Tag Archives: listening

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.)

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsor!

Donorbox: Powerful fundraising features made refreshingly easy.

 

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

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.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 663_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20231023.mp3

Processed on: 2023-10-20T19:44:24.263Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2023…10…663_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20231023.mp3.371459323.json
Path to text: transcripts/2023/10/663_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20231023.txt

[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were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking your supporters generosity.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 February 22, 2021: Listen Closely

My Guest:

Emily Taylor: Listen Closely

If you want to know what folks are thinking, interested in and motivated by, you need to listen to your donors, volunteers, advocates, employees. How do you get to the answers to listen to? Emily Taylor talks. We listen. She’s principal of teenyBIG.

Emily has a free paper for you, “5 Questions to Ask Before Spending More Marketing $$.” It’s here.

 

 

Listen to the podcast

Subscribe to get the podcast
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsors!

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

 

Dot Drives: Raise more money. Change more lives.

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

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.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 526_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20210222.mp3

Processed on: 2021-02-20T01:51:59.019Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2021…02…526_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20210222.mp3.561317311.json
Path to text: transcripts/2021/02/526_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20210222.txt

[00:01:45.84] spk_1:
Hello 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 with hereditary angio oedema if you swelled me up with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Listen closely. If you want to know what folks are thinking interested in and motivated by, you need to listen to your donors, volunteers, advocates, employees. How do you get to the answers to listen to Emily Taylor talks. We listen. She’s principle of teeny Big Antonis. Take two a webinar or two were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives Prospect to donor Simplified. It’s my pleasure to welcome Emily Taylor to non profit radio. She is principal of teeny big coaching nonprofits to meaningful e engage their audiences through human centered design. Her prior experience is in nonprofit management and industrial design. The company is that teeny big dot com and you’ll find Emily on LinkedIn prominently. Emily Taylor. Welcome to the show.

[00:01:47.64] spk_0:
Thank you, tony. Happy to be here.

[00:01:49.53] spk_1:
I’m glad. Let me ask you a question and I’ll bet nobody’s ever asked you. Did I pronounce your name correctly?

[00:01:54.24] spk_0:
Yes, yes, I’ve definitely lucked out with the easily pronounceable name.

[00:01:58.94] spk_1:
Excellent with martignetti. You know, uh, nobody ever asks, and they always mispronounced, but I’m always careful. But of course I

[00:02:05.24] spk_0:
Yeah, I’m married into a more common name. So it made things easy for me. Yeah,

[00:02:20.84] spk_1:
it’s easier to spell. Easier to say now. Industrial design is always interesting to me that I always think of like commercial design, like Cheerios boxes. But But that’s not That’s not strict. That’s not industrial design, really, is it?

[00:02:44.44] spk_0:
It actually is. It’s not the greatest name for a career path, but but it’s designing of products, you know. It’s the people who decide. You know what your cereal box might look like, but also your phone and your car on and, uh, you know, pens and pencils, just everything.

[00:02:46.46] spk_1:
Everything around us has design features to it. And of course, someone else was

[00:03:00.14] spk_0:
inside. You know, someone who decides how they make it, and that’s the engineer. But industrial designer really decides what it looks like what it communicates and how people connect with

[00:03:02.83] spk_1:
it. Okay, well, that I mean, there’s different principles around bookshelves than around iPhones. IPhones A little more complicated, little more complex. What? What did you industrially design?

[00:03:39.14] spk_0:
Most of my career was spent in packaging. So packaging really? And you know it Tze telling you what’s inside of something and you know why you want to pick it up and buy it on DSO Really? I like to think of packaging is an analogy for a lot of stuff. You know how we present ourselves to people have nonprofits present themselves to each other. It’s all a package that someone could gets a sense of before you dive in. Further,

[00:03:43.84] spk_1:
My favorite package packaging comes from Apple computers.

[00:03:48.05] spk_0:
I thought you were going to say that

[00:04:07.74] spk_1:
they’re so elegantly, uh, like the phone. You bet. It’s like on a pillow. I mean, it’s a piece of some material, which is not exactly cardboard, but it looks to me like it’s on a pillow and it’s wrapped in a gentle little plastic sheath. And the the power cable is is perfectly coiled, with a little little tie holding it. I mean, it’s incredible.

[00:04:38.44] spk_0:
Yeah, it is what we call the packaging experience on. And that’s really you know, if you imagine opening that up and having all the pieces jumbled out, you’d be really confused of what to do. And so, um, you know what I’ve been trained to do is think of things as a process. And how do you present information in a staged way So that someone gets it? Someone’s excited about it. Yeah, they can, you know, enjoy the joy. What’s inside?

[00:05:01.94] spk_1:
Okay, excellent. And you’re you’re you’re making a segue. Thio listening. We’ll get there, we’ll get there. Um, but yeah, you You wanna, you know that it’s your first impression. It’s the way the box looks before you even open it before you see just seeing it on a shelf, whatever it is. But then but then you I mean, you’re doing packaging, so there’s also security like you gotta hold the thing together. You don’t want it shaking in the box or whatever it was that you were packaging.

