used to being hard on yourself to loosen up, lighten up because it feels like you might just go. I, I feel like I might just go off the rails if I’m too kind to myself, I need to be really hard, you know, and, and

[00:40:23.52] spk_0:
be a discipline like you need to be a little stricter. Otherwise I’m gonna get

[00:40:28.08] spk_3:
reckless. Right.

[00:40:29.74] spk_0:
You know, if I, if I, if I loosen up and, you know, something, something, something careless, I’ll do something careless or, you know, something

[00:40:36.46] spk_3:
along those lines, I’m self employed. But I often joke that my boss is kind of a jerk.

[00:40:42.45] spk_0:
Well, I am too, but I, I don’t have a good joke like that. My wife, the

[00:40:46.32] spk_3:
lackluster host. There you go. My wife, my wife reminds me that I am the boss so I can, you know, you listen,

[00:41:40.64] spk_0:
as a coach, you listen to a lot of, a lot of people who are stuck in quadrant two, beating themselves up and whatever they are and they might even be in, they might even be in the gray and finesse quadrant quadrant four, but they’re still, they’re still hard on themselves or the, or the work is hard on them. How, how does it, how do you not generalize all coaches? How do you as a coach keep, uh stay positive, like go from one coaching session to the next to the next to the next in a day or even if there’s a couple of days, I mean, how do you continue to relate as a positive human being when you’re hearing tough story after tough story after, you know, maybe insurmountable challenge. Uh

[00:43:51.53] spk_3:
I find people incredibly fa that’s a great question. I find people incredibly fascinating and um I, I’m a glass is always full kind of guy, not half full or half empty, it’s always full of water or air. So, um there’s a strong, strong sense of optimism that II I bring to the table and resiliency, I guess because um even people that are going through hard things, it’s one of one of the postcards I carry in my bag when I, when I used to travel, hopefully I’ll start again. Uh So just when the caterpillar thought his life was over, he became a beautiful butterfly. Um And so there’s that sense of even the ends are often beginnings for people. Um, uh, there’s definitely times where I have to do some of my, some of my own stuff like, um, center, you know, some meditation practices and other things just to exercise to keep the headset. But, um, I’ve seen so many people can transform themselves into people that they’ve wanted to be but they, they weren’t really sure they could be. That, that gives me the hope as I keep going from call to call and sometimes it does seem like the calls gang up one toxicity to another toxicity. Um I mean, you need your own, you need self care. Yeah. And I also one of the things the privilege of being a coach is that you get to not be in the hiring and firing space with these people. So you get to be with them and it’s, it’s almost, I’ve heard this, I haven’t experienced this, but I’ve heard in the Midwest, they, they used to have blizzards where you couldn’t back in the day when you needed to walk to the barn and milk the cows that you could get lost on the way back to the house because the blizzard was so, so um so, you know, covering or severe, maybe. Ok, great. So you needed a rope between the two buildings. And sometimes I feel like as a coach, I’m the one that’s either the rope or I’m able to connect between calls saying hey, but remember just three calls ago, you, you already talked about that and this is what you were gonna do. Oh, that’s right. I forget, I forgot I did that. That’s super. Ok. And just kind of get pointing the way, pointing some of the rocks uh and the path for people to take. And that’s, that’s incredibly uh life giving for sure.

[00:43:54.03] spk_0:
Blinding, blinding. The blizzard was blinding. Thank you. That’s what we wanted. We’re both, we’re both 50 plus so blind. That’s what you want. Um Yeah, the rope. I said, you’re uh you’re the, you’re the the rope back. That’s I like that quite a metaphor. Good one. And so

[00:45:14.04] spk_3:
because yeah, the demands of life can really be blinding to this. Uh people we are, they’re so the center for creative leadership tried to figure out what the one thing was for business leaders. That would be the most stressful. And it turns out there were four and they were all as one as somebody else pointed out to me. They’re all people, peers, colleagues, customers and supervisors or bosses. And in the non profit, it’s often boards, donors, uh staff and, and um and the and the clients, those are all pulling people apart. So it’s really easy to lose our way and to have somebody that’s, that’s sole job is there to be there to help you be better. Um That I became a coach because in my experience, I grew more through talking to coaches, uh than I did. Consultants are great. They have a, they have a blueprint that they were hired them to, to put on to the organization. But talking to a coach that didn’t even know my work helped me to grow as an individual. And I could figure out how to do be a better individual in my job when I understood a little bit more about myself. And

[00:45:14.99] spk_0:
you also have the voice

[00:45:16.30] spk_3:
so well. There we go because it is mostly by phone, so compassionate voice.

[00:45:35.87] spk_0:
You were destined some more, a little more about stories. Maybe you digress a little bit, but uh you talk about the future eulogy. This is so this is other stories that other people would say would tell about you. How do you, you know, influence your future history and talk about the future eulogy and that kind of storytelling?

[00:47:38.86] spk_3:
Sure. Well, and stories because our phones may have an Android or I OS operating system. Some people may sell blackberry. I don’t know. But our human as human beings, it’s uh story is our operating system and one of the ways we can program that is by figuring out what’s the story we want to be living uh for me and for many people, because if you google your eulogy, you’ll find this as a coaching practice that’s been well used is to think about at your funeral. What will people say about you as what will your closest people, maybe your family, uh community members, colleagues, what are they gonna say? Um And some of us that’s a little bit too hypothetical. So it’s the other way to look at it is if you were to die today, what would they say about you today? And writing it down, even in bullet points doesn’t have to be complete sentences can bring some clarity to how they perceive you or how you think you’re being perceived versus how you want to be had one leader. That was we before the pandemic had uh quarter, three leadership days where we do, people would fly into Greenville and we’d hold the whole day and we’d kind of work together as a group through some of these exercises. And when, um the kind of the story that she wanted for her apartment and she realized profi that her staff would never know that she wanted it to be a joyful place because she was so focused on policies and procedures and tightening, you know, um, routines that had been really lax and not non-existent. Um But she said now I have an opportunity to, to live into this story that I’ve written and it was sort of like for her, it was a history of the future. It wasn’t a eulogy, but thinking about that kind of final beginning with the end in mind, uh Franklin Covey’s uh habit too can be very helpful for us. Uh My example was when I did this in my twenties, I realized I want my kids to know I love them. But going away to work didn’t necessarily communicate that love. So it allowed me to be, I wasn’t gonna stop going away to work cause that providing for my family was something that was pretty important to me. But um I was able to then figure out what are other ways that we can, I can communicate that love so that they know that I love them. Um, despite my going away,

[00:47:59.35] spk_0:
you just buy them things when you go away.

[00:48:01.41] spk_3:
That could definitely be part of it. Yeah, until my wife said palpable items. No more stuffed animals. I used to get one in every place I was going and she’s like that’s enough. They have enough stuffed animals.

[00:48:13.41] spk_0:
I would just, I just reduce it to the tangible goods. Just, just send, just send presents. We know love is equivalent to tangible tangible items. The more

[00:48:22.41] spk_3:
and the shot glasses in the airport stores were a little bit confusing to kids. Like what, why is this a doll cop? What is this

[00:48:30.39] spk_0:
shot glasses? The I I heart New York shot glasses. Great. Just send things, sending things that’s equivalent to love if you’re gonna be away re replace yourself with items with

[00:48:40.22] spk_3:
items. I would,

[00:48:43.68] spk_0:
um, I, so that I thought that was very interesting. The future eulogy. Uh,

[00:48:48.44] spk_3:
have you ever done an exercise like that? No,

[00:48:52.97] spk_0:
no, I haven’t. Or, or what even, even making it simpler, what, what folks would say about you now?

[00:49:00.56] spk_3:
Yeah, it’s, it’s very clarifying and a little chilling for some people.

[00:49:52.46] spk_0:
Let’s talk a little bit. See, uh So just the listeners know, see, we’re bouncing around on different things that, that I think are interesting because, you know, we can’t really do the self assessments that are, that are part of Mark’s book. You just gotta, you gotta get the damn book, surprising gift of doubt. Mark a pitman, you got to get the book to do the self assessments to move yourself from the quadrant two. You may be stuck in or to yourself from whatever quadrant you’re in to advance your, your, your current leadership effectiveness or your future leadership. We’re all potentially future leaders, even those of us who don’t work in an organization, we’re still leading, I lead, I lead folks, I, I just, they’re not on my payroll but an organization payroll that I, that I am leading, but I’m leading them. So leadership still applies. Even if you’re an entrepreneur, Solone, however you want to call yourself.

[00:49:58.77] spk_3:
Well, I’m really glad you said that because I think a lot of people think leaders uh is, is a title which that is a form of leadership, like you’re saying, it’s influencing others and as human beings, we’re always influencing other people and that is a form of leadership. And so I try to take the broadest view a absolutely.

[00:51:05.50] spk_0:
And I find it, you know. All right, I’m doing, my synesthesia is kicked in. I just got to chill because I’m thinking about times when I’ve been able to influence someone, I’m not gonna, I can divulge any details but influence someone to a way of thinking that I’m, that I’m, that I saw that they didn’t and I’ve moved there. I, you can move people’s thinking and it’s not, it’s not, uh, conniving or anything. It’s just, it’s moving, it’s just consensus building and I’m not saying I’m successful at it every time, you know, but, but when you, when you, when you’re successful at helping people see things in a different way, you know, whether it’s, uh, I don’t know, it’s a concept or it’s money or it’s a, it’s a path forward to, in a relationship to bring it to fundraising. Um, it’s, it’s very, very gratifying. I mean, like I said, it’s giving me a couple of instances where, uh, where it’s happened. So that’s all to me. That’s all

[00:51:14.18] spk_3:
leadership. Yes, absolutely. I firmly agree. Yes.

[00:51:19.00] spk_0:
OK. Otherwise we’re shutting you off, you know, got 46 minutes. That’s the end,

[00:51:23.54] spk_3:
that’s the end of the show.

[00:51:26.20] spk_0:
I, I figured you would, of course. Um, so, you know, we’re moving around to different things that we can help you, help, you understand, the self assessments, help you move your leadership forward. And another one that Mark talks about in the book is, is goal setting, different types of goals, very important goal setting, talk about

[00:52:21.43] spk_3:
that. Well, so one of the things that we do with goal, there’s a lot of books written on goal setting. So this is the, the third of the three major areas that I focused on. But what I did was I took about 18 years ago, 17 years ago, I took all the different goal setting things. Uh not only did I study as a kid growing up in my family, but I also was in a program in college that actually required me to get a lower grade because I was supposed to take leadership and, and learn goal setting as a extracurricular, not just as part of my course of study, but I also my master’s in organizational leadership. So I had these all sorts of formal education on goal setting as well as you just said

[00:52:24.43] spk_0:
something, a course required you to get a lower grade.

[00:52:45.61] spk_3:
Yeah, there was a, there was a scholarship at the undergrad college. I went to that required me to get, I, I had a lower not required. I shouldn’t say that that there was a lower grade expectation because there was an expectation that you were gonna be all in on leadership and student activities. And part of that was having a mentor with a staff member and having regular meetings with them, teaching you goal setting and teaching you how to do mission statements and how to create strategic plans and that sort of thing. And that was all sort of extracurricular

[00:52:59.71] spk_0:
and you got too high a grade. Is that what happened?

[00:53:01.61] spk_3:
No, no, no. Fortunately they let my high grades still stand. But, but there are other, some of my other friends who had a different scholarship had to keep a higher GPA, I didn’t have the pressure of having to keep a GPA to keep the scholarship I had. So I see.

[00:53:14.82] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:53:40.76] spk_3:
All right. So, goal setting anyway. So, so what I did was I tried to take a bunch of the parts that I didn’t realize I was doing quarter three work at the time. But I tried to take a bunch of the different parts that I liked and this, this system that I use, um I submit to it, it’s in the book and I use my clients. Uh It isn’t the end, all, be all, but it’s a good one to try. Uh The first step you do is write a list of 100 things to accomplish in the next year or in your life. Um It’s, uh and, and why 100 for me is because it forces you to get silly and it forces you to think creatively because at some point you’re just trying to fill lines. Um What most people that I’ve got done this with, they get 10 pretty quickly because it’s job related. Probably things that are going to be on the performance

[00:53:58.64] spk_0:
review 10 goals in a lifetime or even in a

[00:56:19.53] spk_3:
year. That’s not. No, but then the next 10 become really hard. And when we were doing these uh intensives here in Greenville, people would call me over to the table and say, Mark. Um Can I uh this, can I put this, this goal on my list? Uh It’s like planting a garden. I want to plant a garden. Can I put that on my list? Chuck? Of course, you can, it’s your list and that’s the point. Um It gets the personal and the professional together. And what I have found with so many leaders is that they get so fragmented in their life. They have their professional side, they have their family side, they have different sides that when they’re looking at their goals comprehensively and they’re listing out 100 forces you to do that in some way. Um It, the amount of um centering that, that brings to human beings, the energy in the room invariably goes up because people see themselves, their full cells represented there. And it’s not like you’re gonna necessarily share your board or your boss that you’re doing a garden goal, but it’s your life. So you get to set the goals for that you wanna have. Um So the first step is that is writing the 100 the second step is then the history of the future, which is you read through all of them and it will take days usually to do the 100 read through the, uh, read through them and then just project forward. What does it look like? 12 months from now? If you’ve accomplished everything on that list, even the most far out crazy ones. What are people saying about you? What awards you have? What degrees you have? What do you, how are you feeling about yourself and then let that sit. Um If you did nothing else, you’d be shocked in 12 months. How many of those things you can accomplish? I’ve tested this with groups and it’s fascinating. Uh but then you, then you can map them out. You, you go back over the list and um look for two different types of goals. Either the ones that make sense, like planting a garden that if you’ve also to fill in 100 lines, you also plant carrots, plant cabbage, plant potatoes, planting a garden will kind of scoop up a bunch of those others, other goals, the smaller goals in it. So you could use, that’s one type of magnet goal. The other ones are some that just kind of pop off this the the page or you kind of get a little kind of jolt of joy. There’s, there’s, it’s not really rational why some of those are there but paying attention to those and, and trying to call the list down to about 3 to 5 of the rational goals. And the irrational goals. Um, and then plotting those out and focusing on those. Um, some people get it done in a quarter. I usually have to take the full year for each of those goals. But

[00:56:31.61] spk_0:
on one of your books shelves behind you, you have a license plate that says go guy.

[00:57:26.65] spk_3:
And that’s because of this process to basketball again. No, it’s not. It was my, my first ever training was with the equine vet and my second training was because of his referral was with a physical therapy practice who was owned, they were owned by physicians and they wanted to prove that they needed an admin help to do the billing so they could keep doing more care of patients. So we set up, uh, we broke down their goals, uh over the course of a year, what their revenue had to be, what, how they’re gonna communicate it to the people that own the practice, all the different things. 12 months of them, uh We worked also how they can operate, operationalize their, their strengths. So the people, what did the people like doing? What didn’t they like doing? They’d never asked them, they just did the work that was in front of them. They found out one person really loves knees, somebody else loved ankles. So they started shifting the workload so they could do better at a higher quality. Um Within four months of that training, they’d hit their annual goals within the twelvemonth goals they had accomplished in four months. And so I saw this, uh, Pippy, uh, I saw her at a store and she said that’s the goal guy. That’s the guy I was telling you about pointing at me. So I got a license plate to say, go guy. I thought that was pretty cool.

[00:57:45.93] spk_0:
The equine veterinary practice, you could have been the full guy

[00:57:50.42] spk_3:
that’s

[00:57:51.95] spk_0:
ps are always the worst. Unless you think of them first.

[00:57:55.72] spk_3:
I’m trying to get in there. But, um, guy,

[00:58:09.90] spk_0:
all right. All right, Mark. Leave us with, uh, some, some, uh, Mark a pittman, surprising gift of doubt, wisdom and, uh, and, and we’ll leave it there,

[00:59:00.53] spk_3:
please. Well, thanks so much for having me on the show and it’s my pleasure. One of the things that I think is really important. Well, there’s two things I’d like to end with. One is that we’ve hinted at assessments if you’re doing assessments as part of your teamwork, um, part of your own personal growth. I love them. Don’t let them confine you. They’re not, they’re meant to help you grow and grace and understanding of other people not to slap labels on people and pigeonhole them. So I’ll just, that’s one thing that’s a big, big ax. I like to grind. But I think going forward just people leaving, you know, listening to this, um, as you work through the, whatever the days are ahead of you and you find yourself asking, you know, criticizing yourself being really hard on yourself, try to pause and just say, well, what if this is exactly the gift that I have for the sector? What if, what if this limitation is actually the strength and the, the unique bend that I give? Because I feel like when you’re feel like you’re broken, you may be but you could be on the verge of greatness.

[00:59:17.66] spk_0:
The old guy, the book is the surprising gift of doubt, use uncertainty to become the exceptional leader. You are meant to be, get the book do the assessments. Don’t let them pigeonhole you, Mark Pitman, you’ll find him and his company at Concord leadership group dot com and he’s at Mark a pitman. Thank you again. Mark real pleasure.

[00:59:42.14] spk_3:
Thank you

[00:59:51.58] spk_2:
next week and we won’t let you down if you missed any part of this week’s show,

[00:59:54.63] spk_1:
I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com

[01:00:44.39] spk_2:
were sponsored by donor box. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters, generosity. This giving season donor box, the fast flexible and friendly fundraising platform for nonprofits donor box dot org and by Kela grow revenue, engage donors and increase efficiency with Kila. The fundraisers crm visit Kila dot co to join the thousands of fundraisers using Kila to exceed their goals. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein.

[01:01:10.21] spk_0:
Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and the beach brand.

Nonprofit Radio for December 5, 2022: 6 Steps Before You Hire

 

Andrea Hoffer6 Steps Before You Hire

Hiring is rampant because turnover is rampant. You have work to do internally, before you go public with your job posting. Andrea Hoffer, from AHA! Recruiting Experts, talks you through her 6 steps. You can download the first chapter of Andrea’s book, “Hire Higher.” We recorded on a bus in the Israeli desert.

 

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Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
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[00:01:10.11] spk_0:
And welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me, I’d suffer the effects of para fia if you touched me with the idea that you missed this week’s show six steps before you hire, hiring is rampant because turnover is rampant, you have work to do internally before you go public with your job posting. Andrea Hoffer from ah ha recruiting experts talks you through her six steps On Tony’s take two lots of opportunities for growth. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Here is six steps before you hire.

[00:01:57.34] spk_1:
It’s a pleasure to welcome to non profit radio Andrea Hoffer, Andrea is a businesswoman over three decades of experience. She’s managed hundreds of employees and knows firsthand the everyday challenges, motivating a team, exceeding customer expectations and meeting business and revenue goals now Andrea is using her experience to help companies recruit hire and onboard new team members successfully without wasting time or money on those poor hires that don’t work out. Her company is a hot recruiting a AJ they are at aha underscore recruiting and at aha recruiting experts dot com Andrea welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:02:09.12] spk_2:
hi, Tony, I’m really happy to be here. This is, this is pretty cool,

[00:03:41.33] spk_1:
You’re happy in your surprise surprise Andrea and I are on a bus in Israel, we are headed to the dead sea, we met at this course called Israel innovation that she and I are both taking along, with I don’t know seems to be maybe 60 or 70 other people most are not from the US most are from latin America brazil chile Argentina. Uh, but there are also folks from central America Panama, Colombia costa rica. Uh, there’s a woman from Ireland should make sure that we know Ireland is in the house every time we have a meeting. So we’re spending a week together traveling through Israel. Uh, we’ve been in tel Aviv together. Um, today we left tell Aviv came to the negative desert, the desert we visited kibbutz and now we’re on a bus from the kibbutz to the Dead sea where we’re gonna stay overnight in hotels and we are stealing some time on the bus so that Andrea and I can record and I can record because we’re not sure if we’re gonna have time any other time. There might be occasional interruptions, bus noises. And we’re on the bus. Welcome! Welcome. We are talking about the process of discovery, which is the earliest phase, right? This is the earliest phase of

[00:03:50.55] spk_2:
Yes, but what you do before you even put a job ad out there, things you need to think about. So that when you do start recruiting, you’re looking for the for the right person.

[00:04:04.69] spk_1:
Okay, so we’re in introspective exercise in house were strictly in house Discovery and you call this phase Discovery?

[00:04:10.96] spk_2:
Yes.

[00:04:11.69] spk_1:
Why is that?

[00:04:27.93] spk_2:
Because a lot of it you actually know, but you haven’t thought about it, You haven’t asked yourself those questions that you’re discovering this about yourself, about your organization, about the people that work for you and what you want your work culture to look like, what you want your team to look like.

[00:04:34.23] spk_1:
Okay, okay, now one thing I didn’t say in your bio, you are founder and what you what do you call yourself at, recruiting founder and Ceo

[00:04:44.99] spk_2:
founder and Ceo

[00:04:46.08] spk_1:
founder and Ceo

[00:04:47.36] spk_2:
recruiting experts,

[00:04:53.26] spk_1:
recruiting experts. Okay, excellent. Alright, so you have a discovery process, You have a process for this discovery?

[00:04:57.61] spk_2:
Yes. So we have six questions. Um six overall questions that we typically take our clients through and um and then there are lots of questions underneath it to go to go deeper, but I can

[00:05:11.15] spk_1:
to talk to

[00:05:11.99] spk_2:
You about the six,

[00:05:13.17] spk_1:
the six most important and maybe some of my questions will evoke some of your sub questions etcetera. So, okay, so

[00:06:34.06] spk_2:
the first question is really, you know, why does this position exist? What is the main purpose of it? Every position has some reason it exists and it typically in some way will contribute to the bottom line and will contribute to the mission of the company. So it either in some way is gonna save your company money or in some way is going to make the company more money, but it’s usually even bigger than that. And I and I have an example I can share to you. Um, so one example I like to share is an account manager and the job we like to break it into job title, job purpose and then organizational mission. And so the job title of account manager could be the job purpose to ensure client’s expectations are exceeded. Very, you know, it’s very simple. There’s no very high level, no getting this wrong. You know, we tell people don’t worry about getting it right. You’re gonna start, you’re going to tweak it over over time, but just put some thought into it. So you have direction. Um, so the whole purpose of this account manager’s job is to make sure the client’s expectations are exceeded. And then as we go through some of these other questions of these six questions will go a little bit deeper of what that looks like.

[00:06:51.07] spk_1:
Let’s let’s reassure folks that this certainly applies to non profits because your work is, your work is mostly you’ve done some work with nonprofits and you have a background in nonprofits.

[00:07:07.38] spk_2:
Yes. I started working in higher ed. And so in an arts organization that was all non profit. And then when I started the company, I did a lot of consulting with nonprofits in addition to small business,

[00:07:21.93] spk_1:
everything we’re talking about transfers

[00:07:23.44] spk_2:
of course,

[00:07:25.56] spk_1:
Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. And I’m sure you all know

[00:07:32.11] spk_2:
that in many ways, a lot of these questions of why a position exists or what the mission is of an organization. In some ways, it’s even easier for the nonprofits to answer because they talk about their mission so much more than business students often. So it there’s a good connection there

[00:08:07.52] spk_1:
and before we go further with, because we’re still at the very high level, why does the position exist? Who should be well, yeah, who should be answering these questions? What’s the structure do we send around a survey to all the employees? Is it only the employees who are going to work with the person whose whose position were filling is leadership involved? Who’s answering this? What are the logistics of getting?

