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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host it’s for twenty pot smokers unite! Oh, i’m glad you’re with me i’d be thrown into kenna phobia if you try to smoke me out with the idea that you missed today’s show strategic alignment. Dennis miller wrote the power of strategic alignment, which was his third book because he saw too many non-profits expending time, energy and money without achieving the success they hoped he wanted to turn that around. This originally aired april eleventh twenty fourteen i’m tony steak, too thank you, responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant radio 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 here is a huffing and puffing dennis miller. I’m very pleased now to welcome dennis miller. Dennis c miller is a consultant and executive director of fairleigh dickinson university’s center for excellence. He spent over twenty five years as a health care executive and achieve the status of fellow in the american college of health executives face-to-face in italy, in italian fundchat is not very not very complimentary, so we’ll skip the italian it’s f a c h e he’s, a regular columnist for the non-profit times he’s at d c, miller associates, dot com. And on twitter he’s at np board therapy he’s breathing heavily because he rushed to get here, which i appreciate very much. Dennis miller, welcome back. Thank you, tony. Nice to be here. The pleasure. And were in the studio this time last time. We were at the westchester afb. That’s, right? Several years ago is probably three. Well, yeah, three years ago or so, roughly less traffic on dh. Yeah. Understand? Yes. That was much easier to just walk from your booth over where i was doing the interviews. All right. But since then, you’ve written another book. Yes. Your third? Yes. On strategic alignment. Yes. What is the problem? Why was her book? So why did you do it? I haven’t worked with so many non-profit clients. I realize that in spite of their commitment to the mission ah, and their overall commitment to the sector that many just struggled to. Engage the board and struggle to succeed and so haven’t done numerous board assessments and organizational assessments. I realized too, that in terms of difficulty of having everybody line that the traditional strategic planning process needed to be shook it up and have a new way forward and that’s my concept of strategic alignment, okay? And what is it that we’re, uh, we’re hoping to align? Well, basically, it says it sounds simple, but it’s it’s very challenging any organization or any individual has tohave a wheel vision for the future. Oftentimes we think of vision is just a vision statement, it hangs on the wall or in some book, and we don’t pay attention to it. It’s absolutely crucial that we have a vision for you want to go to and then have all the stakeholders internally and externally align with that and that’s usually not happening, okay? And and those stakeholders who are we talking about? Well, certainly internally we’re talking about the leadership team on the board of directors, the trustees will care about the volunteers we’re talking about the staff and externally was certainly talking about the donors and any other government or appointed officials or keep people in the community that want to be involved in the organization it’s a very important have everybody aligned and it’s also not just alignment, but also very important to understand today when there’s a whole new set of conferences in nontraditional skillsets that leaders and board members have tohave okay, that’s interesting on, and i think we’ll have time to talk about some of those, uh, competencies and expertise that are required. I’m so it really is possible you’ve seen this, it can happen that all these internal and external stakeholders constituents can can actually focus in and pursue the same direction it does happen. I mean, i’ve been to experience it with all of my clients wrestling to pass certainly a couple years that i’ve been at this for quite a long time ah, whole new concept of actually spending a lot of time up front really doing an assessment of the organization and knowing not just its strengths, but obviously it’s areas for best practice improvement, not a swat analysis, which kind of leaves you with an empty feeling of what two d’oh swat swat is the strength sprint leading opportunity, threat, suasion, threats it was the old traditional way of people doing a strategic plan assessment. But at the end today it was like so now what do i do with this? From my point of view, it’s about now is getting to know what you are but helping them happen. The leader’s helping aboard, helping everybody understand that today’s compasses they’re very different as example. Okay, you know, usually in the past and executive rector was high because of either they’re good program skills, the ability, the right grant, good community relationships and their passion for the mission or dedication to it. Today the compasses for a good leader and the non-profit are very different today. Ceo stands for chief entrepreneurial officer. You have to be the one who helps make things happen. You have to be building relationships. You have to have a visionary view. You have to be able to build relationships and build your brand. You have to be able to communicate your success and talk about your achievements. You have to find opportunities to collaborate with it’s a very different opportunity to be passively waiting for things to happen and hoping they dio for actually making them happen. That’s a different today’s leadership, you know, interesting. Uh, chief, entrepreneurial officer? Yes, i believe that. So even large organizations, i’m used to work out good size hospitals. Yes, they still a tally stick the leadership, but maybe even trickling down. I need to be entrepreneurial. I think at every level, i think that again, i mean, i’ve been in the nonprofit sector or having worked for non-profits sector even as a corporate executive freedom from thirty years here, now that we have to think of ourselves with a different mentality that we have to think of ourselves, not as non-profit, which i think is a negative term was realizing that non-profit is our tax that is not our business plan. And in order to succeed and have a mission, i think you have the balance up mission in margin. But it is very important today to be focused look differently in terms of how you getting your revenues to often we’re so dependent on government and state public funding. It’s not there, and we’re going to a panic is our opportunity to build programs that are impactful tohave people want invested it and that’s kind of what my book describes i’ve had another ceo say the exact same thing about non-profit being our tax status, not our business mentality, not our mindset, right? It tends to create sort of ah hand to mouth. Yeah, and i think it was because i hate to use the word, but there’s almost a sense of, um, self fulfilling prophecy that we go around talking about. Maura non-profit well, then you’re going to end up not making a profit. If you have no profit, you can’t steer it back in the organization moving forward here. I’m fully aware of the challenges that is, but i think you have to think very differently today and leadership must be a really different kind of skill set than they were in the past that looks like you could use a drink of water after this walk, so go ahead, allah, i’ll frame this question long enough to give you a chance to take a sip, okay? We’re sharing the full experience