[00:05:16.34] spk_0:
Yeah, you don’t want people stealing it. You don’t want to toe fallout, get too hot while it’s shipping, there’s there’s a lot of different elements thio crunch into that beautiful package. Okay, cool.

[00:05:22.80] spk_1:
And then you move Thio Nonprofits?

[00:05:46.24] spk_0:
Yeah. So I was able to make a lateral shift where I moved, um, took my industrial design knowledge and ran a nonprofit called Design House where we worked in revitalizing local manufacturing, using design, and so we would run workshops on dhe. That was really my first forefront until, like, living in a non profit space versus just volunteering.

[00:05:58.74] spk_1:
Okay. And where’s the interesting listening and engaging with audiences on on that kind of level? Where did that come from? How did you get interested in listening?

[00:06:02.42] spk_0:
You know, I

[00:06:03.81] spk_1:
have developed interest in listening, right? I

[00:06:06.04] spk_0:
mean,

[00:06:07.14] spk_1:
what little But let’s problem where six minutes in. Let’s look what?

[00:07:16.94] spk_0:
Let’s stop listening. Um, well, I I grew up is a very kind of shy and awkward child, and and so I found, but I was really interested in people. And so I found that listening to what other people were saying and figuring out how to connect what I wanted to say and due to that really helped me. Um, you know, figure out how I could connect with people. I almost had you know, analyze it versus it, coming naturally, and so that that has allowed me to really listen in a way that I think not everybody does is I’m really looking for the words people are saying and asking them why they think that way s so that I can understand the context of where they’re coming from. And you know, whether it’s a cultural difference or or just, you know, a difference in in personality. It allows me to like bridge that gap and see where people are coming from so that I can then communicate what I want to to them.

[00:07:19.04] spk_1:
Interesting. All right. It’s very It’s very personal for you, too.

[00:07:41.64] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, it’s It took me a while to really, like, make that connection back to That’s where it came from. Um, but it’s fun. I always love just, you know, connecting with people well, in the past, in cabs. Or, you know, at the train station you just start up a conversation and and here where people are coming from, because it’s always a totally different place,

[00:07:49.84] spk_1:
we’ll be in cabs again. We’ll be in. Captain, it’s coming. It’s coming. Where you coming from, where you taking. Used to take cabs and trains. Where are you?

[00:07:59.54] spk_0:
I’m in Chicago. So we’re about 2 ft of snow in. Yeah, Okay,

[00:08:13.74] spk_1:
so let’s Tze talk about listening. So we were kind of already kind of touched about it, but, you know, like, why it’s important. But, you know, we’re talking about user research. Why should we? Why should we spend time on this?

[00:08:49.64] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s it’s really important. Tons of for profit companies are doing this, you know, everything that comes out of Starbucks And we mentioned cabs with uber like they’re constantly listening to people and getting ideas in front of people and and hearing the reactions to them. And people are just getting used to having these very customized experiences. And it it connects to nonprofits to people have, once you have those expectations, you have those with everything you do. So

[00:08:50.53] spk_1:
s So how are companies doing this give give a couple of examples?

[00:09:30.24] spk_0:
Um, they’re doing focus groups. They’re they’re interviewing people. They’re putting out surveys. They’re also running, testing, you know, they’re getting prototypes out in front of people. Um, they’re having, you know, influencers work with them to design products. It’s all things that concerned a little overwhelming and expensive on DSO. That’s where I think, trying to bring those the most important elements of those two non profit. So it’s not not a huge cost barrier on, you know, and finding ways to listen in the way you can.

[00:09:32.67] spk_1:
Okay, But I interrupted you when you were describing why this is important.

[00:10:52.84] spk_0:
Oh, yeah, well, you know, it’s it’s important because people are are used to having. Like I said, having these, um, being more targeted and not just following whatever a leader says eso it’s is part of human to human centered design. This is part of the experience of being let’s top down, um, or bottom up, how can we, rather than having a leader that has a vision and everyone follows it to be thinking about, um, yeah, gathering the pulse of the people that were working with and using that to ladder up to the decision making. It’s not to say this is a you know, everyone needs toe to make a decision for all but toe have that input. And I think it’s really important this year because I cannot remember a year where it is so unpredictable what people are thinking, Um, you know, how comfortable are they going out? When are they going to get vaccinated? You know, what is their? How their perceptions of organizations changed over the last year based on who connected with them and who didn’t and you know, stories. They read that it just seems even mawr important to see where people stand because this is like a There’s no apples to apples Comparison.

[00:11:43.04] spk_1:
It’s time for a break turn to communications. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CBS Market Watch, The Chronicle of Philanthropy You wanna be in papers and outlets like that? Turn two has the relationships to get you on those outlets so that when these places air looking for experts on charitable giving, non profit trends or philanthropy, they call turn to turn two calls you because you’re their client. Turn hyphen two dot ceo Now back to listen closely. So we’re interested in how folks are, uh, interacting with our organization or interested in interacting with it. What what, like what’s motivating them? Those kinds of things.