[00:08:36.48] spk_2:
A lot of it depends on how large the organization is. We have done this process with just the Ceo or just the leader of if it’s a non profit organization, but typically would recommend getting at least the leadership involved. But if you’re thinking, if you can get more people involved in answering these questions and discussing these questions and get as many people as possible, the better outcomes better you’re going to answer these questions,

[00:08:49.58] spk_1:
you like the idea of maybe circulating the questions in advance and then meeting everybody writing their answers that

[00:09:55.98] spk_2:
we actually have. Sometimes what we do if the organization agrees and they can get more people involved is we do a sort of sort of what you just said, like a questionnaire like a survey of different than have each person fill it out separately without talking to each other. Even if it’s a small organization, we’re just sitting at the four or five people and then we get them all together and we talk about, well, okay, here are the patterns we saw here, here’s what everybody’s saying and usually about 70 to 80% is going to be similar but then hear the differences and why do you, why do you think this person answered this and this and that person into that? And we talk about the gaps and then a lot of times we’re able to bring it together and and really come to a, I don’t want to say a compromise, but something that is behind a consensus.

[00:10:00.90] spk_1:
Um, Alright, so we’re at the level, why does this position even exist?

[00:10:22.73] spk_2:
So the next one is, it’s about the outcomes you’re looking for and this drills it down. Um, often two metrics, you know, how do you qualify this and the, and you know, I know you’re doing a planned giving and if you talk about a fundraising, which is kind of an offshoot bringing money in there could be the amount of money, the level of money that this position is responsible for bringing in. It could be how much money you want to bring in for different events or for different milestones or deadlines.

[00:10:45.58] spk_1:
What if it’s a program

[00:10:47.02] spk_2:
position

[00:10:48.14] spk_1:
and they’re gonna be doing service

[00:10:50.00] spk_2:
to

[00:10:51.61] spk_1:
beneficiary humans in some in some capacity and then would it be like your monthly throughput or a number of client hours you spend? It

[00:11:02.97] spk_2:
could be, it could be retention, It could be

[00:11:07.06] spk_1:
keeping people in

[00:11:13.36] spk_2:
keeping volunteers or keeping how many people attend and and come back each time. You know, anything that shows growth that shows that it’s a contribution to the, to the mission overall.

[00:11:22.54] spk_1:
Okay, Alright. Again, that’s why mission can be so

[00:11:25.01] spk_2:
valuable. Exactly.

[00:11:34.97] spk_1:
Because your, as you said, you know, we’re talking about mission often it’s the core, it’s the reason we exist. It’s protecting the homeless, It’s protecting animals. It’s feeding the hungry education

[00:12:01.45] spk_2:
and this is what’s going to attract people. All of this is what is going to attract people to join your team to join your organization and money of course is important to most people they have to be able to live. But and to many people this mission knowing how they contribute to the mission of the organization, whether it’s a business or a non profit is just as important, sometimes more important than than the money factor. And so if you can get this part right and and show that connection, you’re gonna attract more skilled people and more pass.

[00:12:24.15] spk_1:
And I see why you say we’re jumping ahead because now we’re kind of bleeding into promoting the promoting position and organization to the, to the and the mission to the right people, but we’re still in the discovery phase, but, but it all into relates of course. Um And so these are, these are valuable introspection questions. Okay. Anything else that you want to say about that? That second one before we?

[00:12:47.77] spk_2:
No, I think I think

[00:12:49.03] spk_1:
you’ve

[00:15:53.09] spk_2:
pretty much got the gist of it there. Um and then the next one is I like to refer to it as success traits. But what are the characteristics? And this is yeah, this is specific to the position because we’re going to talk about the organizational culture in a moment. But you know, what are the specific characteristics, specific traits that you have seen of successful people in this position or similar position in the past? And this takes some thought and and we usually, the way we pull it out of people is by stories. I’m a big fan of thinking back and writing down stories stories of um when you had team members that were successful and lots of different successes. Big successes. But I’m always encouraging people to to track those things to write them down. And then also stories of when people weren’t successful and you start to see patterns of the different traits of of what would make somebody successful in this particular position. Um and I’ll give you an example. We um, you know, we often will recruit for executive assistants and we had a couple of years ago we had a ceo and just can apply non profit for profit. But this this happened to be a for profit company. Um, and she needed an executive assistant and she had already gone through several, nobody was successful with. Um, and one of the things, one of the reasons why she was having trouble finding the right person was her company, um, was very fast pace. It, everybody in the company traveled a lot and the Ceo was absolutely brilliant. She needed somebody who could organize her and be like a million steps ahead of her. And, and used to that chaos and be able to thrive in that chaos. So we knew we were recruiting that those were some of the traits we were looking for. So we had lots of amazing executive assistant candidates who had great skills. But as soon as we talked to them and learned, you know, that they’ve been an executive system, say in a large organization for yes, a very busy, you know, senior executive, but it was still structured, they were still useful. A lot of structure. We knew they weren’t going to be a good fit. So we knew what types of success traits to, to look for and, and then, you know, we take that and we drill it down to a couple of sentences so that it really jumps out at the right person when we’re going to look for someone. And so that it’s very clear to us for more interview, was

[00:15:53.54] spk_1:
there any chance that you should have been recruiting for a new Ceo, in that, in that company?

[00:16:18.50] spk_2:
Actually there are lots of businesses and even non profit organizations that do function in that way. There’s still some structure, there’s still productivity. But because of the nature of what they do there is this daily chaos. You just have to find the right way to say. And and it was also where they were in their history as a, as a company to with the growth.

[00:18:29.44] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications their e newsletter this week. What a year in review can do for you. And they talk about the value of a year in review article or blog post that you write. They say that it usually only requires a light lift because you just need to spend time summarizing stuff that you’ve been writing all year long and of course you’re gonna file focus on milestones, you know, main achievements, accomplishments. But they also suggest including challenges, especially if you overcame them successfully. Because that adds some authenticity. Right? And they suggest that a year in review can help you, of course, you know, showcase your results. You just talked about, you know, accomplishments, achievements, you can acknowledge your key audiences, supporters, loyal customers, donors, your, your beneficiaries, any any parts of your year in review that you can work these folks in all the better boost morale. Uh, it’s often easy to forget all the things that you did achieve over the year at the end of the, at the end of the year because it’s so busy. So this can help refresh recollections about the good things that that happened through the year. Um, so those are some ideas that they have around your year in review piece. You can get their e newsletter, which is on message at turn hyphen two dot c o turn to communications. Your story is their mission Now back to six steps before you hire. We

[00:18:29.70] spk_1:
Have Questions 4, 5 and six.

[00:18:31.19] spk_2:
Yes. I’m trying to make sure. I don’t forget any

[00:18:33.98] spk_1:
here. You

[00:20:15.83] spk_2:
know, I think this is good and let me just go back to my thing here. So the, so we talked about success trades which are specific to the position, but then you have your core values that are specific to the overall organ. So everyone in the organization, no matter what position they have lived by. These core values and I call them, um, kind of your default zone, your guiding principles. And if you’re done right, if they’re really alive in your organization, then you know that no matter what decisions being made by anybody in the organization that there they’ll be making a decision the way you around those values, the way they act. And so for example, one of our core values at aha is think like a detective. So we’re often kind of putting our detective hat on and often the core values do start to come from what’s important to the ceo to the person who’s running the company or restart the company but you want to make sure that they’re also important to everybody in the organization that they like. It they they’re successful by it there it’s natural for them. So when when we’re recruiting for our company we’re looking for people who are curious Think outside the box who put their detective hat on and don’t just accept, you know you have to do things 123 but there’s gotta be another way to do it better. Um And so it comes up in our meetings a lot. You know when somebody says they have a challenge, did you put your detective hat on? How you know how else can we? So that’s one of our core values

[00:20:28.18] spk_1:
since we’re in the middle here were three out of six I want to mention. Andrew you don’t have in your Andrea you don’t have in your bio that you’re the author of. Higher.

[00:20:38.84] spk_2:
Higher.

[00:21:01.30] spk_1:
Unless I I don’t I don’t I didn’t deliberately cut it out of your cut it out of your bio. No look there’s I’m showing her the bio bio on her phone which does not mention that she is the author of the book. It says about the author it’s a piece of a larger pr alright still. Okay well she’s she’s the author of the book. Higher. Higher. H. I. R. E. H. I. G. H. T. R. Which you can get on amazon. Higher.

[00:21:10.17] spk_2:
Higher and and in the book it’s a very practical guide and it does walk through these six questions and a lot more but it goes into more detail about it and

[00:21:29.55] spk_1:
we can’t do everything the surface, we can’t dive deep. Just you know, if this intrigues you, you got to get the book, that’s the only way to get the full depth. Alright. Number four question four discovery process.

[00:22:21.29] spk_2:
So this is what everybody already thinks they know right when when you’re thinking about, I got to fill a job. I always say employers say okay they have to have this many years of experience in this particular industry and they’ve had to have You know, no this specific software and have this education and all of these skills and when I go online and I look at job as it’s usually pages and pages of the experience and skills that they want as can be a really big mistake. So what I recommend in this area is just narrow it down to the 4-6 skills or experience that you absolutely need for the job and think about

[00:22:27.56] spk_1:
Like 13 Bullets one

[00:22:33.38] spk_2:
job. I just

[00:22:36.65] spk_1:
I get bored.

[00:22:40.48] spk_2:
Most candidates look at it. I

[00:22:44.63] spk_1:
can’t possibly sometimes I wonder if there’s anybody who could really creating such an ideal that I think there may be scaring candidates away. They’re intimidated by the prospect of the requirements of the

[00:23:10.31] spk_2:
job. And the interesting thing is there have been studies done between men and women and men typically, Even if they can only do three out of the 15 bullets on the list will apply, but women, if they can do 14 out of 15 on average will not apply. So you end up

[00:23:22.81] spk_1:
cutting out, you

[00:24:05.01] spk_2:
know, a big part of the population. Um, so you know, we typically recommend between four and six of the most important, think about what you’re set up to train for. So you know, if you can bring someone on who has the right attitude, you know, they’re trainable, make sure you can train them or you have something, some resources to train them. Um, and then that opens the field for you and, and people love training and professional development. That’s one of the big things. Again, it’s are always asking about what, how am I gonna get growth from this? How is this going to take me to the next level? So that’s an amazing thing to offer somebody

[00:24:08.81] spk_1:
training. Professional development is important even more. So maybe now in the post pandemic economy, they want candidates want to know that the company, the organization is going to invest in their growth,

[00:24:24.07] spk_2:
that they’re going to invest in the growth, that there’s opportunity to move up. But even if there is an opportunity to move up because sometimes certain organizations just, it just doesn’t have, that is their opportunity to learn something new. There are lots of ways to keep people happen about what they’re doing and wanting to stick, stick around even if it’s not a huge bump in pay and a huge title. That’s not always what’s most important to

[00:24:54.78] spk_1:
people? What do we have next?

[00:26:14.38] spk_2:
Okay, let’s see. Did we go? We went through five already, Right. But we went through four. Okay. We talked about results. So what, why do people stay at your organization and why do they leave that often? We don’t even ask ourselves that. And that was probably a question for, for your current team. You know, what, what is it that they really enjoy about working there? Is it the mission, is it that you’re, you do a lot of things together as a team. Is it the pay, is it the professional development? There could be lots of different things sometimes, which is very big. Now it’s the flexibility, you know, if they’re they can come in at different hours, um, or you know, is there a work from home? Is there a hybrid? That’s of course very big right now. What is it that keeps them and what is it that drives them away? And that often could be like, you know, you you made a comment when I I talked about that example of this Ceo and the kind of the chaos, some people thrive in that by your comment. It sounds like that would probably drive you away. Um, so be very clear about what your environments like and put it all out there sometimes. Um People will ask me, well shouldn’t I make it sound really great? Only if it’s true, Be authentic and find out what is true.

[00:26:23.97] spk_1:
Otherwise you’re misleading the candidates.

[00:26:25.53] spk_2:
Exactly. It’s

[00:26:26.39] spk_1:
a chaotic environment and a lot of flexibility is needed and it’s hard to work through a weekly plan that you might

[00:26:34.83] spk_2:
put put

[00:27:13.69] spk_1:
together on monday or the friday before. Uh then then reveal that because the person is gonna leave in a couple of months when they realize that it’s not, it’s not the predictable week after week pattern that you made it sound like that. You just told me out explicitly that it is all right. So if we’re at why do people, why do people stay and why do people leave? Uh look people could be leaving because of leadership, difficult leadership, but now we’re having leadership. Answer the answer the survey uh here’s where the leaders answers the C suite answers. They diverge from the and who in the C suite is gonna be willing to admit that they are the reason or contributing to the reason that people leave.

[00:28:39.25] spk_2:
You would be surprised that I have met a lot of leaders over the years, both in non profit and for profit. And I have met leaders who who recognize where their challenges are. And sometimes they’ll say I need to hire somebody to fill that gap for me. Actually met with a later a couple weeks ago who said that, he said you know what I know I’m not good at managing people like keeping the team motivated that it um checking in with them and making sure they’re supported so I need to hire somebody to help me with that or that order kind of fill that gap. So a lot of them will especially now because more important because we as a society after the pandemic are demanding more of that you know to be recognized to be respected too leaders who are going to contribute to our growth. So I think that more and more leaders are even if they have to be banged on the head a little bit with it um I think they’re recognizing the importance of that and that they need to do that they want to retain,

[00:28:42.12] spk_1:
okay you’re finding that people are realistic

[00:28:46.70] spk_2:
about it couldn’t be

[00:29:06.07] spk_1:
careful, you should watch your hair on your left side too. So that was Andrea Andrea I’ve been calling you for half a week now and recording and I keep saying Andrea Andrea touching her mike but we’re on the fly here that’s what that’s what that noise in the middle of anything else went through everything. That’s a very good one why why people stay and why people

[00:30:42.21] spk_2:
leave, you could spend a lot of time on that. It was so funny I actually I met with often I will run masterminds or be in masterminds with other organizational leaders and there was one woman who um her business is growing very quickly and she said I’m so overwhelmed and like what are you overwhelmed with? She said I’m overwhelmed with the employee and gauge. I feel like there’s so much I need to do to show my employees I care and to keep them happy and successful and I’ve been told like you know there’s so much out there and it’s just there’s so much more because that we’re hearing now. So I was like you don’t have to do everything right away. Just check in with your team regularly. That’s probably the most important thing is checking in, see how you can help them and make sure they know you’re being authentic. You’re being sincere. You truly want to hear if there’s a challenge which this leader is naturally empathetic. So I said really you just need to be you. She had a counseling background but I told her to just start with three things that

[00:30:47.38] spk_3:
we are

[00:30:48.36] spk_1:
now we’re gonna pause while we have an introduction explanation.

[00:31:27.55] spk_3:
Maybe we should include this. People have problems with breathing. They come to because the air here is very very dry and it’s very good for people who have problems breathing and lungs problems. Now the dead sea is also part of I would say medical tourism and now that we are starting to go down to the dead sea A lot is like 4, 500 m above sea level. The dead sea is 425 m below sea level. So we’re going out 800 m down.

[00:31:39.92] spk_1:
Alright. So there’s a little bit about the dead sea and how far below sea level it is courtesy of our guide for the week. Is Michael from Denmark.

[00:33:07.18] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. We are at the beginning of december which of course is most likely a very important month for you regardless of how you perform, how your organization comes out tomorrow is another opportunity to grow. So I’m urging you to shed Let go how it goes today. This week you have another day tomorrow, you have another week and you have the one after. So regardless of how you and your nonprofit do even this year 2023 is another opportunity Full of 365 days. If you do great this year. 2022, fantastic. If you don’t, 2023 is another new full year. Your past doesn’t define your future and you have many opportunities to grow each day, week, month year. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for six steps before you hire with Andrea hoffer.

[00:33:26.29] spk_1:
We were talking about the reasons why people leave the reasons why people stay and I was saying that I think that’s valuable introspection. Even apart from a hiring process, this is valuable, valuable to think about these things. Is there anything more that you want to add on?

[00:35:51.46] spk_2:
No, not onto that. And you know I agree it is it is very important and you know sometimes we do all this work with clients and to find them the best candidate or what we think is the best candidate. And what we have learned over the years is that we also need to do work with the employers on how to set the new higher up for success and and keep them happy and help them with success on ongoing because we’re seeing, we started doing a survey of our people. We placed last year in 2021 we placed 100 and 65 people and we have been reaching out to them At different points like 30 days in 60 days and 90 a year to find out. Did they feel like the recruitment process was professional? Was it a good representation of where they were going? And then what was, you know, what is it like at the company And what we’re hearing? A lot of is I wasn’t really, I’m generalizing here but I wasn’t really set up for success. I wasn’t given the resources I needed to be successful or sometimes it wasn’t as described, which means we we didn’t get the correct information from from the employer because what what also seems to happen sometimes is the employer things change quickly in organizations and sometimes they change the position so they might not change position title, but then they changed the expectations around the position and that’s not what was quote sold to the candidates. So if and sometimes it happens and it’s nobody’s fault, it’s just how the organization, the direction is moving. And I always recommend just just be up with with your new hire and talk to them and figure out is this the right fit for you? And how can we work with you? So that it can be the right fit and maybe there’s somebody else in the organization where it’s a better fit and you can put this person in a position that will work for them,

[00:35:53.34] spk_1:
but at least be upfront and talking about these things. So we kind of melded a couple of these together. So why don’t you just read through one through six? So it’s clear that we’ve covered everything.

[00:36:20.94] spk_2:
Okay, So the first one is why does the position exist next? Or what are the results or outcomes needed from this position? And I think we just grazed over that one. And one of the things I do want to mention that I didn’t mention earlier related to that question is I’m a big fan of,

[00:36:31.86] spk_1:
I even asked you if there were more

[00:37:51.80] spk_2:
my brain. Okay, so I’m a big fan of result oriented job descriptions and and that means, you know, writing the job description for the results that you’re looking for. So I think this question is really important and sometimes you can get a really great candidate from a different industry who has accomplished something very close to what you’re looking to accomplish from this position. So, so the more clear on what you’re looking for, what, you know what we always ask, what will give this person a great performance evaluation in 90 days, What would they have accomplished for you to say A plus for them in the 1st 90 days and, and and then different segments of, you know, the next time line, so that I just wanted to make sure I cover that. So the next question is, um what skills and experience are needed to do this job successfully? What is specific traits, we call them success traits or attributes that make a person successful in this position. What are the specific you’re set fit in your organizational culture? We’re talking about core values. And then lastly, um why did team members stay with you? And why did they leave

[00:38:34.50] spk_1:
question. What about um salary? Now we’re now we’re jumping outside of discovery. But you and I talked earlier when we were getting to know each other about salary range disclosures, job descriptions, which is becoming so much more important. New york state just passed a law that requires it. Um I thought I had seen that in Oregon too. I might be mistaken about that. You hadn’t heard of that one, but at least we know new york state has, has passed that law and other states are considering it. And just it’s just, it’s a movement apart from whether it’s legal or not legally required

[00:38:39.84] spk_2:
or not right

[00:38:41.58] spk_1:
share your opinion on disclosing salary or arrange a description.

[00:39:28.85] spk_2:
It’s always been a best practice. And now in many states, like you mentioned tony it’s a law. Um, and I think at some point it will probably be a law and in just about all states. The reason for it, there’s, there’s several reasons, but one of the main reasons that’s become a law in a lot of states is because in the past, um, there’s been a lot of bias and discrimination when it comes to pay. When you think about how women have been paid or different cultural groups or background? Exactly. And so if you are not transparent about your salary and you then, because I hear this a lot from employers, well, I don’t, I don’t know what I’m going to pay. We’ll see what the person made before. Well, all that’s doing is contributing to the bad uneven inequitable from the perpetuating. Thank

[00:39:49.71] spk_1:
you.

[00:40:38.04] spk_2:
Right. So what you need to do is think about What can you pay, what do you think the return is for this position that your organization can afford. Um, and what is it worth to the value that’s going to be contributed and and create a range there and don’t make the range 100,000. I usually recommend. I see sometimes do. Exactly. I usually recommend, you know maybe a $10,000 range, maybe a $20,000 range. Um not much more than that. And and you can decide based on what what that person you’re hiring is going to bring, how much training you need to give them. I’m up to speed. Um The other thing is it just waste your time if you’re not transparent

[00:40:43.08] spk_1:
upfront,

[00:40:43.84] spk_2:
it wastes the jobseeker’s time and it wastes your time because everybody

[00:40:49.11] spk_1:
well

[00:40:57.37] spk_2:
look at the job and have different thoughts on what it’s going to pay. So I may apply for the job Thinking that it’s going to pay 100,000 and you’re only planning to pay 40,000. And if we don’t get to that until the third interview, well we’ve wasted so much time and it just frustrates both of us so that no

[00:41:13.74] spk_1:
candidate is going to ask about salary in the first interview. Maybe not even in a second if they know there’s another coming

[00:41:24.16] spk_2:
and less candidates are going to apply for your job if they don’t know what because they’re afraid they’re gonna waste their time. And they often feel like

[00:41:31.35] spk_1:
because

[00:41:31.87] spk_2:
you’re not being transparent with that you might not be transparent with other things as well, so you might not be the right employer for

[00:41:51.70] spk_1:
them. Um And just let’s let’s kind of wrap up with what you are seeing in our sort of trend one or two things that you, you want folks to know about, you know, in this post pandemic hiring environment that we find ourselves,

[00:42:19.05] spk_2:
People are looking for their passion, their looking for, not just the passion connected to the mission that the company that that is a big part of it, but they’re looking for a place they can call home, they’re looking for flexibility. They’re looking for an environment that they’re happy to go to work and it doesn’t matter the

[00:42:26.12] spk_1:
level of

[00:44:01.07] spk_2:
the position. Um Pay is also important. They want to be paid what they feel their worth. And because pay, we’re seeing a big trend and increase of pay. Um uh you know, jobs that have paid one amount for decades are now have, have, we’ve seen large jumps in them. Um but then I’ve seen where candidates have been willing to take a pay cut if it means they could work from home or they could have more flexibility or it’s something that they truly believe in. And I have seen a great trend of candidates of job seekers who have left or actually even gotten laid off during the pandemic from high paying, high pressure jobs that are now saying they want a job in a nonprofit in something that they truly believe in. And they usually have a specific type of nonprofit or type of mission that they have in mind because it’s something important to them specifically. And I’m not saying that there isn’t anyone, but for them individually. And I think the pandemic has really, it’s created this thing in all of us where life short, right? Like it. I want to just do something I want to be contributing in a way that that works for me on both my time and what, what’s important to me. And I think that’s important as you go out and recruit people and as you work with people as well to keep that in mind,

[00:44:10.04] spk_1:
a lot of us have heard from

[00:44:11.95] spk_2:
people who want

[00:44:50.27] spk_1:
to want to now give back. That was even pre pandemic. But I think the pandemic accelerated it being more reflective about their career because of the pandemic people question their own mortality. And in the early days of the pandemic, we didn’t know if, if you were 30 if they could kill you or if you were 75 if it could kill you or or if one was a greater risk than the other. We didn’t know, People were really questioning a lot of things in life and obviously career is enormous. So, um, you know, we, we see so much about nomads, digital nomads traveling the US traveling the world and moving and working from a completely different time zones and completely different atmospheres because they want to have a richer life, but they still need to make some money. So they’re happy to work from wherever, if you’ll allow

[00:45:37.45] spk_2:
it. And if the type of position you have available, if you’re able to think maybe a little outside the box and make it either a hybrid or remove or add some of that flexibility in that is so important to people now and and they because of the pandemic where they saw companies and organizations, they will take,

[00:45:39.73] spk_1:
oh

[00:45:40.02] spk_2:
no, we don’t do that here as an answer. Then there’s then there’s, you know, then that’s not for me. Plus

[00:45:45.80] spk_1:
as

[00:45:59.01] spk_2:
things started to let up just a little bit during the pandemic was still pretty early on. The question I got over and over again from candidates was what will happen um with this position if if we end up having to shut down again, if we have another pandemic and I haven’t been hearing as much of the past year, but that first year or heard a lot because they do not want to be laid off again, you know, they wanted. So you might want to think about that as well. It’s not just because they want the flexibility. They also want that security that they know if a pandemic hits again, they’ll still be able to make a living.