with listeners who wanted it it’s actually a little traffic on route eighty today, coming from jersey, i’m normally not a problem and three lanes going down the one was not it was not that was not. Good, but you got here i got here. I got you feeling all right now i feel great right over here. Okay, i’m glad to be here, but you feel okay. I feel great, actually. But i’m glad to be here. I feel good. All right, good to see you and say i’m thank you. Thank you. All right. We’ve got some obstacles to overcome now, though, if if we’re going to be aligning people to a common mission and vision vision let’s say vision there’s going to be a lot of compromise people people don’t especially on the external means the external constituents that you mentioned sometimes boards, volunteers sometimes they’re not so willing to be ah, compromising well, i think it’s really one of the great things about our country is obviously the tremendous matter of volunteerism, people committing to volunteer, being on boards here, and certainly the great philanthropic effort of people in this country. But i think in terms of so many of us and i say myself included the former, you know, ceo of major companies sometimes do not do a good job of really identifying for bored what we want him to dio we don’t discuss the issue about financial resource commitment at the time of bored recruitment and the role of the board of dramatically changing and oftentimes boards like i didn’t know that i wasn’t sure that was going on what’s my role here and i use the expression of sometimes, you know, people leave their sense of humor and intelligence at the door. When you go into a board meeting in yesterday, they’re all the board was certainly beyond found it was the fiduciary role which was very important overseeing fiscal policy, finances, budget investments, budget personnel, then boards evolved and became one strategic and business like everybody had to have a business plan strategic plan, but the day really mature board has to be a leader in partner with your ceo, it has to have a sense of of ownership and has have a sense of being active kapin actively response for making things happen, not just watching them happen, and so that today the wall with a boredom in alignment is very different. Yeah, how does that board fit into this entrepreneurial latto well, it’s crucial because the board has to think well out tomorrow as well as an example, i have an organization that right now for years struggled to have a new executive director. Who’s done a great job, but the board was kind of passive. The board didn’t expect toe, you know, beyond making a contribution of helping out today’s new board they have is energetic, its leadership as new ideas is making relationships with other people here is bringing people table it’s, telling their story, it’s getting people excited about what they do. The board’s role is very different today. It’s not just passive. Instead, because you liked emission or care about the mission, you have to want a wool api sleeves and kind of bring it to the table. And you mentioned this. This organization shin that excuse me where the board turned over that’s ah that’s. Ah, lengthy process though. It’s. Not easy. I mean, you know, many of us, you know, we get we identify with our organizations and we could become attached to them and it’s. Very difficult. But as i say to people all the time, you know, good organizations evaluate their chief executive, great organizations. They violate their selves and their own border performance. And that’s kind of what? I do a lot of but it’s really important to help them along don’t listen, they’re out, they’re all good people, but we often times it’s just sort of stuck in the rut and you don’t really have to be more helpful to the organization. We’re going to go out for a short break and when we come back, of course, dennis miller is goingto dennis miller and i were going to keep talking about strategic alignment, so hang in there, it’s time for a break pursuant. Do you know what they do? Besides all the valuable free resource is i talk about their a full service fund-raising team they will help you make sense of your data, your existing data, they do creative, they can help you with donor acquisition that could make your digital fund-raising bring in more money, which is talking about email strategy and they do execution, they don’tjust not just lay something out, and then you gotta execute it on your own. It doesn’t work like that, they do it landing pages ceo ecm google adwords, facebook, google twitter ads this they don’t only exist online, though they will also help you thrive off line. Um, they do creative. If you need help with fund-raising, they are a a full service fund-raising team that’s them it’s all in tony dot m a slash pursuant to radio now back to dennis miller and strategic alignment. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, dahna i. Before we go any further, i wantto correct dennis’s earl. He has a new one that that i was not aware of. Dennis, c miller, dot com it’s launching tomorrow and associates are out the door. Absolutely so don’t go to dennis, don’t don’t even think this email social still taking a dynasty, miller, back-up but the tagline, revitalizing non-profit board. Okay, we’ll go directly, go, dennis, similar dot com. Okay, thank you, tony, my pleasure. Okay, our board. You know, we spent a lot of time on this show talking about boards. The board is going to be sort of, you know, they’re they are part of the leadership, and we need leadership to implement this very important vision statement because we’re all going to be strategically aligned to the common vision. We need to have leadership to create this vision. Absolutely. I mean, it’s, i think, you know, in the old days, it was the board that set the vision and they wanted someone to implement it, which was the old title executive record than it has to be done in partnership people to have to own it. So certainly the ceo has to be integral part of setting that vision with the board here. But the difference is today the board has to have a responsibility for making sure that vision it achieved and what would be the measure progress towards what are we going to do? What do i have to do? Is aboard, mate? What can i do? It turns of my own role here. One of them frequent things mentioned to me during a board assessment is many times boardmember. Don’t feel is engaged with the organizations they like on dh that’s a common thing on what’s really falls on onto the shoulders of is the board chair or bored present? Whatever the terms and the ceo have to find a way toe seek thie individual talent that each person has and find the way to engage them in this process. Some people are sort of involved with social medium walking find a way to tap into them other people more involved in community relations, the community find the way to engage you board the board has to be engaged on an emotional level. I too, want to achieve that vision. That’s the excitement, that’s the thing that makes things happen is betting yourself and continuing improve yourself. So you’re there to provide the mission for your organization. You make the point in the book that leadership is how you make people feel. Well, i i do say this year i mean, ah it’s a long time ago working different people here. I say all the time that you know people as a leader, people will often forget what you said. I’ll forget what you did but to always remember how you made him feel. And i think one of the mistakes that many people make it the top of leaders at the top is they think