[00:12:23.34] spk_0:
Yeah, I think motivating And then also you know what will fit into people’s lives like you no longer have the, you know, the consistent after school programs or the favorite, uh, you know, venues someone attended to like I remember. You know, it used to be you couldn’t plan things less than a few weeks out on a Friday Saturday night, and now you know, people are home. And so So how do you kind of get a sense of like where, you know, as a non profit where you could now fit into people’s habits as they bring some of those you know, we’re out of home experiences and to their lives.

[00:12:40.94] spk_1:
So when I was introducing the show, I ticked off listening to donors, volunteers, employees Are there other constituencies that we should be listening to?

[00:12:43.04] spk_0:
Let’s see, You said that donors,

[00:12:45.32] spk_1:
donors, volunteers, employees.

[00:13:04.64] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, I tend to look broadly at, and, um and I call audience, you know, basically people who are following you because a lot of those people could become a donor. They could become a volunteer, and they don’t really see themselves as such. Um, eso

[00:13:06.78] spk_1:
it could include, like your social Social Channel followers,

[00:13:10.58] spk_0:
could it? Yeah.

[00:13:11.85] spk_1:
Okay. Yeah. All right.

[00:13:27.84] spk_0:
Yeah. Um, you know, listening, trying to figure out how do you get them to the next stage? How do you turn them into, you know, one of the other categories? Um and, you know, but there’s really no end to who you could listen, Thio. I think that’s just where I focus is general audience

[00:13:50.24] spk_1:
folks who are benefiting from your programs to if you’re if you’re doing any kind of human service work or it could be customers if you’re a museum or a theater, it could be patrons that way. May not be donors, but maybe patrons to your museum Visitors.

[00:14:02.34] spk_0:
Yeah, and I’m going to make it sound too broad. But the real trick is to figure out who you want to listen to so that you can define it for yourself.

[00:14:11.44] spk_1:
Okay? Okay. But But all these folks, I mean, if they’re if they’re interacting with you in a meaningful way, don’t they? Don’t they deserve a voice in your You’re listening campaign?

[00:14:55.54] spk_0:
Definitely. I think where I’m going with is you know, the people who maybe are following you on social media will have different things to say. You know, if this is a museum, um, I have different things to say that people who are coming in to the museum or people who have donated to the museum for a long time. And so it’s helpful when you’re listening to kind of focus who were listening to so we don’t mix up Well, somebody said this and the other you know, these long term donors think this other thing and and you’re mixing up the messaging when, really, um, you know you need to be separating. People are gonna have a different perspective, depending on how well they know your organization.

[00:15:14.84] spk_1:
Yeah, for sure. And how they interact. So that’s what we’re here to talk about it. So we wanna we wanna avoid this. Yeah, You don’t want All the messages are like all the feedback coming a LH coalesced together and aggregated. I mean, maybe for some purposes, you aggregated. But you want to know what your distinct audiences are are saying back to you?

[00:15:18.25] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s about targeting and segmenting eso that. Yeah, when you listen, it doesn’t get confusing.

[00:15:31.74] spk_1:
Yeah, okay, so let’s let’s let’s talk about how to do this for for different audiences. How do you go about thes listening campaigns? I’m calling them listening campaigns. Is that

[00:15:35.37] spk_0:
okay?

[00:15:36.29] spk_1:
Can you put your imprimatur on that? Is that all right?

[00:15:38.87] spk_0:
No, I love it.

[00:15:44.34] spk_1:
Listening campaigns. Okay, so if you have different listening campaigns for different audiences, let’s talk about some method methods.

[00:16:43.44] spk_0:
Sure, Sure. And, you know, I always wish there was one that could really kind of all encompass get the right information. But there’s different tactics that kind of our good and bad in various ways. Um, but the one I love the most is to just straight up interview people just talk to them and this, you know, that could be done. You know, obviously, if you have very passionate followers that you can have conversations with them at any time and really talk to them about you know why they’re part of your organization. But you can also just go on toe Facebook or Twitter and just say, Hey, you know someone who comments, would you have 15 minutes to chat with me and get them on the phone? Just do that. You know, a couple people a week, and all of a sudden you’re starting to get a broader sense of what people who aren’t connected to your organization are just lightly connected. Think about you.

[00:17:19.74] spk_1:
Yeah. Excellent. Okay, So I like I like that you say, You know, just comment back to somebody on Facebook. I see you know your comment a lot. Would you like to spend 15 minutes talking to me talking to us about our organ? That you you seem to be very interested in? Um, you know, non profit radio is action steps. So, like, what can we dio eso? Um how about I mean, could you just approach? I guess you could just approach volunteers the same way or, you know, you’re you’re devoting 10 hours a week to our work or whatever it is 10 hours a month. Could you could you sit with us for a phone call and talk about the organ?