[00:46:28.27] spk_1:
Okay? We’re in the we’re in the Israeli desert Negev were descending as you

[00:47:00.14] spk_3:
heard going 425 m down underneath the most the worst place on earth, that’s a dead sea. Now the lights that you see on the other side, this is already another country, this is George. The border between Israel and Jordan is exactly in the middle of the day,

[00:47:32.52] spk_1:
I should have said that Michael is originally from Denmark but lives in Israel and as a tour guide here, so with Andrea Hoffer, founder and ceo of Aha recruiting experts, ha underscore recruiting and Aha recruiting experts dot com. Andrea, thank you so much. Real pleasure. Thank you for doing this on a bus in the Israel desert.

[00:47:41.47] spk_2:
It was fun. Thank you in different.

[00:48:02.57] spk_0:
Thank you for hanging in with the weird sound this week. I know it’s up and down and it’s crackly. I really wanted to capture the conversation with Andrea, we’re sitting side by side. And how many shows do I get to record in the Israeli desert and and plus you got to learn about the desert from Michael. So thank you. I know it’s

[00:48:14.13] spk_1:
weird, it’s weird

[00:49:07.45] spk_0:
this week. Thanks very much. Next week. Traven Heckman with his book. Take Heart, Take action. I know last week I said he’d be this week I need an intern if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Our creative producer is claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, thank you for that. Affirmation, scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for January 31, 2020: CEO/Chair Relationship

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My Guests:

Alex Counts: CEO/Chair RelationshipYour CEO and board chair need to forge and maintain a strong partnership. Alex Counts shows us how. He’s a consultant, and founder of Grameen Foundation.

 

 

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[00:00:14.14] spk_2:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit

[00:00:16.74] spk_0:
radio big non profit ideas for the

[00:00:19.67] spk_2:
other 95%.

[00:00:44.44] spk_0:
I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be thrown in taquito amino acid E mia If you brought me down with the sappy idea that you missed today’s show CEO chair relationship, your CEO and board chair need to forge and maintain a strong partnership. Alex Counts shows us how he’s a consultant and founder of Grameen Foundation on

[00:00:48.09] spk_2:
Tony’s Take. Two planned giving for the decade were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As. Guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali

[00:01:18.14] spk_0:
Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant er Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO. Now let’s, uh, meet Alex counts Pleasure to welcome him. He’s adjunct professor of public policy at the University of Maryland and a non profit consultant. He’s founder of Grameen Foundation, which has grown to become a leading international humanitarian

[00:01:31.93] spk_2:
organization. He’s got a book Changing

[00:01:41.95] spk_0:
the World Without Losing Your Mind. Leadership lessons from three decades of social entrepreneurship, which is a chronicle of philanthropy. Editor’s pick. He’s at Alex counts dot

[00:01:47.38] spk_2:
com and at Alex counts. What was your name again? Alex counts. Thank

[00:01:49.06] spk_4:
you. It’s great to be here.

[00:01:53.22] spk_2:
Pleasure. Thank you for coming into the city on the studio. Um, tell us about the founding

[00:01:58.65] spk_0:
of Grameen Foundation. Interesting roots in Bangladesh.

[00:02:00.69] spk_4:
Yeah, I was is a college student. I was taken with the work Mohammad Yunus was doing to empower the destitute women of Bangladesh through micro credit, and he would go on to win the Nobel Prize. But I kind of it was Grameen Bank. That was Grameen Bank. And I had this vision in college of If we could take his model and exported to other countries where there is poverty, that would be could be a real breakthrough. It was simplistic, but and I But it was basically a good idea. And so I went in, apprenticed with him for about a decade in Bangladesh, and then I Then I said at one point, it’s time to start kind of an international hub for helping people apply the Grameen Bank ideas to other countries. And so he said, Well, here’s $6000 which I thought was a lot of money to start an organization with. It wasn’t but we were just kind of on a wing and a prayer started What became growing foundation in 97 on Guy was completely unprepared and all sorts of ways to run a non profit and start one. But we went forward and it worked out.

[00:03:07.30] spk_0:
You you say sort of hastily because you’ve got a lot going on. You had a lot going on 10 years living in Bangladesh. You fluent in de she Bengali Bangla. Is it Bangalore? Bengali? Is it? It’s It’s

[00:03:11.32] spk_4:
Bengali and English. It’s Bangla in being Ali.

[00:03:14.13] spk_3:
Okay, Um,

[00:03:15.10] spk_2:
I’ve been

[00:03:21.23] spk_0:
there. I spent I spent two weeks between Bangladesh just in Dhaka and Sir Lanka, which is also a beautiful country. Yeah,

[00:03:23.50] spk_2:
my sense of Bangladesh

[00:03:24.46] spk_0:
was ah, lot of poverty and a lot of very hardworking people. Thes tiny businesses in the micro stalls is I’m thinking of old DACA, but people working hard and you know, whatever their niche was, uh I

[00:03:39.12] spk_2:
saw a lot of hard working, dedicated people,

[00:04:10.25] spk_4:
Absolutely both in the cities and in the rural countryside where I spent a lot of my time and learn. That’s why I really learned Bengali well, but it is my mentor and board chair, Susan Davis. So I met in Bangladesh. She was a Ford Foundation representative and I was, Ah, Fulbright scholar initially, and she said, Listen, Alex, she’s a lot of these pithy statement She said, In a country that doesn’t have enough jobs, by far doesn’t have a social safety net. You have two choices. You work for yourself tiny undercapitalized business in most cases or you starve. And so people, whether they’re intramural ability, is robust or more limited. Starvation is not a great option. So people try to start these tiny businesses.

[00:04:22.68] spk_0:
That’s when I saw yeah, s O. That’s the micro micro lending. And then Mohammed as and all I can imagine, what someone could do with it isn’t even $1000. Is that too much?

[00:05:00.83] spk_4:
So the loans for the first decade of Grameen were typical. Loan was about $70. So your way you’re buying, you know, five chickens and you know you know how to raise chickens. But you never had more money to have more than one u five chickens. You sell the eggs, you pay off the loan with the sales of the eggs. And at the end of the year, you have five chickens that air your asset maybe more assets than you’ve ever had a productive assets you’ve ever had in your life. And Mohammad Yunus is in sight. Was but build a banking system that can actually be viable through making $70 loans and then $100 loans if they pay back and later, larger amounts on and and And that was the essence of his brilliant innovation.

[00:05:15.94] spk_0:
And you were, You were how many years that Green Foundation as founder and CEO

[00:05:21.27] spk_4:
18 years s. I ran it for its 1st 18 years. It was a It was a fantastic ride. And again when we finally started, get some headway is when I realized that a couple things that I need to be fundraiser in chief. That wasn’t something I could delegate and that I needed to craft a very important relationship with my board share.

[00:05:40.90] spk_2:
And those

[00:05:42.86] spk_4:
two insights probably where the, you know, helped us reach kind of escape velocity and get it to erase 10 $2025 million in the year, as opposed to remain a little tiny, non

[00:05:51.46] spk_0:
profit. What a skilled guest you bring in the board. The board chair relationship so smoothly. So not like the boorish host of the show. We’re just abruptly changed course.

[00:06:04.48] spk_2:
All right, so, uh, yeah, so we’re here to talk about Well, you know, we’ll shout

[00:06:08.30] spk_0:
out your book a couple times, uh, changing the world without losing your mind. But

[00:06:12.67] spk_2:
we want to focus

[00:06:23.81] spk_0:
on something that I saw an article that you had written in The Chronicle of Philanthropy about the CEO board chair relationship. Susan Davis was one of your one of your chair. Was she your first? She’s my

[00:06:28.99] spk_4:
third chair. But when we finally I finally got the relationship right was with her, and I give her most of the credit for that. I kind of fumbled it with the 1st 2 board chairs, mainly my fault on dhe. She helped me kind of figure out how to make that just a magical relationship

[00:06:43.90] spk_0:
on dhe critical to the success of an organization you saw Grameen on. You felt it. You saw it and felt it in your relationship with Susan. You saw the organization benefiting and you felt it personally.

[00:07:44.00] spk_4:
I had an ally. I wasn’t so alone. She gained my trust on She would sometimes, you know, step in and do things that I was either incapable of doing or just didn’t have the skills. I mean, it’s just a perfect relationship on. And, you know, she wasn’t the prototypical white male businessman in their sixties with a lot of money, but she brought other assets, and and then, you know, we were ableto have a more traditional board chairs coming after her. But she was in the roll for six and 1/2 years, and she, you know, the the article you mentioned in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The origin of that was I was giving a talk at The Chronicle about my book and about how I went from a completely underprepared non profit executive director, succeeding on some level. And I just kept coming back to my relation with Susan on then the couple of four chairs that followed her, and they said, Would you write an article on that on that you you mentioned so many times you’re talking? I said I’d be thrilled to, and It was a pretty narrow topic, but it got a good response and got me here to be talking with you.

[00:08:10.38] spk_0:
Your life has led you to this moment. All points of it’s all downhill from here. Pretty much non profit radio. I feel bad after our lunch, then

[00:08:11.79] spk_4:
downwardly mobile life.

[00:08:13.24] spk_0:
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Uh,

[00:08:19.52] spk_2:
all right. So let’s talk about, um Well, the let’s get into some of your some

[00:08:22.27] spk_0:
of your advice around this around this relationship, you siphoned it down into 10. I don’t know if we’ll get time for 10 because we want to talk a little about Cem Cem, General governance. But

[00:08:32.03] spk_2:
why don’t we, uh why don’t we just

[00:08:39.14] spk_0:
tease the 1st 1? We got a minute before before first break about, um, respect the chair needs to earn respect if that the

[00:09:14.59] spk_4:
chair is seen is just a kind of a defender of the CEO, uhm, and someone who’s just tryingto make his or her life easy and keep the bored out of their hair or in any other way doesn’t really have the respect to the board. Then his or her job is much harder because the board chair is kind of a liaison between the staff and the executive director and the rest of the board. And that board share has to earn the respect of both parties in order. Play that bridging role effectively. And Susan did it. Sometimes people do it by writing $1,000,000 checks, but Susan didn’t have that at her disposal of time. So she did it in other ways but was able to get earn the respect of me and the staff. But very importantly, the the rest of the board.

[00:09:24.62] spk_0:
All right, I’ve seen board chairs that were wealthy and wrote big checks and still didn’t have the respect of the board. So if there’s respect based on that, I think it’s kind of shallow and it doesn’t necessarily follow even. Okay, let’s take our first

[00:09:38.40] spk_2:
break wegner-C.P.As They go beyond the numbers. They’ve got videos, effective governance.

[00:09:43.61] spk_0:
For starters. We’re gonna talk a little about that toward the end of the show. Um,

[00:09:47.70] spk_2:
also i nine

[00:09:51.74] spk_0:
tips. If you happen to have immigrant employees, they’ve also got a video on high impact grant

[00:09:53.83] spk_2:
proposals, sexual harassment awareness, way beyond the numbers. This is not just

[00:10:16.94] spk_0:
your average accountancy, for God’s sake, on other videos, you gotta wegner-C.P.As dot com, Click Resource Is and recorded events. I just got late breaking news that Amy Sample Ward will be calling in around the bottom of the hour. Onda will spend about five minutes talking about 20 NTC, the 2020 non profit technology conference, which is in coming up in March in Baltimore. So I know you wanna hear her at the bottom of the hour. Um, in the meantime, let’s go back to ah CEO chair relationship.

[00:10:33.01] spk_2:
Yes. Oh, I don’t I don’t think

[00:10:40.81] spk_0:
money first necessarily creates respect, And if it does, I think it’s a kind of a shallow Well, it’s one

[00:10:42.10] spk_4:
thing to earn. The respect is the board share. You have to show that you’re invested. Ah, and so Susan would show that by showing up prepared by doing her homework. Talking with Helio money and writing a check that is meaningful for someone and meaningful for the organization is another way. But you’re right. It’s no way incomplete. You need to be a fair minded. You need to kind of promote the right kind of dialogue of the board level craft agendas that makes sense that you know, Don’t don’t let the board becoming their micromanaging or rubber stamp, but occupy that really nice middle ground. Yeah, it’s All I’m saying is, is that it’s possible to earn the respect of the board, even with bored with some wealthy people. If you’re yourself aren’t personally wealthy by doing other things on that, some people I think some people just regard it is you know you need the board. Share is just absolute mandatory to be made your wealthiest person, the board and I might have thought that. But I saw that. It doesn’t need to be.

[00:11:38.93] spk_0:
Yeah, I would reject

[00:11:42.13] spk_3:
that. Um, by

[00:11:42.47] spk_0:
the same token, you do want the board chair tohave the back of the CEO in times of crisis. Well,

[00:11:56.76] spk_4:
right? I mean, people, you know, have all non profit CEOs if, unless they’re completely risk of hers, make mistakes, mismanaged things mismanage external relationships on dhe, you know, it’s it’s, I think when our new chairs in place, how they react to the first time that happens on whether they both publicly and privately support the CEO on dhe make them feel secure in the aftermath of their bungle eyes. Probably a lot will determine. A lot of everything will go after that on Susan. You know, a time would come maybe six months later, where Susan would talk with me and her successors, who are also very good and say, you know, that thing that you did in six months ago? They didn’t work out, you know? What did you learn from it? Andi? Are we Do we have things in place to prevent that from happening again? But at the time when you’re at your low point and at risk of making further poor decisions in the aftermath of trying to cover up or deal with one bad decision, having the board share be empathetic and supportive and not pointing a finger is I found a central

[00:12:54.10] spk_0:
is the board is looking to them for leadership. You know howto way still behind this CEO or are we not?

[00:13:19.11] spk_4:
How do we digest this, right? And then that’s where the board chair’s leadership did not gloss over. It does not say this mistake was meaningless, but also not to say panic, but to say I’m on top of this. I’m gonna disclose to you the board what’s going on in a level appropriate to your role. I’m working with the E D. And

[00:13:19.32] spk_2:
now if it’s

[00:13:19.72] spk_4:
a life endangering mistake for the organization that it might go under,

[00:13:24.10] spk_2:
then I think

[00:14:07.87] spk_4:
you need to take a little different tact. But if it’s just a setback and embarrassing though it may be, you know you need to really inspire confidence in everyone. But also just, you know, to get the best out of the CEO of the executive director. You know, first and foremost is have them feel like you’re their ally, not someone who’s trying to, you know, embarrassed. And I’ve seen this. I’ve served on boards for all you have and others listeners have board shares to whatever. There’s a mistake. They feel it’s kind of a public embarrassment for them, and their job is to avoid blame themselves. Maybe they have public standing, and then that that has on and particularly that could kind of poison the relationship with the E D. You know, nothing flat. Yeah.

[00:14:09.12] spk_2:
Do you? You have a

[00:14:20.00] spk_0:
preference for executive director versus CEO? I’ve had guests prefer the CEO. Others say it doesn’t really matter much. Do you have ah preference, you

[00:15:06.71] spk_4:
know, in the organization’s I’ve served in. It’s been I’ve been the president and CEO. There’s some executive directors that aren’t the chief executive officer that sometimes is the chair in executive chair. That’s interesting. So Esso and again I’m not. I’m not a super techno person on this, but I think smaller nonprofits tend to be. You talk about AIDS on, and sometimes they don’t have a vote at the board level, whereas in large organizations, that tends to be a president CEO with a non executive chair. And I’m just, you know, and even when grooming Foundation was small, somehow we adopted that nomenclature, which at the time I didn’t care about or think it all about. I was just trying to raise enough money to pay this, you know, costs the next month. But anyway, that’s that. That’s what we adopted. Yeah,

[00:15:10.49] spk_2:
okay, but now you have the

[00:15:13.66] spk_0:
luxury of looking back and snickering. That’s right! And admitting that the first to board chairs the relationships warrant as robust, as supportive as they could have been made

[00:15:22.92] spk_2:
at the time,

[00:15:26.10] spk_4:
I viewed the board and managing my relation with the chair, and fundraising is kind of necessary. Evils not, is not as something to be the cornerstone of building the organization. That was That was my fundamental mistake until I finally got it right.

[00:15:37.80] spk_2:
Let’s talk a little about

[00:15:46.84] spk_0:
selection of, ah, board chair. Do you like to see it come from? The board would like to see. I’ve seen organizations that have a assistant assistant chair, rice chair, vice chair, executive vice chair, and then it’s presumed that they’re gonna move into the chair. You like to see that kind of

[00:15:56.58] spk_2:
ladder? Well, first,

[00:16:44.61] spk_4:
I think every rule in terms of building aboard you should be, you know, willing almost every really should be willing to break. So one point. We had a very well known, very wealthy person joining our board, and we thought about installing them his chair for more or less the moment that joined the board. And that might have worked. But we didn’t didn’t come to pass, but in general I think you want someone of your chair who served on your board with distinction for, you know, three or four years at least. I like the idea of a vice chair, but I’m a little out made out of the mainstream on this I don’t think that vice chair should necessarily be the chair elect. I’d like to see a vice chair in that role really perform so that they earn the chair. Roll a za po. And that’s why sometimes having to vice chairs, I’ve seen that work nicely. But oftentimes the vice chair is

[00:16:47.08] spk_0:
the two vice chairs are sort of competing to be that really like we friendly competition for the chair shit. German ship.

[00:16:53.76] spk_6:
It’s a

[00:16:56.00] spk_4:
secondary aspect. Yeah, it’s Ah, a TTE The point We had our vice chair on the West Coast and I thought that having a second vice chair who was quite busy when entered a And

[00:17:05.04] spk_5:
that’s what one

[00:17:05.41] spk_4:
things that happens. You can’t predict a vice Jared chair can enter the role in a semi retirement, have a lot of time to put in. And next thing you know, they’re appointed as happened to me, a CZ the as the CEO of a publicly traded company and their ability to put time in is changed. So we we had a vice chair who was the dean of ah of a university in a university on the West Coast. I said, Well, what if we had a vice chair on the East Coast also to kind of cover this part of the country and on. So that worked.

[00:17:34.62] spk_2:
But in another way, was

[00:17:35.89] spk_4:
a kind of let’s, let’s see, between the two of them, which one of them, you know, is it inspires the confidence of the board on shows the commitment that would make them the ideal. You know, successor chair.

[00:17:48.14] spk_2:
How do you like to

[00:18:10.16] spk_0:
break in? I think my voice just crack. How’d you? 14. Huh? How? Let’s give some authoritative. Ah, tony. Er, how do you like to, uh ah, inaugurate the relationship? New chair? You presumably. As you’re suggesting. You know, if you worked with him 3 to 4 years, So the non new person to you. But I knew in that relationship. You in that position.

[00:18:12.91] spk_2:
How do you like to

[00:18:13.67] spk_0:
kick off the that new relationship? Well,

[00:18:17.02] spk_4:
in an ideal world and running a nonprofit where you never have enough resource is and you’re always trying to cram 14 months of work into 12 months and you can always do this.

[00:18:26.54] spk_2:
But an ideal

[00:18:26.99] spk_4:
world. I’d like to spend a good kind of a good day with the person you know, both with a structured agenda and somewhat unstructured, maybe going to a baseball game together just to really get to know them and bond with them, if that’s possible. On

[00:18:39.97] spk_2:
the other

[00:18:40.21] spk_4:
thing that kind of evolved. This is, you know, I’m thinking back what work is that each board share wanted gonna put their stamp on the their leadership not to not to just contradict or do something different than what the prior wanted done, but

[00:18:55.72] spk_2:
something that

[00:18:56.11] spk_4:
they had seen. Maybe work in another non profit or in the corporate sector. And

[00:18:59.91] spk_2:
I would just

[00:20:59.49] spk_4:
say, unless it didn’t make any sense to me. I said, Let’s let’s do that Let’s you know this person didn’t kind of imposed this idea when they were, say, vice chair, just to give you two examples. You Bob bike Feld, who succeeded Susan in the role he thought that it was. It was a very important from a governess perspective to gather a couple board leaders and the head and our general counsel on me every six months to basically evaluate the performance of each and every board member in person and on, and so and you know when people were doing really well. So well, let’s let’s prepare a resolution commending them at the next meeting. Will we draft that if the person wasn’t referring? Well, well, who’s gonna take them aside? We’ve never done that before. But it was just something he thought you know would work. And I just said, You know, you want to bring that in. This is gonna be one of your signature things that comes in your first year. I’m totally behind it. Let’s make it happen. Or another thing he wanted is for me to bring in that. Susan wasn’t kind of didn’t That wasn’t her style, but it’s like let let Bob lead the way he wants to. And let me not just grudgingly say, OK, I’ll do that if you want, But I think this could be a great idea. And you, Bob also pushed me to write for the first time emergency succession plan, which I embarrassed to say that, you know, 10 years in the Grameen Foundation, I had never even know what that was. But and he said, you know, write, write up a memo for those of your listeners and aren’t aware you know, what should we do if you’re suddenly incapacitated or killed? And and so I put it off for a while, it was more confronting than I thought, but I finally did get it done. And that was something he achieved in his first year. Um, and again I was I was just kind of trusted that that was something of useful. And I put my full attention to kind of implementing a couple of ideas that he had and and when every new board chair came in, they kind of had a few ideas. And I would just unless they sound crazy to me and I I need to get the convinced I would just, you know, not just back from kind of half heartedly, but fully

[00:21:01.64] spk_2:
say some more about

[00:21:02.28] spk_0:
the semi annual board evaluate individual board member evaluation process.