they could do it by themselves. They don’t realize they need a team to do it. So it’s, very crucial in my first book, a guy to achieve new heights of four pillars let’s accept non-profit leadership. I describe obviously the characteristics of a good leader which really four basic things. A phenomenal ability to build relationships inside the outside organization, but to be built trust respect amongst all the employees is they have to have my field. You care to make sure there’s a person in charge number chill. You have to be able today not only to be passionate emissions, you have to be able to communicate your achievements and your success. You have to tell your story and some case you have tto pound your chest a bit more than the normal, very different part of leadership. How would you like to see this? The assessment process and the and the strategic planning process? I should say be different. Yeah, well, what i recommend is this year and, i mean i certainly do a lot of them, but i mean, anybody who’s sort of who’s, talented and sort of organizational development, organization of psychology or things like that. First, what you want to take a look at the organization sends information as a physician would take a look at history and physical x rays of blood work before they did any thing you want to take a look at, you know, just get familiarize yourself. What are the financial statements or what do the annual report select what’s the market communication what the information is going on here, number two, you want to be able to schedule face-to-face confidential meetings with preferably all members of the board and key leadership team and ask open ended questions and they range from not just on how long you been on the board, but on a scale of one to ten how effective do you feel the board is today? Ah, if it celestine of certain, i’m asking why we’re getting to some of that board self assessment that you mentioned earlier, not just valuing the ceo, but valuing themselves. Yeah, and evaluating their perspective on the organization too. How do they feel? About the committee structure, are they involved in the committee? Is our committee structure is your vision well, it’s amazing when you ask questions, tony, a board members about tell me what your mission is, and they describe it pretty quickly and they’ll be asking what your vision is. They say they repeat the mission and oftentimes organizations because we’re all caught up in the alligators, all caught up in fighting the day. Did they battles? Battles? We often don’t have a vision and it’s the one thing that will propel you forward more than anything else toe having a vision for your organization that everybody believes in. And then every activity, every activity of the ceo, every activity, the board, every activity of the program, every activity banning stretch everything is geared towards achieving that vision and constantly moving forward. That’s a big step for boards. We have to be very conscious of measuring our success toward the vision. Yes, we have. We have vision. And then we have mission and then goals steps to achieve that mission. These all need to be measured. Duvette, this is part of the self assessment. Absolutely. I remember back in my early days or, you know, being a president of a large hospital and new jersey and the vision when i got there was to be the best comedian hospital jersey and was like, what does that mean? How would you know the the best camin hasta mary-jo xero and so often times peoples in the non-profits activision statements are you had to be the premier behavior health care system to be the premier human service. Argast but how do you measure that so poor? The idea is, how are you measuring your progress? Are you achieving? If you cannot demonstrate you making progress toward division, then you really haven’t done a good job. So it’s really crucial is part of the assessment asked those questions, and he has a question that i think everybody should be asking their borders. How does i ask this altum as a boardmember how do you measure organizational success? Well, how do you measure the board success? And it’s it’s, a stimulating conversation is a little bit provocative, but that is so crucial to get him think a little bit differently than the challenges they face every every day here and that’s just kind of what? We talk, what do people typically say? They don’t say they say, well, we measure the bottom line, you know? We’re still we’re still open was still wanting, you know, the door’s not closed, that kind of thing, but it’s kind of a sad commentary when you measure your success, just affect whether you’re still open in business and, yeah, that threshold it’s a very low bar doubled, and i think, honestly, it’s it’s, not a question that we often ask you and i think it’s one one of my books, maybe the second book to non-profit bought their books, i’ll get confused there’s so many about that just i can’t remember what i said in my first book of my third buy-in but well, i described this year i said, can you imagine this scenario at a board meeting? I want to call the meeting to order. Okay, tony motion approved a minute, sam. Seconds it ok, let’s, go on their first item agenda. Let’s talk about why we exist. What’s our real purpose. Why do we exist? What’s. And it sounds like come on, we got more thought. That’s. A really good question asked. I also did it. I did it. Work shot once really was funny. In hindsight, it was not funny. Ah, the organization wanted to raise a million dollars. Now i didn’t want fund-raising in my early days than i do now. But i have a lot of relation with people here. And i told you because anything we’re not ready to raise any significant money. But they asked me if i would do we treat on fund-raising. And when i got to retreat, my first questions it wass, could you tell me what your top two achievements were last year? And it was just dead silence in the room. It was dead. Silence. Follow-up waded our budget. There was no one cares. Following a woman. The back room says we do this program called pals p a l s a stands for peace. An alternative learning system. So what does that says? We teach young children who have been subjected to either sexual assault with domestic violence. Howto build trust relations with people again. That’s. Phenomenal. How do you communicate that? You stay cold. Us? They said we don’t do a good job. But that’s. Why having trouble raising money? Only one person in the retreat there’s, a border treat only one person identified pals as a as a success from the previous year, so they’re not even communicating it within themselves. Exactly. And i don’t think where it’s not part of the the dna so many non-profits not to be focused on achievement it’s focusing on the mission by itself. Here, don’t get me wrong. I’m a merry mission focus guy thinks it’s crucially important it’s why i have dedicated my life to helping non-profit organization very passionate about it, but you have to be nowadays achievement driven results driven. Why is that important? Well, because i want it because it’s a good process to have but two funders investors today, donors alone, institutional and person, but they want to make a difference, and i mean just similar to someone wanting to invest in the stock down on wall street and see the return philanthropic people of very range from small donors so large they want to know what you’re doing with it. They want to know, are you making a difference? And you have to some way be able to communicate them to different you’re making plus when you talk about your achievements