My problem with accountability

For some time I’ve had trouble with calls for accountability. I’ve been part of a Christian communal group for almost 30 years and from time to time some folks in the group issue calls for accountability.

I strongly believe in people being responsible and moral but the longer I’ve been in leadership both in our communal group and in secular organizations the more dubious I’ve been of actions taken under the guise of accountability. When I first joined the communal group we had lots of rules and decision-making procedures to help people be accountable. Then one of the founders of the group disclosed a history of sexual misconduct including abuse of children.

He was leading a group that deeply believed in accountability. How could that be? I began to lose faith in lots of rules as a way of accountability.

The other way I’ve seen leaders try to bring about accountability is to call people on the carpet. That sometimes seems to produce good short term results but it doesn’t seem to help people be responsible in the long term.

Then last Sunday night I read Bill Harris’s post on Accountability, systems, and loop gain. He developed a computer model to uncover the reason a particular organization had a problem with its ability to manage its expenses. Using the model he was able to test what types of reports would best help managers to manage expenses. Once they determined the best report to give managers the problem was reduced by 95%.

You can read the post and his associated article for the details but I resonate with his observation:

The model shows a most interesting lesson. In a poorly designed system, high management pressure (high externally-imposed accountability) made things worse, while low accountability actually made things better. In a well designed system, management pressure really didn't matter so much…

I also strongly resonated with his conclusion: “Management's primary job is to create systems that work well, not to push people to do well.”

Now I’m wondering how to improve our communal systems so we need less leadership pressure.

Global risks and your nonprofit

Thanks to Deon Binneman's blog , I just checked out the World Economic Forum's Global Risks 2007 report.

One of the 7 Paths nonprofits use to thrive is the ecosystem path. The path is based on the principle that organizations thrive on healthy, improvisational relationships with their environment.

A shriveling organization defends its border against the world but a thriving organization sees its external borders as creative points for discovering the healthiest ways to improvise with reality around the organization.

The Global Risks 2007 reports indicates how the ecosystem your nonprofit operates in may shift, requiring you to improvise. Here are the 23 "Core” Global Risks they've indentified in the world economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological ecosystem:

Economic

• Oil price shock/energy supply interruptions
• US current account deficit/fall in US$
• Chinese economic hard landing
• Fiscal crises caused by demographic shift
• Blow up in asset prices/excessive indebtedness

Environmental

• Climate change
• Loss of freshwater services
• Natural catastrophe: Tropical storms
• Natural catastrophe: Earthquakes
• Natural catastrophe: Inland flooding

Geopolitical

• International terrorism
• Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
• Interstate and civil wars
• Failed and failing states
• Transnational crime and corruption
• Retrenchment from globalization
• Middle East instability

Societal

• Pandemics
• Infectious diseases in the developing world
• Chronic disease in the developed world
• Liability regimes

Technological
• Breakdown of critical information infrastructure (CII)
• Emergence of risks associated with nanotechnology

These litany of risks are scary, especial when the introduction of the report says, "Expert opinion suggests that levels of risk are rising in almost all of the 23 risks on which the Global Risk Network has been focused over the last year – but mechanisms in place to manage and mitigate risk at the level of businesses, governments and global governance are inadequate."

The basic premise of Evergreen Leaders is that nonprofits exist to meet deep human needs and to be great workplaces. Nonprofits that have healthy, improvisational relationships with their environment will have plenty of deep human needs to meet.

Naps are good

We human beings are built for a rhythm of good hard work and good recovery time. After about 90 minutes of concentration we do well to have a bit of recovery time.

Now a study shows naps are good:

• In the largest study to date on the health effects of napping, researchers tracked 23,681 healthy Greek adults for an average of about six years. Those who napped at least three times weekly for about half an hour had a 37 percent lower risk of dying from heart attacks or other heart problems than those who did not nap.

I'm off to take a nap.

"I made a mistake"

In a recent post on the Organizational Development Network list serve leadership coach Ann Kruse noted that she is “fascinated by Hillary Clinton's decision to avoid the word 'mistake'
with regard to her vote for the Iraq war.”

Ann offered a variety of explanations for Hillary’s action including gender and power issues. I’d like to offer another. As someone who became disabled as a teen and then has held a variety of leadership positions all of my adult life I am aware of the tremendous pressure on leaders to be capable and self-assured and, at the same time, I am aware that leaders are as vulnerable as the next person.

