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[00:00:09.31] spk_0:
Oh,

[00:02:04.32] spk_1:
non profit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite Abdominal podcast. I’m traveling this week without my fancy desktop Mike. So if I don’t sound quite so good, that’s the reason. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d come down with met hemoglobin anemia if you turned me blue because you missed this week’s show. What power really sounds like using your voice to lead our coverage of the 2023 non profit technology conference continues as Mary Chan encourages you to own your voice story to reclaim your powerful voice. She also shares strategies for speaking with confidence. Mary is ceo of organized sound productions and using your executive skills. What are executive skills? How do they develop and why do they matter to achieving your goals? Dana Emmanuel from New Moms and Sky Tyler with attained partners explained. This is also from 23 N D C tony stake to, to give butter webinar. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Here is what power really sounds like using your voice to lead. Welcome

[00:03:02.67] spk_0:
back to tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 N T C the 2023 nonprofit technology conference in Denver, Colorado, hosted by N 10 where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. With me now is Mary Chan podcast, strategist, voice coach and CEO at organized sound productions. Welcome to non profit radio, Mary Chan. Thank you so much, tony. My pleasure to have you as a podcast strategist. I guess you’re welcome to tell me anything that I do wrong in the next 20 to 40 minutes however long you spend together, uh Your feedback is welcome. As listen, all listeners feedback always is your session topic is what power really sounds like using your voice to lead. What are we, what are we talking about here? Power voice, what’s been changing? What, what do we need to know?

[00:04:20.39] spk_2:
So, basically what I’m saying is that what do you think of when you think of someone who has a strong or powerful voice? You know, do you, do you get a certain image in your mind? Do you have someone who might think? Well, someone who presents and doesn’t say um or they have this quote unquote broadcast voice? That’s what a lot of people might think of. They might not think of. Oh, I shouldn’t be leading. I don’t want to do the speaking. I, I don’t know what to say. I, I, I stumble on my words a lot. But nowadays today, because that is an old concept, that is something that somebody made up hundreds of years ago, this broadcast standard voice. So today, the voices that truly lead our voices, like you creating your own podcast voices. Like all these amazing attendees, people of diverse backgrounds and different accents. A lot of people might think, oh, I have an accent. People won’t understand me, but that’s not true. Power is the voice, your voice. And I want you to be able to use it to share your message your cause what it is that you want to share with the world and you can only do that intimately and to connect with someone through the power of your voice. So the

[00:05:19.68] spk_0:
authentic voice, our, our authentic voice. Yes. The only thing I would challenge is I don’t think you’ve heard non profit radio in the past. So you don’t know how bad it is. Uh listeners know. I don’t know why they stay. Um No. Okay. So is it an authentic voice? I mean our, our, our own, each of our own individual, authentic voices. You mean instead of some, some, I don’t know, pedagogical um aspirational type who, who’s a broadcast? I don’t know, I’m trying to think of some famous broadcast I can’t even think of because I don’t watch TV News or you know, I don’t know Joe Scarborough, like some Joe Scarborough type morning. Joe for those who don’t know Joe Scarborough that like instead of trying to aspire to some, to sound like something else, just be authentic to ourselves. That am I oversimplifying your message? I don’t want

[00:07:01.08] spk_2:
to know you have the main point. And I find that what happens is a lot of people when they do come to me for voice coaching or they want to start their own podcast for their non profit organization or what have you, they’ll say, oh, I, I need, I need to work on my voice and I’m like, yeah, but what do you need to work on? What do you feel in your mind? That is a disconnect. And I’ve had people say, oh, well, someone once told me I need to, if I have my own podcast or if I’m going to be doing a speaking thing, I need to sound like someone from CNN and I’m like, well, take a look at yourself. Do you look like someone who would be on CNN? And, you know, specifically the person I was speaking to was a young woman of color and she was like, no, I don’t look like what I would perceive as a stereotypical CNN voice. And so that’s where I come in. It’s like we all have these preconceived ideas and they might be something that was taught to us at a young age. It might have been something that was absorbed through media, through our culture, through our society that we’re told that we’re not good enough or that we need to be quiet when we were little girls, things like that, they still get ingrained into us when we are a full fledged adult and trying to be a person in the world. Some of those things are still tied to our voice. Why are we holding onto

[00:07:08.18] spk_0:
these antiquated notions of what voice should be for us? Why, why do we cling to

[00:08:13.11] spk_2:
this? A lot of it is subconscious and a lot of it is still society. It’s antiquated. Yes. But we’re still not at a point yet where we have moved on from that. We are still saying that oh, a woman’s voice gets judged so much more than a man’s voice, especially in traditional media, radio TV. Criticized so much more. Oh, she sounds so shrill or um there’s another uh phrase called up speak. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that where you, you end the sentence more like a question at the end. And so women and men do that, but women get picked on so much more that oh, it makes you sound like you have no idea what you’re talking about when that’s not true when that could have been something that we had learned from a young age to create safety within ourselves. Because we were always told that you’re not smart enough. Your voice is not something that we can trust or believe in. And So we’re like, so

[00:08:20.14] spk_0:
you’re so you’re so you speak as if everything is a question. That’s because you’re not, you’re not right? Because you’re not an authoritative voice. So, so you, so you need to, you need to accept your voice position as non authoritative and so learn to speak up speak.

[00:08:38.30] spk_2:
But that it’s not,

[00:08:40.53] spk_0:
I’m not advocating that people do that. I’m saying that I’m not advocating that I’m saying that’s the teaching that there, that there is happening there that gets perpetuated,

[00:08:49.71] spk_2:
perpetuated this idea.

[00:08:51.56] spk_0:
Did you think I was advocating that? Yes, women need to speak more because your voices are not authoritative and you shouldn’t be in leadership roles at all.

[00:09:27.88] spk_2:
But there is also a lot of research now going into, where did this come from? How is this playing a part in our society that up speak actually becomes an authoritative part of people’s speech? And it is because of the younger generation, they are hearing that up speak is happening with women in authoritative spaces. And so people think, oh, if I hear that, that’s actually a marker, a sound marker of someone who I can trust. So the generations are shifting all these things

[00:09:37.94] spk_0:
180 degrees from what we were just talking about. Exactly.

[00:09:41.11] spk_2:
So it is shifting its slow. But we are seeing as you know, the signs, signs that things aren’t what they’re meant to be.