when you talk about your success, it changes the mindset, i believe, for board members to think to go away from fund-raising i described a tin cup theory where you feel like you begging for your needs, and he began to have a conversation about talking about your achievements and your success. Now the concept becomes, are we do we think we need to have investors in our success? The answer is yes, so it changed the mindset from talking about what we need is an organization just to keep going to what we are achieving and wanted to continue those successes, no steps, it’s very different. This all means that we’ve got to ask very hard questions because we’re going to have to identify metrics, yes, they’re goingto that we’re goingto review and and report on at at the board to our stakeholders. As you’re saying, they demand it, you know? And we might not always like what those numbers have to say first asking the hard questions and then getting the answers that may not always reflect what we what we’d like them to month after month, quarter after quarter, and not only that, i remember doing a sort of a focus group, part with employees group that i was doing strategic plan within, i asked, was a behavior health care organization, which is a lot of work, and i asked this group, you know, how many counseling sessions do you do in a year and the one of the top executives and well, they don’t know that because we don’t give that information? Well, the whole point of the strategic alignment is that every employee, every level has to be a line with your organization goals, their individual goals have to be in line with your goals, and and people need information. So not to have this information is sort of making a disconnect between your organization goldenburg individuals is very important that everybody get involved. I would hope that’s a number that everybody can be proud of, and if it’s not, then we all need to work together to make it a number were perhaps aly and when people focus and on, you know, progress and success and measurement, it’s not about holding people the punish people, but and is more than just accountability, it’s having something to strive for in life we always feel better when we’re striving for something and it’s important as an organization to think differently, that about poor me, you know, we don’t have any money from the government. What are we going to do but today’s, you kind of make it happen and there’s a responsibility that it can’t happen, organizations at every level and every type can succeed with a news conference. E of leadership would a new skill set of the board would a with a passion to achieve your vision with measurable records of success or a point of success, and everybody being held accountable and and measuring you performs accordingly. It’s fun! A different challenge. We’re going to fund all this. So it’s, sort of a perfect leading to what you were just driving. We need to have ah plan for for bringing in the money to create all this. Well, you know, but i think you have to start with something different. I mean, waffen times. We start with a fund-raising playing which involves something like this year and it’s. A little it’s. A little funny, but i go like this are a typical development committee is like, okay, let’s call the meeting to. Order. All right, ho. We’re going onto this year at a gala. Ah, we honored him last year. Two years ago where you want her so we can honor who’s got a chair or golf committee? Who kind of a wine tasting is, you know, how much is going to cost? How much money can we bring in? And then we talk about well, anybody go over the major prospects that we were signed at last week’s meeting or less much meaning to talk about anybody approaching any large givers and the silence in the room. And then the development chair says, well, you know, let’s ah, let’s put that let’s table that till more people come to the meeting next week. Let’s not talk about the table settings for the gala. We have a different mindset that people just not engaged. They’re terrified of fund-raising they’re afraid of rejection. We have to think differently. You got to start with a case was support. Why? Why? With someone investing you? Why should be worthy of a gift? You gotta start with that process and then then the true. What is the difference? Your gift will make what’s the difference. And then number three, obviously the various ways to people can give, but you have to have a more comprehensive fund-raising plan today. Yes, special events important, i call them friendraising besides just fundraisers, oftentimes the fundraiser is an end to itself. It needs to be beginning. We need the cult of any people besides your annual pill, but people are the ones that give the overwhelming eighty percent of of money in this country and people there’s money out there. People will invest in you if you tell him about who you are. If you show them your excitement, if you show them your energy was showing what you’re doing, there will be people in your community at every level. Did they want to support you? But if you come across with a tin cup theory begging for money because if you don’t go on a business, it’s a very unappealing process and you’re going to be stuck in the mud. But your first question that you’re suggesting asking of donors you know why? Why should you give you asking it internally so that you can answer it extremely washing to give to the organization that goes back to these? Hard questions that we’re now asking and we have presumably we have metrics that say here’s, the reason to give because because we’re impacting, we’re changing, we’re impacting lives were not just not just having therapy sessions, but here’s here we prevented six suicides last year, actual and hundreds of cases of depression were were treated, and people got jobs that were largely unemployable because of their depression and right, i mean, this is the why, how many people that have been homeless, but not because we’ve developed a collaboration with behavioral unit are now ending the cycle of homeless was ending the cycle of depression, ending the cycle of mental health issues that’s so they can sustain employment or sustained family integrity. These are things we need told that’s what people want to hear. So again, it’s a very different mindset and part again of my process, strategic alignment is putting is assessing where you’re at looking at the piece of you put together and giving a plan of action to it and it’s all again really, tony about execution, okay? We’re gonna get the execution. I mean, we’ve got all this in line, and we’ve talked a little. About our our funding plan. Anything well, is anything more you want to say about the funding part of it before we get teo execution, i just think it’s really important to ah, um, make sure that everybody’s on board with that and what i, um here’s what i here’s what i want from my boards, okay? I would very few exceptions and i’m not talking about, you know, billion dollar boards metre palm zem award. Ok, very high level princessa university and stuff like that. What you really kind of want is i don’t want my boardmember is really asking for money, honestly, because they’re going to ask for to load you don’t know how to do it. I want my board to help me identify two or three prospects every six months. People today can help me have an introduction to breakfast mean, they can come on a tour of our facility. I want boardmember is help me build relationships. I will do the asking or will work as a team and building a strategy for that, but i really want my board to