[00:21:07.64] spk_2:
Well, you know,

[00:21:19.90] spk_4:
we would gather on a table. I think we did it a few times. That can recall, and it was no one ever called in. Our vice chair flew in from San Diego for it. We did it in Washington and literally, you know, it was just it was sickness. See,

[00:21:22.95] spk_2:
one of the

[00:21:23.40] spk_4:
things I’ve come to believe that came from Susan. The Before Bob is that term limits are

[00:21:29.14] spk_2:
kind of

[00:21:31.76] spk_4:
a quick fix kind of mandate, and that really what you want board members to do is to is to kind of go through their orientation and

[00:21:37.70] spk_2:
then to go

[00:22:09.31] spk_4:
into a period of what I call High Performance is a board member where they’re giving it their all their money, their time, their reputation, their con connections, etcetera. And then ultimately, all board members, I think, ultimately go into what is called coasting, where they’re just they’re not really giving their all because their interest is in another organization. And so Bob’s this term limits air saying, Well, most people go to coasting after six years, so let them just term out at six years. But the truth is, some people term out. Some people go into that mode after 18 months, and some are going strong in 18 years. So this was a mechanism to just evaluate the kind of the wherein the life cycle was each individual on the board where what should they be commended for? On what should they maybe be taken aside and said, you know, board member ex. You know, if you could get back to performing like you did four years ago in terms of showing up prepared, participating discussions, your committee assignments, raising money, giving money, You know, we think you should re up for the board when your turn comes up. But if not you, maybe not. Ah, and that can’t be done. The blunt instrument of term limits or other things. This

[00:22:42.14] spk_2:
is this. We would

[00:23:01.77] spk_4:
spend 34 hours together evaluating every single person aboard. And how might we support them better. But how might we ask them to support us more? And you can’t? You can’t take a cookie cutter to that. And so it was. It was a pretty rigorous process, but it was. It worked, and it made the team that was at the table. They’re just feel like they were in a position to, and it had them participate differently. This is the vice chair chair of the Governance Committee and the general counsel me in the chair. You know, we would then pay attention. More panel, evaluating each number individually, correct. And

[00:23:17.25] spk_2:
and then once you start

[00:23:54.67] spk_4:
that, then you know, you kind of observe the board in a different way. When you know you’re gonna be six months later doing that again and you start to think, Gosh, might I pull this board member aside even now and commend them or redirect them a little bit even if I’m not the chair? Because I know that this evaluation and it creates a kind of accountability because we told the board that we were doing this. It wasn’t done in secret eso it was rather than have ah, this kind of straitjacket of term limits. We created this kind of culture of accountability, of board that just brought out the best in people. And when their interests moved on, they kind of voluntarily said, You know, this will be my final term and thank you all for whether I served for three years or 13 years on it. Just for me. It worked a lot better.

[00:24:20.39] spk_0:
Your ah contrary and in terms of the mainstream, thinking about board term limits, yes, but you have this important semi annual evaluation as well, so that a CZ your nerves, you said people will either recognize that they’re not performing, or they’ll bluntly be told that they’re not performing TX stations,

[00:24:27.96] spk_4:
right? That’s and it takes effort on

[00:24:29.76] spk_2:
because this is a lot of time

[00:24:30.60] spk_0:
commitment. How big? I’m sure the Grameen board grew over time when you left. How many people, you

[00:24:36.52] spk_6:
know, I like

[00:24:37.33] spk_0:
value waiting. Yeah, I’ve heard of much

[00:25:10.86] spk_4:
smaller and much larger board’s working, although I’m not quite sure how. But I think the optimal number aboard if they’re one of the responsibilities is raising money. The optimal number is between 15 and 20 and that’s what it was for almost the entirety of my time there, I think over 20 you get some negative dynamics, including, you know, people don’t show up. They’re not even noticed because the numbers are too big. And if you get under 15 you know, you really need a lot more fundraising muscle than you unless you just have a bunch of billionaires on the board. And so it was always. It was always in the high teens on, though I gave myself authority to have up to 25 on the bylaws, but gave us authority. But we never we will always, always between 15 and 20 right?

[00:25:23.08] spk_2:
So this is a big time

[00:25:23.82] spk_0:
commitment because Now you’re doing between 30 and 40 evaluations per year because you’re evaluating each person semi annually and several hours devoted to, ah, a conversation with each one twice a

[00:25:46.59] spk_4:
year. And the follow up that you promise, saying they’re there that after each board member would just say so what feedback or what? Commendation or accolade or redirection, Do we need to give this board member based on our discussion and that that would mostly fall to the five of us in the room

[00:26:01.15] spk_0:
and there was implicit in that s o. Some board members are getting commended on brothers or not, but we all know that we’re all being evaluated. So when it comes time for commendations, some names air left out, that’s where it was only,

[00:26:06.05] spk_4:
um, you know, it was

[00:26:06.63] spk_6:
only twice

[00:26:55.17] spk_4:
in our history where we actually had to take a board member side and urged them, not Thio run for re election. So if when this works well, it’s really becomes an informal accountability process where people opt out before they have to be kind of pushed out. And, uh um, and yet you need to be willing to do that if the time comes, and in one case, you know, way took a board member aside and we just said, It’s you know, it’s time for you to step aside and is interesting He said it that years later he told me he said, Well, as mad as hell at the time, but you and the chair were right. I just couldn’t see it then. And eso it’s that magical thing where people basically, whenever there flames, starts to be not so bright for in terms of the, you know, being a champion of the board, they just they know it and they and everyone knows it. And they just say again, Allah, I’ll serve out my term and I’ll step down and again whether that’s three years into their service or 15 years, it’s just based on. Are they giving it their best? And

[00:27:10.43] spk_2:
not

[00:27:10.61] spk_4:
everyone you know people’s interests move on. I mean, it’s a natural human phenomenon. Yeah,

[00:27:17.33] spk_0:
yeah. Very interesting. Interesting process. You mentioned election of board re election of board members. That was that not managed by an executive committee just deciding whether someone would remain Who were the electors, the whole board, the

[00:28:36.84] spk_4:
whole the whole board Now there’s a nominating what we close it in our model. We had both the governance committee that worked on our kind of internal governance, and the nominating committee was merged in the same committee and another boards I’ve been on Those are two separate things and on and, you know, when you only have 15 18 members. There are only so many committees you can have when your larger boards could have more. But yeah, it, in this case, the default was when someone’s three year term came up. Um, you think the default is that they’re gonna be reelected if they want to be. But there is a process that again the governance committee chair is part of that group that is, that meets every six months on day would take what are our discussions and bring them into the governance committee. Um, but Maur, I think that committee was more about adding new people to the board more of the nominating committee, but But ultimately every board meeting or every other board meeting, if someone’s three year term was up, they would be reelected or more than likely, or they would prior to that announced that they weren’t seeking re election and it would be handled that way. Okay.

[00:28:38.92] spk_3:
Okay. Um,

[00:28:40.17] spk_2:
let’s ah, let’s take,

[00:29:30.12] spk_0:
uh, let’s take this break. And, uh, if you wanna you got a little longer in this break, And now we’re gonna talk to Amy Sample Ward as well. So, uh, stand by. Don’t go anywhere, though, Okay? You don’t have time to go to the bathroom. Just drink water, bathroom breaks or later, uh, his break quote. We’ve been very happy with Cougar Mountain. It’s rare to encounter a problem with the software, but they’re always there to help walk. Help me walk through it. End Quote that Sally Hancock in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Maur raves about the Cougar Mountain customer service. Cougar Mountain has a free 60 day trial, which is on the listener landing page, which is at now time for Tony’s Take two. Your decade plan for planned giving. Um, this is not only the beginning of a new year, which is now close to 1/12 over already, but that means that we’re nearly 1 144th of the way into the new decade. So my, uh, belief is my It’s more than a belief. It’s almost Fact,

[00:29:49.25] spk_2:
if you start

[00:30:01.17] spk_0:
your planned giving program this year, you are gonna be astronomically ahead, and you’re gonna be you’re gonna be shocked at where you are by the year 2029. Those 10 years

[00:30:07.79] spk_2:
you’ll be you’ll be at

[00:30:21.72] spk_0:
a point where you can be projecting planned giving revenue for future years based on the revenue that you will have had in like years. 6789 That’s how far ahead you will be in plant giving and you think plan giving that. You know, people die. The gifts come, but we don’t know when those when those episodes air gonna happen. Yeah, but once your file is large enough, once you have enough planned giving donors in your file, you’re gonna start to see trends. And of course, you can’t predict to the dollar amount.

[00:30:46.78] spk_2:
But you can give yourself some comfort with a range that you expect to receive in cash each year,

[00:31:22.81] spk_0:
going forward from really like your 789 and forward, but certainly from your 10 on. So my urging is that you if you are not doing plan giving fundraising 2020 is the year to start the beginning of the decade. I say a lot more about this in a video, which is your decade plan for playing, giving. I lay out the plan. I don’t just say where you’re gonna be in a decade. I show you how to get there step year by year in the video, which is at tony-martignetti dot com. And that is tony. Take two now. Uh, late breaking. Let’s bring in Amy Sample Ward. She’s the CEO of and 10 and our social media and technology contributor. And

[00:31:44.64] spk_2:
we’re going to spend a few minutes talking about what’s coming up at 20 NTC. The 2020 non profit Technology conference. Welcome back, Amy. Sample Ward

[00:31:46.85] spk_7:
Bake. I’m happy to be on happy 2020.

[00:32:02.29] spk_2:
Thank you very much. Yes, indeed. First time we’ve talked this year. Um, it’s not too late to say Happy New Year because we know each other so well. And, uh, I haven’t seen you Haven’t talked to you since January 1st. So happy New Year. Happy, happy, Happy decade as well.

[00:32:05.44] spk_7:
Well, And where we’ve just started the Chinese New Year. So

[00:32:10.41] spk_0:
indeed, Yes, Yes, indeed. Balloon. You’re here. Um,

[00:32:13.04] spk_2:
so we’ve got this little thing coming up. It’s not

[00:32:24.41] spk_0:
so little, um, being snarky. It’s in Baltimore in March 2020. Non profit technology conference hosted by and 10 non profit radio will be there on the exhibit

[00:32:29.49] spk_2:
floor. But before we get to that, you tell us what? What? Why should

[00:32:31.89] spk_0:
we be attending?

[00:33:07.15] spk_7:
Oh, my gosh. I am really excited for this year because I think, as you know, you’ve You’ve been a handful of times now, so you can probably speak to this yourself too. But every year we’re always trying to make it better than it was, of course, the year before. And each year we feel like, Okay, this is the best we’ve ever done it. But how could we make it better? And I think we’ve got some really good plans this year that do that. Of course we have. You know, this is a big three day conference there, 2200 plus people altogether. And it doesn’t have to be, you know, just one type of non profit or one type of job in an organization. If you are listening to this, you are welcome at the number of

[00:33:17.73] spk_2:
probably

[00:33:18.57] spk_7:
that you could learn and do there

[00:33:19.84] spk_0:
It is not only for technologists, not only for technologists,

[00:35:24.80] spk_7:
right? Well, I mean, it’s 2020. Everyone in a non profit is using technology, right? Like it doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter how what your job titles has on your business card. There’s pieces of technology you need to use or make decisions about to be effective in your job on. There’s folks from every job title and people who have been in the sector for a year, and people have been in it for 40 years. You know, it’s it’s really like a cross section of everybody, Um, and we have over 150 sessions, so plenty of opportunity to go learn. But outside of that, something that we feel makes the NTC really specialists. How many opportunities there are for you to meet other people and share ideas or come to the conference of that one burning question like you just wish you could find somebody that’s figured out a way to get mail chimp to do that One thing you know, like we want to make sure you really do find that one other person. So we have a lot of kind of community based programs that happen as part of the agenda, and we have even more of them this year. We’ve We’ve always had what we call birds of a feather. So you know, funny things like people will do. You know, people who love watching a certain TV show or something as a table topic at lunch. But other people will do things like, you know, they use a certain tool or something so they can all meet each other and chat. But in the afternoons we’ve started this year what we’re calling knowledge swaps where they’re Maur intentional. They are about, you know, something work related, something you want to do something You’re having a challenge with, something that you just did really well And you want to make sure you can share that knowledge with other people so folks can sign up to basically, like, find other folks and hosted a conversation together on the topics a little bit easier than saying you want to present for 75 minutes for a session, right? Like maybe you just want to find four other folks and share ideas. So we built that into the agenda each day on and we’ve also expanded our career center. That isn’t just for people looking for jobs. A really big part of the community of the career center is mentorship. So being able to sit down with somebody for happen our and share feedback, whether it’s about their resume or it’s about, you know, the evolution in your own career. So what? Whatever side of that coin that you would be on the career center has lost of opportunities for you, um, and would love for folks to be a part of that.

[00:35:51.11] spk_0:
Okay, um, we just have, like, a minute in a minute or so left, so details of registration. Where do we

[00:35:58.54] spk_2:
go with the dates? Radio? Don’t even say the day everything. But the date is today.

[00:36:10.72] spk_7:
Yes, the dates are March 24th 26 it’s in Baltimore. At the convention center. There’s hotels of all the various price points, whatever place you have, a membership number two, whatever, all around the convention center, and you can go toe intend that orc Slash and T. C. You can see the full agenda. You can review some of those community programs I was talking about. We’ve got Rachel Affinity Spaces support for folks who want prayer room, meditation spaces, lactation access. All of those things are part of our conference. So we really want it to be something that folks are ready to learn and meet other people and talk. This is a resource for you. And if there’s a way we can make it easier support you being able to participate, we will do everything we can to do that. So please Goto intend that work slash NPC. Check it out. If you need anything, let us know. But hopefully we see you in March.

[00:37:05.76] spk_0:
This is an excellent conference. Yeah, I’ve been there. I think this is the sixth year.

[00:37:10.06] spk_2:
Do you think I think it’s the 60

[00:37:20.04] spk_0:
year I’ve brought the show, so we will be on the exhibit floor where were sponsored by Cougar Mountain Software at the conference. So we’ll be side by side. We’ll be getting. I’ll be getting 30 plus interviews. Last year I got 32 interviews in two and 1/2 days, and then we air them. That

[00:37:28.44] spk_7:
must have been a record. 30.

[00:37:45.78] spk_0:
32 is the is the largest I’ve gotten. Yeah, it had been like 25 27 or so, but so were booked up. Eso. When you’re at the conference, come on the exhibit floor. I believe you’ll see us in boots 5 10 and 5 12 On DDE comes he’s come Say hello will be the noisy one with probably with spotlights, because we might shoot video. So but very smart, very smart speakers in lots of different topics around technology. And Amy’s Point is, I want to drive home. We’re all technologists. It regardless of what it says on your business card, you’re no longer using index cards and transparencies. You know, the overhead projectors. They’re gone. We’re all using technology, and this conference is for people at all different levels. Whether it’s on your in your job title as C I O. Or You’re just a user of technology

[00:38:22.71] spk_2:
and you have to say good bye. Thank you very much.

[00:38:24.45] spk_7:
Okay, thank you so much. And I will see what your booth. Because I always loved getting to do an interview with you.

[00:38:29.16] spk_2:
Absolutely. It’s our only time to go face to face. Yes, we’ll see you. I’ll see you in Baltimore.

[00:38:36.00] spk_0:
All right. Thank you for that indulgence. Alex Count. It’s usually

[00:38:38.44] spk_4:
a great conference or close to where I live. Yeah, it is fabulous. Maybe I’ll see you. There is

[00:38:49.80] spk_0:
really a very smart place. Hundreds of brilliance because I wish I could interview more than the 32 or so whatever I’ll get. Um so just remind listeners Alex counts. Ah, consultant, founder of Grameen Foundation. And his book is Changing the World without Losing your mind. Leadership lessons from three decades of social entrepreneurship. We’re just scratching the surface. You know, where we’re We’re focused on the CEO chair relationship today, but obviously the book goes way beyond

[00:39:11.33] spk_3:
that. Uh,

[00:39:24.52] spk_2:
lots of lessons in 30 years. Now it’s Ah, you got a good You got a young face. You got a baby face. Check out, check out his, uh, check out his headshot tony-martignetti dot com’s gonna baby face. Um, So let’s, uh we divert a little bit, but these are all valuable topics.

[00:39:28.92] spk_0:
I mean, this board evaluation process is semi annual thing is really very interesting. I hadn’t heard anything

[00:39:35.22] spk_3:
like that. Um,

[00:39:36.96] spk_2:
let’s talk Thio. Let’s talk to

[00:39:43.47] spk_0:
communications. You like you like frequent regular communications between the CEO and the chair.

[00:40:28.73] spk_4:
Yes. I mean, there’s no. You know, when you when you talk with someone, you come in. Mike, come on with an agenda of what you think is going on the organization, but especially if you’re not rushed on your in person, where that’s possible, you know, you stumble upon in the process of just kind of ruminating on what’s going on the organization, some opportunities and assets and some kind of dangers and risks that you didn’t even go in thinking about because you’re you know, you’re with someone who’s also internalized. The organization is smart, is committed on DSO. I always, you know, I would wouldn’t want to talk with Susan or Bob or Palm or it’s, you know, have have kind of regular calls, you know, maybe two or three a month, but also in with a strict agenda but also sometimes has really unstructured. You know, it’s been a long dinner with them and, ah, a mixture of bonding and just kind of, you know, thinking out loud brainstorming and and just really kind of creative ideas can come up there. And if you’re I did tell a story. One of my board shares went from being semi retired of a very demanding job three years into his role. And while he did stick with it for another two years, which surprised me my ability to spend time with him, quality unstructured on rushed time was compromised. And and that was and I missed that. And our partnership suffered a little bit. As a result, he was still very good and because of his job, had more money to put into the organization. But his ability to kind of have that Maur kind of on structure brainstorming time was severely constrained.

[00:41:16.49] spk_0:
Yeah, Yeah, it was more just a formal time together. Yeah.

[00:41:21.06] spk_2:
And you think about think about friends, you, How much just happens

[00:41:28.85] spk_0:
in free conversation over over a meal in a glass of wine. You

[00:41:47.13] spk_4:
think of some something to do together that just you hadn’t even thought of and just being in their presence. You’re like, Well, why don’t we try that, um and and so that that time together again, so many of these things Fundraising, managing board relationships. They’re very time consuming. But when you do them well and invest the time, it’s just they pay back many, many times, but you need to be able to kind of spend the time on what you know, my wife and I call the important but not urgent on If you invest in that, just magical things can happen.

[00:42:01.10] spk_2:
And then this kind

[00:42:01.89] spk_0:
of thing you have to make time for you aren’t gonna find the time when I when I find the time will, will have an unstructured meeting. But today we’re having an agenda. When I find the time when we find the time to get

[00:42:12.38] spk_2:
time is not gonna tap you on the shoulder and make itself apparent that you have to make the time. There’s never gonna come in timers. I’ve got two free hours today. Let’s have a meeting with meeting with. I’ll have a call with my board chair. It’s not gonna happen. You have to make the time consciously

[00:43:04.04] spk_4:
and you know, and it’s also becomes something, if you know is it can’t became with each my board shares, particularly Bob like Failed and Susan, where I just enjoyed being around them. They had a lot of grace for me when I made mistakes. They kind of puffed up my ego. When I was doing well, we found common interests or developed them on. They never took cheap shots at me, even in private. If they were going to be constructive, they tried the most sensitive way to do it. That didn’t deflate me. And so it just it ends up being. Gosh, I went. When do I get my next time with Susan? Tony Learn Thio kind of, you know, to commiserated, to celebrate. It’s just always like a special thing. And so you know, they make more time for it, and you developing that personal chemistry. Even if you’re very different people like we were, you could develop it, but it it it needs to be a, you know, a high priority

[00:43:19.30] spk_0:
on. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows in the C e o chair relationship. Like any relationship, let me take this last break and we’ll come back to Gilling with tension points.

[00:43:31.35] spk_2:
Turn to communications. Do you find yourself scratching

[00:43:39.57] spk_0:
your head, wondering how some nonprofits always seem to get mentioned in the news? It’s not because they’re big here. We are talking about relationships. It’s because they have relationships with journalists when they don’t want to be quoted, they just have

[00:43:48.44] spk_2:
a relation. They’re not looking for something they have a relationship

[00:43:59.65] spk_0:
of standing relationship with journalists turn to can help you do that. Their former journalists, including from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. So you want to build those relationships in advance. So when the news breaks and you can contribute to it and want to be seen on an issue, you’ve got the standing relationship. Your call, most likely more likely than not, will be taken over not having that standing relationship. They return hyphen to dot CEO.

[00:45:00.25] spk_2:
Let’s do the live listener love and there’s quite a bit of it we are in. Ah, it’s the start. Domestic Woodbridge, New Jersey Tampa, Florida New York New York multiple. Glad to see you. Thank you very much. New York, um, live love to each of those cities as well. A Seattle, Washington in Chicago, Illinois, um, as well as Lincoln’s in North Carolina. Well, cool North Carolina. I’m in Emerald Isle, not today, but, uh, live love. I’ve loved to each of our domestic live listeners. Now let’s go abroad. Seoul, South Korea. Always so loyal. I’m always so grateful. Seoul, South Korea Multiple listeners Annual Hasso comes a ham Nida Woodbridge, New Jersey

[00:45:05.27] spk_0:
No, I’m sorry. That’s not fair. Not that’s That’s, uh that’s not foreign. That’s not very funny.

[00:45:07.74] spk_2:
I’m from New

[00:45:08.17] spk_0:
Jersey. So you know, I’m from I grew up in Rutherford Multiple,

[00:45:44.57] spk_2:
Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan. Often we have Japanese listeners. Thank you, Japan. Konnichi wa um Chapultepec de Chapultepec Day. Hinojosa, Mexico When I started this when you start this France Rahm bouquet that was the same city was with us last week as well. Rambo. Yea. And I apologize if I’m not pronouncing it right. But live love Thio out to our for listeners officers in France, um, Oxford in the United Kingdom and also in Korea Sue on Oh, someone else. Besides, uh um besides soul thank you. Live love out to you. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Moscow. We’re, uh not quite Everyone say every hemisphere I mean every continent, but we’re close live love

[00:46:45.55] spk_0:
to each of our live listeners. Thank you so much for being with us and the podcast pleasantries toward over 13,000 listeners. In the podcast Pleasantries to you. I thank you for being with us week after week, whether you binge it all and listen to eight episodes on a weekend or you’re spreading it out. Pleasantries to our podcast listeners. Um, that was our Ah, live. Listen, love in the podcast pleasantries. And now back to, uh, CEO chair relationship, which we’ve got butt loads more time for. Ah, and Alex counts. Okay, Moments of tension. They’re gonna crop up

[00:47:51.47] spk_4:
inevitable in a certain way. Healthy. I remember. And in the article I talked just referenced in passing that, you know, one time I had some tension with Susan Davis and I went to the vice chair kind of probably overreacting to that and wanted to try play Mommy off against Daddy or something, you know. And Yvette Dyer, who is our vice chair at the time, said very profound and basically said, You know, the tension is an inbuilt part of that relationship, even when it’s the healthiest. And as I thought about that more I thought about you know, your non profit executive directors. Sometimes they’re too aggressive, they need to be reined in, and the board feels it. But it’s really the responsibility that share to give that feedback. On the other hand, some this wasn’t so much my fault, but some executive directors and CEOs are too cautious. I need to be pushed to be more aggressive and had Ah, And again that will come, uh, probably is the sense of the board, but often best conveyed by the chair. And initially, that may not be that well received, um, and and may create some tension. But again, there’s in all healthy relationships, especially this one. That’s that’s one of the aspects of it. And once I realized that and you see, I had the benefit when I was working with Susan, that I’d already been the chair of another non profit board. She had previously been the executive director of a nonprofit, so we kind of understood you

[00:48:12.53] spk_0:
had been in each other’s roles. Very important, always

[00:48:15.15] spk_4:
possible. But but but actually quite it valuable it You’ve kind of sat in that person’s, you know, chair and and you can understand a little bit more why they’re doing what they’re doing on DDE. And so that that tension just was, you know, was really part and parcel of a healthy relationship. Is, as I came to see, not didn’t see that you immediately

[00:48:36.62] spk_2:
too timid sometimes CEOs in what respect? Not aggressive. Just

[00:50:05.15] spk_4:
say, you know whether it’s setting their annual goals for, you know, whatever societal positive impact they want. Or some CEOs want a stockpile money rather than spend it on their programs of their team star of the organization. Just because they just they’re always worried about running out of money. So or sometimes it’s about, for example, keeping it a non performing employees on giving them one more chance that could go on for four or five years and on. And, you know, there was one case where I probably stuck with it. A chief operating officer longer than I should and a board chair came in and said, You know, when you’re gonna ease him out. You know, he’s creating a lot of dissension in the organization. Even that was raging, reaching the level of the board. And I needed to be pushed Thio to recognize that this person wasn’t performing and so get my errors would tend to be more about being too aggressive, too much of a risk taker, and I would need to be reined in. But like I had my examples where I was foot dragging and on the board. If the board doesn’t tell you that your your staff probably won’t directly on dhe. You know they’re the ones that to be a kind of observe your performance and push you. And of course, ultimate decision usually remains yours. But if you don’t follow that enough, you’ll find yourself out of a job at some point. And so if there’s a there’s a kind of a creative tension there,

[00:50:06.72] spk_0:
particularly staff won’t tell you if it’s the c 00 that we’re talking about. Yep, that’s the source.