[00:09:52.38] spk_0:
You talk about voice story, own your voice, story. What does that mean

[00:10:31.78] spk_2:
I loaded a little bit to that before. About my personal story is when I was a little girl, I came from a family that immigrated from Hong Kong and China. And so when they came here, they brought their traditions, right? And their, what their culture was and being the youngest of three and a Chinese household, I was always told to shut up, be quiet. You wait, your turn to speak. Basically, I wasn’t of importance. My older brother was important. My middle sister was important, but me, you’re the little one, go and be quiet over there. And so that is my voice story. It’s been ingrained into me and every now and then it still pokes out because it’s part of my nature. It’s part of how I grew up. And so everyone has some sort of a voice story and that plays a part in your voice today.

[00:10:54.96] spk_0:
How do you get in touch with what your own voice story is? And, and how, well, let’s stop right there. Stop at that point. Not about trying to be something different. But how do you, how do you get in touch with your own voice story?

[00:11:02.92] spk_2:
It’s not about being something different, right? It’s

[00:11:04.59] spk_0:
only how do you get to know, recognize and appreciate what your own voice story is

[00:11:47.33] spk_2:
and that’s a whole path that you, you have to go on. But one of the things that I would take a look at is I always ask questions. So where are, where were you when someone first said something about your voice, that’s how you can start uncovering it. So, for me, it was, I always remember my dad telling me to shut up, uh, for other people, uh, that I’ve worked with, somebody had said, oh, I remember vividly in university I was supposed to give a presentation and my professor was like, oh, gosh, you’re putting everybody to sleep. So it’s things like that that has traumatized people’s voices and they’ve internalized it. So when you start thinking back about, okay, what is my voice story? What was that first time that somebody said something about my voice that I’ve internalized now that I recognized what that is. Again, I can bring it to light, I can work on that and I can be accepting that. Okay. That happened. That was in the past. It’s not who defines me today.

[00:12:14.29] spk_0:
And how does this relate to having a powerful voice?

[00:13:54.81] spk_2:
The power is shifting. So that’s what I mean before about how, you know, women’s voices were told, you know, you’re shrill, you’re up speak, you have vocal fry. That’s when you quiver or like shake at the end of your voice. When that happens. People think I’m not authoritative but that’s not true. That power is using your passion, using what your message is and focusing on that too. Then two then energize your voice to showcase your personality and who you are and that becomes the power people are then drawn to what you have to say. Not specifically the words that you’re choosing, but the tone of your voice, how you pray present yourself that all comes together when you know what you want to talk about and you have that passion for the cause that you are speaking on behalf of, of your organization that you want to share with the world of the people that you work with that becomes powerful. When you stop thinking of all the other things like I have to stand up on stage. What am I gonna wear? Will my hair look good? Why? What am I specifically gonna say? If you just hone in on how the person is going to feel, the person that you’re talking to, how they will feel and what they’re going to get across from your message that will change the power dynamics because it’s no longer then going to be about the vocal fry and the up speak and the shrill voice because when you’re excited, you can be really high pitched and when you need to pull back and be quiet and have a little bit of slower speech that really pulls people in. So it’s not going to be about the, the shrill or what have you. It’s going to be about the emotions behind your voice. That’s the power.

[00:14:09.86] spk_0:
You’re a speaking coach to write a voice coach. So I know that someone might think, well, everything she’s saying means we don’t, we don’t need voice coaching. There’s no value in it because I just have to be in touch with my own, my own voice story, develop my, uh, take advantage of my own authentic voice. And so I don’t need any coaching. So how does, how does voice coaching fit with everything that we’re talking about?

[00:14:37.47] spk_2:
I mean, you can do it your own if you want to, you can.

[00:15:06.21] spk_0:
But I mean, I think there’s great value. I used to have a voice coach. I have a speaking coach, public speaking coach. And, uh, yeah, so I’m, I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t, but, but just for the folks who might think, well, so there’s no need for any coaching. As long as I have my own authentic voice, it doesn’t need to be coached. So allay those or not allay those fears. But, um, uh, you know, enlighten those, those, uh, naysayers, let’s put it that way. Enlighten those. First of

[00:16:03.76] spk_2:
all, it’s, you don’t hear what everybody else is hearing. Your voice comes out of your mouth and a voice is actually a sound wave. So it needs to come out of your mouth, hit the airwaves and then reach somebody’s ear drums and how they hear that sound wave is going to be different from how you yourself hear that sound wave because your sound wave when you listen to it is reverberating in your skull in your palate, your mouth, palette inside your mouth and you’re hearing it not from the outside, you’re hearing it from inside your own head. So it’s very different and you may not hear things that other people are hearing and they may not, you may not pick up on the subtle cues. The facial expressions, facial expressions can create a different tone in your voice. You can’t see that unless you’ve got, you know, you’re doing a selfie video or your friend of a mirror the whole time having that outside perspective can really elevate your voice and to help you just reach that next level that you’ll be looking for when you want to be a great leader. Okay.

[00:16:25.18] spk_0:
Okay. Um You have some effective strategies for speaking with confidence. Can you share some of those ideas? Have you done your session yet or no, it’s coming up tomorrow. Okay, tomorrow. Can you share some of you? I need you to share some of your strategies with our listeners for confident

[00:17:18.52] spk_2:
speaking. If you take away nothing from all of this, the main goal is take yourself out of the situation. A lot of people start focusing on again what I was saying, what are you going to say? How do you prepare all this stuff? Take that away and start focusing on the listener? So whether that is you’re doing a presentation in person, you are pitching to a whole board or you’re doing a podcast, like with you, if you just focus on your listener and what they will feel that will change the game, that’s like bare bones. If you don’t get anything out of this, it’s how do you want the listener to feel? How do

[00:17:26.48] spk_0:
you want them to feel?

[00:17:28.16] spk_1:
Right.

[00:18:32.73] spk_0:
What are some examples of how, I mean, I would, I’ll offer mine, you know, I want listeners to feel that I’ve channeled their questions or their thinking because they’re all in small and midsize nonprofits. So I want them to feel actually taking a step deeper, a part of our conversation, but they can’t be here with us. So hopefully, I would like them to feel that I’m channeling them. So if someone says something that’s kind of uh academic sounding, let’s drill down into some how to 123 or what can we bring back to our board or our CEO or my vice president or, you know, whatever. So I, I want, I want people to feel that their voice is represented in the conversation so that they feel a part of the conversation, although they can’t really be a, be a physical part, but they can still be channeled. That’s how I’d like people to feel. But so what, what, what are some other ways of what are some other feelings that you might, you want your, your listeners to take on?