take on a different role on that and and that’s, just a border had how to be asking for money? It’s much deeper than that. We need to take a break for wagner cpas. They’ve got the wagon. Are i exhort you to check this out? Prepare your nine. Ninety for success. If you’re one of the fortunate organizations that has enchanted year after year to complete the full nine ninety not that sap lis easy or the end postcard. Then listen to the wagon. Are it includes common mistakes and most damaging mistakes. I wish i had heard this inviting the high school. I made so many mistakes. Yeah. Oh, i have a terrible crush on her. So my strategy is going to be ignore her that way. She’ll never come around and she’ll never know. You want to avoid those damaging mistakes. Also, how to use your nine. Ninety is a marketing tool. That was you. Eat. Who was on the show? August fifth, august seventh twenty fifteen. All this is that wagner cpas. Dot com go there. Quick resource is than wagon ours. Now time for tony steak too. Thank you for indulging several p recorded and archive shows in a row. I do. Thank you, it’s. Not the way that i prefer to deliver. Non-profit. Radio to you to produce it that way, but there are times when i don’t have any choice, i want you to know that i am conscious of it. I don’t just do it, um, you know, because i have not, you know, because i don’t feel like producing a live show, it’s, not like that at all. The archives in the pre recordings. I know you know, where they’re very good, but live has that special energy, and i know it. I feel it. I prefer live it’s, always my first choice. I’m always trying to do that, but i do live in two different places now, and we had non-profit technology conference and i was away other weeks, so i couldn’t do it. But next week, next week will be live and again, i thank you for this stretch that has not been live. Thank you very much for your indulgence. I thank you so much that i want to go to the love the live listener love, thank you, not just thanks love love goes out to the live listeners, the perennial live listeners, or if you’re a first time live listener or for an occasional drop in live listener like ohio, michigan don’t know well zoho together rust belt now that’s, that’s pretty much that i can think of. We get occasional pennsylvania, but it’s it’s more like philadelphia. So wherever we went with your first time or perennial, the live love goes out to you and the podcast pleasantries on the time shift on the different devices where ever you are. Where you painting a house, washing dishes, driving subway bus? Are you binge listening? Ah today’s for twenty you maybe binge listening to the four twenty show, perhaps under the influence? I don’t know whatever, whatever you’re doing, whatever your methodology is pleasantries to you, our podcast audience and the affiliate affections, so grateful that our show is on your am or fm station and so grateful that you are listening as part of it affections to ur am and fm listeners now we return to strategic alignment you were you were nodding and and well, it’ll but what time? Well, we did take time and not too long ago i go to a ruber annually on and that was out in california southern california masson got married. So it’s eighty five degrees out there. Well, as you all know, we went through a horrible winter this year. Thank god it’s springtime thank god it’s april, i don’t see any snow on the ground. I hope there’s no more coming in, but it was very tough. Went for people. But i agree with you also that it is crucial for every one of us to take some time for ourselves and both either with family and friends or just heimans wafer, you need to try either we recharge well, everybody’s working so hard it’s, so difficult for so many people. So many organizations has just struggle who are really good people. So you need some time away to kind of refreshing recharge your batteries school. Thank you for that endorsement. It’s. Good time. That retreat sometimes good time for a retreat. Well, that’s work though. Ah, a board retreat, but could be it could be energizing should be energizing. Ok. Should be energizing should be like. Okay, well, that’s, the way we should be having fun way, right it’s still work, but we can have fun but it should be fun. I mean, if it’s not fun, it should be fun. That means hard work. But it should be fun. Absolutely. I’m making a difference in the life of someone else. It should be fun. You’re absolutely right. It’s. Healthy there’s. No distinction between work and fund. I know i enjoy the work that i do. Write to me busy but it’s it’s fun doing it and i feel like work. I i like, you know, my consulting practice. I love being part of the program at the university for senator jackson’s onto leadership development and our certificate programs and writing my books and articles. But i love just working with people in long as it is, i love it. And that the university is fairly dickinson family taking the university it’s, a centre for excellence. Leadership governs atlanta p and the earl is fdu died four slash c f a cft cf fact under forex next month on may fourteenth we have our second annual conference. Of women and non-profit leadership at the marriott clan pointed tina class it was sold out. So we’re looking for a great break program issue let’s turn to our execution plan that we all need thing is all we got do a lot of planning we got execute. Yeah, well, you know, it’s it’s what i tell you, we all owe everybody who’s been listening. Everybody knows it’s exciting to go to a strategic plan its most times. Then what happens is sort of the so, like a sugar high and it’s a lot of exciting beginning and then a time to implement it. And then all of a sudden, you know, kind of wears often data they challenges. So what if some of recent difficulty movement, first of all we get into way don’t always have people trained to take strategies and operational realities. That’s one thing number two sort of asylum mentality that you know, it’s, not my job. It’s someone else’s job and protecting your own, you know, back end and turf is a problem here and so often times, and i just found it to be completely true in my experience where clients is that where? Most people think the reason for failure is because of external environment conditions. I actually think it’s the internal issues that prevent people from success while blaming the outside of the external that you have no control over easy it’s very convenient. Yeah, i know. So i was i had lunch today with a great great friend of mine. I’ve done a lot of work with and he’s a fantastic guy. He’s got a good organization, but he is not always comfortable, obviously addressing performance issues. And so they get scared under the rug and then everybody also against the moral life. So execution is crucial. I mean, what we find too often, tony is strategic plans sitting on a shelf collecting dust. That’s very common and again. So the board is happy. The beginning thie idea of ah always dresses issue. But then this measuring results and one of things that i recommend is actually having an assessment of usual plan one year after implantation to see how far you’ve come, what you’ve achieved and what maybe need to be achieving what the obstacles here. So the board’s role and ceos rolls execution and it’s rarely because there’s no. Plan of action there. No detail responsibilities. There’s no there’s, no time tables, there’s, no accountability. And so, wait, just calm. You know, we have team meetings and then we go away because we don’t get along with our team and really it’s a ceo’s job to