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Dennis Miller: Your Leadership Pipeline
Dennis Miller returns to encourage you to identify and develop future leaders in your nonprofit. He explains what goes into your leadership development plan. He’s president of Dennis C. Miller Associates.
Loree Lipstein & Tracy Shaw: True Consultant Love
If your leadership pipeline is lackluster, you’ll have to hire outside talent. Our 20NTC panel helps you pick the right match for a great consulting relationship. They’re Loree Lipstein and Tracy Shaw from thread strategies.
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Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of declare veins if you inflamed me with the idea that you missed today’s show Your leadership pipeline. Dennis Miller returns to encourage you to identify and develop future leaders in your non profit. [00:00:40.74] spk_0:
He [00:02:08.74] spk_1:
explains what goes into your leadership development plan. He’s president of Dennis C. Miller Associates and true consultant Love. If your leadership pipeline is lackluster, you’ll have to hire outside talent. Our 20 NTC panel helps you pick the right match for a great consulting relationship. There are Laurie Lips Teen and Tracy Shaw from Thread Strategies. Antonis. Take two. A change to plan giving accelerator response erred by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits, your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives, raise more money changed more lives. Tony dot Emma slash dot for a free demo and a free month. I’m very pleased to welcome Dennis Miller back to the show. He is a nationally recognized expert in non profit leadership, executive search, strategic planning and board and leadership performance coaching with more than 35 years experience. Once upon a time, he was president and CEO of Somerset Medical Center and Foundation in New Jersey. Now he’s president of Dennis C. Miller Associates. He’s at Dennis c. Miller dot com. Welcome back then. It’s similar, [00:02:10.84] spk_0:
All right. Great to be back. It feels like being back home. It’s great. [00:02:14.60] spk_1:
Back home. Good [00:02:16.44] spk_0:
a long time. I’ve always, you see since grammar school because distinguished myself [00:02:20.35] spk_1:
from the that from that comic Dennis. [00:02:24.23] spk_0:
And I just tell people I’m actually funny today. It’s so that’s right from [00:02:27.57] spk_1:
the fraud. Yeah, he’s the fraudster. You’re the original. All right. Dennis Charles. [00:02:32.68] spk_0:
His mother gave him my name. Put it that way. [00:02:36.04] spk_1:
Yeah, very good. Alright, alright. So leadership are non profits. Not doing a good job bringing up talent from their ranks. What are you seeing, Dennis? [00:03:07.04] spk_0:
What’s not necessarily that they’re not doing a good job. I just think there’s not a focus that they need tohave here. I mean, I tony, I tell a lot of people that typically today with, you know, Kobe 19 this is the time to do a number of key things. Shopping up your vision, shopping up your board, shopping up your branding flans me. But really, a lot of tension has to be paid to assess your leadership talent from within new organization. I mean, you know this quite well. I’m sure your listeners to is that the thing that makes an organization successful is not the bricks and mortar it’s of people. And we need to invest as much as our in our own people as we possibly can, because there are our future leaders. So it’s really crucial that we take a step up and invest in our leadership development. [00:03:31.01] spk_1:
How do we distinguish between folks who have leadership potential on dhe? Those who don’t [00:03:56.64] spk_0:
well, a couple things first and organization really should do is think about what its overall strategic goals or for an organization, and then looking at every position they have in the table of organization as any level of management, whatever one of the conferences that one needs toe have to succeed in that job, particularly if that job becomes available. What we do is that we do an assessment of each leadership person and When I say leadership, I’m not talking about the top level [00:04:03.53] spk_1:
people. This is not only for CEO. Yeah, [00:04:48.94] spk_0:
this is for everybody that has a title of supervisor, part time, weekend outreach coordinator. Whatever this is, the leadership of support term for us is the kind of we do an assessment of them to our farm to Alexis. And it really kind of measures core attributes. Um core attributes the things along, the lines of reasoning, ability of people contact their attitude, their sense of urgency will take charge. There’s things like that. They’re competitive. So once you assess their core traits, not court aptitudes core traits, you can then put together a development plan for those core traits and kind of move people on which I’ll happy to explain. But it’s really assessing where someone is and give me a plan of action to develop. So they become for productive and more forceful as a leader going forward. [00:04:53.54] spk_1:
Do you feel that anybody has leadership potential if they’re if they’re brought along the right way? Or they’re just some folks that are not are not meant to be leaders. [00:05:03.04] spk_0:
Yeah, Well, listen, you know, there are people I think you can learn to be a leader. I think that I think I learned to be a leader. I think there’s some people that certainly are born probably with certain attributes or genetics that predisposed them towards a leadership position, something sometimes. But I clearly think people can can learn to be a leader and certainly buy things in their environment or things in their life that they have to make choices on. So I think people can develop if they want to. But here’s Brian saying Everybody you have to choose and decide You wanna be a leader And I think there’s a lot of ways of helping people become leadership. But it’s a question, if you wanna, you wanna be a leader. If you wanna be a leader, you wanna be one. Yeah, [00:05:42.56] spk_1:
all right, that’s true. A lot of folks may not aspire to that. They’re just absolutely don’t know. They don’t want to supervise other people and, [00:05:49.84] spk_0:
well, you know. And there’s a [00:05:52.27] spk_1:
place for them as well. Of [00:05:55.14] spk_0:
course it you and I know that the future and even today I mean we need leadership we need. Teoh is a people business. We’re in and so we need to develop or potential. Those are assets. [00:06:05.64] spk_1:
Well, I know you chose to be a leader because one of your books is mopping floors to CEO. Yeah, I know you’re you’re chuckling, but that’s your book title. [00:06:53.64] spk_0:
Yeah. What is it? You know, I I’ve had a successful 35 40 year career, but I started out really difficult challenges. And I did actually my floors when I was, you know, young man and was sort of homeless and went to a very difficult time in life, and and I chose to become a leader, and I ended up becoming a, you know, CEO and had a long term career of 25 years of medical, business and corporate executive and CEO of two hospitals. And I had my own business for 16 years, so I chose to be a leader. Absolutely. But, um, you know, I think that we need to sort of, you know, uh, the issue was also about, um, confidence and developing self confidence to people that they can be leader. And I think you know, most people somewhat lack some level of self conference. Some people, as you know, have too much self confidence and probably not riel, but I think tony to a lot of people. Given the opportunity to experience that chance, I think people will grow with it. I mean, no one gets to be a major league baseball player without starting with Tebow or literally. So. I think that, um, but I just to me is really important. It’s not not something we could do tomorrow. We don’t You could do this without any, almost without any dollar investment. But if we don’t invest in our people and training our people give people a chance to grow and develop. No one stays in a job forever, and it’s really crucial, particularly in any sector. But it’s not public sector, which is really the glue that keeps our communities together through these difficult times. And this is the worst time I can in 100 years, at least for this country, for the world leadership of development. And so what is the what are the benefits? When you tell people that you’ve been selected to be part of a leadership development program, it inspires enthusiasm. The morale goes up, retention goes up. People feel a sense of future [00:08:11.34] spk_1:
I was just gonna ask you, Do you tell folks that they’re in a leadership pipeline? Leadership will tell someone Way leadership potential in you. [00:10:00.34] spk_0:
Yeah, I think One of the ways way. Do it. Twofold. One is to start with, just, you know, hopefully everybody has some form of performance evaluation system. So to evaluate people, how they’re performing on those, whatever they might be a those top 20% performers, whatever they have earned the chance to be in sort of. What do you want to call your own organizational, leadership, academy or institute? Whether you have 50 people working with you or 500 people working, too, you want to kind of identify those people based on their performance. Then those people have not made the grade. You could explain to him what you need to do to make the great so you could motivate them to say, Listen, you need to beam or focus on working with others. Well, not just yourself, so you can point out the thing that they need to do to get into that leadership club here. It’s a huge reward to do that, and then obviously there’s a lot of things that one can dio and the types of courses one can take online courses using your own staff as mentors. There’s a whole range of things to focus in on, but clearly there’s a lot of leadership conferences today