[00:19:00.69] spk_2:
Right. I’m just gonna go back to you as the example I offered it up. Yeah. And I did notice that before when we were talking about, you know, uh what is up speak, I don’t know, explain that the listeners might not know. And you’ve already focused in on that. And that is how you are doing this interview without actually fully being so over prepared. You know, you, you don’t have miles of questions written out. This is more about

[00:19:05.39] spk_0:
being I’ve been on, I’ve been on those podcasts where the questions are out of the blue. Okay? You want me to pivot to this new subject because you don’t want to ask me anything about what I just said for the past two minutes. Okay. Here we go. Yes, I’ve been on those. Yes. And

[00:20:28.74] spk_2:
you can take that essence into the pitch into the boardroom into, you know, working with your staff. You don’t have to be 100% fully prepared. If you know how you want them to feel, you will get into their mindset and you will always be advocating for them. And so you take yourself out of that bubble, you then know exactly what you’re gonna say each and every time because you’re an advocate for your listener. Uh It happens. Same. There is a nonprofit podcast host that I work with creating their show and he then asks, well, I should write up a script. I should write up questions. What should I, you know, what, what should I say on the show? I don’t know. And it goes back to okay, who is your ideal listener? Who is the one person you’re talking to? Because in the podcast, at least that you don’t see your listeners. So focus on that one person. What are their challenges? What are their pain points? What are they looking for in this podcast? And how can you help them answer those questions for them? And he was like, oh, so I don’t need to write out a script. I’m like, no, because if you do, then it sounds like you’re just reading a script, I can tell. But if you go with the feeling and the emotion, you will always answer their questions because you are being an advocate for that person.

[00:21:32.68] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Over 50,000 nonprofits in 96 countries, 50,000 use donor boxes online donation platform and why not? It’s four times faster, checkout easy payment processing and there are no set up fees, monthly fees. There’s no contract. How many of your possible donors drop off before they finish making the donation on your donation page? Stop the drop, just stop it. Donor box helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Now, back to what power really sounds like using your voice to lead with Mary Chan.

[00:21:45.65] spk_0:
You have another strategy that you’re going to share tomorrow that you can share today with nonprofit radio listeners. One of the things is I don’t want you holding back on because they can’t be all be here. Some of them. So I don’t, don’t hold back. Yeah.

[00:24:03.26] spk_2:
So a lot of this I’ve talked about is mindset, but we also talk about the literal voice as well. Like your vocal voice box, your vocal cords and all of that. And so one of the ways to get into your literal voice is through your body. So we’re gonna work on some breathing because without air, your vocal cords actually don’t work. It’s a rare that pushes through the two chords that actually vibrate to make your vocal chords work. So if you don’t have enough breath, and I’m talking about breath in your belly. So your diaphragmatic breathing. So that’s the area like right below your rib cage and right above your belly button, that whole circular area of your torso when you breathe, I want you to breathe in through there, not through your chest. If you’re breathing high in your chest, then that creates more of a fight or flight. If you are in danger, you’re constantly breathing in your upper chest area. So if you’re getting ready to speak and you’re breathing in your upper chest area, that creates a lot of anxiousness, anxiety. So we wanna breathe lower in the belly. We talk a bit about that. We will also talk about the other physical aspects such as your um nonverbal facial features, body language that totally ties into your voice. Because if you, you know, think about it just if you’re sitting down, fold your arms, crunch yourself over. First of all, my diaphragm is being locked. I can’t breathe very well. And so my voice is going to be a bit more shaky sounding. I’m not gonna be very confident, but if you can open up your body, so now I have my hands out to the side. My diaphragm has more room to breathe. If I were standing, I may have been, my feet would be shoulder width apart and I would be able to sway a little bit back and forth. So I’m not just standing stick straight because that affects the tone of your voice, that affects how you’re feeling yourself because however you feel is then express through your voice and then the listener will pick up on that as well so that you want to make sure however you’re feeling is what the listener is going to feel. So if you can hone in on what the listener feels, then you won’t be so focused on your own feelings. Does that make sense? Yeah.

[00:24:22.46] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, it sounds to me like you need to be comfortable. We’re talking about voice, be comfortable in your own voice and that will create comfort in your listeners.

[00:24:27.27] spk_2:
Yes.

[00:24:28.60] spk_0:
No,

[00:25:12.51] spk_2:
no. Yes and no, because you, you can be comfortable in your voice. But then when you stand up on that stage or you’re in front of people or what have you, then that anxiety sometimes can come up right? That oh my gosh, there’s all these people staring at me. I need to talk now. So then you get into, okay. What are the foundations? I said breathing. So if you start breathing, calm yourself down and then once you get into that calmer state or opposite as well, it doesn’t necessarily have to be about calm. If you just want to feel more energized, then you could be, if that breathing will help with your energized state. However, you want your listener to feel you need to get into that space yourself. Is what I mean,

[00:26:17.29] spk_0:
I can think of it from the negative side because I’ve done stand up comedy and improv also and, but specifically stand up comedy when you’re there by yourself in the spotlight. Um The audience can sense nervousness, anxiety, you know, they, you know, like comics will say I’m not a professional comic, but I’ve been around them and I’ve done some of my own, you know, like the audience can smell it. They can smell if you’re nervous and that’s going to ruin their laughter because they’re nervous for the nice people feel bad for you. So they don’t want to laugh at you. And then the, the harsh, harsh people are either gonna heckle you, which can be very difficult, especially very new comic or they’re just gonna not respect you as a comic because they can, they can smell your nervousness. So on, like on the negative side, people can tell it is the pauses. I think some of it’s the facial expressions you were talking about. It’s probably is also your body language. It’s your timing. It’s your timber of your voice, the tone of your voice. Is it shaky? And you know, people can smell that. So I guess that, like I said, that’s on the negative side. You don’t want people sensing that out about you.

[00:26:42.39] spk_2:
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But again, if you, I’m just gonna harp on it one more time. If you focus on how the listeners gonna feel, right? You will not then focus on your own nervousness, right? It’s not about you. It is about the person and that makes you a

[00:27:08.85] spk_0:
giving speaker. You’re, you’re giving to your audience, whether it’s stand up comedy or a 60 minute presentation at N 10, like you’re doing your, your, your audience is counting on you and you’re giving to them by, I would say channeling them, you know, you’re saying, recognize how they’re, how you want them to feel. You’re giving to them either way you’re, you’re giving speaker. Yeah,

[00:27:38.63] spk_2:
because people don’t also like if you’re, if you’re doing a speaking big, people don’t want to come here to not learn something. They’re, they’re here for a reason. They have expectations. Yeah, they want to learn, they want to be entertained what, you know, doing the stand up comic stuff. So you’re here to serve them in that way. It’s not about you. It is not about what specifically you’re going to say you are here to help them. And so if you channel a bit of that, then it doesn’t really matter what the exact words are. And if you forget your notes, you know, there’s always slides to help you out to remember a little thing here and there. I remember

[00:28:16.15] spk_0:
seeing lots of speakers like changing, revising their notes in the last five minutes and then they don’t even look at them and you can’t, you can’t see that thing. You wrote up the side of the page because there was no room left in the last five minutes. I’m going to turn the page and read that. But if it makes you feel comfortable fine, but you’re never gonna be able to turn to it. Um, what else, Mary Chan, what we haven’t talked about that you’re gonna share with folks tomorrow anything? I haven’t asked you, uh, anything you want to know.