[00:18:18.14] spk_0:
Any any interaction is ah, opportunity. I mean, you could even if you have a cocktail hour, just go around and ask the same question Teoh a few different people and and take note of what they say it Z. It’s more of a qualitative kind of feedback. But you get some really great answers. Although I would take a step back and just say it’s good to know what you want to learn. I actually had a a little hosted a conversation earlier this morning about listening to your audience, and it was interesting. I asked the group if you could just reach into your audiences brain and find out anything, you know, what would you want to know? And the question really stumped people. Mhm. Uh huh. And so, you know, it made me realize that, like, as you listen, you also need to know what what you’re looking for.

[00:18:19.37] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s like your goal setting for your listening campaign. Every campaign has to have a goal. This is not a volunteer campaign or fundraising campaign. This is listening campaign. So what would you like to learn?

[00:18:39.74] spk_0:
Yeah, you know, it’s so obvious. But sometimes when we just talked to people were used to having a conversation, not, uh, really digging for information.

[00:18:56.24] spk_1:
So when you’re at that cocktail party, if you’re if you wanna engage folks in your listening campaign surreptitiously, you’re not going to say, you know, let’s have a can of pay. Would you join my listening campaign? You’re just gonna say these kind of pays a good I like the I like the little like the little shrimp tails. So what s all right? So what you want to know is gonna inform what question you’re gonna ask or what questions you’re gonna ask.

[00:19:19.64] spk_0:
Yeah, but it might be, you know, how did you find out about this event? This organization? What? What drew you to To come here, kid. Um, you know, those those kind of questions.

[00:19:27.64] spk_1:
What moves you about our work? What do you know about our work, or what’s your favorite thing that you know about our work or Okay,

[00:19:46.64] spk_0:
Yeah. And sometimes it’s a really great time to ask about. You know what you think of certain words. I’ve you know, it’s kind of taking some notes on some clients that I’m working with that are having issues. And I work with this, uh, organization that’s doing contemporary classical music. And they they

[00:19:46.91] spk_1:
have a really classical what? That’s

[00:20:04.04] spk_0:
modern, modern modern composers doing classical music and they always run into Probably What you’re thinking in your head is like people associate classical music with the big, you know, white wigs and Beethoven

[00:20:06.84] spk_1:
Strauss and right. Yeah.

[00:20:23.94] spk_0:
And so I’m really pushing them to start asking people what does classical mean to them so that they can start to really here where people are coming from and what they need to say. Toe to bridge that gap. Okay.

[00:20:25.44] spk_1:
Okay. How about some other methods? So we got the cocktail party casual. We got the, like, the ocean social listening. What else? What’s more form?

[00:21:57.84] spk_0:
Yeah, you know more. Traditionally, there’s there’s surveys which can be big and laborious, so they could be quick. Just three, You know, two or three questions surveys that you pop into your email. Um, and the thing with surveys is, uh I think really making sure they, um they don’t just They asked the right questions. So, you know, again going back to your goals. You really need to look at that. Um, but a lot of times of surveys, um, they’re not great at predicting people’s behaviors. And so, you know, a survey I’ve run into a lot of nonprofits who will say, you know, we did a survey, and everyone thought, you know, Tuesday at seven was a great time for an event, but no one showed up. Yeah, and and you know, I think the thing there is like, it’s really hard for people to predict. You know how they’re gonna feel on a Tuesday night. You know that it tze different people have, like, a mode for answering surveys. And so really, it’s great to get ideas out in front of people for those surveys. You know, maybe, What do you think? Between these three things, Um, you know, these three messaging campaigns, these three event ideas or even just, um, you know what? Sorry, I just lost my train of thought. My cat came into the room. Um,

[00:21:58.63] spk_1:
okay, we’re very We’re very family friendly. Wonderful. It could be a child in animal. Not only family friendly, family embracing, family embracing. You’re welcome to bring your cat onto this. Excellent.

[00:22:35.24] spk_0:
She might she might just join anyways. Okay, um but having what was going to say is having open ended questions so that you can here some of the things that you might not expect, so a lot of times with surveys will we might make assumptions about things. And when you leave some open ended questions that allows people thio, you know, one participate and feel like they’re engaged, but also opens you up to things you might not have thought to ask about.

[00:22:43.94] spk_1:
Do you have a favorite survey tool? Um, Surveymonkey. Everybody knows story. Monkey. Yeah. You have a favorite monkeys.

[00:22:47.95] spk_0:
Great. I’ve just started thio use type form.

[00:22:51.44] spk_1:
I’m, like form.

[00:23:30.64] spk_0:
Yeah, and and that’s been nice. It’s a little You can actually do some assessments. Uh, but it’s a really It’s more like visually engaging software. Um, so I’ve enjoyed that, and I think things where you can just when you talk about tips like putting things in emails So being able to put the first question of a survey into an email blast so people can just click on that kind of get a sense with the surveys about and that just takes, um, shoots him right into the survey versus click on this link to take the survey and then just sort of like one extra step. Okay,

[00:23:34.04] spk_1:
Do you have ah preferred length? You said they could be super long or it could be very short. I mean, I’ve I’ve had folks on saying, you know, no more than five questions or people start to fade out after so many questions. What’s your advice?

