Mastering The Drudgery

Recently, I have been reflecting on the following quote by Adrian Slywotzky in his book, The Art of Profitability (Warner books, 2002):

“What separates the winners and losers in innovation is who masters the drudgery. The creative process usually starts with a brilliant idea. Next you determine whether, if the brilliant idea worked, it would be worth doing from a business standpoint. That’s the exhilarating part. It may be the stimulating intellectually, but it’s also the easiest. Then comes the real work - reducing the idea to practice. That’s the drudgery part of innovation…”

I meet a lot of people with amazing ideas that are captivating and creative. These individuals are progressive and articulate. Sometimes, they even make us want to quit our current jobs and commit fully to this new opportunity.

However, the challenge is not coming up with new ideas; it is having the discipline to translate it into reality. As leaders, we must transform the idea into a sustainable business with effective systems, measurable outcomes and competent people. We have to be interested in new products or service development and in the development of processes, systems, sales, services or quality to support them. The fundamentals, and ultimately the profitability, come from building the infrastructure for execution.

As Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen write in their book, Great By Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All (HarperCollins, 2011): “The difficult task is to marry relentless discipline with creativity, neither letting discipline inhibit creativity nor letting creativity erode discipline.” As they point out, “The best leaders we studied did not have a visionary ability to predict the future. They observed what worked, figured out why it worked, and built upon proven foundations. They were not more risk taking, more bold, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons. They were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.”

Given the above, this week I challenge you to sit down with your team and talk about the importance of disciplined thought, disciplined action and what needs to be in place so each of them can master the drudgery of on-going execution in the midst of a global pandemic. I believe you will find this discussion to be helpful in both the short and long term work of this year.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

The Upcoming Challenges For Non-Profit Social Service Organizations

Right now in non-profit, social service offices across the country, there are many people in leadership positions worried about the future. Some are worried about the funding for human services and whether or not it will be there for those who are currently being funded and for those who will need funding in the future. Others are worried about the many different challenges that those who are coming now into services bring to the agency, especially those who have a dual diagnosis such as a combination of mental health and substance abuse issues, or mental health and disability issues. Finally, some leaders are worried about the slow decline of qualified staff who are applying for open positions. During the recession, the number of applicants was steady, but now that the economy slowly improves, there is a decline in number of qualified applications. Thus, recruitment and retention issues are on the rise for many non-profits.

As I reflect on all of these concerns, I am reminded of an article I read many years ago called “The New Landscape For Nonprofits” by William P. Ryan in the 1999 January-February issue of the Harvard Business Review.  While there are many wonderful insights in this article, especially when I read it again fourteen years after it was first published, there are a couple of key points that are quite pertinent to this spring’s situation.

First, Ryan points out that while for-profits are entering into the non-profit world to deliver service, the “real issue is whether nonprofits can adapt without compromising the qualities that distinguish them from for profit organizations.” I would expand on this perspective by noting that another issue from my perspective in 2013 is whether or not social service non-profits will compromise their own mission and core values to meet the demands of the county, state or federal government who funds them to deliver services. Right now, many organizations struggle to meet the increasing demands of documentation and systems discipline put forth by their funding sources and as a result are focusing on compliance to such a degree that they may be compromising their own core philosophies related to service delivery. 

Now this situation of meeting funders’ expectations is not new for social service non-profits but the challenge is that many of their staff over the last 5-7 years have been trained to follow a specific perspective about service delivery and now believe that the organization is out of alignment with what it said is most important and what it actually does within the context of service delivery. For example, front line staff in these organizations often share with me in seminars the following question: “Which is more important - the person served or the paperwork proving we served the person?” Leaders of these agencies often reply “Both.” But front line supervisors and staff need a more detailed answer to such a complex and multi-layered question. At this time period, I think many leaders struggle with delivering a clear answer that can be understood and cascaded down into the organization. Furthermore, I do not believe this misalignment is going to go away any time soon. Nevertheless, people in leadership positions need to address this issue and choose to either adapt their mission and core values to the new reality or acknowledge that the potential for a misalignment could happen, and then discuss this openly and collectively as an organization. 