make sure that he or she is building a team is giving people feedback and holding people accountable. I mean, you know and timetables. So we’re signing and time assigning responsibility on time from right. And if there’s an obstacle, go as a team address it. You know, i worked for the organization. What i won’t say whose name you know, not too long ago. And, you know, they point to things. It so it’s. Not my problem. Well, actually, it’s a collective problem. So sometimes issues can be solved by just one person. It needs a team approach. We should be working as a team approach here. I just think that it’s crucial in terms of education, the whole people was the sailors before and often times, you know, in the corporate world which i was just, you know, for seven years a cz an executive running a health care practice in the northeast for non-profit clients ah, people will give a lot of responsibility, but they’re held accountable and unfortunately, a stereotype in the nonprofit world there’s people will forgive a lot responsibility and very little accountability. We sort of have, you know, we don’t want anybody go o r where, you know, we don’t wantto upset the cart, and yet what happens is that when performances and driven and impacts everybody else here, so execution is altum responsible responsibility of the ceo and and that’s when i talked about, you know, the entrepreneur or roll today the leadership conference is a very different execution is crucial. Sitting on a shelf is is an investment. You put all that investment situation, it’s important to see what happened, maybe did something change? Why isn’t example, one of the clients that i’m just finishing work? What wanted to build a from a behavior health care program that was more of an outpatient baseball grant funding? They wanted to build a more of a fee for service program to address the increasing number of people insured to the affordable care act pompel yet it’s in seem to be happening why? Well, they will want organized it didn’t have the right management team in place. I was able to come on and make some suggestions to promote this person to move person along here. So it’s really crucial final why hasn’t something that you said is a goal? Why isn’t it been achieved? It’s it’s really important? Take a look at that. You made too much investment. It’s too important teo cannot keep going. Let’s, talk a little about this breaking down the silos. Yeah, because now we’ve now we’re invoking courage, which i mentioned before that courage from above we’ve got ego. We’ve got personality got turf. Things are not so easy to get. Everybody get broken down and get everybody collaborating. It’s not easy. I mean, we’re human beings. We have attendance to protect ourselves and protect little turf era in our own little eagles. But again, it comes down to leadership accountability, one of things that i did back in my in my hospital days. Remember when i became president of ah, the hospital. You know, the boys recruited me and told me this hospital’s doing so well for actually which turns out it wasn’t but they told me it was doing. Well on patient satisfaction when i got there front and actually that were in the bottom quarter on the country, a little alarming, right? And it was actually embarrassing, but one of things that i did was providing educational training program and the focus of that to remind everybody that everybody who comes that everybody who works here is actually on stage. You know, if you go to report away show and i’m not a big board way guy, but my wife likes to go if you go to see cats, whatever they’re putting out for ten thousand times, but looks like the only time they were put on for you here, i tell people, you know, people come into our organization whether it’s, the hospital organization may be the first time they’ve seen in a hospital could be the best day of the year. Two delivery of a newborn baby. It could be the worst day that grandma has passed away in the ice. You know, it could be a tragedy happen you but day everybody comes in is somebody’s mother, father, brother, sister, we have accountability, tow how we’re going to be treating those people, how we’re going. To be saying hello, how we’re going to be voting, people lost directions, it confound the leadership again. Leadership has to be able to know their person, their personnel, they have to know their leadership team if the leadership team is not working effectively, it transgressions all way down the entire organization. I did this organizational envision setting process for someone and weak appearing when i did employ focus groups was how you know all those people in administration, because why? Because the people in administration talk about each other in a negative way and so it’s important to address it, and i think you can develop team goals, collaboration, eso people don’t feel a strength but it’s absolutely crucial toe let people know what they’re doing well, but as a leader it’s crucial to be ableto communicate the people that need to be able to work specifically that other people and when they’re not address it and give me some improvement. Most people want to do it. Nobody misbehaves intentionally, but it’s really crucial in today’s non-profit setting to be strategic aligned to achieve division chief you goes, you must be internally light and that requires leadership to address. It as well as human resource fortunes because we’re talking so much about health care reminded that i was walking through a hospital once and the guy who was carrying a ladder, you know, clearly facilities maintenance guy, he said hello with a bright smile, you know, and it’s just it’s a struck me i mean, the guy’s got a ladder on his shoulder, he’s still he’s, still greeting me and saying hello. Well, actually, i’ve seen i’ve seen non-profit executives who may have different locations and their employees don’t even know they are, they don’t even visit him. Yeah, so comment right, multiple locations, everybody comes to them. Nobody comes the ceo for a meeting on door, the university president with the multiple college of something nobody comes to them telefund are they getting out? I had a i had a profound with grad school columbia school of public health and administration back a long, long time ago and my professor, i said to all of us one day, so listen, someday you guys going to work in hospitals, put your books away, put your contracts way but we walked down the emerge from remind yourself why you there? And it was a lesson i’ve always learned, and i think the same thing is true here as a leader to step away from your desk, ming with the people that are doing the programs have a conversation with them, go to duncan, don’t start bringing some coffee by some donuts, take a tour, he would they got to say, i mean, the first time they’re probably thinks something critical happen. That’s why there’s, something bad happened, but it’s um, it’s crucial to hear what people have to say, people, i need to be heard when you, when you listen to your employees, they feel cared for it’s all part of the alignment process it’s crucial? You can’t afford not to have everybody’s energy aligned and that’s just that doesn’t always happen the way it should because the leadership is so important. The board, in addition to assessing itself point you made earlier, does need to be doing ceo assessment also and moving out someone who is not providing this the entrepreneurial spirit, that spirit, that leadership that you’re you’re advising and no one’s looking that beat, you know, firing people if you have that sort of the end product. Of