[00:24:16.44] spk_0:
Well, I I the big lengthy ones. Those are like like marketing surveys that some organizations do every couple of years. That’s that’s really not by focus. I like, Yeah, I mean, it’s especially right now. People are changing their mindsets month, a month, the quarter to quarter. And so the more the shorter you could make things and the more focused the better. So I’d rather see people you know asked 3 to 5 questions a month or every other month than 25 question survey each year,

[00:25:30.14] spk_1:
it’s time for Tony’s Take two. I’ve Got a webinar for you. Five Planned giving websites that set the standard. It’s on February 25th, 3 p.m. Eastern time. It’s a romp. It’s a quick shot. I’m gonna take a romp through five plan giving websites in 45 minutes. Show you what I love about them. Show you what not to do that I don’t think is so good on them. And take your questions. Of course. Always time Q. And a quick shot 45 minutes, February 25th at 3 p.m. Eastern time, and you register for this esteemed webinar at PG Websites PG websites that is Tony’s take two. Let us return to listen closely with Emily Taylor. Do you have? Ah, this is different. Unrelated. But where my mind is thinking. So I’m gonna ask you Do you have opinion? An opinion on political polling? Like the accuracy of polling. Do you consider that within your I know you don’t do that work.

[00:25:33.37] spk_0:
Obviously you

[00:25:34.49] spk_1:
consider that within your belly. Wick toe comment on.

[00:26:36.04] spk_0:
I’ve been really fascinated by this. And this is where I go back to, like, whatever you do a survey you always have toe question what people really are, You know, the action versus what they’re predicting. Ah, nde. We’ve seen that with the last two elections of poll numbers just being way off. And so that’s that’s the sense that I get is, um that is a result of, you know, asking people toe fill in boxes versus trying to get to what they how they really feel about things. Um, you know, there’s there’s definitely a I think with surveys we can put on a we don’t want to be mean to this non profit hat or, you know, with political things like we don’t I don’t You know, I don’t quite understand. Can’t quite articulate how I feel. But I I’m just gonna answer this because this feels like the safe thing to Dio. And so those kind of answers don’t help us. Yeah, right.

[00:26:45.54] spk_1:
They’re misleading. Uh, maybe. Maybe not intentionally Or maybe in time, But anyway, they’re not helpful. Leaving your right. Leave it leave. It is not helpful. E want to attribute bad motivations to folks. I don’t want to do that.

[00:26:50.04] spk_0:
No. Like I said, sometimes it’s It’s because you know you don’t wanna be means it’s a It’s a good thing, but it doesn’t help.

[00:26:57.34] spk_1:
How about focus groups? Are there are people doing those online? I mean, it’s certainly eminently doable, are they? Are they valuable? Our folks are people participating.

[00:27:17.04] spk_0:
Yeah, I’ve definitely There’s been focus groups happening over the last year. I find them. You know, there’s a lot to be careful with with focus groups because there are group dynamics that you need to be aware of. You need to be

[00:27:28.44] spk_1:
a pro at facilitating those, right? Yes. Yeah. You don’t wanna go off as an amateur trying it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Because you’re asking for people’s honest opinions and

[00:27:40.64] spk_0:
yeah, and it’s very hard for people. You don’t want to talk about some of those being nice elements. That is amplified when you have a few strangers in a room.

[00:27:48.14] spk_1:
Yeah, right. Yeah. I don’t want to say anything controversial. I don’t want anybody feeling. Yeah, but then you’re not getting truthful answers, right? So you need all right, You need a pro if you’re gonna do the actual focus groups, right? Okay. Do you facilitate those? Do you facilitate focus groups?

[00:28:04.84] spk_0:
Um, I do not. Usually there’s a few people I work with that that have done them, or, um, but, like I said, you know, prefer being able Thio digging a little deeper with people

[00:28:16.34] spk_1:
you don’t have that lions lions, then of focus groups. And yeah,

[00:28:40.34] spk_0:
well, I’ve definitely done them in. You know, in the past industrial design world, I’ve watched a lot of focus groups, so e think I I understand how complicated they are. And it’s when you get into, um, nonprofits that air so emotionally entangled in our heads that I don’t find them as is practical.

[00:28:43.24] spk_1:
Okay. All right. So don’t try this at home. Or maybe you don’t need it.

[00:28:47.52] spk_0:
Just just have a good Yeah.

[00:28:49.25] spk_1:
Alright. Another You got another method?

[00:29:20.34] spk_0:
Um, well, another, you know, we can also get into more data driven methods, which is like, a b testing or doing, you know, sending out several different options. And and so this is not listening in the sense that you people are voicing things back, but you’re seeing what decisions they make your observing their behavior. And so I find observing as another type of listening, like,

[00:29:21.18] spk_1:
what are some examples of things you might A B test?