I learned to survive and build on the experience of being physically disabled by being open about the emotional trauma linked with the experience. When I began my career as a leader, I felt internal and external pressure to be the strong, capable, self-assured male. At the same time being capable and self-assured is only part of my story since I need to ask for physical help regularly and I am physically and emotionally vulnerable to an unpredictable disease.

To be an integrated leader I try to be both capable and acknowledge my vulnerabilities. Even the most powerful leaders and organizations are vulnerable. Take the USA. The USA is clearly the most powerful country in the world and yet we are vulnerable and make mistakes. Both Vietnam and Iraq show that when we invade another county we are militarily vulnerable to
insurgencies. Our political leaders spend a lot of energy denying our vulnerabilities and mistakes.

While I try to be capable and self-assured as a leader, I assume that I will make mistakes and I make it a point to readily admit my mistakes. It takes a lot of energy to deny mistakes. I also make it a practice to meet three times a year with two mentors who are separate from the organizations I lead. I share my emotional vulnerabilities as a leader, husband, and father
with them. It takes a lot of energy to ignore ones vulnerabilities.

I feel sympathy for Hillary Clinton who, to put it mildly, is under extreme pressure to show herself to be a capable, self-assured person in order to be elected. At the same time, running for political office at that level makes one extremely vulnerable.

From an organizational development perspective we as a nation demand strong, capable, leaders and, as a consequence, we get leaders who deny our nation’s vulnerabilities and their own mistakes.

A humble hierarchy organization learns from critics inside and outside the organization. It’s tough to lead a world power from a humble hierarchy stance making it difficult for a world power and its leaders to admit and learn from their mistakes.

Love Machine

Does your nonprofit have smart and friendly systems in place to increase positive interactions between staff?

Philip Rosedale, creator of Second Life, and his company, Linden Labs, have an interesting system in place. They call it the Love Machine. Here's how Rosedale describes it in an Inc. article:

• We have this thing we built called the Love Machine. The Love Machine allows anyone who works here as a Linden employee to send anyone else a brief note that says "Thank you for doing this for me." There is a little webpage where you can go to send an e-mail, and then you get a little e-mail that says "Love From Philip" in the subject and it's got text in it. Now, you think, what's the big deal about that? Well, all of that stuff goes into a database. Your review carries that. Everybody is sending love to each other. It creates a positive collaborative environment.

• Most businesspeople communicate in a mostly negative way. If people are encouraged to be entrepreneurs and take risks, they can also become combative and competitive. You have to balance that. So we built the Love Machine for balance.

Rosedale jokes that Linden Labs will someday be more famous for the Love Machine than Second Life.

For those of you who wonder whether a positive work atmosphere is all that important you can check out the work of psychologist Barbara L. Fredrickson, University of Michigan, and mathemetician Marcial F. Losada, Universidade Cato´lica de Brası´lia, whose research shows a ratio of 2.9 positive interactions to 1 negative interaction is associated with flourishing work groups.

As Frederickson and Losado noted in their review of literature “bad is stronger than good” and you need 2.9 positive interactions for every negative interaction in a work group for the group thrive.

Getting back on the treasure path

Every nonprofit starts based on a mission--who the npo is going to serve and what the transformed lives of those served look like--deep values, and the founding stories of the organization. I call these the markers for the organizations treasure path.

Usually the mission, the values, and the founding story is clear at the beginning. But over time as the organization sets up systems, struggles with changes in the environment and its clientele, and as the npo ages new and often conflicting stories emerge.

Appreciative inquiry can be helpful in getting the organization back on track. Mark Lau Branson has a very helpful summary of AI, "Ten Assumptions of Appreciative Inquiry" in the most recent issue of Alban Weekly. While the article is aimed at an audience of church leaders it's equally applicable to other nonprofits.

Appreciative Inquiry is a good way to help your organization get back on its treasure path.

Is a little mess part of a smart and friendly system?

My workspace always includes stacks of books and papers. I am blessed to be married to a woman is wonderful, goodhearted, and organized. Usually about once a year before vacation she helps me spend half a day filing etc. And then I slowly but surely make it a mess again.

She survives my home office by declaring that it is not part of the house. Otherwise she'd have the urge to get on my case to straighten it up.