the but there’s so many accusations that they have not evaluate their ceo and it’s. So many ceos i’ve asked have never evaluate their own direct reports on dh so it’s crucial performing it may be a requirement. There is requirement accreditation a lot of things that have performance if i was everybody dreads. Um, but that’s the paperwork but it’s really crucial if you weren’t effective leader managed to be able to address on every day basis. The things that people do well, pat him on the back. I just had someone tell me the problem with our supervisor it’s all critical it’s not a pat on the back and so performance the violations should be a re energizer it should be able to say, dennis, this is what you’ve done well, as focused on the good things first tennis, these two things i’d like you to work on. I want to work on this. I want to work on that that’s important and is the impact that’s having it’s crucial to do that? And so you have to evaluate people you have to evaluate your ceo if you’re ceo can’t always do it one of things that is is necessary or investment have a performance coach have a life coach, i’m a performance, i do a lot of performance coaching for ceos and boardmember it helped me get on track, it helps and have an independent, neutral person that they can talk to about their issues they’re having in and support them. So you want to always find the upside you want to help people get better on lee when all else fails the end up coming down determined people, but sometimes it’s, you have to do it empowering to mean the board the board empowers the ceo and maybe it is through some, some coaching, but then the empowerment of course, has to trickle down the ceo. I need to be doing the same for their report. You and he can’t, you know there’s too many ceos or ceos that do everything themselves and don’t delegate and stuff and that’s not why you’re hiring people and so that’s not effective use of your time to be having, you know, twelve direct reports and going overcome reports that that’s not affect do-it-yourself you know it’s it’s, you have to start with yourself though it’s very difficult to empower someone else when you don’t feel empowered yourself here and in alison, i mean, in the hospital, so you have to allow people make mistakes now you don’t want to obviously, you know, you can’t give the wrong blood. I do things like that, but, you know, sometimes people have to make him sex and grow when they learned from and i think you’ve got to encourage innovation. You’ve gotto coverage your employees to take a chance. You got encourage employees, take a risk. Let him know that you support him. You know, take a take a crack at a new program, take a crack at a new angle to it. Do something differently. Give him thie. Given the authority to take risk. It’s crucial. What about what about board recruiting? Yeah, the board is so critical, right? What’s, your advice around getting the right people on the board well is crucial. And he has a couple things here. First of all, i advise my clients to move away from sort of the board the board nominating process. Two aboard recruitment process and let me explain. You know, toni and tamar listens. What? I mean by that? First of all what i recommend to my clients is they should they should have and develop an ideal boardmember tricks. What does that mean? Well, if you were building you bored today, what would be the ideal attributes, talents or expertise that you’d want on your board? What are the geographical areas of diversity? May you want? If you’re involved in westerns? Accounted the one everybody from white plains will you want other ports of you’re involved in a city? The one everybody from manhattan? You want people from the bronx? How about, you know, other firms of diversity on it? What of the skillsets you need? What corporations or philanthropic entities may you want someone on? So you have to develop that set. Number two. You take the same thing for what you currently have and the difference between the two should be aboard with cubine strategies. It’s okay to nominate people to recruit people, you know, but more importantly, today it’s about recruiting people that you don’t know but finding a way to get to them. That is really the talent of board development that it’s not just nominee people, but if you have an example, if you say we really could use someone that is really expert expert in social media, marketing, internet communication you may not know somebody who talked to people who might they know who might you know, in another another corporation find someone they don’t know and then talk about the process zaptitude we often don’t do a good enough job talking about why we should have people on our board. I mean, if you’re bored, does not energized if the board is not excited about if you if you’re not an excitement or condition, we’re not striving to be a winner. You’re not gonna recruit, but you have to be able to ah, pound your chest labbate gonna be talking about that organization, it’s crucial people want to be part of a winner, and obviously, you know, the latter’s voice sometimes get the right person. You gotta go away for a couple moments when we come back. Of course, dennis and i’m going to keep talking. Got to take a break for tello’s, the credit card payment processing this long tale of passive revenue. You’ve got to check this out. Tony dahna slash tony. Tell us this could be revenue for you indefinitely. Ad infinitum that that infinity sign that never ends because you get companies to switch their payment processing to tell us, and then you get fifty percent of everything forever. Tony dahna may slash tony, tell us now, back to dennis miller. Hi, this is claire meyerhoff from the plan giving agency. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at tony martignetti non-profit radio. I got live listener love that i wish i could send, but were pre recorded today. Uh, you know, i think i can pretty well wing it. We know we’ve got listeners from, uh, in japan and south korea and maybe even iran. Certainly china on dh coming domestically. California, maybe agoura hills is listening. That would be mark, i think. Ah, but other listeners from california, new york, new york is always checking in texas. Ah, washington and oregon sometimes. Hopefully santa monica. My kids live in santa monica if you told them to it and then then they’re here. So live listener loved everyone who is listening live and, of course, pod class pleasantries. I just said plod classed pod class pod crit podcast that’s awful said it five times by bob broadcast pleasantries. I say it all the time, but i’m sending podcast pleasantries to everybody who’s listening in the time shift wherever you might be very grateful for all of you, the vast majority of our of our nine thousand listeners. If i could just add something what i said when we talked about a lot of things, you know, leadership board development board recruitment program stuff i think it’s not easy to be successful. It’s not easy to move the organisation for it to do so has takes courage, it takes a commitment, it takes the the the ability to not always make everybody comfortable. I think organizations tony, that need to change is sometimes you have to become uncomfortable in order to grow and far too often. You know, i’m not talking about going out in the elearning any people but that’s part of the entrepreneurial spirit is being uncomfortable, but there’s time in every organization to make changes. I mean, there’s some organizations i work for an organization once that was had a hundred or history. Ah, and it’s