[00:30:13.34] spk_0:
Um, you could a b test a new message you wanted to use to promote a program or or to encourage people to donate. Um, you know, the trick is to always have an action that you want people to take eso You could talk about an event in two different ways. Send that out and see you know what? What? Got people to, you know, come to the event or click for more information? Um, whatever it might be. But that’s those air. Really. They’re harder because again, you don’t get that. Why? But you do. You do get the behavior, which, as I mentioned before in the survey’s can sometimes, um, not come through because, yeah, it’s not someone’s riel reaction. Where reaction.

[00:30:19.54] spk_1:
You’re getting reaction you’re getting You’re getting data. Um, Anything else? Quantitative. You like to quantitative?

[00:30:22.97] spk_0:
Yeah. I, uh I mentioned observing Don’t

[00:30:26.54] spk_1:
hold out on non profit radio listeners. Now, keep anything into my

[00:30:30.51] spk_0:
bag of listening trip.

[00:30:31.84] spk_1:
Nothing. Nothing at the bottom of the bag.

[00:30:57.34] spk_0:
Well, this one is so observing, I think can also happen. Um, it’s a little harder right now, since a lot of people are socially distanced, but observing people’s behaviors, Um, and this could be, you know, watching people and an event. How many people like, if you have different tables where they’re going, you know, keeping track of of some of those things. Are they paying attention to different speakers

[00:31:01.91] spk_1:
when you’re CEO gets up? Does everyone go to the bar or the bathroom? That’s a bad sign.

[00:31:08.04] spk_0:
Yeah, You just don’t know what it means. You know, I always think

[00:31:13.59] spk_1:
they don’t wanna listen. Uh, going to the bar to drink. When? When? The CEO of the bathroom. They probably don’t wanna hear the CEO. So that’s bad.

[00:31:41.14] spk_0:
Well, I always think of the example of, you know, and a friend to other friend gave a speech at an event and came up to her afterwards and was like, What? Why did you hate my speech? What was wrong? And she really She had some sour candy in her mouth the whole time. And so she was kind of like like making these

[00:31:42.47] spk_1:
grimacing, disapproving

[00:31:46.94] spk_0:
faces unintentionally. And so this is where you don’t want to make those assumptions eso we can observe, and that will help

[00:31:53.82] spk_1:
us. I mean, there might be an alternative. Might be an alternative explanation for everybody going to the bathroom when you maybe you had too much

[00:31:59.82] spk_0:
punch. Maybe what? Maybe you serve too much punch.

[00:32:13.74] spk_1:
Punch, punch. All right, All right. So maybe it’s the timing. Okay. Um Alright, so that’s interesting. Yes. Observing dynamics in a room where people where people huddling. What? What? What might you learn from things like from that? Those kinds of observations when we get back to in life are really ever personal. Presidents? What might you What might you pick up or what have you seen? That’s interesting. Um

[00:32:58.54] spk_0:
uh, let’s see. I mean, you can learn like I think of an example like at a museum. You know, where are people stopping and taking the most pictures might learn. Like what is, um, what? Elements of a space are engaging to people and that could then lead you to ask more questions about why that seem more interesting to people. So So sometimes observation helps us come up with more questions than answers, but very, very helpful ones.

[00:33:01.64] spk_1:
Yeah, because those questions then could become goals for your the next phase of your listening campaign.

[00:33:25.14] spk_0:
Yeah, well, and I think, you know, to the museum example, someone might not realize they were, you know, idling in a in a certain room and taking more pictures if you would ask them in a survey or even in an interview. But if you observe them doing that, then they have to kind of think a little bit more about why they why that appealed to them?

[00:33:42.14] spk_1:
Well, that’s it. Like they’re hanging out in the French nudes room. Of course, they’re all going to say, Well, I didn’t realize I didn’t I didn’t know I was there, that really 25 minutes. I don’t make any assumptions about that Yeah, I thought I breezed right through that. The newsroom. Alright. Yeah, e

[00:35:09.14] spk_0:
Just saying Oh, yeah, Are sometimes our minds remember different behaviors than than what we actually did. Yeah, sure. Let’s see if I could think of other ones. Um, I think that that kind of covers I was I was gonna add toe observation is, um and this is less like little observation, but seeing what? What else? People do. Um, and so this could be understanding. Knew where? Where do your where’s your audience shop? What what other things are they doing with their time? Um and so this It’s not really a different method. You might still need to do a survey or interview around this, but but to understand, um, you know those air behaviors that we can then use to work with our programs on dso understanding that people, you know, maybe are more organic or vegan shoppers might then lead us to think more about the food we serve at an event, um, or or how you’re appealing your, um, your mission to people. Especially like a newer There were people. There might be some connection you can make with other habits and behaviors that they have

[00:35:11.05] spk_1:
or knowing maybe what other causes folks give to

[00:35:32.44] spk_0:
exactly. Yeah, um, you know, And knowing that someone shops set eco friendly stores might than, you know, make them more connected to a sustainable part of your organization. And, you know, knowing that you you have sustainable practices could be more appealing to them.