[00:28:19.15] spk_2:
Well, the fact that this, it’s participatory, I mean, I’ve gone to most, you know, conferences. People just sit there, they take notes on their laptop and all that stuff, but it is a session about your voice. So it’s going to be participatory. I’m not forcing

[00:28:34.85] spk_0:
anybody.

[00:28:41.73] spk_2:
Yes. You know, so I, I would love people to interact and to get out of their comfort zone. You know, if they’re afraid to speak in front of people coming up in front with me. Let’s give it a try, make it,

[00:28:53.90] spk_0:
you’ll make it a safe space. Of course.

[00:29:06.84] spk_2:
Exactly. It will be a safe space. We are all here to learn together. And so I want to provide that opportunity for people and have that stage for them. I

[00:29:24.45] spk_0:
don’t want to spend a little more, a little more time. Do you mind? What were your thoughts about, like last minute preparations? Do you have advice about the last five minutes before you go on the last 60 seconds before you go on? Let’s, let’s take a, not a podcast, but let’s take a little little. What, what I would consider a little higher pressure live audience? 75 or 100 people coming to a conference session. Okay. Maybe it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. Last five minutes, last 60 seconds. What do you, what do you recommend

[00:32:08.15] spk_2:
before you get ready to speak on any stage? Whether you’re just talking one on one with someone could be a big arena, doesn’t matter. You need to be centered on your message. So finding a quiet space, if you like to meditate, meditate on that, if you are someone who likes to be energized, do what it is that you need to do. I had someone once was like, I need to do some push ups before I get on stage. Great. Go do that because it’s not always about to calm myself. Down my nerves or? Oh I need to calm myself down. How are you feeling in that moment? And what will serve you? So, for me, sometimes I need to shake my hands. I need to shake my body. Uh This other person that I worked with whenever she gets nervous, her left leg very specifically shakes. So she knows I need to shake up my leg beforehand. I need to move my body in a certain way beforehand. So getting out those body nerves, however it c fits for you, make sure you have time to do that and then breathe the diaphragmatic breathing, making sure that you’re breathing through your belly to calm your your nervous system, not necessarily your nerves because if you want to be high energy, then you want to have some of that to play off of but to calm your nervous system. Um and uh vocal warmups, here’s one that could be fun and you know, if you’re in a room and you’re not in a private space, it could be a little embarrassing, but it doesn’t matter who cares. Pick a vowel, any vowel will say ah and start thinking of your voice like an elevator. So an elevator has a bottom floor. So we’re gonna talk about like your chest is the bottom of the elevator here. Uh And I don’t really care what tone you’re using just uh and then you’re gonna go up the elevator, you’re gonna go a little bit up higher into the throat and then higher up into the nasal cavity, uh, and high up to the top of the elevator, which is the rooftop garden, the top of your head. And you are gonna probably sound really weird and crackly, which is all great because you’re warming up and go up and down that elevator. So you’re figuring out what is your vocal range for that particular day? And you’re gonna sound terrible. You’re gonna, um that’s just a vocal warm up to get you your, if you’re gonna speak high because you’re so excited, you can get up there. If you want to bring it down low, you can get down there as well. So just make sure that you prep your voice beforehand.

[00:32:24.53] spk_0:
Leave us with some inspiration about voice. Voice, story, power,

[00:33:50.77] spk_2:
confidence, yeah. Voice right now is such a beautiful space to be in because there are so many platforms to get your voice heard, whether that is social media, you know, conferences are back in person doing a podcast, interviewing people like there are so many ways to get your voice heard and we need that diversity in the podcasting space alone. It is mostly white men who lead and host uh top rated shows, women are coming into the space, but they are not in the space as big as the men are and people of color even smaller number. And so we need that voice diversity. People want to be in connection with people who sound just like them. And so if you have a message, and in fact, I was speaking to somebody this morning at breakfast here at the conference, she was saying she has a podcast, she hasn’t launched it yet. She’s done a whole bunch of interviews, but she’s just scared, not ready, it’s busy, but people are looking for that content. Her message needs to be heard. And so if you have a voice, I challenge you to use it in a way that leads and shares a message that you are so passionate about because we need it today more than ever.

[00:34:02.34] spk_0:
Mary Chan podcast, strategist, voice coach and CEO at organized sound productions. Thank you very much, Mary for sharing. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for being with tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 N T. See where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits.

[00:35:47.80] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two to give Butter webinar is coming up. It’s debunked the top five myths of planned giving, debunk these insidious hateful myths. That’s what I’ll be doing. It’s Wednesday the 14th of June at two p.m. Eastern time, but that doesn’t matter. Just sign up, get the video and watch anytime. I think this webinar is going to be particularly fun because the host from Give Butter Floyd Jones is gonna be with me right next to me co located. So we will be uh exploring these hateful myths together and keeping, keeping it light, let’s say, as I debunk them for everyone, you sign up at give butter dot com. Just go to resources. That’s Tony’s take two. It’s that simple. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time here is using your executive skills.

[00:36:15.11] spk_0:
Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 NTC 2023 nonprofit technology conference at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado Day to where we are sponsored by Heller consulting technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. With me. Now our Dana Emmanuel Director of Learning and Innovation at New Moms and Sky Tyler. She’s solution architect at Exponent Partners, Dana and Sky. Welcome to Nonprofit

[00:36:28.19] spk_3:
radio. Thank you, Tony. Thanks for

[00:36:38.49] spk_0:
having a pleasure to have you. Pleasure. Your topic is harnessing executive skills to achieve your goals. And we’re talking about 12 executive skills. Uh Dana, why don’t you give us like a 30,000 ft overview and why this is important for nonprofits?

[00:37:16.29] spk_4:
Executive skills are the 12 brain based abilities that govern how each individual, everybody with a brain, each individual organizes things reacts to things and get things done. So they really govern how we set progress towards and achieve our goals. And in the nonprofit space, when we understand our own executive skills, our colleagues executive skills, and if we are running human service programs, we do at New Moms, we understand our participants executive skills, we can do a lot to design our programs and products and services in a way that leverages executive skills to help people achieve their goals and mitigate some of the struggles that come up when our executive skills are stretched. And by understanding that we can really, I think accelerate some of the impact that nonprofits have talked about.