[00:50:13.58] spk_2:
You liketo have staff participate, attend

[00:50:21.06] spk_0:
and participate board inboard means and not just the C suite. Yeah, that’s what

[00:50:21.61] spk_4:
I did something that people who it

[00:50:24.35] spk_2:
kind of

[00:50:51.40] spk_4:
naturally evolved in Grameen Foundation, where from when we had a very small staff initially is you know, I would have some staff that would present to the board. Maybe they weren’t as good at presenting his. I was. Maybe they were better, but but to give them that experience, to demystify what the board is by having them, and the board could see the quality of staff I had, whether it was, hopefully they were impressed. Sometimes they’re, like, you know, realize that you had why I had to step in and do this, but I ultimately not only had the senior staff as we grew, you know, sit around the board table and either present or observed, but I would say any available staff member quite radical. Could you sit in an outer ring and observe? And it just it had this kind of ability to demystify the board where a lot of non profit employees like

[00:51:08.63] spk_2:
What is

[00:52:23.45] spk_4:
the board do and they’re not doing enough. And what’s their role? And why do we have to work so hard to prepare these board meetings and when they can actually sit there and observe the board deliberating and we would we would go one step further, which is where a t end of the board meeting the board would all leave board members except for the chair, and I would facilitate a debrief with all the staff who were present. Summons might be 2025 staff members, and they could all say, I thought the board had a really intelligent conversation about that. I thought that they totally avoided this topic and had a really, you know, bad discussion about it, and we would just we wouldn’t try to argue them. And so it because a lot of people came to work for me, as I learned is that the board was this mysterious thing where the CEO would go off in a room and maybe the CFO would make a 45 minute presentation and then be ushered out of the room. And it just felt like a this kind of secret society that was making decisions about them that they had no visibility into. And I kind of went the other way of just absolute transparency, including sometimes the board. My staff would see the board grilling me, and they would see me sometimes perform well and defend their interests. You know, some board member wants a new program that made no sense, and I would say, No, we’re not gonna do that makes no sense. And sometimes they’d see me stumble. But again, it just made it more of a human, just just just a group of people trying to help us in a different type of role than you have and let them watch you at times and you get to watch them perform and evaluated and and so it just took all that mysteriousness out of it, and I thought was healthy. Now, at times, you know, I did. I have an occasional board member say, Well, what

[00:52:43.95] spk_2:
if we What if

[00:52:47.15] spk_4:
we close down this whole project? You know, maybe that would be a good idea. And then the people running that project sitting in the background Does it cause anxiety that you need to manage? Yes, there were. There were problems with that. But the benefits way far outweigh the costs in my mind.

[00:53:01.32] spk_0:
Okay. Interesting. Yeah, The typical is staff member of presents, and then is, as you said, ushered out. Yeah.

[00:53:12.65] spk_2:
All right. Awesome. Opening our minds. Um, you have some thoughts

[00:53:13.51] spk_0:
about upgrading aboard where we have, like, two minutes or so left or something. So

[00:53:18.60] spk_2:
we got a good

[00:53:19.21] spk_0:
Okay, we have about three minutes left up the timeto upgrade first. What do you mean by upgrading aboard? Well,

[00:54:16.61] spk_4:
I I believe that I’ve studied it. That about 80% of non profit boards in this country or some version of dysfunctional either micromanaging or only 80 or well, you think that low occasionally I say that I ask people who challenge me and more often it’s that they think it It’s more than that. But whatever most up a solid majority and the reason s O I. What I say is, Is that it? You know, if you’re upgrading, I’m saying, if you want to take a dysfunctional board to mediocre or a mediocre board too high performing it could be done. But you need to do a couple things. One. Is there no quick fixes? If anyone tells you they can turn a board materially increase their performance in 90 days, adopting you know, four techniques. It’s not gonna happen if if you want to increase the quality aboard materially, significantly mark your calendar 3 to 5 years in the future. And one of the things I most often hear from executive directors is, Well, I’m gonna wait for my board to start performing, and then I’ll really engage them on and support them. But they need to prove to me, and I said, No, that’s the wrong way. Look at it. You need to start treating them now. Whoever is on that treat them now is if they’re high performing, bored, invest in them that way and then given a couple years of lag time, they’ll emerge to be the board that you deserve. But you need to treat them now like they’re the board that you deserve, even though they’re not yet, um, and so

[00:54:47.20] spk_2:
that may just

[00:54:47.78] spk_4:
spending intensive time, helping to create real wins for them and a great experience of being on the board, which is gonna be different for each board member

[00:54:55.99] spk_0:
and challenging them to spend more time to get more responsibility.

[00:54:59.46] spk_2:
That’s right, but also

[00:55:00.20] spk_4:
making it making it pleasurable and enjoyable for them to do so not because their guilt or manipulation, but just out of a sense of opportunity. So again I go into in the book, I talk about how once that once I kind of got that at the care and feeding of board members. I think most executive directors and CEO spend probably could spend 3 to 4 times Maur of their time and effort in cultivating these board members. And the payback is immeasurable. But it’s it’s not gonna happen 90 days if if you’re if you’re gonna just read an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, apply a few techniques and then you know are they performing better in 90 days. It’s just not. That’s not how groups evolve and function. But if you do it over an extended period aboard, and then you just add one good new member a year. Ah, and they raised the level of everyone a little bit, and that’s that’s how this goes. But if you stick with it for a couple of years, it could be miraculous.

[00:55:59.64] spk_0:
We’re gonna leave it there. That’s outstanding. Is Alex counts his book again, changing the world without Losing your mind? Leadership lessons from three decades of social entrepreneurship. You’ll find him at Alex counts dot com and at Alex,

[00:56:14.52] spk_2:
counts. Thanks so much, Thank you Pleasure. Next week, our Innovators,

[00:56:30.41] spk_0:
Siri’s continues with the return of Peter Shankman on neuro Diversity. What that means for you as an employer and for your employees, the those who are New road divergent. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com

[00:56:41.16] spk_2:
by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund. Is

[00:56:59.82] spk_0:
there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO. Our creative

[00:57:00.60] spk_2:
producer is Claire Meyerhoff.

[00:57:41.08] spk_5:
Sam Liebowitz is the line producer on the board shows. Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein of Brooklyn, New York, with me next week for non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great talking alternative radio 24 hours a day.

Nonprofit Radio for November 22, 2019: Recruiting Your Next CEO

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My Guest:

Dennis Miller: Recruiting Your Next CEO
“As a board member of a nonprofit organization, the most important responsibility you are likely to assume will be to hire your chief executive officer.” So starts the book, “A Guide To Recruiting Your Next CEO.” Author Dennis Miller walks us through. (Originally aired 12/22/17)

 

 

 

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[00:01:52.10] spk_3:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with extra fee if you turn to my stomach with the idea that you missed today’s show recruiting your next CEO as a board member of a nonprofit organization, the most important responsibility you are likely to assume will be to hire your chief executive officer. End quote. So starts the book. A Guide to Recruiting Your Next CEO. Author Dennis Miller walks us through that originally aired on December 22nd 2017 on tony Stake to Last Call for Innovators were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As. Guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com by Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund Is there complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to DOT CEO. Let’s get started with recruiting your next CEO. I’m glad that I can welcome Dennis Miller back then A C. Miller. He’s a strategic leadership coach and executive search consultant with more than 35 years experience working with non profit board leadership and chief executives across the country. He’s managing director of the nonprofit Search Group, an executive recruiting firm. His latest book, His Fifth, is a guide to Recruiting Your Next CEO, the Executive Search Handbook for non profit Boards. You’ll find Dennis and his book at Dennis c. Miller dot com. He’s at Dennis C. Miller, and I’m very glad that his book brings him back to non profit radio. Welcome back, Dennis C. Miller.

[00:02:04.96] spk_0:
Happy to be back, tony.

[00:02:07.65] spk_3:
Well happen years coming up. Yes, stopping here. That’s appropriate. I’m sorry. Thank you. And to you, what is the sea for? In Dennis c miller dot

[00:02:16.33] spk_5:
com and

[00:02:19.24] spk_0:
Charles my father’s names. So many Dennis mellows and grammar school in high school we put in and I’m very proud to be

[00:02:26.45] spk_3:
Charles. All right. You don’t mind if I don’t call you Dennis C. Miller the whole hour, though

[00:02:29.68] spk_5:
I just call

[00:02:30.56] spk_0:
me dad. You’re like,

[00:02:33.46] spk_3:
OK, now, Dennis, we have to be. And it has to be anymore. Denigrating the dentist. Venice. Fine. Now you’re by phone. You’re in. You’re in Los Angeles. Is that right?

[00:02:41.44] spk_0:
Yeah. I’m actually in the Los Angeles area of isn’t That’s a business appear this week. And now we’re spending time my wife and I with our two sons and their families and grandson out here in Los Angeles and heading up to Santa Monica, Santa Monica Pier right after the show. So

[00:03:03.90] spk_3:
All right, well, we won’t hold you up. In fact, if you want, take off now, we could just bag the whole thing. You need to go. Public transportation is gonna leave in five minutes or something, or you’re OK.

[00:03:08.12] spk_5:
Oh, you’re okay for the

[00:03:37.83] spk_3:
hour. Okay, now, remember the last time you were here, you almost had a heart attack. You were running down the street. You were late. You’re you’re ah. Um, your cheeks were rosy. Your heavy breathing. You need a few minutes to take deep breaths. So now you’ve after to go to Los Angeles, And this way you can call him by phone. Okay? You don’t worry about running running to the studio, okay? Okay. You didn’t have a heart attack. You know what I was saying? No salmon. Every little word

[00:03:40.59] spk_5:
had a regular. You may have.

[00:03:41.29] spk_3:
No, you did. You had a high. You definitely had a heart, a heart because your face was red. All right, Um, why do we need this book? Why are you causing trouble with this tome?

[00:04:38.17] spk_0:
Well, think about it that there’s probably over a 1,000,000 more. There’s more than a 1,000,000 non profit around the country and with the number of people that are dissipate to retire over the next five plus years on any research a staggering, sometimes closing 75% the the vast majority of people went into the non public sector, and leadership positions were baby boomers from the sixties and seventies went to sort of the cultural change and wanted to commit themselves to having a big impact in the community. So there’s a lot of retirement going on, and the biggest responsibility that a member of the board can have is selecting the next CEO. And on top of that, when you think about the challenges of the environment in the non public sector, the leadership conferences have been dramatically changing. So it’s an important time for board members to understand what is needed to recruit in. Actually, that’s why I wrote the book

[00:04:44.83] spk_3:
OK, 75% turnover in the next 10 years we’re gonna have,

[00:04:54.41] spk_0:
I’d probably less. I mean, it’s It’s quite a bit if you think about people that grew up in the sixties and seventies, you know, it’s now 2017 and people in their sixties and thinking about stepping down another part of life and a lot of recruitment gonna be needing.

[00:05:18.54] spk_3:
One of the opening questions is whether we should go this recruitment alone or hire a such consultant. Now you’re you’re biased. You say that in the book, you’re biased. But can you weigh the pros and cons for us?

[00:05:23.83] spk_0:
Yeah. Listen, um, I’m biased. Certainly if someone if someone wants to go about it a lot, I think the book will help them with that.

[00:05:30.04] spk_5:
Uh, sure you want

[00:06:28.17] spk_0:
to go in alone Is this year you have people on the board or staff with the expertise and recruiting. Do you have the time commitment that’s gonna be needed for the board members to not only identify the profile of the next candidate but spending the time and now is reaching out and screening candidates. So there’s a lot of work involved. I lay out those steps in the search committee. Klaus is here. I think that what a lot of people doing today is realizing that, you know, whatever the figures, that they’re gonna be pain and most trees probably in the area of someplace between 20 to 35%. All cases, 25 that the advertiser over five years and sometimes really not that high. And yet, so you wanna have an expertise. There’s like anything else you need a lawyer of financial account. You’d be hiring someone. It’s a challenging thing to go about on your own. And the other aspect, tony, for people who want to go about on their own, is by just posting sort of ads and social media, whatever. You’re gonna only get two people that are looking for a job and you don’t know either how good they are, how well performing they are if they’re happy a search from is gonna recruit people that are not looking for that job. And that’s part of what you want. What? I have

[00:06:46.44] spk_3:
those percentages that you quoted that’s of the first year cash compensation. Is

[00:06:52.11] spk_5:
that yes.

[00:06:59.72] spk_0:
So someone makes ah a position whether the CEO, our CFO or development unable to save the position was 100,000

[00:07:01.00] spk_5:
dollars. You

[00:07:01.95] spk_0:
know, the average three is gonna be $25,000. But this day, five years, it’s $5000 a year, which comes out to about $100 a week or 20 hours of any. And you know, the thing about it’s probably the smartest investments that aboard wouldn’t want to make.

[00:07:23.99] spk_5:
Okay, Noah, particularly you get the right portion. Okay? And I

[00:07:24.54] spk_3:
guess the main advantage of going in on your own is you’re saving that fee.

[00:07:28.54] spk_0:
Well, you saving the feeble you also, you better be prepared for the time that your board is gonna

[00:07:33.84] spk_5:
happen. That

[00:07:34.43] spk_0:
so that you poisoned cons here. But most most really good organizations will use a search firm for certain keys positions.

[00:07:45.03] spk_3:
Okay. Okay. Um, let’s say we just have about a minute before Ah, first break, Dennis. Oh, let’s just identify that this CEO change is not something necessarily to be feared. I mean, just in a minute or so. This could be an opportunity. A great opportunity.

[00:08:30.56] spk_0:
What? How you look at him and I’m We’re doing a search right now. When we’ve got the finalists. Been seen by the search committee and beginning this is that this is the first time this organization has used a search firm and, you know, they admitted they made some mistakes in the past. But you’ve got to go from not a crisis to. This is a phenomenal opportunity to not just take it, get a new leader, but to have an assessment of your organization and have some advice and give me and people get on the board. And we’ve been here for quite a while or fairly new. It’s a exciting time to take a first look atyou organization. So what if the glass is half full? It’s I look at it is very exciting time when organization most clients feel the same way,

[00:09:30.24] spk_3:
all right, and we’re gonna talk about that. That assessment right after this. Right now, it’s time for a break. We have used the service’s of wegner-C.P.As for many years. Their service is excellent. The auditors provide clear directions and timetables. They’re professional and thorough, but also easy to work with. They answer questions promptly. End quote. That’s an HR professional in Hillsborough, North Carolina. If that kind of C p. A. Could be valuable for you. Your non profit. Then check out wegner-C.P.As dot com. Let’s do the, uh We got some live listener love. Let’s do it good. We do. And we’ve got Seoul. South Korea s o. I gotta tell you, soul. So, uh, so consistent. Such loyal listeners in Seoul, South Korea On your HASA an io io comes a ham nida, which does not

[00:09:30.77] spk_4:
mean live. Listen, love out to you, but I’m

[00:10:47.14] spk_3:
grateful Soul always with us. Thank you. Um, Victoria that they can. Krista In Brazil, there will be a brain a star this on da lively love Love out to, uh, Brazil. Thank you for being with us. Ashburn, Virginia Tampa, Florida, New York, New York and, uh oh, another South Korea Chung Wan The same greeting goes to Chung Wan annual Hasso come So ham Nida. Glad you’re with us. I love it and they’ll be more, but I felt like doing the live love earlier today. And the podcast Pleasantries. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for being a podcast listener of non profit radio. I’m glad that we fit into your podcast listening wherever it is and whenever it is pleasantries to the podcast listeners, Let’s go back to recruiting your next CEO. Now back to Dennis Miller and his book recruiting, Ah, guide to recruiting your next CEO and Dennis C. Miller. So let’s talk about that. That possibility for assessment you Ah, you say that you might, uh, considered doing strategic planning, I guess, if you have time before getting into the recruiting process for the next CEO

[00:12:12.61] spk_0:
Yeah, well, the you know the question always is You know what comes first, right? Chicken or the egg? Tony, do you hire a CEO or do you hire or chief development officer before you have a plan and and, uh, kind of it’s up. It’s up to decline the organization, but give me a couple examples whites sort of better to at least an idea of where you want to go on what you want to achieve. So let’s say you wanted to. You go out and hire a CEO, hoping that they will build your plan and let some party. A plan is to be more involved in philanthropy. More involved in the cultivating. So seeing donors, what if that seal he just hired doesn’t have that experience? Well, now you’re stuck. So what if your need is to grow your board and the new CEO? Yes. Sorry doesn’t have that. So one of the things that I recommend the clients is that’s not necessarily happen to have a full blown strategic plan. But certainly it’s a good idea to have a real sense of your strategic vision. Where you headed. Will you want ahead? What? Some of the big strategic goals you have? Um, what things that you need to get done. And then, obviously it’s much easier than to identify the the characteristics of the qualities and experience of the CEO. So you bring someone on board who is the right cultural fit for you organization. So that’s why it’s important to take a look at kind of way. You want to go before

[00:12:21.57] spk_3:
you say that If you’re not gonna do a full full blown strategic plan planning process, you want to at least identify what your organizational goals are.

[00:12:45.52] spk_0:
Yeah, I mean, I think there are some people that don’t do a full blown strategic plan. I think that you could do that, but I think more importantly, what you want to do and a good search from what we do is we do sort of an assessment of where you’re at in your life cycle as an organization and as a board. Um And then we interview members of your board and you’re seeing your team to get a sense of, Well, you’re at that helps us or dramatically beginning the on boarding closet with your next CEO. So we know kind of what their challenges are versus going about it blind. So I do think that you wanna have and I point this out in the book. You want to have a sense of your strategic vision where you’re heading and pick up some of the key goals were having Yes. So when you’re interviewing came that you want to make sure their line with those gold here and it makes much smoother transition,

[00:13:24.42] spk_3:
some of the goals you lay out besides mission envision our fundraising and development. You know what you wanna do around that? You’re bored CEO relationship? Your programs and service is andi Course. You know, the book explains what goes into detail each of those, but, um,

[00:13:31.78] spk_5:
I had a couple of

[00:13:45.44] spk_0:
it. Certainly, you know, you walk additional capacity. What do you have in terms of leadership development? Do you have, Ah, plan to develop the people you have there? What’s going on with you? Border. You building the right board? Are you branding your organization and communicating that the impact you’re having? It’s important things today, So there’s a lot of, ah, strategic goals that one should be having with this pauses. And, uh, you want to get a sort of buying from your board and have the new CEO committed help implement this employee.

[00:14:33.50] spk_3:
And okay, so this new CEO is gonna have need to have some skills, and you make the point that you don’t want to be constrained by what the what the skills and talents of the existing CEO are. We want to be thinking beyond that. I mean, that’s that’s part of what this organizational either planning or identifying the goals is gonna do is help you look forward, not current. You know you just don’t want you don’t want to just replicate the current CEO’s talents, but you want to build on those for the for the future, and you identify a whole bunch of potential skills that you might be looking for a visionary thinker, entrepreneurial spirit relationship builder, et cetera. But you wanna be going beyond the current.

[00:15:37.66] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, it’s easy question when you have someone you know, Uh, you know, what kind of ah kind of deal are you looking for? And that the person who’s been in the job for the past 10 50 years for name is Surely people would be like someone like Charlie. Well, maybe you do. Maybe you don’t. I think that the challenges that your previous CEO had may be silly, but they also be very different. And one of things that you just mentioned that I have in the book in another books. In my work, I D’oh tony, is the idea of today’s competencies were, uh, executive leadership, non public sector, dramatically different than they were 5 10 years ago. There’s nothing wrong with what they were in the past, you know, aboard, we’re looking for someone who was a a mission based person who could have built a good relationship in the community, probably someone who could manage people in programs and perhaps someone who could go out and get a grant. Though their skills are still important. Today they look for more than just kills but compensation traits such as they want a visionary thinkers today, when the House, the CEO or executive director would implement the board’s vision. Today, boards are looking for CEOs to create their own vision

[00:15:55.82] spk_5:
cream organization.

[00:16:34.49] spk_0:
I want a visionary thinker, which takes coverage of creative vision number two. Certainly people want the idea of relationship. Will the building relationships outside inside the organization, someone who’s a social entrepreneur who can help develop the resource is important, ships that you need not just managed and when you got So is a whole series of conferences that identify in the book, including, you know, being a collaborative non about how big of a budget you have in control. It’s about collaboration. So, yes, there is a lot of new compass is out there for CEOs and executives, but I use the term some of the CEO jacket director do all the time.

[00:17:04.11] spk_3:
Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair Fares. Similarities. Yeah, of course. Um, I did have a guest years ago. Uh, Eugene Fram he was a professor at I think he was a university of Rochester. Andi made a case that he wanted it to be the CEO. He he felt that chief executive officer conveys a greater gravitas than executive director and CEO. That chief executive makes it less likely doesn’t make no guarantee. But let’s like that. Board members will get involved in the nitty gritty, the day to day management, you know, be be micromanaging a CEO versus an executive director. I did you give any preference for one over there? I know the book uses anonymously, but you have a preference for one over the other

[00:17:40.10] spk_0:
radio. You know, tony, the point you’re raises a really good one, and I do have a pilot in the book of my work. But I do think today the more contemporary title is chief executive officer, um, the more contemporary title is board, ship or support president. What you kind of the past is, um, it may just be words, but I think they have a lot of

[00:17:42.99] spk_5:
connotations. They do find themselves.

[00:17:53.44] spk_0:
I’d like to see board chair for sport president. I think the top lay personal pipe a person should be the president CEO, and I think that was profit last year right there. When you’re out there with donors. So it’s more than just an executive director, um, overseeing the apartment. You really keep executive making things happen. I do. I do before the word CEO

[00:18:07.92] spk_3:
on and also executive director. I mean, that’s that’s sort of a uniquely non profit term

[00:18:13.17] spk_5:
way. Want to think that

[00:18:15.38] spk_3:
running like businesses run this thing like a business happens to be a nonprofit corporation?