[00:36:28.63] spk_1:
Right? Right. You want to share that? Okay, time for our last break. Quote. There’s nothing as simple as dot drives. Our executive team meets once per week to sit down and go through our dot drives pipelines. It’s fun to watch them have a healthy dialogue and to see them get excited about their numbers rising toward their goals. DOT drives has allowed us to take those key relationships and bring them to a deeper level. End quote. That’s Wendy Adams, director of donor engagement at Patrick Henry. Family Service is prospect to donor simplified. Get the free demo for listeners. Also a free month. It’s all on the listener landing page at we’ve got but loads more time for Listen closely, and I hope that’s what you’re doing. How did you get the company named teeny big?

[00:37:00.93] spk_0:
I gave myself a small window. Thio come up with a name and, um and what I really liked about it is I love zooming in and out on things. And so the big picture is very fascinating to me, but then to zoom in on these little details that we might observe on doing back out to see what we can broadly learn from those, Um, that was that really drew me to to the name.

[00:37:10.63] spk_1:
Okay, Now what? I’m this interesting s So why did you give yourself a time frame for choosing a name? Did you feel like you could go on forever if you didn’t? Yeah.

[00:37:27.83] spk_0:
Yeah. Coming from the design world, I knew I could spend endless amounts of time. And so, yeah, that was an entrepreneur practice I learned of. Give yourself 45 minutes for an idea and just come up with as much as you can. Then, uh, is that

[00:37:31.43] spk_1:
one? You got a company name in 45 minutes? Mhm.

[00:37:33.13] spk_0:
That’s all right. And then 14 minutes for the logo. Yeah. Kept it moving.

[00:37:41.63] spk_1:
Yeah, for a clever name. Okay. Interesting. Very. That was a very productive 45 minutes. Give.

[00:37:43.74] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s interesting. When you give yourself constraints, sometimes you can get a little more creative.

[00:38:13.32] spk_1:
Yeah, that’s for the those of us who work in the last minute. You feel that pressure now? I’m not saying, you know, last but it. But it’s time pressure. You know, your do other things until you know that you’re at the point where you absolutely have to focus on something else. And then you do. I mean, it’s amazing. You know how I can squander three hours and it’s amazing what I could do in 25 minutes. Uh

[00:38:20.72] spk_0:
huh. Yeah, that’s a part of the brain I’ve not quite understood, but it’s It definitely forces some focus. That helps. Yeah,

[00:38:34.72] spk_1:
it’s valuable. It helps. May not that I’m squandering 7/8 of my day, and then I’m only working half hour a day. But but the time pressure of ah, of an imminent deadline helps me.

[00:38:41.72] spk_0:
Yeah, sometimes you have to force it in yourself. I’d like to think about really didn’t like the names. I could just give myself another 45 minutes. But all right,

[00:38:42.21] spk_1:
you’re cheating. Then you’re gonna cheat yourself. I know, I know. Not setting the boundaries. You’re not supposed to abandon your boundaries. Emily, you’re supposed to stay. It was there was

[00:38:51.38] spk_0:
this part of my brain was telling myself that. And then the other part was like, Wait,

[00:38:57.92] spk_1:
maybe if I need more time. All right. Um, what else? Where else do radio? Where else do we go from here? Where do you wanna talk about?

[00:41:06.01] spk_0:
Let’s see, One of the things I love to talk about that I think is not happening very much in the nonprofit world is prototyping and testing on dso. I mentioned this a little bit in the ways toe. Listen, um and this kind of gets into again, like a lot of listening, and it’s a, you know, professional listening, not just conversation is trying Thio get answers to these questions that people aren’t always able to articulate. And so when we can get ideas in front of people that allows them to react. So, you know, you could you might be able to say, Oh, what would get you to come to this next event? You want pizza or free wine or, you know, you might be ableto like Sorry. I phrase it the wrong way. You might ask somebody that and they might say The obvious answer is like pizza and wine or or a discount. Um, I feel like that’s sort of the ultimate, um, answer to a lot of non profit questions when when they do surveys is people like Oh, yeah, I would come if I just had a discount or if there’s a free ticket and and yeah, I like the amount of non profits I hear that. Say, they gave them the discount and they didn’t come, Um, And so if instead we get ideas in front of people and say, You know, what if we had a Q and A at the end, or what if we, um, you know, told you some really interesting stories about this artist or composer? Um, you know, and maybe share some of those tidbits so they would understand what that actually meant. Um, you can start to paint a picture that they could get excited about, and so maybe it isn’t about the discount or the free thing, but it’s about the the interesting value that they would get out of it. Um, and they’re able to react to that rather than having to come up with the idea of themselves

[00:41:08.19] spk_1:
can give another example. It feels like we’re talking in the you’re talking in the abstract. Can we?

[00:41:13.05] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:41:14.51] spk_1:
Can come An example for us. Toe ground. This?

