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What Can You Learn From Asking, “HOW DID WE DO?”

Apr 6th, 2012 by

At Olive Grove we take learning seriously. Just over one year ago we implemented a rigorous quality assurance process that allows us to hear from and learn from our clients and our consultants. The final link in our learning circle was to share the lessons out to the general public through the following article. This article outlines our learning from 67 phone calls conducted over the last quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012. So what did we learn?

 

Organizations that we work with engage with Olive Grove during critical transitions such as:

  • Leadership transition
  • Infusion of funds for a new initiative
  • Governance review and overhaul
  • Financial crisis

 

One of the most interesting aspects of the feedback was that clients reported that the process of working with Olive Grove was as important if not more important that the outcome/s. Working with Olive Grove allows clients to step back from the issues, from their role, from the day to day and see themselves as part of a larger ecosystem. Clients noted that our staff and consultants play a strong role in creating a safe space, guiding, enabling and supporting the client to develop their own capacity rather than doing the work for them. In addition clients reported that working with Olive Grove is frequently a catalyst to other changes that allow them to take advantage of unleveraged opportunities.

 

Along with the positive feedback, we admit openly that we heard some negatives too. But understanding where there is failure is critical to understanding how to improve our service delivery. What we learned from our clients in the past six months allowed us to make important changes to our processes. These changes included clarifying the roles of each staff member engaged in executing client contracts, shoring up lines of communication between Olive Grove staff, network consultants and clients, and streamlining internal communications between operations and finance staff to better serve our clients. We are happy to report that by listening to our clients, and introducing improved internal communication between internal departments, we saw a significant decrease in concerns on this topic from clients over the first quarter of 2012.

 

An unanticipated but very notable piece of information that we learned through the quality assurance process was the reaction of our clients to Olive Grove actually having a quality assurance department. Our clients were genuinely surprised and impressed by the time and energy we invested in the process and some noted that they consider it a differentiator for the firm. We heard from clients that the calls we made as part of the quality assurance process provided them with an easy and neutral outlet to provide feedback, and created a safe space for reflection. Many thanked us for making the effort to provide that outlet for clients to be heard.

 

Over the last year of implementing our quality assurance process we have learned how important it is to provide channels for our clients to communicate their feedback openly because when they feel heard they feel empowered and feel like they have an impact in how we deliver our services. We believe this information has larger implications for organizations in the any and every sector. Allowing your beneficiaries, donors, customers, stakeholders, and others to become part of your learning loop and empowering them to express their opinions will help you improve your processes, programs, services, products and delivery, and build better relationships with those your serve.

 

So what can you learn by asking, “how did we do?” Try it and see what you hear! Just remember, don’t be scared of feedback – embrace it, learn from it, and incorporate it!

 

“It is great what you do to be able to help any time an organization is going through change, and how difficult it is for organizations to deal with change.  So often consultants put people through exercises, but Emily is a very nuts and bolts and practical person, but at the same time she has vision.  She gets the most out of people. A lot of people call themselves consulatants, but really being able to add value is difficult.”

 

- Mary Hohensee, Board Member, Women’s Recovery Association

“The most surprising thing: it wasn’t what we did as much as how we did it. I had a sense that the process mattered, I knew I couldn’t manage the process myself because everyone had a vested interest (including me).  Truly what ended up mattering was that [our former board chair] could be comfortable and proud of his own daughter.  That emotional success was really important. We facilitated greatness, made people look good.”

- Kim Laughton, President, Schwab Charitable Fund

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CompassPoint Nonprofit Day 2011 – One Olive’s Review

Sep 28th, 2011 by

From Kristin Bronowicki

This was the first year that I have attended the CompassPoint Nonprofit Day, and I have to say, I saw a lot of reinventing the wheel – in a good way! All throughout the day, I saw people and organizations that are facing funding challenges, shifting trends in their mission spaces, and increased expectations from the public and foundations to make measurable impact in their respective fields. But instead of seeing complaints and frustrations about these challenges, I saw leaders who were working together to create new approaches, new models, and new best practices to build sustainable organizations.

The greatest evidence I saw of this new thinking came in an afternoon session, lead by Paula Smith Arrigoni, of Smith & Daley, on building earned income streams.

Paula very matter of factly addressed the current state of the economy and encouraged attendees not to wait around for funding to show up, but to embrace entrepreneurial thinking to swipe “low hanging fruit” to create earned revenues for organizations. Many of the leaders in the room were thinking about creating new fee for service programs, and Paula was able to walk individuals through the key elements in vetting a program before launching something that could potentially drain an organization of resources instead of building new ones. My main takeaway? It’s all about PRICING! Many organizations don’t actually consider the entire price it takes to fund one unit of a service, from the labor, the utilities, the supplies, and even the rent, so their services are grossly underpriced. Analyzing the actual cost to provide a program is the best way to determine how you should price it and predict the revenues that will come from it. While this was new information for some individuals, there was already one woman in the room who had quite the entrepreneurial success story.