that we need to use to successfully leader organization. But we didn’t use yesterday, so I’ll give you a couple examples you clearly today more than before, visionary thinking is crucial. Compensate. That has to have, I mean, mission support. Mission focused is crucial but visionary thinking. It’s important relationship building. It’s a simple thing, but clearly how well you can earn people’s trust. Respect your passion for the organization, Emotional intelligence is a huge issue to be able to be able to identify and grow. Used to be I Q. Now it’s like you entrepreneurial spirit, having the ability to understand that today you know most of our funding is not going to come from public sources, and most of our, uh, you know, funding, particularly with Kobe. 19. This the federal government statement cameras. We’re running out of money so don’t dependent on public funding together. But on tomorrow, Spirit Mayor convinced people to invest in your success. That’s it’s fun. You issue of collaboration wth issue of being a motivational leader of vision will be able to be successful succession planner s. So there’s a lot of conferences that people need tohave today and the skills that need to have going forward and not necessarily the skills that led people to success in the past. So today there’s new companies that needed, and we need to encourage people to develop those. [00:10:47.67] spk_1:
All right, so you can you identify these? I mean, you’re not gonna find somebody who’s got all these competencies? I don’t think, but you’re you want toe identify people who have potential, right? I mean, maybe they they think they think broader, you know, they think market wise. So that gives them a broader a broader perspective. So that’s that’s encouraging on. Maybe they’re on top of that. They work well with others, but you’re not gonna find somebody’s got all these, you know, 68 competencies. Right? But you’re looking for you’re looking for potential in folks, right? [00:12:29.76] spk_0:
Yeah. Nobody is perfect. Nobody has everything myself included. Clearly what you want to do is focus on where people are at today. So what are their best attributes today and give people enough because there’s thousands and thousands of people every day who are visionary thinkers in our own communities, but give people an opportunity to be exposed to it. So let him explain What? What does it mean to be emotionally intelligent? What does it mean to be able to regulate your own emotions? What does it mean to be able to identify the emotions of others, to make sure that your own emotions are causing, uh, friction within other people? So how do you respond to people’s emotions? So there’s a lot of things one can learn what can learn about governance, what can learn about flan to be what can learn AA lot of things, how to develop goals and follow through and give people an opportunity to it. But if we don’t sort of seed if we don’t seek ways of training, are currently has become better and are potential leaders become even better emerging leaders, we’re gonna be on the show. So we have to focus on as much as we can developing people. [00:12:32.87] spk_1:
All right, we’ve identified these people, by the way you might hear some background noise. I have some work going on on my deck up above me. So in case you here’s some background sawing or pulling boards up or anything, that’s what’s going on. [00:12:49.07] spk_0:
It [00:13:07.64] spk_1:
z unavoidable. So all right, way to identify these people? How do we invest in them in their futures? Or do we? Is it a matter of sending them toe professional development courses? Is it giving them mentors? Is it broadening their responsibilities in the organization? How do we develop these, these folks? [00:13:45.84] spk_0:
What’s a couple of things and your questions right on the money. So it’s a every organization. Just as you have a strategic plan and you have a business plan and operating budget plan, you should have a leadership development plan. And what does that mean? Just what you said here. So sometimes you wanna be able to, uh, creators and met the ship. So who would The organization would be a good mentor, Somebody else’s to identify your mentors. Mentors and coaches here identify potentially some their courses or topics that one can teach about sort of through a lunch and learn. Uh, there are. We are firm. We have online courses. We have an online course called How to become a high performing, non profit executive leadership team. A CEO’s guide. The organizational success So you could take this course relative very inexpensive, a tw home in your office on your mobile app. And so there’s ability to interact with that. There are certainly a books one take their certainly things on the website. You can think so, But if you wanna let people put somebody in charge of your leadership development for maybe or HR executive, maybe you’re Cielo. But anybody here? So you want to stop. Wish more of a formal