For year's I've felt guilty about the clutter that accumulates in my workspace but, thanks to Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder: How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman I no longer have to feel guilty.

Check out this great Inc. story on why chaos, clutter, disorganization, and on-the-fly decision-making actually are good for your company--and for you.

Being nonprofit and entrepreneurial

It's not online yet but the February issue of Inc. has an interesting interview with Second Life founder Phillip Rosedale. Second Life is the virtual reality world that became a phenomenon in 2006.

I'm still a little queasy about venturing onto Second Life but other businesses and nonprofits are so one of these days...

I was more interested in some of Rosedale's approaches to running Linden Lab, the company that created and runs Second Life. At first they simply told their engineers to e-mail everyone in the company what you are going to do that work, then work on it, and then e-mail everyone how you did it.

That system has evolved into a huge database of "stuff to do. You choose your own work from it."

"I am pretty critical of traditional business styles," Rosedale says. Me too.

Companies encourage their people to be entrepreneurial. "But the way you are really entrepreneurial," Rosedale says, "is that you have to set your own strategic direction. That's what entrerpeneurs do. You have to take risks and you have to be held accountable."

Even though Evergreen Leaders is a nonprofit I get to be very entrepreneurial. Each week I e-mail the board what I call Monday Morning Coffee and in it I describe what I am going to do that week and how my work went the previous week.

When you get to choose your own things to work on your naturally choose to do things that fit your talents.

Beyond mission statements

If a mission statement is the headline, what's the story?

For several years I have taught individuals and leaders how how to write brief powerful personal and organizational mission statements. I've even created a two-page "A guide to developing your organization’s mission statement" that my daughter, her director, and colleagues used to create a mission statement for Urban Jacksonville (Jacksonville, FL) whose mission is to: Honor elders, promote independence, and encourage families through service and support.

A well written mission statement is like a headline. It packs alots of information and punch into a few words. But a newspaper or magazine would sell few copies if it consisted of only headlines.

To describe the treasure that your organization has to offer clients, staff, board, donors, and funders, you need more that a mission statement--you need stories.

Secular and religious nonprofit leaders can learn from Diana Butler Bass who for three years studied 50 vital mainline Protestant churches to see what made them vital. Her research led her to write two books and one of her many observations in a recent Alban Weekly caught my attention:

Throughout my research on vital mainline churches, both clergy and congregational leaders were storytellers. They knew their own faith stories, they knew the stories of their congregations, they knew their tradition's stories, and they knew the larger Christian and biblical stories. They exhibited ease and comfort in sharing these stories and invited others into a variety of stories in natural and authentic ways. In the process, they opened paths for other people to learn and tell stories of faith. And they ably moved between personal, congregational, and biblical stories to create worlds of spiritual and theological meaning. They intuited the power of story to rearrange people's lives...

To move beyond your organization's mission statement you need to tell the stories of your nonprofit--stories of how your organization was founded, stories of lives transformed by your organization and stories of what your staff have done to transform lives.

If your mission statement is the headline for your nonprofit, then the stories you and your colleagues tell are the treasure.

To get your free copy of "A guide to developing your organization’s mission statement" e-mail me at richfoss@evergreenleaders.org.

Not serving but serving better

When I set my 2007 goals for work as CEO/Teacher's Assistant I had a nagging feeling that something was amiss. I like setting goals because they give me a sense of accomplishment but something in me was resisting goal-setting even as I did so.

Then I read a Fast Company article about a typical Toyota plant in Kentucky, where "What is so striking about Toyota's Georgetown factory is, in fact, that it only looks like a car factory. It's really a big brain--a kind of laboratory focused on a single mission: not how to make cars, but how to make cars better."

Later in the article another quote caught my eye: "What happens every day at Georgetown, and throughout Toyota, is teachable and learnable. But it's not a set of goals, because goals mean there's a finish line, and there is no finish line. It's not something you can implement, because it's not a checklist of improvements. It's a way of looking at the world."

Something clicked. At Evergreen Leaders we teach the smart and friendly systems path is one of the 7 paths organizations use to thrive. But there is no such thing as a perfectly smart and friendly system.

Currently I am producing Evergreen Leaders' first annual report, a system that corporations have used for years to report to stakeholders on the previous year and plans for the next year. Looking at it through the Toyota lens, next year I'll have the opportunity to produce a better annual report.