Mary was a representative from an organization in Palo Alto that serves youth and adults with disabilities through specialized activities and treatment. One of their services was a therapeutic pool that was used for exercise and physical therapy. Because the maintenance costs for the pool were so high, the program was fast losing money and Mary was considering closing the pool completely. However, with some quick creative thinking, she designed an afterschool swimming program for nearby schools to recover some of the maintenance costs. After getting approval from her Board (there were some concerns over mission drift, which she addressed by arguing that the swimming school enabled the delivery of mission to individuals with disabilities), Mary had trained staff and a full fledged swimming school up and running within a year. The school is covering a substantial amount of her costs now and the therapeutic pool is still getting full use from their constituents.

I left the session and conference feeling overjoyed at the ability of individuals and organizations to embrace the challenges they are facing with courage and creativity. No one is waiting on a mythical foundation or donor to swoop in and save their programs; they are designing solutions that would make their organizations sustainable and relevant in the current times. Just goes to show, reinventing the wheel isn’t always a bad thing!

To learn more about what transpired at CompassPoint Nonprofit Day 2011, visit their website.  Learn more about the earned income streams presentation from Paula Smith Arrigoni here.

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Leading Towards Learning Organizations

Sep 21st, 2011 by

Director Mona Jones-Romansic and Olive Grove Consultant Bill Say have got learning on the brain as they develop their consulting practice around learning and organizational culture. Read on to see where and how they think learning is surfacing in the sector.


Mona: After spending a weekend with colleagues at the Alliance for Nonprofit Management Conference I was heartened to see a recognition that the nonprofit sector itself is at an inflection point, that many of the problems we as consultants focus on in isolation are inter-related, and that new forms of organizational management and leadership are necessary to thrive in this new environment. One concept that is just beginning to get traction in the nonprofit sector and has enormous potential to reshape our thinking about leadership is the “learning organization.”

Learning organizations are defined by leading thinkers on organizational development as having distinct leadership, organizational culture, organizational processes and structures, effective knowledge management systems, and physical spaces that are conducive to communication and learning. Our research shows that while distinctive organizational culture, processes and structures underpin successful learning organizations, leadership is the keystone sustaining the model.

Building a successful learning organization requires embracing a new paradigm for leadership. The role of a leader in a learning organization is not to mandate change but to model change. More like teachers than generals, these leaders must facilitate collaboration, embrace experimentation and uncertainty and build leaderful organizations. The charge for nonprofit leaders in the twenty first century will not be to do more of the same administration but rather to reinvent leadership for learning.

Bill: One central leadership skill is awareness. Too often the leader operates within an organizational and relational “awareness bubble,” a membrane that removes the leader from key aspects of the organizational culture and process, and from feedback about his or her own behavior. The new leader utilizes awareness and awareness building methods to create an environment where information can flow and feedback, arguably the primary evidence of learning, can occur. Individuals and human systems need feedback for learning to occur. The ability to receive feedback, individually and collectively, relies to some degree on emotional maturity and the willingness to at times “hear” difficult and identity altering information.

Mona: The most significant aspect of organizational culture contributing to successful learning is a culture of safety. Cultures of safety encourage innovation and experimentation, view mistakes and failures as learning opportunities, evaluate process as well as outcome, value and utilize communication skills that expose reasoning and conclusions to inquiry, and lastly, display mutual respect for all stakeholders.

Bill: Counter intuitively, safety is created by thoughtful risk. When leaders don’t risk, reveal, inquire, and model transparency, deeper levels of safety are not attained, feedback is rejected or not offered, and learning stays superficial. Conversely, a level of safety is required for risk to occur. A few ways the leader helps create the learning organization is by offering structures and processes for learning, sharing information, processing issues of mutual concern, and cultivating collective leadership and community.

Additionally, perhaps one of the deepest ways how an organization can create safety is by creating the atmosphere where all members can feel at home. This is to say, that all members can feel safe, comfortably themselves, expressive, caring, and connected to others. Safety and the feeling of being at home may be the some of the best indicators of an organizational environment where learning can happen.

Mona: Some organizational structures and processes that have been found to be significant for successful learning include feedback loops;  group, team, and stakeholder process meetings; incentives;  and shared decision-making.