[00:18:19.26] spk_5:
But don’t tell

[00:18:22.79] spk_0:
mother interviews with you. It’s came up the term, you know, non properties. You tax

[00:18:26.85] spk_5:
that business

[00:18:29.26] spk_0:
plans. I think it’s important that today’s title be CEO. I just really think that’s important Title that have

[00:18:38.81] spk_3:
Let’s get into some nitty gritty. I want to start with the the search committee who belongs on this thing.

[00:20:03.91] spk_0:
Well, clearly, I think the this you know that in terms of size of the dominant members of the search committee should be members of the board. Now, can you have a non board member on this? It’s absolutely who might that be? Well, if you have someone on your community that you know has experience with search, maybe a human resource background and then on your board, you want to get their advice and gets a good. That’s a good conclusion. But generally speaking, if you have a board say of 12 to 15 people, you may want a search committee of maybe five, maybe seven maximum. But I’ve seen larger or smaller, so sizes of the committee is important. Number two be tremendous amount of time commitment. So the members of the search committee have to realize it’s going to be an involvement here in some time. And then obviously the key part of that will be who will be your share of the search committee. In some cases, it’s a chair of the board, which is completely appropriate. Other times that could be the vice chair of the future chair. Ah, lot of people ask me all the time would it be okay tohave the form of a former board chair, a strip search committee? And I would say, Maybe I would say, maybe on Lee, because if the former board chair eyes focus about what happened yesterday and not involved as much in your strategic planning for

[00:20:09.73] spk_5:
the future, not so much because

[00:20:10.19] spk_0:
they won’t know exactly what they’re looking for.

[00:20:12.06] spk_5:
You all right?

[00:20:21.88] spk_0:
This is committee has got to be a forward, approaching organization, afford poaching committee. I think that’s kind of that’s something that I would be looking for a nose of membership.

[00:20:25.04] spk_3:
What about an employee putting one on one employee on the committee?

[00:20:28.94] spk_0:
I don’t think that’s a good idea. Actually, I think it’s a bad

[00:20:32.91] spk_5:
idea.

[00:20:33.45] spk_0:
Come out Whiter Bay and say not give example.

[00:20:36.04] spk_5:
Okay,

[00:21:21.00] spk_0:
Uh, I’ve had people wondering to put the, you know, you know, the current CEO on the search committee, and I The answer is no. Then Walvis of the current CEO, Timmy, and help in the search committee and the consultant, or either inside or outside of what a search committee helped develop aspects of the position profit. What will be the ideal qualifications and experience of the next CEO? But the board hires and fires a CEO. It’s also very uncomfortable for a current CEO to be on the search committee. I had a case where, um, it wasn’t my search client, but it was my client that I helped with succession planning in. They had an internal candidate for the position, and when the search committee as this person, what changes would you make? She’s very awkward to be talking about the changes you want to make with

[00:21:29.27] spk_5:
us. Of course. Right

[00:21:43.45] spk_0:
eye. But now there’s times when you get there, some people that have their VP of HR on the search committee of the knee that lays on. But remember, people, it’s not a good idea. Have staff. It’s not good to have senior members of the committee on the search committee. It should be his board Members of Donald.

[00:21:49.42] spk_3:
Okay, predominately. And then you said, maybe a volunteer,

[00:21:53.09] spk_0:
if you need expertise. I mean, if you know, if you’re going to not have a search committee and may Sometimes people can hire a certain person not to do the search, but just give advice. But I think you want someone on the committee that has experienced in recruitment, identifying screening candidates and all that’s happened things, so

[00:22:11.40] spk_5:
you could

[00:22:11.84] spk_0:
build it up. Great.

[00:22:15.91] spk_3:
Okay. Okay. Um, this search committee has to assure that applicants confidentiality is gonna be maintained, right?

[00:22:41.07] spk_0:
You want a crucial because I make it clear to all my such amazing you could be you could be sued for. Ah, um we could be potentially have a liability for exposing that there is a candidate. You tell your friend, by the way, you know donating. Is it been interviewing for me and and before you know it, Tony’s employer finds out, you know, feels like this is loyal to the prom, so you have to protect confidential. It’s something that I have to establish the trust of my chance coming in. They’re out. They’re they’re adamant, and it’s just it goes with the same goes with the business. I have to keep them confidential. There’s no way can let people know they’re seeking a

[00:23:07.71] spk_3:
job. And this goes partly to, ah, the time commitment. You know, if if there isn’t a ah ah, a search consultant helping some of these conversations that the early stage is gonna have to be after hours people are gonna be comfortable talking between, you know, nine and six PM

[00:24:12.45] spk_0:
Yeah, I had, you know, in our business is growing tremendously. What’s what’s going on. But you know, when people you know, maybe I’ll do it myself if you can. It’s up to you, but the time involved for not just the identifying the characteristics and compasses of what you want, but the outreach to potential candidates. Very time consuming. If you’re going to delegate that members of a church Dominion war So you know professionals are working or even retired. It’s a lot of work involved in screening people, scheduling interviews, scheduling meetings, being qualified to interview people. It’s a lot of time. Of all the narrowing candidates down and doing the reference checking, it’s quite a bit. So there’s a lot of work that’s involved in the process, not just putting in and out there and then, you know, interviewing kids. It’s quite a bit of work to both sell candidates on why they want to take a look at this opportunity. That’s really important,

[00:24:17.63] spk_3:
which is when I was just gonna point out that you say something that caught my eye was very, very interesting. I hadn’t heard before that the search committee has an obligation to our role Thio be selling the applicants on the organization Not

[00:24:30.88] spk_5:
just to be not just to be a neutral a

[00:24:33.02] spk_3:
neutral committee, but be advocates for the organ.

[00:24:52.80] spk_0:
Yeah, I mean, the cannon is gonna come in, they’re gonna come in prepared, and they’re there to sell themselves. And what often happens on some cases where the search committee say, Jeez, I thought, you know, how come they don’t think that we’re the best thing since sliced bread? Well, you want to convey a sense of optimism, a sense of enthusiasm. So you need the candidate’s gonna besides what the search consultant is gonna be telling them about the organization of recruiting for as a search committee, a CZ members that you want to be portraying a very positive image. You want to be sort of extending your hand. You want to be greeting them. You want to make them feel welcome in warm, even if you’re not gonna be selected them. And you noted on the process you want to believe with a very positive for Donna. That’s a major all the search committee as it is.

[00:25:43.32] spk_3:
All right? Yeah. Interesting. Let’s move, Thio, Resume screening. You got. You got a ton of tips you’ve you’ve reviewed thousands of. But you’ve got You’ve got a lot of tips to share. Share a couple of resume screen tips Now, we’re at that stage that these things are coming in. Resume resumes a lot of resumes coming out share, share a couple of resumes, screening tips,

[00:26:33.79] spk_0:
a couple things one of things you want to look for is Clary right off the bat asses. Clary. Is it clear as to how their name and how to get a hold of you? You don’t always have to have your home address these days, but certainly a phone number and email address. I think I look for one of things that we look for on our team is more of a chronological history. I want to know kind of where, where’s your career bed and a couple of tips you look for someone’s been, you know, in a job every one or two years, and they leave quite quickly. That’s a that’s a signal potential red flag, red flag were bad thing, but it should be there. The other thing that those there some people for it is the functional resume where you get a sense of what their skills are experiences, but you never get intensive where they perform that. So two things on a resume, both for people that are considering throwing their hat in the ring on applying for a position or responding to a search from is clarity is the resume clear of what I’ve accomplished is it clear what have achieved as a clear in terms of the timetables have. And I think that’s a couple of tips on the resume that it really

[00:26:51.37] spk_3:
yeah, that that gap in employment that could be a woman who took time off to raise Children

[00:27:00.22] spk_5:
absolutely. Was a caregiver was given for power

[00:27:11.59] spk_0:
that was concerned about a gap. And I said, Just tell him you have a PhD in parenthood. I mean, should be proud to be a parent way. Don’t have parents. We don’t keep that one. So I think it’s totally appropriate. But be honest with what you don’t want to do is start to cover things up here, Um, and so the, you know, present yourself in a positive tone. But certainly be honest if you took a couple of years out or time out to raise Children and be proud of it. And you did but these skills and bring back the table, I’m educated Workforce.

[00:27:30.47] spk_5:
I think

[00:27:31.17] spk_0:
I’m playing with that.

[00:27:34.97] spk_3:
Let me ask you a quick one. Does this turn you off? When you see people with email addresses that are Hotmail or a ol? Does that suggest to you that somebody is out of touch with technology

[00:27:58.20] spk_0:
now. I don’t know. Not any. Tell you why? Because most of them have to e mails. They have their business email and the personal email. And so they don’t want ah, search from or an organization that there may be talking to going into their professional at work email

[00:27:59.17] spk_5:
like, Yeah, I get that.

[00:28:04.63] spk_0:
I’m okay with the Gmail accounts. It’s when I see you know Dennis at, you know, big love dot com. I

[00:28:11.83] spk_5:
have Is that you? I’m gonna try that one. Yeah. Okay,

[00:28:15.05] spk_3:
but wait. Yeah, And then when did the e mails that are unprofessional? Like baby cakes, you know, But

[00:28:25.47] spk_5:
I don’t want no baby cakes. Yeah, that’s unprofessional, but all right,

[00:28:27.77] spk_0:
I think it’s a potato to protect you. You know, your privacy from work. I think that’s fun.

[00:28:47.61] spk_3:
All right, but let me ask you. But but my point was, if it’s an added, you know, sort of added date domain, like a o. L or Hotmail or yeah, you know, does that suggest to you that somebody’s not hip with the current with technology? Now,

[00:28:51.94] spk_0:
if you know, if you haven’t out of the email address, and then your resume looks out of date and it’s not clear that’s not gonna help you. So if that is your email address, um, and at that, eh? Oh, well, I mean, I’m flying with that.

[00:29:05.98] spk_5:
I’m

[00:29:06.37] spk_0:
playing with that.

[00:31:31.72] spk_3:
All right? Long is not baby cakes today. Oh, well, all right, way Need to take a break, wegner. No. Cougar Mountain Cuckoo Mountain software designed from the bottom up for nonprofits. What that means for you is that it’s got what you need. Like fund accounting, fraud prevention, grant and donor management. Custom reporting the awesome customer service. Cougar Mountain has a free 60 day trial on the listener landing page, which you will always find at tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant. Now it’s time for Tony’s take to last chance. This is the last call for innovators with doing the innovators. Siri’s in early 2020. Got a bunch of people I could use a couple more if you or someone you know, our, um tackling a problem or just approaching whatever challenges day to day issues in a different way. Then you think your ah, your colleagues elsewhere are and you’re having some success with it. Then I’d like to talk to you because you might be right for our innovators. Siris, Are you Are you innovating? Whether it’s any the fundraising topics which are myriad or its board relationships or could be bored recruiting CEO recruiting like we’re talking about today, whatever it is. Program management. Um, if you’re doing something innovative, tell me about it. Let me know you got You’ve had some success at it and let’s talk. Let’s see if there’s a fit for our innovators. Siri’s. You can get me at tony at tony-martignetti dot com or used the contact page at tony-martignetti dot com. That is tony Stick to. Shall we continue with Dennis Miller and recruiting your CEO? I say we shall. Dennis Miller’s with us. You know him? We’re talking about his book, A guide to recruiting your next CEO. You know, we can’t We can’t cover the whole book, so just get the thing. For goodness sake. You know it’s a dentist. See miller dot com. That’s where you’ll find dentists in this book. Just get the damn thing. It’s just that I don’t know how to make it any plainer. All right, anyway, Dennis, let’s continue our joint through Um okay, so we’ve got a bunch of resumes and the book goes through Lots of lots of resume screening tips. I mean, when I don’t have time to go through all the tips, but there’s a lot there. Um, now we’re into interviewing. So you say there are two things were looking for. They were looking for the interpersonal and skills ability.

[00:33:40.69] spk_0:
Absolutely. I mean the entity process. Once we screen people intense of un resume on paper, we certainly begin actually with phone interviews and then once leaves, go to the phone in the process, and we can get a better sense of where they are. As a potential candidate, we may explain a final car weather at one. A salary package, so without can’t be wasting people’s time here. But there are a couple of two things you’re looking for. Um, do they have a cultural fit? Do they have interpersonal skills that will build your team on 18 builders or the You know, are they collaborators of the good communicators? And then obviously did they have the ability to deliver positive results. And I think those two things is what kinda, you know, separates the people who get to positions of those that don’t hear. I. We advised. Certainly the search committee on you know the question should be focused on Limited tony, too. You know, their person’s behavior, their skills, their experience, what they bring to the table, not things that deal with things like, you know, age and discrimination and gender and all those kind of things that you want to avoid. But the bottom line is who can communicate their ability to get along with people because it’s a team game and committal results. Those are two things that are a crucial now, one of things that you may ask me. I just want answers ahead of time is we have and your listeners could get if they contact and get onto our newsletter. But we at non profit search dot com, we provide a candidate matrix that has sort of a scoring sheet with certain questions on it. I would have told a score of 50 and whether it’s on leadership, communications street, strategic planning board relationships, etcetera. So when people actually going to the interview process on the search committee and you’ve got 48 people supposedly going in the search committee members can evaluate for people and where people come out. Usually it’s good to have with them.

[00:33:52.62] spk_3:
You have a lot of resource is at the non profit search dot com. So, uh, you mentioned throughout the book, but that’s scoring Matrix is one of them. All right, so let’s get into some details here now. Is the whole committee meeting with every, um, every candidate? Because if it’s subsets of a committee meeting with different candidates, then I don’t. That doesn’t seem fair to me because different subsets air gonna judge people differently.

[00:34:35.03] spk_0:
Yeah, well, here’s what we do. Um And, um, the answer is that the entire search committee needs prepared to interview all the candidates. Now, in a case we just have here because it’s got multiple locations, there are actually eight people on a search committee and four will meet in one location and four met another location. Actually, each candidate each of the five final candidates you met which twice, but they but they are all seeing yet you cannot have one group meet so many candidates and another good meet the only other candy that’s part of the process with a search committee he’s gonna be on the committee. You have to have the type of every every candidate to be seen by every person

[00:34:54.42] spk_3:
you advocate. I mean, this is sort of a no brainer, but just make it explicit, you know? You don’t want to be asking Yes, no questions. You are open ended questions.

[00:35:35.66] spk_0:
Yeah, you hear? You don’t want to say, You know, uh, you want you want engage him in conversation and they want engage you in conversation too. And so, you know, asking questions. What was the most challenging thing you had a deal with in your current position? On your most recent position? What was the your biggest achievement? Uh, he has an issue for us. How would you deal with it? Stay away from the yes or no questions. And we have, You know, we’ve identified on a website and our resources and our book here. No question to be asking, but it’s not open it. Not not yes or no Open ended question. Engagement of conversation is the best.

[00:35:43.20] spk_3:
Okay, uh, let’s say we’ve everybody has interviewed all the candidates. Uh, now what’s our next step in the committee?

[00:36:55.22] spk_0:
What will you want to do is you wanna have everybody son of score the candidates and give feedback on the candidates and have the board chair or someone assigned to oversee the accumulation of all the scoring so you can see how people did. And then what you want to do is and what we do is I have I have a conversation with this share of the search committee, and then, uh, I will then meet with the search committee, or one of my senior member of the team will meet with the search committee, dependable of the searches and what it’s for. And then we they may determine that. Listen, there’s one final candidates. There’s just one person they like and they want to bring him back to meet with people in the organization. Take him on a tour or there’s two final plans. They’re not sure. So there’s a process here. The pluses here is obviously to let the other candidates know that they did well and they thank you before participating. But there’s someone at this point in time that has a skill centre experience that’s Maur meets the needs of my client. We hope to see him again. The future and then focus in on having to help them make a final decision on the candidate before we get involved and advise him on making making a final offer on an employment contract. Employment agreement

[00:37:14.41] spk_3:
right now in this scoring, Obviously, some were going to score highest in High Esten higher than others. But suppose there’s just there’s just a sense that, uh, you know, even the highest scoring one or two just they’re just not right. It was just, you know, like I said, every in a group of five. Somebody’s going to score the highest. But even that highest one, they just don’t feel right, you know? How do we way feel like we may have to go back to the go back to the recruitment process

[00:37:36.37] spk_5:
Well expressed. Happened,

[00:39:20.56] spk_0:
uh, you know, only once in my recent experience where, um, in most cases, uh, in addition, the scoring members of the search committee and you know, as you know, the millions of millions of people that serve on non proper boards throughout this country and in other countries. In Canada, you know, our bright, committed people, they gotta see it. You gotta feel for, you know, who you think would fit in here. So usually you know the scores will help you because it gives you a feedback. But usually you get a kind of feeling who would be the best person for that If there’s a situation, Um, that, you know, the search committee sees the final candidates. And if it happens that you feel like there’s, you know, just not feeling it for those candidates, I absolutely would highly recommend that you go back and do the search again. We have a situation with a very prominent national foundation. We started with believing out of pool of 18 candidates, uh, knit, knit up, down with it down to 11. That was down to five. And five people came in. And so the entire team and that team in there identified, you know, two people and, uh, lo and behold, some discussion and some some time issues, and then people not sure what decision to make. And it was some inexperience on the team making decision, and they kind of planted and they just so I’m not sure I’m ready to pull the trigger. So we were disappointed for the work we did. We will back out into the search again and usually don’t get the great candidates again. And we did, and it worked out. So if for some reason you don’t feel it, I dont just say, Well, because there’s a high score because you’re gonna live with this person quite awhile. Usually does not happen. Tony.

[00:39:24.64] spk_5:
You, um

[00:39:34.96] spk_0:
you know the search for doing the work, you’ll get the right candidate. But if it’s amazing, you feel that, you know, I just don’t feel it. So this person is going to fit in here that don’t just pick someone because of scored. The scores are one of the many tools will you offer to help you pick your candidate?

[00:39:41.30] spk_3:
Is this the stage where we should be calling references? Now we’ve We’ve narrowed it down to our top two or

[00:39:45.51] spk_5:
so.

[00:40:20.91] spk_0:
So what will a CZ We get? The final can’t wait, Do ask for reference, but here’s what we do. We don’t ask them. They tell us who they’re going to use this reference. We are specific and ask him for the type of reference we’re looking. For example, in a CEO case, we know they can’t talk about the company we’d liketo have been talked. We’d like to talk to someone who is a board member, maybe a board member. Another organization would like to talk to someone that appear that they have done a lot of work with. We would like to talk to someone that has worked for them. So, uh, we don’t always talkto the references. I had a time because if you’ve got four final candidates, we it’s not about our time. It’s that we if you’re not going to be chosen, why go through the hassle of asking people and speaking to the reference But with your Jarious final candidate, we absolutely do a thorough construct. And I have a little bit of a funny story that you’re Listen,

[00:40:45.19] spk_5:
um, you

[00:41:15.73] spk_0:
may enjoy it just kind of quickly here, and it goes back a long time ago when I did my first start believing not 30 years ago, and I was recruiting someone to head up a healthcare foundation and came down to two people, and it was, ah, man, a woman. And remember, the man had sort of Maur experience, But the young woman had seemed like much more potential anyway, for some reason, that the man had given me a list of 10 references. Don’t ask me why, but he gave me 10 references, and I call it the 46 References. This man kind of walked on water. He was, you know, could have been their spiritual guru.

[00:41:22.76] spk_5:
But the time I got the

[00:41:23.74] spk_0:
78 I really got a sense that people were not that comfortable. Then by the time I got denying, 10 people were asking me, you know, why did you What did this guy even give me a reference?

[00:41:36.38] spk_5:
The moral stories you want to keep,

[00:42:12.63] spk_0:
you know, kind of dig in here, and it’s certainly you have a light as a as an organization, and you have a right as a search committee to, you know, find out what you know about people, which is what we d’oh and same time protecting a confidential alley. But certainly we need to do a thorough research on them. And then, in addition to references, we obviously do a check on, um, educational credentials. And then we advise our clients baseball what state they’re in about what they can do and not do regarding the one pursue feeling criminal background check, will and credit credit risk of credit reports.

[00:42:58.13] spk_3:
It sounds like that guy on his word document that he gave you with the list of was 30 years ago. We didn’t have words we have. We have word. We’re gonna be using that word perfect. Where you had to write down at the bottom, you have to change the bold face down at the bottom of page. Anyway, it sounds like he conflated his do not use list with his reference list that he did want to use, like, the last four. We’re We’re on a separate list and he somehow put the two of them together. All right, we gotta take a break. I missed our last break. You ever wonder why some nonprofits are always mentioned in the news? It’s because they work to build relationships with journalists who matter to them. Turn to communications can help you to do that. They themselves are former journalists. They specialize

[00:43:04.45] spk_4:
in helping nonprofits build meaningful media relationships that lead to great coverage. They’re a

[00:43:45.38] spk_3:
turn hyphen to dot ceo. Let’s add a little more live love. We got someone jumped in from New York, New York. Welcome. Welcome. New New York New York listener Also. Bangkok, Thailand. I’ve been there and that’s a beautiful city. Beautiful, rich history and, uh, Tijuana, Mexico. Wegner Star Days, Tijuana. Let’s go back. We’ve got butt loads. More time, as we always do for recruiting your next CEO. Now back to Dennis Miller and his book, a guy to recruiting your next CEO. Let’s continue our joint. Ah, Ajanta Dennis. Okay, so we’ve checked references, references, and this and that we’re bringing some people in were like site tours And what? They’re meeting some of the staff now, too. And maybe even some of some of the people who are getting our service is,

[00:44:01.29] spk_0:
uh, no, what? We worked a

[00:44:02.76] spk_5:
man that don’t do that made staff

[00:44:05.36] spk_0:
until they are having a pleasant

[00:44:08.26] spk_5:
way.

[00:44:29.60] spk_0:
In actuality, you don’t You don’t really want the staff on my opinion on a CEO level. Uh, they have to pick the CEO. If it’s another level. Certainly, if it’s a chief operating officer of chief financial officer, it’s probably appropriate to have other members of the executive team meet with them, then find out who’s a better fit culture, that line.

[00:44:32.94] spk_5:
But

[00:44:34.11] spk_0:
on a CEO, though, you won’t make it clear that the board is making the decision and I would not have staff involved on interviewing until mating accepted.

[00:44:45.18] spk_3:
So who are they meeting then? In this this day when they’re going to visit the visit? The site.

[00:44:50.16] spk_0:
While so many have gone to the search committee, Obviously, there’s no one else to me except the entire board. So if you’re talking about the CEO

[00:44:58.03] spk_5:
way, our home,

[00:46:29.73] spk_0:
that once a search committee has made a decision, um, before an offer was made, it’s, uh, what the search committee wants to Dio doesn’t really have any authority to itself. You wanna search? Committee should be making a recommendation to the entire board, and in many cases, and I will advise us is have that final CEO Warren. The case where there’s too close candidates committed. Meet the entire board may be on the same day, you know, spend a little time with each one. Um, if if there’s one, that’s clearly, uh, the person that everybody wants. Don’t waste the time of having to to feel you have to bring a 2nd 1 and you given someone hope when when they’re not probably gonna be selected But I have an interesting story, tony, that you listen, May 1. Here. Uh, about a year ago, we did a search for a CEO, and the search committee had him ranked. Wanted to have this. Ah, woman ranked one and a guy number two. And, um, I had agreed with that recommendation. Thought it was the best way of going. And by the time those two candidates came in to meet with the entire board and this is an unusual situation. Ah, the board ended up going with the number two candidate and not the number one candidate. And some things came up in discussions. And I think at the end of day, they made the right decision. So don’t forget, the board has the final hiring authority. They delegate that that a search committee to search committee is here to recommend candidates. But do not hire a CEO from a search committee on Lee. They must meet the entire board.