[00:37:43.41] spk_0:
We’re talking about individual,

[00:37:45.63] spk_4:
individual,

[00:37:47.27] spk_0:
contribute to organization level goals, talking about our own executive skills and our own goals.

[00:38:10.52] spk_4:
You can imagine it starts at the individual level. But once we understand our own and each other’s like, for example, Sky and I have been working together, she knows my executive skills. I know hers, I understand her goals. I can help her achieve some of her professional workplace goals by understanding her executive skills as well. So understanding individual executive skills and goals helps us achieve better kind of die attic goals in the partnership and the relationship in the workplace.

[00:38:24.90] spk_0:
I understand you’ve been working together for many years, but you’ve never met

[00:38:28.72] spk_4:
in person, not even many years. So

[00:38:37.81] spk_3:
we actually connected through the NTC conference, the session that Dana submitted that got accepted um needed a partner. And I was really intrigued by the content by the information around the executive skills and the idea of how they can be applied. Exactly, as she said, both from an individual basis and also a group or organizational basis. So I just raised my hand and said, please let me help however I can. And it’s been a great working relationship for the past couple of months.

[00:39:18.67] spk_0:
Congratulations on the partnership. And it’s exciting to meet in person. Um, do we need Sky? Do we need to identify the 12? Uh, is that, is that, is that, is that, it sounds like something that’s more appropriate for a slide on the screen? But we don’t have that, do we need, but do we need to identify the 12 for folks to get a full grasp of the subject?

[00:39:45.10] spk_3:
I think it’d be a really great idea. Um One of the nice things is they’re kind of grouped into sections, there’s three major groupings of executive skills. Um And then within each of those, there’s anywhere from, I believe, 3 to 5 per there, I’m definitely going to lean on Dana for this since it is her area of expertise and let her go into it. But I would also say that there’s some great resources that your listeners can find online because we’ll probably go through them pretty quickly. Uh not only on this podcast, but we also do it pretty quickly in the session and being able to have those resources to go back to afterwards are incredibly useful. Okay, let’s

[00:39:56.33] spk_0:
take care of that now. So we don’t forget where, where can folks find those resources?

[00:40:14.35] spk_4:
So New Moms has an extensive um resource bank of information about executive skills at New moms dot org and I’d also encourage people to check out the E F works library dot org. Sometimes executive skills are called executive functions. And E F works library dot org has a lot of information that we’ve relied on to build out our programming at new moms as well.

[00:40:25.35] spk_0:
Okay. So new moms dot org and E F works works library dot org. For the, you can learn about the 5 12 executive functions or executive skills. Okay. Are we able to between the two of you? Can we take off the 12? Okay, because they’re not using notes. Neither one has a note sheet. I don’t know if they didn’t think I would ask. But um okay,

[00:41:09.45] spk_4:
working memory is one of the executive skills. So you’re testing ours now. So in the first bucket that sky referred to, there’s um how we organize bucket and there are three within that. It’s organization skills, time management, skills, and planning and prioritization skills. Time management is less about showing up on time though. That’s part of it. It’s more about estimating time, estimating how long a project might take you, how long something may or may not need to take. And so that’s why it’s bucket id in an adjacent to planning and prioritization. Okay. I can already tell

[00:41:31.67] spk_0:
that that executive skill in me is more like mid level down to work or be skill. I consistently underestimate the time that it will take me to complete something I

[00:41:55.22] spk_3:
want to I want to jump in on that though because you hit on an excellent point here that there’s, there’s not like a winner or loser. So it’s on a spectrum from strength to struggle and to Dana’s earlier point, these are 12 executive skills or executive functions that anybody with a brain has in some level and really being able to identify that without even taking the quiz or the evaluation or attending a workshop that takes a certain level of self awareness, that that’s something that you struggle with. And then exactly. So everybody falls somewhere and just being able to identify that and then I’m sure we’ll get into the part later about how to make accommodations to better support you. Okay.

[00:42:19.03] spk_0:
Thank you. That’s very gracious. Thank you. Alright, thank you. Alright, Dana, continue. Right. Our next

[00:42:36.56] spk_4:
bucket. Our next bucket is how we react and there are five executive skills within that bucket. Now here’s where my working memory is going to get tested. So the first one is stress tolerance. The second is emotional control. The third is response, inhibition. The fourth is flexibility, less physical and more cognitive flexibility, mental flexibility. And the fifth is working memory, I believe. Alright.

[00:42:51.97] spk_0:
That’s the five awesome. All right. Um Anything you want to say, do you want to, are you able to go back now?

[00:43:37.62] spk_4:
Wait. No, it’s meta cognition. Here we are six. No, I was wrong working memories and the subsequent bucket. So meta cognition is the fifth in that bucket. So how we react bucket is emotional control, stress tolerance response, inhibition, flexibility, and meta cognition and sky. And I share a strength in meta cognition, which is reflecting on how we’re doing. For example, how we are doing right now. In the, in this radio interview, in this podcast interview, meta cognition is the ability to step back and assess how you’re doing and maybe even pivot so that you can perform in a, in a way that you want. Um So that’s one thing to know about meta cognition. The other element that people sometimes ask about is the difference between emotional control and response, inhibition and response inhibition is really about knowing the consequence of your action before you say or do something. Whereas emotional control is about in the moment actually controlling, you can have response inhibition, but struggle with emotional control or vice versa.

[00:44:43.74] spk_3:
So I think my mom was a great example of that where her emotional response, maybe anger frustration, uh something like that to a unfortunate circumstance. But her response inhibition uh is she was able to hold back and not, you know, have an emotional outburst or when we were kids, you know, scold or yell at us about something. So she was able to like pull back a little bit, recognize like, okay, I’m upset in the moment. Things didn’t go the way I wanted whatever the case is. But that doesn’t that doesn’t allow me to, you know, have an outburst on my Children. So she still had that, that emotional response but was able to inhibit responding, verbally or physically in the

[00:45:09.66] spk_0:
world. Thank you for sharing about your mom. Is there such a thing as hyper meta cognition? Because I feel like I’m commenting every time but only on select, select executive functions um constantly correcting. And then in the moment saying, oh no, wait, I should go back, go back and do it this way. Wait a minute, I should be doing this other thing. I feel like I’m in the hyper stage of meta cognition.

[00:45:38.71] spk_4:
It’s such a good point. Tony. Yes, absolutely. We can, I would say over use our strength sometimes to the effect that it prevents us sometimes from calling on another one of our executive skills. I too can get really into meta cognition. Um Reflecting on how I’m doing, wanting to do better such that it actually causes me to slow down on the next bucket, which is how we get things done. Um So my ability to reflect on how things have gone prevents me from getting started on something else. And so I have to be aware of that, that even though it’s my strength, it can get in the way of another executive skill. It’s starting to feel like a

[00:45:52.60] spk_0:
therapy session. You know, there’s no fee involved said that immediately. Um Alright, our third or third skill

[00:46:22.33] spk_4:
bucket, the third bucket is how we get things done. This is moving from planning, from reacting and into implementation. And how we get things done includes sustained attention, task initiation, working memory and the one that you working memory, you’re gonna learn y’all. That working memory is my, is my executive skills struggle. There was something

[00:46:30.31] spk_3:
around like um physical mapping. It was like a mental version of organization.

