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Leadership San Luis Obispo’s HINDsight

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What do you & Leadership SLO do?

I’ve been the executive director of Leadership SLO since 2010.  Leadership is a year-long program that has been developing passionate and effective community leaders for San Luis Obispo County business, agriculture, education, health, government and non-profits since 1991.  We’re about building authentic relationships and identifying SLO County’s challenges and opportunities.

What was the original goal tied to your HINDsight?  What did you set out to do?

Well first, I love it that Greg Hind inspired us to look at (and talk about!) the growth that comes from failure. I’ve been in environmental, arts and community nonprofit management for over 30 years and will happily talk to anyone about the many time-consuming and costly mistakes I’ve made! How about the 5,000 Pops by the Sea postcards I sent out with the wrong ticket-line phone number when I was at the Symphony? Or forgetting to include 25% of the labor costs in a large contract when I worked at ECOSLO?   I refuse to call it a mistake that time we did square dancing on Arts Day at Leadership SLO.

What I really want to talk about though is being a boss and managing staff.  What did I set out to do?  I set out to be good; to be inclusive in decision-making, to listen, to be supportive, to encourage personal growth. And most importantly to create a team atmosphere that made our organization relevant and meaningful to our community.

What actually happened?

Hmmm.  Well, hang in for the happy-ish ending, but I can think of three pivotal instances where I failed as a boss and it about crushed me at the time.

  1. I worked with this brilliant and creative person and in the name of maintaining standards I asked her to show me all the work that she generated before it left the office. Actually a really good idea….for awhile. I praised her often and told her (and our board members) how lucky we were to have her with the organization. One day, after months of good work on the job, she came into my office and handed me a document to “review.” As I changed a word, added a comma and underlined a phrase, she asked me “Sandi, do you really think redlining those items makes the document better…or are you trying to remind me that you’re the boss?”  Ouch. I’m sure I protested but her question really touched me.
  2. Several years later I had the great fortune to work with a person who was innately competent in all she did; warm and kind in all her communications.  I felt truly blessed to work with her and told her so often.  One day she came into the office, closed the door and asked to speak with me confidentially.  I was certain that she had an observation or complaint about a colleague that I would wisely solve. To my utter disbelief she told me that working in close proximity to me was becoming intolerable: I interrupted her interactions with folks as they came into the office; I basically fed her “what to say” while she was on the phone and generally I was rude and minimized her role in the organization.  WHAT?
  3. My last example is really the hard one to admit-and that’s my failure to protect the team by refusing to do something about that one person in the office- you know the one- the time-suck, the toxic one, the one who interferes with the productivity, creativity and happiness of others.  Oh yeah, I’d try to manage, try to set boundaries, appear to commiserate and even vow to “do something”.  But several times in my career I had the wrong person in the wrong seat on the wrong bus…and what did I do?  Once I enthusiastically encouraged the person to pursue a new job where they’d find more satisfaction and they did.  Once I brought in a staff development expert who would lead us all through exercises until this person “saw the light” and their own flaws. The person didn’t see the light, didn’t see their flaws, but did eventually leave. And once, I was the one who left…. and left behind a bigger and badder problem for the whole organization.

What was the final outcome?  What did you learn?

Oh man.  I really did want to be a good boss.  So in the first two instances I took to heart the brave observations of the folks who worked for me.  When an employee (say, someone creating a donation letter or a grant proposal) handed me their work for review I learned to ask them: Did you review how we handled this same project last year? Was it successful last time? Do you clearly understand the expected outcomes this year? Have you asked a peer to review this document for clarity and grammar? Do you believe this is a finished product? THEN, I reviewed the work, carefully asking myself “Do I really need to change anything?” or can I admit that, even though it’s not exactly the words I’d use, I can confidently say to this trusted, valuable team member “Good job. Thanks.”

And in all three instances I came to realize that saying you trust someone, and giving praise and having all the good intentions of an open door, and inclusive decision making, being supportive, etc. does not alone a-good-boss-make; does not loyalty-and-productivity-engender. Action is what demonstrates to the team your commitment to them, the organization and your community.  I took actions that demonstrated to staff that they could trust me and rely on me.  I took action to listen more, to plan in advance (with their workloads in mind), to find agreement in clear goals and outcomes and to recognize that individual expressions of the same idea are worthy. I took action to put the right person on the right seat on the right bus.

Work life got better… for everybody.

Spokes’ HINDsight

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What do you & Spokes do?

I am the CEO of Spokes, a nonprofit organization that provides training and resources to the Directors, executive management and staff of nonprofits to help them better manage their organizations, meet compliance standards and exceed expectations of the public trust.

What was the original goal tied to your HINDsight?  What did you set out to do?

We wanted to redefine the way Spokes measured its programmatic success.  Historically, our organization quantified its success based on the number of workshop attendees or resource libraries.  We could assume or hope that we had some impact on improving the management skills of those we served, but we didn’t know for sure.