[00:46:35.38] spk_3:
Have you ever heard of co CEOs?

[00:47:32.68] spk_0:
Yeah, I have. And I I found it never. Well, a couple times, it rarely works there. It works in a case where today there’s a lot of mergers and acquisitions so both people take on the role of co CEO. 1 may have responsibility for maybe a certain geography one than another. Ah, one’s focus more on one thing I before not the have it. I think, uh, co CEOs is like co board chairs. Um, it doesn’t make a feeling that anybody is really in charge. Um, I’m working with an organization right now out in California because we do certainly national searches as well as in Canada. And you know, there’s a transition going on and it’s the heart organization. It’s important to know who’s in charge. So if it has to happen and you’re particularly with a merger, can you have it? Yes, but ideally, it sooner than later, it’s only a position. You can’t have a Coast CEO. It doesn’t work. I’ve seen co chief development offices, and it doesn’t work either. I mean, I think someone has to be in charge. So that’s my opinion.

[00:48:18.83] spk_3:
Okay, way explored co CEOs with Jean Takagi. So if anyone wants Thio, get more on that. That was the May 19th 2017 show with Gene. Um, Okay. Um all right, we, uh it’s time to negotiate an offer we were, uh we’ve selected our top one. Um, you like guards? Guidestar. They have? I don’t know if you mentioned I know them. Guide star has a good salary guide. Comes out every year. S Oh, it’s it’s current. Um, but do you have other studies that you like?

[00:48:21.17] spk_0:
Yeah, a couple of things here. We have a good sense of what the marketplaces like. Different geography, maybe

[00:48:26.80] spk_5:
waken

[00:48:46.47] spk_0:
use guide star and I. I like your condition well, but here’s the palm and it’s not Guide says bomb. Is that usually the data that’s in there where you have the five highest compensated employees? It’s probably two years old. Um, even if it says 2016 and you’re in 17 it may have been, you know, we were involved in June of 2015 so I don’t rely upon that Nestle as a guide for

[00:48:53.31] spk_5:
making offer. I

[00:49:23.71] spk_0:
know what the organization, um, is looking to pay. I know what What? The Sally is people that are looking, and then we I advise because I’m involved in every single. So I advise my client is what I think it’s gonna take to get the person I’ve seen clients do salary surveys using Geiser and other things that commit some other compensations. Raise. There’s nothing wrong with it, but what you don’t get from that. You don’t know what the performance of the organization has been. You don’t know how well they’ve done. You don’t know what how well they’ve done with fund raising.

[00:49:30.20] spk_5:
You

[00:49:39.63] spk_0:
know, you don’t know much about him other than what the total budget is. So one of the advantages of doing what? What the rate is to attract some money, and that’s kind of what we do.

[00:49:43.61] spk_3:
Okay, let’s spend our last couple minutes. Ah, you just gotta buy the book because there’s a lot more about negotiating the offer in the book. But I wanna spend last couple minutes just about two minutes or so on on on boarding. This is a board responsive board responsibility.

[00:50:09.19] spk_0:
Well, that’s a big thing. I mean, you know, if you talk to CEOs, I mean, half of them have never been on border. So what? What do you mean by sort of on board a candidate? Well, are on boarding. I’m boarding. If you don’t get on board, you get hired, and then you start, and then you go, Jeez, I don’t know. This is the way. Itwas

[00:50:15.06] spk_3:
you know, you’re not supported in your new digital, John. So

[00:50:25.65] spk_0:
I know what you on boarding refers to. The idea of preparing a CEO to adjust to the new social, cultural and professional components

[00:50:26.92] spk_5:
of the new

[00:51:14.06] spk_0:
role and or to the board here really, very important that be some type of on boarding process. So, as an example here, here’s some things you would want to be thinking about with on boarding. Here is, um let’s be clear. So both the board and the CEO and again, you could say the same thing about a CEO or CFO. What? She’s development officer. Same thing here is what are the expectations of each other? Clearly, that’s gonna come up. Don’t interview puzzle, but that needs to be known. How often does the board chair I want to communicate to the CEO? Did they want to meet monthly? Did they want have a phone conversation on every other Friday? Did they want e mails or not e mails that they want to meet for breakfast? Um, what does the board want the CEO to accomplish in the 1st 30 days or 60 days, or maybe 180

[00:51:21.37] spk_5:
days.

[00:51:27.63] spk_0:
What the cultural issues or financial issues that the organization is facing. What senior members of the team may have some performances. The watch out for who were the key stakeholders outside the organization, like donors of volunteers that you want the seal to make sure that building wishes perhaps, maybe with a local Congress person or a member of the Senate Assembly here.

[00:51:46.27] spk_3:
Dennis Dennis. We gotta leave it there. There’s too much.

[00:51:49.16] spk_5:
All right. Thank

[00:52:08.43] spk_3:
you so much, Dennis. Same for you. Get the book. It is a guy to recruiting your next CEO. You’ll find it at Dennis c. Miller dot com, and you’ll find him at Dennis C. Miller next week. We don’t have any show, so I’m wishing you happy. Turkey Day. Help you enjoy your Thanksgiving. I hope it’s time away from work, including email and text.

[00:52:19.61] spk_4:
If texting is part of your work,

[00:53:03.64] spk_3:
um, and time with family, family and maybe even dear friends. I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving. We’ll be back on December 6th with Vivian Hexter on Big Impact. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by wegner-C.P.As guiding you beyond the numbers wegner-C.P.As dot com But Cougar Mountain Software Denali Fund is there Complete accounting solution made for nonprofits tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Mountain for a free 60 day trial and by turned to communications, PR and content for your non profit. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen to dot CEO creative producers

[00:53:44.00] spk_2:
Clad Meyerhoff. Sam Leave, which is the lying producer thief shows social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein Knew every next week for non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95% will actually be with me in two weeks for big non profit ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great talking alternative radio 24 hours a day.

Nonprofit Radio for March 1, 2019: Your CEO/Board Chair Relations

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Aisha Nyandoro: Your CEO/Board Chair Relations
You, or your CEO, as the case may be, need to work together with your board chair toward an aligned vision. How do you establish it and what if it gets blurry? Aisha Nyandoro shepherds us through CEO/board chair and full board relations, as in recruiting, onboarding, engaging and removing. She’s CEO of Springboard to Opportunities.