[00:46:37.02] spk_4:
I’m sorry everyone.

[00:46:49.89] spk_0:
I’m not, most folks probably not counting but okay. So we have 11 and if it occurs to you just blurt out, this is not profit radio, it’s totally casual. All right. Um Almost to the state of anarchy sometimes.

[00:46:56.95] spk_4:
Okay.

[00:46:57.73] spk_0:
We, I feel like we should honor that one since we gave a short shrift. So let’s just do a little explanation. Explanation of what goal directed.

[00:47:08.55] spk_4:
Alright. Goal directed persistence,

[00:47:11.84] spk_0:
short term memory,

[00:47:13.76] spk_4:
working memory and I might share some executive skills, strengths and struggles. And this is actually really good for us to know in our working relationship.

[00:47:27.30] spk_0:
Goal

[00:47:34.95] spk_4:
directed persistence is, well, let me ask you if you have ever set a New Year’s resolution. No, I’m not too big on

[00:47:41.82] spk_0:
resolutions. No, I’m not. I mean, ever, yeah, when I was much younger, but I just, I don’t know, I just, I just get things done or I try to just make change like I’ll work out more common, you know, or I’ll whatever take more free time is another good one. But I’m not in the past probably 10 years or so. I’m not too big on New Year’s

[00:49:00.62] spk_4:
resolutions. Okay. I think that’s, that’s interesting. I’d like to talk with you and, like, learn more about how you enact those, those. Okay. I feel like I’m pretty good following through. So I struck with goal directed persistence in that. I’m really excited about planning and organizing and putting into like an idea, a goal that I have and then I met a cog on it. I reflect on how it’s going. Um And I can sometimes get um I lose the momentum and I think many people who have started a big goal at the beginning of the year, a big work goal, a big personal goal where I will, can I identify with this, that the persistence piece of your goal can be a struggle, especially over the long haul, especially when there’s environments that are maybe stressful or you’re tired or other things are kind of maybe having you shift your priority or that kind of motivation for that goal. And goal directed persistence is the ability to really sit down, put your head down and persist with passion and grit towards that long term goal. All right, you can see why some of these skills are really important in the nonprofit space when we talk about persistence and passion, which is great towards a long term term goal, what we’re doing in the nonprofit space to have an impact really does require goal directed persistence. Alright.

[00:49:38.66] spk_0:
So we’ve identified these 12. Um How do we, should we identify the, that you Scott? You said neither one is good nor bad, but there’s a spectrum of, I guess performance for each, for each one. All right. Um What’s our next step toward helping? I use these 12 to achieve our goals?

[00:50:03.08] spk_3:
Well, we’ve, we’ve kind of started already on the first step, which is identifying for ourselves, what are our strengths and weaknesses? And so there’s usually an evaluation process and and there’s not like this is my one good one and this is my one bad one. Again, we all have these skills to a certain level of capacity. So really being able to clearly identify like what are my top three or four strengths and what are the three or four things that I struggle with the most and getting really clear on what that means for you, right? And then you know, task initiation or time management can show up in different ways for different people, both as strength or as struggles. Oh,

[00:50:38.87] spk_0:
so the spectrum is the same for all 12. Strengthen struggle. Yes. Okay. Same spectrum. Alright. Alright. Um So at these places where the resources are but new moms and the other one, the library, the E F works library, there are I guess self tests, self assessments for you to identify your three or four top as you said, Sky and three or four or three or four. That your strengths and your struggle, I don’t want to top and bottom. It doesn’t sound like strength and struggle. Right. Okay.

[00:52:28.16] spk_4:
Yeah. So it’s important that everybody assesses their own executive skills rather than somebody else assessing somebody else’s executive skills, at least for adults. Um I should note that the executive skills, you know, the research, executive skills or executive function really comes from the, the neuroscience research around um A D H D and some of the methodology for supporting people who are neurodivergent and in setting and achieving the goals that they have for themselves and their families. And so a lot of the research, we’ve been able to adapt um new moms for our programming part participants as well as for our staff. Um no matter, you know, if they have um if they are, you know, neuro diverse or not. And so there’s a lot of neuroscience research that backs this up as well. And it’s really also important to know that everybody’s executive skills are normal for their early life experiences, their current circumstances, their resources that they have. And so we really encourage folks not to judge themselves for their strengths and struggles of executive skills and not to judge other people for their skills. Because again, everybody has them and the ones that you have are normal, they show up as behaviors and the behavior is where we like to kind of focus in our support for our colleagues and participants. And that’s really moving from the knowledge that we just talked about executive skills, knowledge, understanding my own understanding, my colleagues and moving into practice. Now, what can I do about it is understanding the behaviors that result from the skills

[00:52:36.00] spk_0:
and that’s gonna vary for obviously, that’s gonna vary for all the 12 skills. Okay. Um In your session, you had your session already

[00:52:44.50] spk_4:
this afternoon,

[00:52:45.05] spk_0:
this afternoon. Oh, this is a great,

[00:52:46.92] spk_4:
okay. Alright. Goal directed persistence carried

[00:52:56.53] spk_0:
away, carried away with. No, we’re not getting carried away. That’s what the topic is. Um You’re going to have our folks gonna take a self assessment in the in the session so they can walk away knowing what their strengths and struggles are. They’ll

[00:53:04.55] spk_4:
do is they’ll do an abbreviated self assessment and then they’ll have the link to the executive skills self assessment which your listeners can take as well. Um And they can do that. It takes about six minutes um to do that and you get an email with your executive skills, strengths and your struggles and the definitions of all 12 that we just went through today. Okay.

[00:53:42.64] spk_0:
What else can we help listeners with in this uh podcast format? Given that we don’t know there’s 13,000 people. So I don’t know, are they’re general generalizations or like trends that you could talk about? Like maybe most people are strong in one or struggling another since we, we don’t have our audience. I’m certainly channeling them, but we don’t have them before us. How can we help our

[00:54:21.72] spk_3:
listeners? I think one of the best things to think about with the executive functions, executive skills is to think about the rightness of fit of what you do. And so if you think about your job, whatever your job duties are the tasks that you are responsible for or how you have to interact with other people. Identifying how well your strengths support those responsibilities and ways that the things that are your struggles may inhibit your ability to perform at your best. And this can be really challenging. Again, especially in the nonprofit space where folks are wearing so many different hats, you might have very, very different responsibilities over the course of a day or a week. And so identifying what your strengths are knowing how they show up in your life as behaviors. And then also reconciling that with the work that you do in the way that you do it to help move those responsibilities and your strengths closer together.