leadership development program, just as you would with anything else here, just as you wouldn’t and you’ve developed. You have a development plan, a fundraising. But how do we get more donors dollars? There’s an effort put into that right. You hire someone, you have a program. We have a plan. You might bring an outside consultant. Focus in on your leadership development the same way here. I think that you can clearly think about this. If you’ve been identified as a potential method that makes you feel good. Also, to know that you’ve been recognized as someone who could be a mentor here, So this has a really, really positive feature here. So if you assess people’s talent, you do have to assess people’s talents based upon their performance and again people our farm. We have something called Alexis, which we measure people’s core attributes and things like that, but certainly, um, development program. [00:16:02.84] spk_1:
It’s time for a break turn to communications. The world runs on relationships we know this turn to is led by former journalists so that you get help building relationships with journalists when you wanna be heard because there’s breaking news and you wanna show yourself as a thought leader in your field, those relationships are going to help you get heard because journalists are gonna take your calls because they already know you turn to specializes. In working with nonprofits, they understand the community. One of the partners was an editor at The Chronicle of Philanthropy. They’re at turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to your leadership pipeline with Dennis Miller. Is this a program that’s for individuals? It’s individually tailored or it’s a It’s a leadership or professional development program that is universal for for all all the potential talent we [00:17:24.24] spk_0:
see, I think as an organization, I think you should have overall organizational, um uh, leadership development plan, just as you would in order overall organization plans. We plan. So overall one. Now, just as you have a plan for annual giving and playing, giving and major gifts and grants things like that and then each person that was that in your employment, each person that’s part of your team should have their own individual sort of plan assessment based upon their own personal. That’s what they need to do. So example here, if they’re assessing, they find that their you know their their reasoning ability as well. They enjoy people contact, but maybe do not take charge. So now you have to find a way to help them build their self conference so they could take charge so each each other, assess each person individually at the same time having any part of the group here. That’s how it works. It’s like coaching sports team. You have a team, you know, whether the Yankees or the Mets or the Dodgers. Whatever. You have a team out there players, but each person is also coach in your position, so that’s how you do it. You [00:17:24.48] spk_1:
mentioned mentoring could be could be valuable, say a little more about that. I feel like there’s not enough. I feel like it’s not enough attention paid [00:17:31.90] spk_0:
Thio your your friend or family next, tony. But I think I look at myself here. I mean, telling yourself here, I asked, You know, your listeners, Has anybody ever meant that you have? You had a mentor and I’ve had a number of mentors and they’re just people toe the surrogates and supporters, people that maybe there were role model to you. So someone, you know, that’s that’s probably the best thing if there’s anything that you kind of listen come away from today is is is you know, think about the idea of mentorship just where your organization can. You have people become, you know, become a member. [00:18:16.94] spk_1:
Let’s let’s talk. Let’s drill down because I’ve had other guests, you know, talk about the value of mentoring. But but and you’ve said you’ve had many mentors, what does it look like? Do you schedule a bi weekly or a monthly? Our together [00:18:21.86] spk_0:
there’s [00:18:22.22] spk_1:
there’s some banging going on. By the way, you might hear our radio to my my contractor likes, uh, music of the sixties and seventies. [00:18:32.57] spk_0:
So outside my office to say, [00:18:33.76] spk_1:
Okay, you got recycling. All right, well, you might hear some credence. Clearwater Revival. Um, hey, if you can hear his music, that’s the There you go here that there you go, pulling that, pulling those deck boards off. All right. So mentoring the details of mentoring. What? How does it work? Let’s talk about the nuts and bolts of a strong mentoring relationship, like in your own. In your own example, [00:18:59.84] spk_0:
I It’s an excellent question, I think. A couple of things here. Thanks. You certainly can. And as an individual, be seeking a mentor. So try to identify someone maybe in your and your neighborhood, maybe in your organization, maybe in your church. [00:19:17.84] spk_1:
All right.