The idea was to create an online assessment tool, eventually named the Nonprofit Capacity Assessment Tool (NPOCAT), that allowed nonprofit organizations to measure how they were performing in key management areas.  The tool would gather input from both Directors and staff and provide an easy-to-read compilation report.  Spokes would review that report and, where the scores were lowest, identify and provide resources to improve performance in that area.  Organizations would take the assessment at least annually, and, as their scores (hopefully) increased, we could confirm our impact and success toward our mission.

What actually happened?

I, personally, spent several months identifying well-reputed measurement tools, negotiating partnerships and permissions to use them and working with a hired computer programmer to design and launch the tool. We invested $5,000 into the creation of the tool – a considerable amount for our modest budget. I promoted the new tool widely to our members and throughout our community.

Then we launched it and the first few folks used the assessment.   Lots of folks had complaints.  For some, the assessment questionnaire was way too long and burdensome (approx. 80 questions).  For larger organizations, it was a bit redundant as some already had to conduct similar assessments for their industry certification programs.  For smaller organizations, the majority of our users, there was a major disconnect.  Where we used terms like “Human Resources,” smaller, all-volunteer organizations stumbled assuming that the term only extended to employees.  In our opinion a nonprofit organization’s human resources include all volunteers and staff.   It was clear that the tool was going to need a major re-writing before it would become widely-used and valued.

What was the final outcome?  What did you learn?

Ultimately, we have chosen not to rewrite the NPOCAT.   We may still rewrite and reconfigure it at a later date, but for now, we’ve put it to rest and replaced it with a different, easier-to-use tool – the Standards for Excellence Organizational Assessment and Implementation Planning Tool©.  It will require more effort on our part to compile the results of the tool, but the adoption of the tool will be easier and the ease-of-use for our members will be much improved – and these are critical steps as we seek to measure our success.

In HINDsight, I would not have invested in programming the tool before I did more pilot study.  Although the tools we adopted for the NPOCAT had already been tested and piloted, they hadn’t been tested with our local target audience which is very unique in its number of smaller organizations.  The new tool was created for theMaryland nonprofit sector, which mirrors the SLO County nonprofit sector in both quantity and budget size.  I know to test a survey before implementing it, but I failed to recognize this tool as the survey that it essentially is.  To have tested sections of questions using a less expensive resource like SurveyMonkey, which we already use, would have allowed me to recognize the problems, program the tool differently and improve our chances for a more successful launch of the NPOCAT.  It was an expensive lesson to learn, but one I won’t forget.  There is some more advanced support curriculum for the new tool that comes with a considerable price tag.  Before we invest this time, I am focusing just on the basic tool.  So far, the response has been extremely positive and, if it continues, we’ll be able to make additional investments with confidence.

Lessons from Greg Hind

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“Ever tried, ever failed.
No matter.
Try again, fail again,
Fail better.”
–Samuel Beckett, Westward Ho!

Although this quote comes from a Samuel Beckett play, it could easily (albeit mistakenly) be attributed to Philanthropist & Entrepreneur Greg Hind. Greg successfully started 6 companies and filed numerous patents that have helped revolutionize the athletic sportswear industry. All of his business success, however, came with its share of failures – products that didn’t sell, materials that didn’t function and a partnership that went awry.

Most recently, Greg played an instrumental role in launching the newly restructured and redefined Spokes business model. And, like all new adventures, we’ve faced our share of toe-stubbing and stumbles as we learn to “walk” our new path.  Greg, who was every bit as generous to Spokes in his mentorship as he was with his financial support, never let me become disheartened when we had a “fall.”  In fact, he delighted in it.  And, I’ll tell you why.

Greg once told me how, when his sportswear business was booming, every phone call he received was another organization asking him to be a guest speaker and share his strategies for success.  And, yet, when the same business suffered a major setback, his phone was silent.  He found it ironic that it was in the process of recovering from a failure that he truly honed his management skills.  That was the moment when he had the most to offer other aspiring entrepreneurs, but no one thought to ask.

I think of that story often when I’m facing a challenge.  Greg taught me not to let the stigma of failure keep me from what will be my best learning opportunities.  It is a value that we have adopted for the entire Spokes organization and seek to extend to our members. And, so, with great excitement, I am pleased to celebrate Greg’s legacy with the inaugural publishing of our new HINDsight column.

In every HINDsight column, we will invite individuals to share a failure that they have experienced within their work, what they learned and how they recovered.  Our goal is to remove the stigma attached to failure, share the wealth of learning and experience that exists throughout the members of the nonprofit sector and create a network of support to help each other recover from our stumbles.

We hope you will join us in honoring Greg as we break a few spokes, repair them and roll forward as better, healthier and stronger nonprofit professionals and organizations.  The ride may be bumpy, but it will be inspiring!

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