certainly gone through, you know, multiple little changes here, but i’ve done a lot of work with many walkers. There isn’t many make-a-wish chapters that you know into their fortieth year and the leadership that was necessary twenty years ago, ten years ago is not that kind of boardmember the people needed not there. It’s change is crucial on what i hope from people, whether they all listen to the show today or they read my books that they confined on, you know, dennis. Similar dot com to amazon or bonds amglobal online. I hope that they find the courage. I hope they’re they’re energized. I hope they’re feel inspired because i do believe that there is a way to succeed. I do believe there’s a way to a better life for these organizations. I have tried toe layout, road maps for them, whether it’s leadership board organization there is a way and there’s many people out there every day their remains and people, of course, this country we’ll get up every day to try to make a difference in life of other people. And i admire that. I’m glad before that. But it’s not easy, but it’s crucial. That changes record. What’s an ideal board meeting. Yeah. Going on, idealware. Finally, i got one guy. Got one good one in the whole hour. Very good. I want decent. I feel bored. Meaning is focusing more about tomorrow, then? Yes, we’ll lay out an agenda for an ideal annoy ideal boardmember people. May i said i would take a little bit of time. Just kind of give, i think. First of all, an ideal board meeting has ideal committee meetings. Okay. Ah, good bored. Has committee structure and you don’t want to do all the work there. I would say a good janet would be to have a relatively brief update on key issues about the financial picture updates on the strategic plan or updates on board governments. I think it’s more important for a good board meaning to be focused in on tomorrow’s activities have the board engaged and about tomorrow i tell people, it’s sort of a thermometer if your board meetings were spending more than fifty percent of the time talking about yesterday, you not having affected board? I mean boardmember should know more ninety minutes, one hundred two hours, maximum if your board meetings to go on more than that, they’re ineffective. So an idea, boyd means when people leave energized, feel refreshed and they don’t have what i call the rubber band theory. Boardmember is rubber band theory boardmember everybody has one. You know you said that your packets a week ahead of time. The person picks up the packet on the wife home from work stops at the board meeting parks the car and takes the rubber band off. The packet is leading the pack. Is that going? To the board meeting goes at a board meeting, doesn’t even have the ability that initially an emotion called home and i second the motion i’m happy put the rubber band back on a really good boardmember of border generals, when the board chair is engaging people for discussion, it’s when boardmember zehr bringing ideas for when boardmember zehr asking questions boardmember should be asking questions. Is that about micromanage? But the board should be challenging leadership interesting, you said relatively short amount of time on things like the budget fiduciary oversight, i mean now, okay, you know, you may have an annual budget planning me, ok, but this is not this is not that this is your average board meeting, but, you know, you don’t need to spend most of the time on the fiduciary, like you’re saying looking back where was money spends etcetera, more time looking forward visionary boy was now and that’s how it should be now, obviously, you know, unfortunately, and today’s climate, most board the spending time, you know, howto bring in money to keep ourselves open here, but i think honestly, they’re going about it the wrong way i think that, you know what i believe in very much in my heart and soul is about there not going about talking about their achievements or not talk about their success. They’re not talking about the difference in the lives of making if you begin the process about that, you will find the money you will worked for in finding the resource is here. So again, the ideal board meeting was when people we had a great boardmember at the university, they are our center for actually what really did on and it was just well, we’re focused, not truthfully, it’s not believing it was energised cause why cause we’re talking about have build our own committee structure about social media and marking communications in the whole university how to be looking forward to a development of online programs, there’s just people in the classroom how to be looking at our own board, which is now two years into existence, how to be, you know, we doing that’s it was it was an energized because we’re talking about tomorrow, people work excited about that, and i think that’s, what we need to focus in on tell me what you love about the work that you do? I loved the i loved the people i work with, you know? I’m a guy that came up from from nothing. No, sir. It was put in my mouth. You know, greta had a lot of issues, as most kids do with family. I went to college, graduated late at the age of twenty eight, graduated grad school twenty nine and became a ceo. Thirty seven. I just love the people i work. What? I love what they do. I loved what they’re trying to do for the people in the community. Ah, that is what i enjoy helping him. I know i’ve helped a lot of organizations. I get a lot of feedback. There’s a lot of wonderful client testimonies on the website. I just have a passion for what i do, tony. I like it. I like people. I like life and well, here to make it better for everybody else. That’s. What? I like dennis miller. You’ll find him at d c miller dot com on darcy miller. Dot com dennis c miller dot com sorry, dennis c miller dot com on twitter he’s at np board therapy and you also find him at the fairleigh dickinson university center for excellence, which we know is fdu forward slash c f, ft you dot ideal forward slash cf. Even my mother called me the n e for many years. I had to tell my mom, my mom is dead and you know, i appreciate that. Thank you very much, dennis. Next week i just don’t know, but i know it will be live if you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com were supported by pursuant pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. Twenty dahna slash pursuant radio regular cps guarding you beyond the numbers regular cps dot com and tell us credit card and payment processing your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash tony tell us our creative producer, in-kind meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer shows social media is by susan chavez, and this music is by scots time be with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great. Yeah. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, waiting to get you thinking. E-giving! Cubine duitz are you stuck in a rut? Negative thoughts, feelings and conversations got you down. Hi, i’m nor ing. Sometimes the potentiality tune in every tuesday line to ten eastern time and listen for new ideas on my show. Beyond potential live life your way on talk radio dot n y c. Osili are you feeling unhappy with your body, shape or size? Ever feel out of control with food? I’m elizabeth from nourish the soul, and on this show, you will uncover the route to these imbalances and discover a permanent solution toe having a healthy relationship to food and your body. Join us every thursday morning at eleven a, m eastern time on talk radio dot. 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