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Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti non-profit radio Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of ventricular itis if you broke my heart with the idea that you missed today’s show your CEO, board chair, relations you or your CEO, as the case may be, need to work together with your board chair toward an Aligned Vision. How do you establish it? And what if it gets blurry? Aisha nyandoro shepherds us through CEO board chair and full board relations, as in recruiting onboarding engaging and removing she’s CEO of Springboard to Opportunities. Tony’s Take two act Blue responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled Tony dahna slash pursuant by Wagner CPAs. Guiding you Beyond the numbers. Wagner cps dot com Bye. Tell us. Turning credit card processing into your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash Tony Tell us and by text to give mobile donations made easy text. NPR to four four four nine nine nine It’s a pleasure to welcome Asian nyandoro back to the show. She is chief executive officer of Springboard to opportunities. Springboard provides strategic direct support to residents of federally subsidized, affordable housing. She’s been an academic and evaluator, a philanthropist and NON-PROFIT executive. She’s a Ted ex speaker and her work has been featured in Essence Magazine, CNN, MSNBC, Fast Company, the Nation and other media. Isha’s life mission is to holistically and compassionately lift families out of cycles of poverty. She’s at Isha underscore Nyandoro and springboard to opportunities. Is that springboard to dot or ge? Welcome back to Non-profit Radio Ayesha. Thank you so much for having me back. Tony Beets. Absolute pleasure. Sorry. Yes, thank you. I’m glad it feels good for you. It feels good for me. Um, you’re calling in from Ah, you in Jackson, Mississippi? Is that right? I am calling you from a rainy, dreary day here. Injected it. Good. OK, it’s always good. It’s always good in the south, right? Yeah, it’s I like that. It’s always a good thing coming. Fancy coming for somebody? The Northeast Teo, You know, we’re all jaded and think we’re the center of the universe. No, that’s not true. All right. I’m glad to have you back. It was about three years ago. I look back. It was about three years ago, actually to the month. I think it was May have been a January of twenty sixteen that you were on. So it’s, uh it’s been three years since I met you at the opportunity collaboration, which must have been that the October before. That must’ve been October twenty fifteen. That’s exactly right. Well, and a lot of a lot of change since then. But I’m still doing the same great work with springboards opportunity here in Jackson. And so yeah, I think I’ve seen you two be good. I’m glad. Alright. I love your laugh to scorn. Follow-up lifting. Love it. Okay. Um, so your your primary point we got, you know, we have an hour together, so we got time to Flesh is sold out. But you’re you’re very concerned about having an aligned vision between you as CEO and your board chair. What? What does that look like? A big align vision is really a vision where you, as the CEO are maintaining your ideals, your leadership and not losing yourself in the voice of the chair of your board. But they’re also really recognizing that in order for that vision, come to pass, but you really do need the support of the chair. So it really is a beautiful day in, and it is a relationship that a lot of intentionality and work has to be put into. And I don’t. I think a lot of folks understand. I understand the work and the balance that it takes a really maintaining those relationship. And that is not something that happens overnight. And, well, you know, if I get the relationship in order to make sure that you’re getting all of the benefits from the relationship, you have to invest in it. And so, you know, that’s true with the relationship between the CEO, our executive director and the board chair really being intentional about the relationship and putting the work in and ensure that both parties are getting the support that they need from it. Okay, just like any personal relationship or or like any part of the relationship yesterday evening, it’s the same thing. And I think the best beauty about you know, it really is something that translates over easily into personal relation. Because what you’re bored Chair, you really do have to have a personal relationship with them. It just can’t be about whatever is going on professionally with the organization, because so we lead of organization. So much of your personal idea ideology is invested into it. And so because of that you, you know, Yes. You have to have a personal relationship with that individual, will you? You said it’s a It’s a beautiful dance. Uh, who leads? Even Think of a way your words against you Eve. Of course, to see only because the CEO is the head of the organization. But with that that thing you really have, tio have a relationship where you can be open about your vision and your idea. And you can trust that you know it time that you all may not be on the same page and you’ve done the work and the relationship in investing in the relationship to trust that the relationship will still stay in even when you do have moments when you disagree. You know, for my board chair and I have a great relationship. I’ve known her now for years, and she is one of my absolute favorite people. But they are sometimes, but we have had to have courageous conversation and that is simply a conversation that was difficult because I knew that we were on different sides of, you know, a position that that we felt both passionately about. But because of that that we had done investing in a relationship ahead of time, we’re able to have those conversations were ableto agree to disagree. And the work continues. Okay, So give us give me a sense of what this looks like when you’re, uh you’re thinking about who’s who the next board chair is going to be. How do you You know, How do you start this dance? How do you make sure that he or she is aligned with the mission? The way you as the CEO are you before you select? I mean, you maybe have a couple of people. Maybe Maybe it’s a few board members. Or maybe he’s an outsider. You know, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t really bring an outsider on to be bored. Share, would you know, you bring out that you would cultivate them up, okay? You would cultivate them. You want someone who understands some of the historical history of the organization has that context of the work and you know, and has worked their way up the ranks start to stay in the board. Okay. And so far, you know, that’s a good question because currently springboard its own wrapping a new board chair. So we identified the chair who would take over the end of this year, and she’s currently serving in the role of vice chair. And so for me, the way that I am going about really fostering that relationship with her and getting to know her, it’s a chicken once someone you know, so we can begin to get to know each other, get to know it doesn’t work now, personalities I know her, but I don’t know her nearly as well as I know the board here with whom I talked to weekly and, you know, and that I’ve talked to weekly for No for years now. So just be really being intentional about putting that time and think, OK, let’s just you know, And, uh, my board chair is in Maine and fice Terrier. My board is in New Orleans. So where the vice chairs like? Okay, listen, virtual coffee because you are in the world. I am in Mississippi. I can’t physically see you want so much, but we can, you know, elect some time on our respective calendars. Just a connect and, you know, catch up with the work, catch up with personal life and just really no began to build those connections that I know are necessary when you’re trying to, you know, move strategy forward. Okay? Give me a chance for a break and we can compete up the conversation. Right. Right where you are. Just hold on. No problem. Pursuant, their newest free book is the Art of First Impressions. It’s all about Donorsearch acquisition. To attract new donors, you need to make a smashing first impression. How do you do it? E Book has their six guiding principles of ineffective acquisition strategy How to identify your organization’s unique value plus creative tips. You’ll find the book on the listener landing page at tony dot M. A slash pursuant capital P for please. All right, now, let’s go back to your CEO Board chair relations. Did you say your current board chairs in Maine? And the vice, The vice chair. The chair to be is in New Orleans. Is that right? That’s correct. Okay. Do you find now? Okay, Well, you’ve the current board chair. You’ve worked with her for years on DH before she was bored. Chair. You obviously were working, whether just not as closely did that distance, uh, hinder the relationship You, you know, not at all surprising. And that’s the thing with technology now. Yeah. You know, there’s so many opportunities to connect and really be a relation buy-in ship over with technology. We have no meetings there. Space time there’s, you know, text messages. There’s all these ways to stay connected. I text her all the time. It’s just something that I think is interesting, just our foreign, her different articles. So there really is so many ways that you could be a relationship and feel connectedness when you are not physically in the same space with someone. So I don’t want people to feel like, you know, in order to have a really great relationship with the boardmember that you have to have physical proximity because I found that not, you know, that has not had to be the case. Yeah. So you’re you’re texting frequently. Your you have these weekly calls with the board chair, but frequent texts back and forth, There’s just you know, it’s it’s deeper than a I don’t I don’t really know what to call it, so I don’t want to take a chance and blow it and call it something wrong. But it’s deeper than just a professional relationship you have with her That’s not exactly right. But I’m saying you know so much you really do get to the place where it is a personal relationship with Will I feel in order to truly advanced the work. You have to have those things and especially for those of us who lead now process because so much of non-profit working really hard work. So it really is a lot of your personal convictions. And, you know, it’s a lot of your personal convictions go into the work. So you do get to a place where you know it’s a professional personal relationship, but at the same time, you feel do recognise it. Okay, um, even though we have this relationship that it’s still it’s a working relationship. So it’s not as if you ever you know, blur the line and get to a place where you know you’re unprofessional or you can, you know, get really comfortable in some of the spaces because it still is your balls. And you still have to be mindful of that on DH. That’s just, you know, this is the reality of our working relationship. I feel Yeah, yeah. Now I hear you. It’s it’s a deeper professional relationship, but it’s still not, you know, it’s not a relationship with your friends. Of course you can’t. You can’t You can’t You can’t get that. That’s that would be inappropriate. But it’s but it’s not dry in stagnant, and you don’t know who wants to work in that space. It’s close. It’s close. I mean, it’s a close working relationship, so and so in terms of this, you know, vision alignment, you would. You would learn that as the person worked their way through the ranks of the board, I mean, whether whether they’re in line with the mission and they see it, the mission and the vision, the same way you do. You would learn that a cz you got to know them on the board, and if you didn’t feel it was a right fit, you know, to be to be chair, then you just, you know, you wouldn’t nominate that person or you would exactly right and that, and I think that’s exactly right. And I think it’s a lot to be said for that because I think sometimes wanted a steak that non-profit leaders to make. If you know, wanting to promote their friends and putting their friends on their boards in different things such as that, And then you know, you make your friend your board chair and you all may not have the same vision. And they they really affected friendship than an answer, being a really stressful situation for everyone involved. And so that really allowing the individual work up the ranks on the board and get to know that individual doesn’t mean that, you know, they’re your personal, your favorite person on the board. But is this the person that you understand? You are most aligned with the and that can really help carry the mission forward because of the end of the day, It is all about strategy and mission driven and trying to figure out how do you make sure that the organization is living out his mission? Envision as best, possibly when when you do have some rough spots, let’s say you know you. You said, you know you’re there times you know you’re on the other side of oven issue problem than the chair. How do you, uh, how do you approach it? You talk about it. If you don’t let us sit. I mean, haven’t you have open dialogue and conversations and you just go in and you lay out your position and your Russian allies, you’re give him out? You don’t go into Vince. Um, you build your best case for why you are advocating for whatever that position is, and you allowed them to do the same. But it really is that open dialogue and communication in trusting the work that you have put in and establishing a relationship to begin with. Yeah. You have a solid foundation that you’re building, right? You said earlier you’re confident that the relationship isn’t going to break down over this thiss obstacle. Obstacles overcome oppcoll, but it takes open communication to do it. And I really do think that’s a sign of a healthy relationship. When you can have those disagreements and recognize it at the end of the day, everybody’s okay. Because if you were not able to go to your board chair and say I disagree with you on that, or I don’t think this makes the most sense in here is why is it a relationship and, you know, and are you out truly allying And so to be. If you are not in a place where you can have it on a silo, there’s no more that needs to be done with that relationship. Okay. Okay. Uh, excellent. All excellent advice. What? Let’s see. So So before we before we start talking to the to the bigger issues and I’ll move, move to the bigger board and the CEO relationships there. What? Maybe you’ve already said it, but what would be your your number one takeaway for that? For that board chair CEO relationship, the number one takeaway really would be for first CEO to understand their vision for the organization and to feel comfortable communicating that beige into whoever, whether or not to be your board chaired. The donor is the staff members of the board members that whoever that has to truly know what your vision is on Bac comfortable in that space and then from there, hold having open dialogue and communication with your board share regularly. And recognizing that fostering that relationship has just so much a part of your job as the fund-raising aspects of your relation of your job. It always, you know, extreme part of your job description. Well, that was to take aways, but I’ll let you go. Your anarchist now. Yeah, you weasel doing there. But that’s fine. Not all important. I’m just getting, um, Yeah, I mean, I hear you communication, open dialogue, a strong, foundational relationship. Uh, you know, as you said, so that you can you can be honest in the rough times and hear each other and work through. No, no obstacle is insurmountable. If there’s if there’s a strong relationship. Teo, att the base. All right, Cool. All right, so, so broadening a little bit. You know, if we if we go to the think about now the CEO relationship with the Fuller, that the bigger board, um, how do you How do you get involved with board recruiting Yeah, so you know, for us, boy recruiting, really. Governance committee. Where must again, we’re going through that process right now, We have a governor’s committee where we have set up a metric of what it is that we know. That we need organizational in orderto helpless, you know, extra cheese, the pieces of our strategic plan that was recently identified. And so it really is using that rubric to help guide our decisions about what makes the most sense. And that’s where you know, having strong boardmember that are well connected labbate locally, regionally, nationally also comes into place because they can make recommendations and allow us the CEO to say yea or nay order, do some research on those individuals going. You know what, the CEO, you have individual that you think they make sense that that really is where bilich conversation should come into play. And it could be a fun process. But, you know, really thinking about who gets to be a part of division for the next three or so years moving for it. You know, I love. I love putting boards together. You know, one of my favorite pieces of my job, because it really is a lot of fun. So you lean on your board members toe open up their networks. Teo. Potential board members. Yes, the and Boardmember should recognize that that is a big part of their job as well. You know, provide access to their network into really be Campion’s before the organization with their friends and colleagues. You know, talk about what is this? That we’re doing a talk about what it is that the organization is doing not just from by natural lorts teeth, but also from, you know, he wasn’t a recruitment. Peace and social capital is really important, and we have a dynamic board right now in the majority of the board members that we have have come directly from referrals from other board members. And so shall you know the board. Your board’s ability to provide their connections in that social capital is just as important to me. In my opinion, for them to help with the financial fund-raising aspect of it is Will. And this well is there. You know, they’re content expertise because our board is still a fairly small board. So I really do rely on thy boardmember. They have contact because experts in various pieces on that we know will be to be strategic and move forward. Okay. I probably should’ve asked before you stay. You’re stuck with Ah, lackluster host. I’m sorry. Describe your tell us about your board. How big? What committees do you have? Yes. Our board is really small working board. We have seven board members were potentially about to growth either nine or eleven. And yeah, and everyone. Everyone on the border’s content expert that aligned to specific buckets. The work that we do for the organization. So we have individuals who are housing expert. Since we’re working affordable housing experts. Since we work in the space of federally subsidized, affordable housing, we have individuals who are organizational strategist. Because when we started seventy years ago, we said that we knew that we would be growing rapidly so that we so we knew we needed someone that provided a level level of expertise. So it really is matching Arnie. Finding is like chess. The needs that we have fighting appropriate individuals to feel that gap for us. Now, how does that feel? You if you’re going to grow from seven to ten or eleven, I mean, that’s Ah, that’s like roughly a fifty percent increase in inboard size. How does that feel it feels about? It feels right. It feels like it’s time we go back your fourth and you know. And so if you know it will bring bring on either two or three, so so it doesn’t feel too big on there. Still is manageable because, you know a lot of CEO time managing for it. It helps relations with those things. Those bilich manageable for me. I don’t know if I don’t want to have a board that is twenty members or fifteen members or different things fishes at which those of my colleagues have. So it feels it feels good. And it feels like we’ve all been involved in the process of getting to the place of having a board decide on that. Feels like it’s timely that, you know we’re being conscious of the organization’s posts and where we are and saying, OK, as we have grown in our strategies and our footprint, we need to bring on more experts that can help in these various spaces, though it’s not something that we’ve done happenstance, very few teaching in time. So where we are, which is also very important for individuals to be mindful of. Yeah, yeah. Mindful that you’ve you’ve identified areas of need that a springboard has grown that you now require. And so you’re expanding the board to bring those experts bring those experts in. Exactly. It’s not like we said, Alice. Bring more boardmember just because it feels like we’re way behind a lawyer. But the lawyer will you see piela? No, not like that. Okay. Yeah. You don’t want lawyers anyway. You you stay away from lawyers. Trust me, we’re bad. I used to be one. I don’t remember the Oh, I’m reformed. Exactly. So you get get reformed attorneys. They’re good because they still have subject matter. Expertise. There may not be able to represent you, but they still have good advice to give. They have a kind of expertise you need exactly. Right. Okay. Okay. That’s exciting. I mean, that growth, that kind of growth. Um Okay. So you’re Yeah. It’s kind of a follow on, too, you know, leaning on your board members, Teo, bring in their networks, you know, do you? Do you subscribe to the belief that you know if if you’re not asking your board members to do enough. Then they’re going to start to get disengaged and bored versus I’m afraid I might be asking him to do too much. I don’t want to impose. You know, I don’t want to take more of their time. They’re already spending ten hours a month. I mean, how do you how do you fall in that on DH? How do you balance that? So far, it’s only balance when we are bringing on board members or with our boardmember very honest about the time commitment and, you know, and also very honest about it. And we’d like, if it were small board, so he empopwering brought on as a constant burghdoff x, y Z, whatever it is that we need. So there may be some months where I leave more heavily protect one particular boardmember than others, and I’ve come to learn that they actually really appreciate that. And for so many of them, they’re bored service. It’s a part of their community service because we don’t have a paid boards where really is their, you know, their service, and they approach vitiate, being able to use their expertise and something differently than how they use it in their ninety five. And so, yeah, I think it just really goes that, too. The being honest about what the demands are of the boards were prior to asking somebody to come on. And I really do by within the space of utilizing the folks that you had at the table. And if it feels like too much, they will let you know whether or not they don’t have the commitment or had to have availability at that particular moment to provide the level of commitment that you may need a But I think you have to ask for what it is that you beat, and that hell is so you have to do everything by yourself. Yeah, there’s like, you have a board, so I don’t have to do everything by yourself. Yes, I’ve had guests on say, You know, you can’t be a subject matter expert in everything there’s on. There’s no time for you to learn And that’s that’s pointless because it takes you away from what your what your own expertise already. Exactly. It takes you away from what the boys hyre todo if I’m over here trying to figure out accounting. That takes me away from all of the other pieces, and I’m supposed to be doing that. It’s not what they hired for, so there’s exactly right. Do you put the board expectations in writing at the recruiting stage? Do you give him a document that lines it out or hat? How do you make sure that they understand for sure what the expectations are, So we don’t do the expectations as faras the times you made a commitment in pieces. But there is when we’re going through the recruitment process, there are conversations will be multiple conversations with me on the conversations with the board chair and conversations with other boardmember. So they have last of opportunities tax question and then also lots of opportunities for various individuals who are connected to the organizations to provide their take on what the commitment looks like and what they needed and what their understanding of the organization. Okay, so you’re saying that several levels of interviews with, with you and board members I don’t like the word interview, the conversation mandatory, mandatory conversations just, you know, trying to feel interested that makes you know we’re tryingto field issues. But also really trying to make sure that we’re being transparent so that we can get the right fit, you know? And sometimes you know the path we on around the new boardmember. And we were really excited about her coming onboard. And I bumped into in, her job changed. And she knew that based on the various conversations that she had had with myself another boardmember, that she no longer would have the time necessary to provide the commitment that we needed. So she elected so, you know, jump off the board, even though she just jumped on the board, and that was good. But I think the expectations ahead of Thai And so before we get six months down the road or so it was, you know, easy for her to say. I know this is no longer want to work for me because we have been very open with our dialogue prior to Yeah, now that that’s the best outcome. If if that was gonna happen, that’s the best way to have it happen. She backs out in advance, bows out, pull my service. She you know, she says, know in advance versus she’s stressed over the commitment that she’s not fulfilling. You’re disappointed because she’s not mating upto the everything that you and you and the other board members laid out far while she was being recruited. You know, I would be disappointed on both sides, but obviously much better just have her back out. Okay? But the lesson is that she understood what the expectations were, and she took it seriously enough to know that she couldn’t fulfill them, so Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, let’s Ah, let me let me take another break, and then we’ll come back, and we’ll talk about a little more formal onboarding and keeping boardmember is engaged. And I even hoped that we could get toe having to remove board members, possibly before there, before their term is up. So we’ll come to that. Okay. Great. Where you see piela? A new archive. Webinar for you. Which is why she was just talking about accounting. It’s accounting update. What has changed this year that Wagner knows unqualified Lee. And you need to know a little bit. For instance, new requirements for financial statements. You’d like to be a little acquainted with it, but you don’t want to have to do them, certainly. And you don’t have to scrutinize him to make sure they meet Muster. But you want to be a little acquainted with the new requirements. That’s what this there there webinars all about. Goto wagner cps dot com Click Resource is then Webinars. Now time for Tony. Take two ActBlue. There are Premier Sponsor at nineteen NTC. The twenty nineteen non-profit Technology Conference. It’s next month in Portland, Oregon. I presume you’re going because you know that this is the go to conference for people who want to know how to use tech. Smarter in in their organization. You’re if you use a computer, you’re using technology. What can that computer do? More for you that you’re not aware of and make you and your staff more efficient? That’s what ntcdinosaur all about. So you’ll be there. That’s a given. Okay, so we got that. So it’s March thirteenth of fifteenth, but already know that because you’re coming, you already made your plane reservations. What you don’t know is where to find Non-profit radio and Act blew. You would go to the exhibit floor booths five o eight and five. Ten. We’re sharing a booth together. There are sponsors at the conference, which I’m very, very grateful for. They’ll be talking about the power of small dollar donations while I’m capturing interviews for Non-profit radio. Ah, you can learn more about small dollar donations at tony dot m a slash Act blue, and you could see more about what we’re going to be doing together. The swag, the chats, the on site training giveaway that’s all in my video. And that video is that tony martignetti dot com, that is Tony’s Take two. Let’s go back to Aisha nyandoro and your CEO board chair Relations and Onboarding Way just started to touch on a little bit. What’s your What’s your recommendations for? Ah, a non boarding process of Ah Niu boardmember from a recrimination for Onboarding process of new board members is too like that our lawyer have conversations of front with multiple folks with on the board so that they truly understand that process and then do a retreat or training. Pacifica will not retreat. Training no of this facilitated by the board chair just for those in the big who are coming onto the board so that they can have an opportunity to be a relationship with one another tax any more in depth questions that they may have not had an opportunity to ask and then, you know, introduce them to the full board. It’s a pretty scene was processed. So how do you how do you do that? Training? Is it a day or a half a day or something? Or how does that work was, like, half a day, half a day and go through all of the organizational pieces. So for us, that would be going through the strategic plan that would just adopted and making sure that individuals understand the goals that we have. Outline, um, for the next two years talking to the organizational strategies history. Those pieces are accountants sometimes just in and is involved in that process. This they’ll understand our our finances and what that piece looks like. But yeah, I know some individuals through a full day as they get their pants on how large organisation for us, a half day has been sufficient to get that done. Okay, um, and do you have a requirement for how many of the board meetings people need to be physically present for versus virtual or not, You know, we don’t because we are an organization that is based in the city. But we have a footprint, that it crosses various various states, and we have boardmember that live in various states. We have to board meetings that are actually physically in Mississippi twice a year. But all of our other board meetings, we do virtually the zone. So we do not have requirements about whether or not you know how many you attend in person versus online and the reason we don’t do that. It’s because we trust individuals want to be a part of this organization and the part of the board, because it’s not a paid position. And so if you have signed on to give your expertise, we trust that you know you will do that you would show up. You will be engaged in the process. But how many board meetings do you have a year? We have six board meetings a year, Okay? And two of those are on site in Mississippi. Tuitele zoho inside the beans and those way have size in Mississippi are fairly. You know, today is because if you’re going to go through the work of getting individuals here, he could make sure that you’re, you know, handling a lot of good business in the process. Okay. You have some dinners to I mean, you have some social times, I’m sure. Ugo. Yeah, yeah, Way duitz site visit. We, you know, conduct the board, is that we hear from partners that we pack a lot in when we get him here on side. Do you have any formal mentoring for new board members? But would they be meant toward by a longer term? Boardmember You know, we have not done that on, but it really is because we’re such a smile, Gordon, that we have not. I felt that that was necessary. And it also, since our own wrapping process, with the conversation, it so much that that is not a piece that we’ve put in on. And I actually have not thought about that. But now that you mention it, I’m like, let me think about that. But it’s not. It’s something that we’ve put in place. Okay, it’s something I’ve heard from other guests, and I don’t know, maybe as you expand the board makes sense, but just okay. Um uh, okay, so so then Oh, so What do your committee’s what The board committees. So we have a finance committee and we have a government committee, and that is for the most part, pretty much it. You know, we every once in a while, if we have a process of getting it put coming into place, we’ll do an ad hoc committee, like we just in the trash if you do plan. But we had a committee for that. But for the most part, since we are, you know, once again, such a smile board, you know, everyone just works across the board. That’s necessary. But we do have a finance committee in the government committee. You So you’re gonna have to get your going to get out of the habit of saying small board. You’re growing up to nine or ten that I I’ve seen three and four. I mean, I’ve seen thirty. I’ve seen thirteen and fourteen. I’ve seen thirty and forty also. But I know it’s a It’s a midsize board. Maybe. Thats on the small size relative. You’re right. I don’t know, maybe something small size of bid, but I don’t think it’s small anymore. I think it’s on the, you know it is on the average smaller side, but also small, like three or four. So you’re right. And I know better because, you know, I’m on the center for the I’m on the center. I’m on the board. Four men are now process here in this city, So I have seen boards that are three. So you? Exactly. It’s not a smile board. Okay, Um, So where does where does fund-raising fit into your board? Well, I guess I should ask what? Is there much individual fund-raising or is your work more government government fee for service or what’s your revenue? So we have a hybrid is government, you know, its developer fee for service. And it is also larger foundation philanthropies. Fund-raising so. But that with board members, is also where the social capital comes into play, you know, because getting access to the larger funders, you know, it’s a lot of times of war meeting a boardmember. Excuse me. You know, shooting a e mail, um, or having a personal relationship with someone, they Hey, I’m going to this conference, and I really think you should be here as well. So you know that really, where? A lot of fund-raising support comes in with the social capital cities, of course. You know, like Al Gore’s. I’ll be wanting boardmember to give it one hundred percent. A lot of sounds. A lot of salvation, Actually, I do. Look at that right now, require that. But we do not have, you know, a require set up. Now what we ask our board members to give, you know, physically. Okay. Got you. Um, so then keeping these, these new board members engaged. You know, the last thing we want is you mentioned earlier, you know, bored people getting or I said it. And I think we both said it people not filling that They’re that they’re talents are being utilized. They got they brought on the board for a purpose to share their expertise. The last thing you want is them feeling that they’re not being tapped. Um, how do you How do you do? You start getting them engaged. Started in the game for asking questions immediately. And pieces that, you know, there’s a place that I have been struggling in tapping in and getting that done and shooting those emails and asking, you know, for those phone calls they hate can’t beat right quick. I want to touch base with you without X. Y Z Because in so many instances, there are pieces that I really my boardmember than a lot of instances about partners to really help me think pieces that may be critical with something that I’m trying to figure out. A perfect example of that sabat boardmember who is a local business owner here and, you know, really connected with the corporate, you know, funding world. And that’s one of the pieces I’ve been trying to figure out. So, you know, shot him. But I saw him out socially at the special format socially and finishing on the shooter and email because I really want to talk to you about ex wives. And so just using those opportunities to connect with them all pieces that I’ve been thinking about, um, we’re struggling with what their feedback on it doesn’t have to be something that requires a two. A three hour work session. Ah, lot of the things that I need in a lot of instances earlier, you know, twenty, thirty minutes. Strategy conversations. Just four. Simple can. You could make me the X Y Z. Yes, of those pieces. So that’s how I in this. Something is not a heavy list for them is something. Because there has been some time why I needed the boardmember to look at a contract, which was a little heavier lift. But a lot of instances is not a really heavy lift into this about building those connections, building those relationships, making them still involved because they are involved in a larger mission and really allowing them to use their cuts and expertise outside of their day with a job. And, you know, having to be of service. So yeah, I can see how the relationship would just develop over time. You know, you’re just you’re you’re tapping them as needed conversations, You know, you don’t have to. You don’t. You don’t wait for a board meeting. Toe tap, someone. You have a need. You, you, you, you You express it right away like you have a need to express that. You have asked us, President. And even though you don’t know what they can’t but feel that need, they can connect you to somebody who can help you with that. Mita, I gotta take a break, but I will leave you with this. You said you said you. You sought someone out socially. That sounds like stalking to me. I have taken a break. I’m taking a break while you laugh. Excuse me. Uh, tell us, can you use more money? A new revenue source, Perhaps We’re talking about revenue. Right now. You get a long stream of passive revenue When the companies you refer process their credit card transactions through Tello’s, go watch the video, then send these potential companies to watch the video. You will get fifty percent of the fee for each credit card transaction that tell us processes for those companies you referred And that all adds up. That’s your long stream of revenue. The video is at tony dot m a slash Tony Tello’s Let’s do the live Listen, love it’s Ah, it’s it’s pre recorded live love But the love of goes out It doesn’t matter That the love is not Is not in any way Uh mitigated Ah or impinged upon when it’s pre recorded it still it still love going out It’s just not exactly love live but it’s love Still s o to ah to our live listeners love going out to you and the podcast audience. The pleasantries come, you know, they do very grateful that you are with us. The vast, vast majority of our audience listening by the podcast, The over thirteen thousand. Thank you so much. Thank you for being with us pleasantries to the podcast audience. Now, let’s go back. Teo. Aisha Nyandoro. Um Okay. So you’re over this stalking thing. I tell you that. It sounded like social, social, seeking out. That sounds like stalking to me. All right, all right. Maybe that’s just my warped head. I’m willing to admit that. That’s just my warped perception of Okay, Um all right, so All right, so we got to keep them engaged. Well, let’s talk about a little bored conflict, I’m sure through the years, um, you’ve had conflicts, uh, whether it was you and a boardmember or between Boardmember Sze. I mean, all the personalities through all these years couldn’t have gotten along perfectly. What do you What’s your advice around around? Let’s say boardmember to boardmember conflict. So thankfully, I have not had any my board. I kid you not. I have had no boardmember boardmember conflict. I have had no conflict with my board members, and I didn’t even know there was a thing. And you brought it up. Oh, come on. That’s it. You know, So that had that I am not had that issue. I would. So for me, I feel obviously, personally powerthru fiction currently have not had that issue. I have a board member on the board before I’ve had conflict come. And when that presented itself for me, I have a decision to leave that board because I felt like my expertise was no longer thou you’re needed. And since for yeah, it’s almost like, you know, I don’t have to be somewhere where I’m What is this? That I am bringing to the table is no longer respected. So I just decided to bow out and leave that process altogether. Yeah, okay. That’s that’s extreme. It must have been bad, you know? Interesting. I don’t know. Have executive that work today help duvette differently. I don’t know, but for beauty, you know, that’s what I decided to do. But I have not had. I’ve not had any conflicts that I’ve had to revive. And hopefully, you know, we will not get to the place where we have a conflict that we have to resolve. What I invest heavily in my personal relationship to each one of my board members. We try to make sure that we’re investing in the Boulder members knowing each other like you know what I said earlier? We have come together and Mr fifty twice a year, and we do build in the social time when we get to mess and have dinner and, you know, try to make sure that we know what’s going on with each other’s families and those things. So we really are trying, Tio. It’s a model, a culture of community as organization because so much of that, as you know, our forward facing work. So we really are trying to model what it is that we say we believe in. Organizationally. All right? And it’s a testament to your recruitment process, like you just said that. But you haven’t had those conflicts. But I’m going to put you in a hypothetical. Suppose you did suppose. Suppose you had a, um suppose you had a difficulty. Lets one that I think is kind of common like one boardmember on dit may not be the chair. It might be, but it might not be just like overbearing in the meetings. He or she talks successively. Take successive time. Ignores the agenda Times fell in every guard, every day that little gee up to the board here, to have a conversation with her counterpart and to resolve that and really point out to them that OK, there’s a process. And we really want to make sure that we’re being mindful Arrival of rule and everyone has an opportunity to be heard and share. So I would act in that regard. I would ask the board chair to step in and have a conversation with her counterparts. Okay. Starting challenge new words that space that I feel like basis, it. And with that, I don’t think that that will be my responsibility. Um, manage that situation. Okay. So peer-to-peer and sort of Pierre. I mean, there is an authority. The board chair is invested with authority over the board so that it’s not exactly peer-to-peer, but I mean, like, volunteer to volunteer. That’s what I mean. Peer-to-peer. But the board chair does have that authority that everybody recognizes. Okay, you know, and I guess if it’s not, if it’s not resolving. You would have to talk about removal, which has never happened for you. Yeah. Gosh, so hard. But yeah. I mean, if the person I don’t know Well, let’s talk it through. I don’t mind talking through. I mean, what if the person is not coming around like they’re just like, Yeah, I like the person’s not coming around. They have made a decision that they no longer want to be there. So I just feel like I don’t like they would have removed them, sells the best situation, You know? I don’t know. B a no. Okay, Well, hopefully they would, um, hopefully they would, but if it’s not once again that will be. Then I will be for the board and, you know, to have a conversation about that in the board chair to make it, you know, toe accent individual to remove themselves from the border to leave the board. Okay, there again. You would lean on your board chair. Yeah, I would have a lien on my board here. Okay. And you’re like that would happen from I think that you have aboard here if head to govern the board. Okay. So, yeah, I would lead on the boys here for that. I can see that. Because, you know, if if you if you were stepping in, then then you’re sort of, you know, your usurping the authority of the board chair. Exactly. Yeah. I want to use the word you starting. Exactly. That’s exactly right. And usurping the usurping the role of the boards here. And quite frankly, stepping out of order, it’s some regard. So you have to resist. Expect that structure that is put into place, put in place for a reason. Okay. Um, are you a member of the board? Uh, ex officio member. I am that you’re not Okay. I know a lot of lot of CEOs are, but they might not be voting. They typically not voting board members because that’s a conflict. Jean Takada and Jean Takagi. And I’ve talked about that. He’s our legal legal consultant, but a lot of but a lot of CEOs are members. OK? You’re not OK. I’ve seen it both ways. And what would you do? So then? I mean, let’s take it a step further. The person is not stepping down. The board chair has done whatever she can. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not effective. Now you’ve got You’ve got a lot of tension on the board. What are we going to do? What would you do? We’re putting out of spite. CEO Seo is the board. Members of the board chair has acted to step down and they’re still not stepping down. I mean, really, alright are not pay. Okay? Alright. He’s maybe she hasn’t asked her to step down, but the all right, Well, I guess a tension continues to build. Then you were just at the person to resign and Yeah, actually person Terry. Okay. Okay. I got you. I got you. Um, how long? How what do your board terms? How long term. So we have your first term of three years. And then you have an option of doing another three year terms that you could do a total of six years. Okay, On our board have you had very many people take take you up on the second the second term? Everybody. It’s a great organization. Yes. There’s never any conflict on the opportunities to spread our board. That’s right. So they thought was going on utilizing their expertise. Who? You know, I’m not wasting their time. I’m not over the banding. I get to parties in here. I get to parties a year in Jackson. I mean, who would turn all this down way walk away from that after three years? I know. I can’t imagine it. All right, we got a carvery way, Got takeout. Very last break. Think about what you want to talk about because I’m going out. I’m going to turn to you and because I’m kind of out of topics. But that doesn’t mean we’re done so think about what you want to talk about. Text to give can use more money a second way. The second revenue source. Here’s another one mobile e-giving learn about it with texted Gives five part email Many course fiv e mails once a day That’s a ce faras. You are away from raising more money on raising it through mobile giving. It’s There’s not a big hurdle to get started. All the gifts are not necessarily small. Lots of misconceptions overcome in this mini course, which I took to give them any course. You text NPR to four, four, four, nine, nine, nine. And we’ve got lots of time left. Several more minutes left for your CEO, board chair, Relations. I What do you, uh what do you want? Talk about? What do you want to talk about? Teo? No guy and I was just throwing some things. Nothing specific. I was just you know, I was just trying to generate some ideas about CEO board. Um, stories You got any cases? May be a difficult case. Um, good case. Somebody he wasn’t feeling so good or they were feeling a little disappointed. You were able to bring them back up. Anything like that. What do you mean? I wasn’t feeling so good year. We’ll bring them back. Well, like, you know, they they felt like they were. They were They were not so and not his engages they wanted to be. Or they I don’t know. I’m just I’m just kind of throwing things out. I don’t have You don’t get your board members to ask them what the troubles are. I didn’t I didn’t go to your board and say what? What story. Should I ask? I used to tell I didn’t do that, so I don’t have any of that personally. But I was thinking, you know, we’re thinking about CEO for relationship. I was thinking about the truly smile organizations that you know, the three four, the number board just really start up. Some start up thinking about how, in so many instances, especially when you’re what do your their smiles from Thompson’s feeling like your mom and pop were startup or whatever. The whatever the situation may be that at some time it the board relation can suffer because you feel like so much of your work really does have to be with building the organization and actually doing the work and the service and being a community of whatever it is, you know, really living out that mission. And so this morning, the caution folks that you know as the CEO of executive Power, whatever the title, maybe you know the board relation. As I said earlier, it’s really a big part of your individual mission as the leader of the organization, and you should really look at that as a significant piece of how you get to doing the work in the community and that just be so forward, facing something so many times you feel like you have just have to face outward. And you should, you know, really figure out how to do both simultaneously, the outward facing, you know, the leader of the organization. But then also making sure that you’re looking inward and challenging your board members to help, um, be strategic and supporting us necessary as you’re not placing folks shit. Do not be afraid of their board members, amazed at the number of CEOs and talk to who really don’t feel like they can call and have on his conversations with their board members. And so really challenging folks, just really, you know, invest in a time necessary for those relationships and, you know, don’t have individuals on your board that you don’t feel like you can work with. That. A personal. It’s what was professional. Yeah, investing. So how did I guess you’ve heard this from colleagues? You know, Piers, how did they get to that point? How did How did somebody get on their board that they didn’t feel comfortable working with and tapping, you know, because they Because other boardmember recommended him, and they didn’t feel like they could say no because that person has a really great reputation in the community and just not not leaning into their leadership and understanding that you can say, Oh, I don’t think this is a great fit for this organization And, oh, you know, just because they’re doing x Y Z over here doesn’t mean they need to be doing a B C with us. And so it really does go back to, you know, a CEO having their voice and recognizing that I have a say So what the organizational board looks like and that you really do have to a voice that, uh, yeah, on that goes back to the recruitment process. Yeah, and that there’s a lesson there that the community leaders, the prominent people in town, uh, or the air in the state, You know, whatever are not necessarily the best board members for you for your organization, Wade. Yeah, a lot of times else. Individuals out, you know, could be on four or five different boards already on it. They could be doing great work, and it could be, you know, amazing people and that means, and you didn’t even they don’t necessarily put them on the board. You put them on a committee or something, you know, last sametz needed, but yet it doesn’t mean they necessarily have to be on your board. Um, so just, you know, knowing what it is that you need and being being really strategic with the limited seats that you have, because, you know, you have a limited number of seats that you can feel in your board. So, thinking through what makes the most sense for they’ll seek section have Okay, we got just, like, forty five seconds left, So I’m gonna leave it to you, Teo, give parting thoughts, My parting thoughts. That’s a lot of really think it will affect your relationship between the CEO and the board chair. And that relationships should be one of mutual trust and respect and openness. And it is a beautiful being. One done, right? Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Tony. I appreciate pleasure that our flu she is she is ceo of springboard opportunities. You can follow her at Aisha. Underscored Nyandoro, and you find springboard at springboard to dot or GE next week have ever let you down. I know one time there was the fermentation show. I was young. I was naive. It was a youthful transgression, locker room banter. And to the extent I may have hurt some hyper sensitive people who might have been unreasonably offended, I deeply and sincerely wish I could apologize for the fermentation show. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash Pursuant Capital P by Wagner CPAs. Guiding you Beyond the numbers regular cps dot com. Bye, Tello’s credit card and payment processing your passive revenue stream, Tony dahna slash Tony Tello’s and by text to give mobile donations made easy text. NPR to four four four nine nine nine Ah, creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. Sam Liebowitz is the line producer shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy and this music is by Scots. Dine with me next week for Non-profit radio Big non-profit ideas for the either ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What Wait Thank you. 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