[00:55:28.69] spk_4:
Can I give you an example? Absolutely. So I’ll share kind of how we encourage our staff at new moms to learn about share and then um apply their executive skills in the way that sky is talking about my executive skills, strengths, our time or excuse me, my executive skills, strengths are organization, meta cognition and my executive skills struggles. Our time management task initiation and working memory. And so what I know is when I’m planning a project, I’m really good at getting things organized. I’m really good at mapping it out on a calendar. I struggle with the actually doing of the thing. My job requires the doing of the thing. And I supervised strategy. You’re

[00:55:34.99] spk_0:
learning and innovation. Exactly. You need to be actually innovating. Exactly. Just planning for innovation.

[00:57:13.09] spk_4:
So, um exactly. So we can’t just plan, we’ve got to do. And so my, my colleagues, my peers, my boss, Sky knows that I struggle with task initiation. And so knowing this about me, what can they do to help? Maybe put a reminder on a calendar invite that they have. So it sends me a notification. This is coming. What can I do to know that task initiation might trip me up. And so I need to have a use a piece of technology that helps me get started or I need to use the five second rule to get me started. It’s really understanding how our executive skills struggles for me of task initiation gets in the way of one of my key responsibilities in my job and how that doesn’t hinder my ability to perform in my job because Sky knows and can help me with my struggle. My peers know and I know there’s as well as their strengths. And so I can say Sky, you’re really good at task initiation. Can you help me with this So you’re unabashed about sharing. Absolutely. We encourage that we have a list all 70 staff members and new moms. Um take the executive skills questionnaire, all 400 of our participants and take the executive skills questionnaire and everybody shares their strengths and struggles. So it’s a common language that reduces self judgment and judgment of other people. Because again, executive skills are normal for our early experiences, our current resources, states of stress or environments of stress that we might be in. And so the shared language, the shared understanding of what we can do um to support one another with executive skills struggles, helps us work better together. So Sky and I have been able to work better together because we’ve known each other’s executive skills.

[00:57:30.58] spk_0:
What’s the five second

[00:57:31.68] spk_4:
rule? Five, second rule is if I think of something that I should do and it takes me less than two minutes to do it, I do it right then and I have five seconds to get started. So if I’m like the one

[00:58:11.02] spk_0:
that, that’s the one that you and I share the uh which one was the being in the moment, the one about being in the moment, evaluating yourself in the moment, better cognition, right? Thinking that’s okay if it takes fewer than two minutes and you get started within five seconds, like I could go move the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Otherwise it’s going to sit in the washer overnight. Because the buzzer went off 20 minutes ago and I just now thought about it, um, again and if I don’t do it now I’m afraid I may not remember until it turns to mildew in the washing. That never gets that bad. But I’m a pretty good housekeeper. Things don’t get that. I don’t have military clothes. Let’s just, that was a

[00:58:27.61] spk_4:
joke that I could do

[00:58:31.43] spk_0:
that in two minutes. I could just knock it off. Now. I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s very reassuring to know. I don’t have to deal with that

[00:58:58.90] spk_3:
anymore. Well, and if you think about it in the context of like working memory, um, our brains don’t actually work like computers where we can like plug in additional memory, right? We have a limited capacity of what we can hold in our mind at any given point in time. And if you have to do list as long as your arm and you’re looking at your to do list and you think, okay. Yeah, I need to do all of these things, but you don’t actually ever get started on any of them and you’re thinking about it, maybe you’re planning it, it’s taking up more and more mental bandwidth. But if you look at something on your list, you’re like, oh, I need to send the minutes from this last meeting to this group. The minutes are already written in type. I just need to send them and you just go 54321, you open up your inbox, you start typing the message and you click send and now that’s done. Now that’s out. You don’t have to hold it in your working memory anymore.

[00:59:42.30] spk_0:
Calendar is a, is a big one for me. I remember that I gotta have a calendar. A reminder to see. Trigger. Did I hear from someone who I just emailed or I emailed yesterday and I forgot to put it in the calendar. I think if I, if I don’t know if I don’t do it, I don’t hear from the person now. You know, I’ve lost an opportunity or, you know, whatever it is that you’re supposed to follow up on me with supposed to follow up with me on uh, so calendar is one that you just get it done. All right. So it takes less than two minutes to do it within five, start within five seconds. You can do it within two minutes and still more bad way because

[00:59:52.34] spk_3:
if you take longer than five seconds, then your medic cognition is going to start thinking in and you’re gonna be like, oh, well, I also need to do this and I have to remember to do this and you’re gonna get completely distracted by it. Yeah, that happens.

[01:00:05.60] spk_0:
Right. Right. There’s another one too, there’s another reminder that the email reminders, the follow up reminder, triggers a reminder that I got to send an email to somebody else and then I have to calendar the follow up to that. It

[01:01:19.12] spk_4:
does cascades, cascades and you can see how it impacts working relationships and um you know, individual and workplace goals, something that you’re doing naturally, which happens when people explore executive skills, they identify, this comes naturally to me. I’m good. This is strong for me and I can see where this shows up and what you’re doing. Dhoni is identifying how this shows up as a behavior, how this shows up in your daily life, in your work life and in a working relationship, this gives us an opportunity to talk about what we call environmental modifications. What you’re talking about with the calendar being helpful for you is an environmental modification and environmental modifications are the tasks, technology adjustments to process or policies, individuals around us that help to modify the environment to make it easier for us to use our executive skills, strengths and to mitigate our struggles. So like using your calendar for reminders for what’s coming up next is a great environmental modification. Um We have a whole list of suggested environmental modifications that are affiliated with each executive skill. So for example, if I struggle with time management and time estimation, what environmental modification can I do for myself? What can my colleagues do to support me knowing that that’s going to get in the way,

[01:01:38.11] spk_0:
just add two days to every estimate?

[01:02:43.47] spk_4:
Exactly. Exactly. Or for example, um you know, I might be working with a colleague that struggles with time management and I might say, you know, colleague, um I think this should only take about 30 minutes, give them some, some sense of how long that might take. Otherwise, maybe they’ll take five hours on it. Right. So to help one another, using environmental modifications is one of the steps to help leverage executive skills to achieve our goals. Because if we don’t modify the environment and we set a goal that requires us to use our executive skills struggle, it is hard to achieve that goal. It is harder. We might self judge, we might tell ourselves false stories about things that we can or can’t do. It’s really about what small tweaks can we do to our, our work to our process, to our technology. What systemic environmental modifications can we do to reduce barriers to people’s goals? There’s a whole other conversation about equity here. Um That really is incumbent on people in the workplace to, to adapt and modify the environment, to support their goal achievement and to support their colleagues goal achievement as well.