Second, Ryan back in 1999 in the aforementioned article notes that the growth of outsourcing will continue and may even be “unstoppable.” With 20/20 hindsight, we now know that this pattern of solving problems through outsourcing is clearly the new normal for all organizations, be they for profit or non-profit. From a forward looking perspective, there continues to be a question about what social service non-profits can be most effective at over time.  

Remembering the work of Jim Collins in his monograph called Good to Great and the Social Sectors, Collins points out that there are three key questions that all social service organizations need to address. First what are you deeply passionate about? Second, what can you be the best in the world at? And third, what drives your resource engine? The answers to each question, first proposed back in 2005, are still relevant today, especially with the funding and service challenges before social service non-profits. And when an organization or agency addresses these complex, yet simple appearing questions, I am sure that quite a few will realize they need to stop doing certain things or consider outsourcing them to more qualified organizations who are more passionate about doing them extremely well.

Third, Ryan notes that “big is beautiful.” As he explains, “Size confers several benefits on an organization: economies of scale, opportunities to manage risk across contracts, the ability to compete for contracts that require a wide range of services, and even the ability to recruit good employees with the promise of advancement in a growing organization.” Given the aforementioned challenges related to the development and maintenance of an in-depth infrastructure to assure quality and adequate electronic documentation, many organizations are going to struggle to build and sustain such systems and infrastructure while simultaneously being able to expand their service delivery foot print. They will want to be big and growing, but may be limited by resources available to support both growth and operational infrastructure at the same time.

Furthermore, these current challenges will not go away. Instead, I suspect they will increase during the coming years. It appears that many non-profit social service organization are continuing to be defined and judged by more corporate for-profit parameters and expectations. During upcoming strategic planning sessions for these agencies, those involved will need to recognize that being thorough, responsive and nimble are going to become more and more important within the social service sector during the next 5-7 years. 

The future of non-profit social services will always be dynamic. The question of who will deliver the best services in the most effective and efficient manner will not go away. The first step today is to realize that we will need to continue to expand our leadership and management capacity to meet these rising expectations as well as reflect on what we deem to be most important. Likewise, we also need to keep moving forward strategically and operationally without compromising the organization’s mission and core values. The challenges are great and the work is important. Now is the time to continue forward with great thought, effort and perspective. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Farm Wisdom

“Farmers do not ask,” writes Mette Norgaard Ph.D, MBA, “which is most important, preparing the soil or selecting and growing the best seeds? Likewise, we should not ask whether we ought to focus on changing the systems and structures or developing the people.”

This coming fall more and more people will be struggling with soil vs. seeds issues. They know they need to change certain systems and structure. They also know they need to develop people in order to have more capacity. However, many executives are reluctant to do either because of the amount of time, resources and energy it will take to do it and to do it well.

While some organizations are suffering from reorganization fatigue, others have come to the same conclusion as John C. Maxwell in his book,, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow them and People Will Follow You, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998, when he wrote: “The Law of the Lid: Leadership ability determines a person's level of effectiveness.” Certain organizational charts will never position the organization for growth because they do not have the right people in the right leadership positions. Certain organizations also will not deal with this issue because they do not have the courage to face problems of their own making. It is always easier to blame the economy or the government rather than take responsibility for our own strategic choices.

From my vantage point, this level of work means that we as leaders must recognize that real change requires depth of character and competence. The difficulty is that few leaders have received significant coaching and education to improve the depth of their competence. As Stephen Covey wrote many years ago, “Organizational development and change, without personal development and change, is illusionary, even foolish, because market realities are demanding new qualities inside people and new relationships among people.” Well organized ninety day plans, regular coaching and a steady diet of organizational clarity does not sound flashy, hot-off-the-presses, New York Times best-seller list, latest and greatest new management book stuff, but in the test of time we need to remember that the infrastructure for success is as important as the content for success.

This fall, I encourage all of us to spend more time preparing the soil and selecting the seed. Then when it comes time for change, we can all remember: what you feed, grows.

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257