With shifting economic cycles, things happen that can help or hurt an organization. You need to prepare yourself to capitalize on an opportunity (the elevator door opening) regardless of where your nonprofit may be in its lifecycle or in implementing its strategic plan.
Investing in organizational capacity contributes to excellence and impact. Commit to doing “the whole job.”
Conversation Starter
A complete set of conversation starters to accompany the chapter.
Books on organizational success often focus on leadership. Others seem to focus solely on management. But effectively running an organization demands both leadership and management.
I’ve talked before about the cost of perfect information. People who become overly focused on obtaining perfect information before making decisions often waste time and
Robert I. Sutton, a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University published a recent article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Why Bosses
Respecting and trusting your people is the foundation of all good management.
Always listen for and even seek out signs of trouble. Bad news is good news if you do something about it.
Develop “court sense” to see everything that’s happening around you, and to rapidly adjust to changes.
Commit to doing “the whole job.” Investing in organizational capacity contributes to excellence and impact.
Planning is essential but success comes from the implementation of your ideas. “Book It and Ship It.” Make a decision and manage the consequences.
To create a culture of accountability, reinforce individual ownership of problems. Always ask, “Who owns the monkey?”
When working with nonprofits I often talk about the importance of managing “the whole job.”
Whether an organization sells a product or a service, it needs functions and processes that support the mission. It needs a system to spend and control cash; it needs facilities and some equipment; it needs human resources and a hiring process; and it needs a process to ensure quality. Nonprofits have numerous regulations to follow and extensive reporting requirements. A weakness in any one of those key functions could obliterate successes in the others. Without most of these in place, the organization won’t even get off the ground. Over time, without all of these functioning, an organization will inevitably crash.
You must understand and commit to doing the “whole job.”