[00:41:36.41] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, let me think of a good one. So let’s see, with, uh, there was an organization that they were really having our arts organization, that they discovered that people were viewing them mawr as a entertainment venue. So people were coming and supporting them through ticket sales, but they weren’t moving towards donations And really seeing this organization

[00:41:45.71] spk_1:
as Yeah,

[00:43:11.70] spk_0:
yeah, and so they’re kind of struggling in this barrier. And so what we did is we actually prototypes, um, three statements that they could say ahead of their programming to remind people about the broader work that they were doing what happens, you know, when they left the building and on DWI could hit different, you know, emotional touch points. You know, one was really about the big picture of how this organization fit into the world. One gave us a practical numbers around the impact they were making. I think one told a good story about the history of the organization and So those were prototypes. Those were three different ways they could talk to people about why their organization is more than just entertainment on DSO. Then they could take those those concepts and whether it was in a survey and have people kind of choose which motivated the most. Or through an interview where they can literally just get, you know, ask people what they thought about those different. You know, those different statements and use that to then build a really powerful statement that when they did actually go, so have the next event. They had the confidence that that would make an impact. Okay,

[00:43:33.50] spk_1:
Okay. Helpful. Thank you. All right. Um, any anything we should be cautious of when we’re having doing this work? Maybe whether it’s casual at the over the counter pay table at an event or whether it’s more formal. Any lessons learned that we should avoid?

[00:44:00.29] spk_0:
Yeah, I’ve been going back thio some of things I’ve said before about people don’t always know what will motivate them. Um, and you know, they don’t always know what they’re the kind of predict their behaviors in a certain situation. And so I’ve definitely learned to live with a certain sense of, uh, uncertainty,

[00:44:01.45] spk_1:
A certain sense of uncertainty, a

[00:45:23.19] spk_0:
certain sense of yeah, helpful. Um, you know, listening is a process, and so it’s not as concrete as, um, you know, maybe some some more quantitative data points, but it is. It’s something you should always be doing. But always questioning on dhe. This kind of goes back to making, making assumptions about people you want to make sure that we’re not taking people literally, um, that that were, you know, uh, that we’re trying to figure out the motivations behind them. The, um you know, not just the functional touchpoints. So maybe, are they attending an event? Um, would they want to attend event, But also the why behind it? You know what really draws them to your organization? What caught their eye about that event? Um, and using that to then, you know, kind of taking those bits and pieces and building a story about them slowly so that we’re not. So I feel like I’m kind of getting in a little bit of a word. Jumble. Right. Okay.

[00:45:32.19] spk_1:
Well, you first of all, for functional touchpoints almost put you in jargon jail. I

[00:45:32.30] spk_0:
know. I

[00:45:32.73] spk_1:
know. Okay? Yeah.

[00:45:52.49] spk_0:
Yeah. Tony and I were just talking about jargon on LinkedIn. So, Z, uh, my watch out is to toe always sort of live in this hypothesis with listening on dso I think of. I think of it as, like a scientist.

[00:45:56.65] spk_1:
Okay, what’s the What’s the hypothesis? Oh, that you have a hypothesis going in.

[00:46:50.38] spk_0:
Well, that’s so a scientist is, um, you know, studying rocks, and they might find certain information about those rocks, but they always always have to keep questioning. Is that true? Is that true? Is that you know, is that really, um, the truth? And so I think with listening, it’s the same thing. People are complicated and so we can keep listening and gathering mawr information. Um, but we also have to know that it’s not solid ground that we’re standing on it. Z, it’s something that my ebb and flow throughout. Okay, you know, a ZX time moves on, and so it’s You have to live with some uncertainty. I e I guess what I’m saying is that if you you know, you don’t just do a survey and wipe your hands and think you have all the answers.

[00:47:06.08] spk_1:
Understand? Okay, right. You may need to have You may very well need to probe further. Asked what? Little asking One more question. Ah, dive deeper Thio to get to the rial. Yeah, Motivations person people really motivations what really moves them?

[00:47:25.78] spk_0:
Yeah. And you know, like this year as a ZX vaccinations happened, Those the ideas that people said in March might not be the same as in September. Eso you just have to live with some of that that uncertainty,

[00:47:27.28] spk_1:
okay, but it’s still worth proving its worth. Oh, yeah. You’re listening campaigns, Of course.

[00:47:35.98] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, it’s better than saying the wrong the wrong thing. All

[00:47:36.78] spk_1:
right, we’re gonna leave it there. Okay?

[00:47:38.78] spk_0:
Okay. All right.

[00:47:51.38] spk_1:
Emily Taylor. Principle of teeny big at teeny big dot com, which was derived in 45 minutes or or less. Um, thank you very much, Emily. Thanks for sharing.

[00:47:53.98] spk_0:
Thank you, tony. Thanks for having me.

[00:48:00.37] spk_1:
I did pronounce your name. Right? Right. Emily, You okay? Okay. No more shy and awkward either. Well, you’re over that. Your china smart assed, uh, non profit radio. You are. Thank you very much.

[00:48:07.77] spk_0:
Thank you.

[00:48:57.67] spk_1:
Next week, strategic execution you know, strategic planning Now what 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 and by dot drives prospect to donor Simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff Shows Social Media is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty, with me next week for non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.