In fact, after I produce the first annual report I can use 2007 to improve the way that I gather the information to use in the 2007 annaul report.

The annual report and the smart and friedly systems used to create it can be improved ever year.

So your nonprofit is not in the business of serving elders or people with disabilities or the homeless but your organization exists to serve them better.

I suspect that simple change--not serving but serving better--could have a profound impact on your organization from this day forward.

A new way to elect our president

Last night I read The Atlantic Monthly article on Unity08. These folks may have come up with a smart and friendly system to elect our next president.

The 59 Smartest Orgs Online

Nonprofits are scrambling to find smart and friendly ways to connect with their supporters using the web. Learn from the best.

The hard part is to stay with it

Sometimes you come across a passage in a book that is worth returning to again and again. A couple years ago my daughter gave me Granny D: Walking Across America in My 90th Year.

People who are drawn leading nonprofits intend to do good. In her 90th year Granny D, Doris Haddock, walked across America to bring attention to the need for campaign finance reform. The she wrote her memoir. Recently it's been published in paperback. Here's the passage:

...when you take on some leadership responsibilities in the world, you must accept the fact that you will change lives. Your intention is to do good for everyone. But you will change lives in ways that you cannot fully control, and sometimes things will go terribly wrong. The hard part is to stay with it and not give up trying to do good in the world. But my, it is hard when tragedy and defeat come visiting, as they do. If love is your motivation, and if your respect the people you serve as your moral equals, you will do more good than harm over a lifetime--by far. But you will do some harm, and it may haunt you when you take a walk in your old age.


That's the humble heirarchy path.

Spotting dangerous leaders II

7 Paths for Thriving Organizations, # 98, December 14, 2006

“I was dangerous,” Len Corti, a retired Fortune 500 executive, said to me as we ate lunch in a small café in Utica, Illinois, “because I believed in what I was doing.” Len and I met in the mid 1990’s when I was directing a capital campaign and he was a volunteer leader of the Special Gifts division of the campaign. As he and I drove from town to town meeting with potential donors, we became friends--despite the fact that my driving scared him. He still calls me the “Tiskilwa terror” after my hometown and my driving. We completed the campaign in 1997 but we still get together with lunch. I love hearing his stories from his career. At our last lunch he began talking about a point in his career when he was raising money from investors for business start-ups. That’s when he said, “I was dangerous.” “Tell me more,” I said, puzzled by the comment. “I really believed in the start-ups and, because I really believed, I raised money but that doesn’t mean the start-ups were necessarily good investments.” Since our lunch I’ve pondered Len’s comment. It’s not only business leaders who believe and are dangerous but also nonprofit and church leaders. Not all leaders are dangerous but certainly enough that we all ought to be wary of leaders who really believe in what they are doing. I really believe in what I am doing. Almost four years ago I called a group of people together and we founded Evergreen Leaders, a nonprofit whose mission is to help other nonprofits and churches thrive through consulting and training. In addition, I am one of the leaders of Plow Creek Fellowship, a Christian communal group. Last Saturday night I had dinner with a young couple, inviting them to consider joining our commune. After I painted a picture of my vision for the renewal of our 35-year old commune, I said with a laugh, “Either I’m a man of faith or I’m delusional.” All leaders are persuasive. How do you know whether a person is a good faith leader or some who is dangerous in their beliefs? There are no guaranteed answers but here a few things to look for: Are they humble when someone challenges their vision? In my experience leaders who are defensive and attack critics eventually prove to be dangerous. How are their relationships with those closest to them? People are themselves with those they are closest too. Grand visions and putdowns of one’s spouse, children, or parents make me nervous. Are they eager to learn from those around them? Even the most visionary leader is not as smart as the group they lead. I’d love to hear from you. How do you know whether a person is a good faith leader or someone who is dangerous in their beliefs? Wisdom for the week: Humble hierarchy leaders have little personal ambition, an unwavering will to help the organization transform the lives of those it serves, and a passion to create space for all to thrive. Fare thee well, Rich

Changes in your npo's ecosystem

Business 2.0 highlights the 15 most significant innovations, events and launches that are planned for the 2007. The event most likely to create more misery and more work for nonprofits--gambling on your mobile phone. The best event for developing countries-10 million laptops in the hands of the planet's poorest children by the end of 2007.