[01:02:54.94] spk_0:
New moms sounds like a pretty high functioning team.

[01:02:58.22] spk_4:
I’d like to think

[01:02:58.79] spk_0:
so. Yeah, high functioning place to work. We

[01:03:00.89] spk_4:
are. Congratulations. Thanks. We’re celebrating 40 years this

[01:03:03.73] spk_0:
year. What can you say briefly what the work of new moms

[01:03:20.43] spk_4:
is? Yeah, new moms engages and partners with young moms under 24 years old as they are setting and progressing towards goals of housing stability, family well being and economic mobility. So where in Chicago, in the Chicago suburbs? Alright,

[01:03:29.63] spk_0:
we’re not done. I just uh sounds like a very uh impressive team, high functioning. You mentioned that there’s an equity side to this in terms of the resources, the processes that we put in place to help individuals and teams. Let’s let’s spend some time talking about the equity side of

[01:03:42.11] spk_4:
this. Um You’re welcome

[01:03:44.02] spk_3:
to, I’ll.

[01:07:16.71] spk_4:
Okay, great. Okay. So executive skills, the way that new moms came to executive skills is really um by learning about the brain science about executive skills in our job training program, we have a job training program for young moms. And in 2016, we were introduced to the idea of executive skills were not familiar with it. And where what we really understood was this is about shifting our human service programming, our job training programming from what we as the program, designers and administrators feel should be the program goals to what the goals are for the young moms in our program and shifting to be participant centered in goals. Really had us think about how do we help and support young moms who are experiencing scarcity. Leverage is leverage the strengths that they already have to achieve those goals. And what are the barriers getting in the way of those goals? And when we started to think about the strengths and expertise and skills that they come to our programs with learned about executive skills, learned about executive skills development in adolescents, which is the population that we work with. We realized that we had really missed the whole foundation of programming, which is understanding brain development and designing our programming based on adolescent brain development and executive skills. So when we shifted our programming to really focus first on executive skills, young moms learn about executive skills. They take the executive skills, self assessment, they identify their strengths and that’s where our program focuses on their strengths, what we can do to leverage their strengths no matter their situation and focus on their goals. First and foremost, before our program goals or a funder goal that radically shifted our whole programming design and environment. And we scaled that approach to all of our programming um over the subsequent few years. And so now, rather than a top down um program design, we have much more um partnership focused program design in our housing and family support and job training programs where young moms are setting the goals, we leverage their executive skills, strengths and coaches work with them to mitigate and modify the environmental barry that they may be facing. This could look like giving moms diapers to reduce the source of stress that diapers puts on a mom. So she can focus on a longer term goal and not have to think about diapers, but rather think about graduating from her college program. This could be something like um supporting a mom as she sets a goal for, um, you know, persisting in applying for, you know, a job and leveraging executive skills, mitigating some that might get in the way by giving a transit pass. So she doesn’t have to worry about how she gets to that interview. There are a lot of ways that we can think about modifying the environment in a way that elevates somebody’s individual goals and that brings more equity into their goal progression and goal achievement. And that’s just one slice of the way in which equity um is central to the executive skills approach that we use at new moms. Yeah,

[01:08:10.25] spk_3:
I think outside of the programmatic service piece, another way to look at this is from the team perspective and what I’ve seen in my, my career personally and, and in conversations with other people is a lot of time at performance improvement reviews. There’s a focus on how can I improve the things that I’m not that great at. And the science has shown that it’s a lot harder to move the needle there than it is to continue to strengthen the things that you already have a natural inclination to. And so when you think about looking at your executive skills and your goals, if you’re able to set goals that are designed in such a way that the strengths you already have are able to help and support the progress of that goal. And then the environmental modifications are put in place to minimize the impact of your struggles. You’re much more likely to achieve and make that progress than if you were to say, I’m going to set you up for a goal that is actually in direct conflict with one of your struggles and expect you to in addition to make progress on the goal, also improve this thing that you already struggle with.

[01:09:29.00] spk_4:
That’s so important. I’m so glad you said that. Thank you. It really also gets to the point that we we uphold in that when we are exploring executive skills and using these strategies and coaching ourselves and colleagues and participants in our programs, we are not trying to change somebody’s executive skills. We are holding that you have a range just like I have a range just like everybody has a range of strengths and struggles. And our purpose behind understanding executive skills is leveraging the strengths that you already have and not changing who you are, but rather modifying the environment so that you can better leverage those strengths that shift in language and understanding moves us away from a deficit based perspective to really strength based perspective in human service design, in workplace culture, no matter the organization or the goals of the organization, it

[01:09:40.93] spk_0:
feels like an ideal place to leave us. Is that alright? Alright. We feel like we’ve covered hasn’t been an adequate preparation for your session. This afternoon. All right. All right. They are Dana Emmanuel, Director of Learning and Innovation at New Moms and a lot of the resources that we talked about our at New Moms dot org high functioning team, I believe, sounds like. And also Sky Tyler Solution architect, solutions. Are you both innovation solution doers

[01:10:00.22] spk_3:
doers helping people do the best work better.

[01:10:29.30] spk_0:
Thank you. Sky helping people do their best work better. Awesome solution architect, Sky Tyler at Exponent Partners and the other resource for the for the 12 executive Skills and the self assessment. And I assume the resources to help you and tools for the skills that you’re, you’re on the struggle end of the spectrum with you’ll also find that E F works library dot org. Yes. Okay. We didn’t talk about the resources because they’re all like skill dependent, right?

[01:10:38.29] spk_4:
Okay. Yeah, there’s a lot of resources on executive skills out there.

[01:10:44.33] spk_0:
Okay. New moms dot org and EF works library dot org for all the resources. Thank you very much. Thank you both. Thank you Sky. Thank you for contributing. Thank you for sharing, sharing. Thank you very

[01:10:55.25] spk_4:
much. Thank you

[01:10:57.01] spk_0:
and thank you for being with tony-martignetti, non profit radio coverage of 23 T C where we are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us

[01:11:41.53] spk_1:
next week, feasibility studies. What why and how if you missed any part of this week’s show? I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Our creative producer

[01:11:42.64] spk_0:
is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez

[01:11:52.29] spk_1:
Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stoddard. Thank you for that information, Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95

[01:12:02.46] spk_0:
percent go out

[01:12:03.81] spk_1:
and be great.