Last night I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Nonprofits need to join the business community in dealing with global warming. Thin-film solar panels may be in the future of your nonprofit.

Viral marketing as a smart and friendly system

Viral marketing is a smart a friendly system. You create something--a story, a video on You-Tube, or in this case, a remarkable digital Christmas card--and people will e-mail each other about it and the word spreads quickly. It's a very inexpensive way of marketing and can easily be adapted by nonprofits. Check out the Ashland College Christmas card.

Overseeing a culture of responsibility

It's the responsibility to top leadership to see both the intended and unintended consequences of the systems the organization sets up. Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban had a great post earlier this week on the fines the NBA commissioner handed out to the Denver Nuggets and New York Knicks players involved in last week's brawl.

Cuban said, "I like that the commissioner fined the teams 500k, but I don't think it goes far enough. Not in terms of dollar amount, but in terms of assigning responsibility. I think the coaches, the President, GM and Owners should have been fined directly instead." He added, "The responsibility of the culture of a team and organization, of any business, starts with the owner and is implemented by the team's President, GM and Coach or whoever is in the position to manage the workforce."

Organizations our wholes. In the nonprofit world, when a direct care staff worker abuses a person receiving services, the staff person is rightly fired. But the board and CEO need to review the systems they have established that made the abuse possible.

The culture of an organization is supported by its systems. It's difficult leadership work to look honestly at the unintended consequences of the systems you have put in place to do good. But that's the responsibility of humble heirarchy leaders.

Distrbuted leadership

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, based in New York City, a Grammy Award-winning ensemble, has no cunductor and yet it performs Mozart and Stravinsky to rave reviews around the world.

In a fascinating Business 2.0 column, Jeffrey Pfiffer talks about the advanatges of what he calls distributed leadership--employees leading themselves.

The orchestra has a managing director but the musicians not only play in the orchestra but do fund-raising, staffing, and educational outreach. Traditional leadership too often creates bottlenecks and fails to bring out the best in everyone.

Check out the column. Nonprofits ought to take the lead in letting employees lead. I do believe it would be away to energize your staff. After all leading is fun. Why shoudn't everybody have fun for the benefit of the organization?

Your stories reveal the treasure

I have a friend, Jim Fitz, who works with Christian Peacemaker Teams. When he first began peace work he had a hard time writing reports to donors and supporters. But then he began to tell stories.

Here's a story from a November e-mail:

I was traveling with Juan, a rural Pentecostal pastor, on the way to an evening worship service near Cucuta, Colombia. He told me this story:

"One night the Paras (Paramilitaries) took a 23 year old mother in our church and shot her in front of her children, because the Paras thought she had killed her Para friend. The community was afraid to go to recover the body, for fear of what the Paras might do to anyone who showed sympathy to the mother. So they called me. I went that very night and recovered the body and gave her a proper funeral in our church, as a way of saying that the church was not going to be intimated by the Paras threats. As often happens here in this war, it was soon found out that the killing was a mistake for she had had nothing to do with the killing of her Para friend. Then, led by the Spirit, the church carried the coffin to where Paras lived and buried the body there.”

“This made the Paras face their awful mistake every time they passed the grave. As a result many of the Paras quit. They even had fights among themselves. And this event became the beginning of the end of the Paras control in the region. Three years ago we could not drive this road we are on tonight for fear of the Guerrillas or Paras. They are still around, but their control of the people is greatly diminished."

A mission statement helps people know who your nonprofit serves and how you are transforming lives but it is the stories that reveal the treasure.

Consensus and accountability

Yesterday I did a post that ended with me pondering how the Evergreen Leaders board can define its expectations for me as the CEO/Teachers Asst. and the organization in carrying out its mission. How can I report at each board meeting the effectiveness of Evergreen Leaders?

I am intrigued by an article in the Facilitation Quarterly called “The Link between Consensus and Profitability” The article summarizes a study done by Charles-Huber Heyvaert, a researcher at the University of Leuven in Belgium, that shows a positive link between consensus on overall objectives and profitability.

I was particularly intrigued that the study focused not on consensus on a particular decision but consensus on the overall objectives of the companies.

Nonprofits do not measure profitability but it has to be good when a nonprofit’s board has consensus on what key issues it wants to measure to determine our effectiveness as an organization in carrying out our mission.