While both organizational culture and organizational structures and processes prove to be critical components of the learning organization, leadership is the lynchpin in the learning organization management model. Leaders play a pivotal role in influencing the culture, structure and processes of an organization by initiating processes, policies and procedures, and most vitally, by modeling behaviors that demonstrate learning.

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pal·li·a·tive adj. \ˈpa-lē-, ā-tiv,ˈpal-yə-\

Sep 15th, 2011 by

Ned Schaub joined Olive Grove in June as a Vice President to develop three new consulting practices, one of which is a practice around palliative care organizations. We know, we know, it’s hard to pronounce (say pally-uh-tiv), and it’s still a rather foreign field to those not involved in healthcare. But the Olive Grove team has seen that palliative care is increasingly important to hospitals and other healthcare facilities – and especially to patients, their loved ones, and their providers – that are seeking effective and efficient ways to reduce suffering and increase quality of life. It is also a critical solution to infrastructure and healthcare human resource challenges facing our population as it is rapidly expanding and aging. And, it addresses long-standing moral issues, such as those created by the fact that technological advances can lengthen life-span, but not necessarily protect the quality of life. This week we discuss the practice of palliative care and why it matters.

 

The concept and practice of palliative care is fairly new in the healthcare world. For those who are not familiar, the simplest definition of palliative care is to alleviate pain and alleviate problems for patients and their families. As it’s used in healthcare, the definition is: management of pain, relief from symptoms, and maintaining quality of life. It’s important to note that palliative care is not preventative or curative – the word palliative comes from the Latin word palliate, which means to cloak or cover something. Thus, the term palliative care, which focuses on “concealing” the pain, but not on addressing the underlying cause.

Currently, the movement to advance palliative care dictates that palliative care should be an optional compliment to curative care, and visa versa. However, while the most common form of palliative care is hospice, people who receive hospice care traditionally don’t get curative treatment. So, the next iteration of palliative care aims to change that, ensuring high quality of life and relief from pain, but not at the expense of curative care.

What is interesting about palliative care is that it involves not just the patient, but their family and loved ones. In addition to medical and nursing care it can provide support in the form of a social worker, who helps the family to make decisions and create the best conditions for all of them. It can also involve access to spiritual care, should the patient and family desire it.

The field of palliative care has been growing rapidly in the last several years. There are some leaders who have made it their life’s work to spread palliative care and they have built the movement a relatively few, but very strong voices. Those voices understand that the current healthcare system can’t support all the coming challenges. Healthcare professionals, although well trained, may not be equipped to deal with pain management, or ensure quality of life. Ned has spoken with some professionals that claim “working in palliative care is one of the only places that they can do the type of work they wanted to do when they decided to go into healthcare in the first place. Many nurses, for example, don’t always feel empowered to make the choices and decisions that will be the best for the patient and their loved ones because of time constraints and because of a business model that is restrictive.” He adds, “The time has come in which many people are saying that we need to help care for people in ways that are more appropriate and compassionate – and there is a growing movement to ensure that this happens.”

But in order to carry this movement forward we have to first overcome certain barriers. The biggest obstacle is that palliative care is still an emerging movement, so people don’t know what it is and don’t know that they can demand these services from healthcare providers. To overcome this, education and outreach needs to be increased to create new momentum for growth and awareness.

Another obstacle facing the field is that it has been mischaracterized in the media, like the infamous term “death panel,” and to some degree that has set it back. Helping patients make decisions about life support and other life sustaining apparatuses is only one element of palliative care, but it is the element that has been villainized by certain individuals and groups, and this has resulted in negative perceptions about the practice as a whole.

Despite the obstacles the field faces, donors and foundations are funding organizations with palliative care missions because there is so much potential for a return on investment. Putting funding into palliative care is an opportunity to shift the entire healthcare industry. We at Olive Grove also believe in the potential of palliative care to transform healthcare, particularly for our rapidly aging populations. Our practice will focus on supporting palliative care organizations as they strive for sustainability and as they develop strategies for dealing with increasing demand and potential cuts in government funding. You can learn more about our Palliative Care Practice at www.olivegroveconsulting.com and more about the broader field of palliative care from the Center to Advance Palliative Care.

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Q&A with Ned Schaub: Finding Inspiration in Aging

Sep 1st, 2011 by

Ned Schaub joined Olive Grove Consulting in June to develop three new consulting practices, one that focuses on working with organizations in the field of aging,  a second that works with organizations in the burgeoning field of palliative care, and a third that focus on learning communities. We wanted to take some time to learn more about Ned’s inspiration for the first two of these practices and why they are so relevant for not only the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, but also for national healthcare and its reform. Our blog series will focus on aging first and will move on to palliative care in the coming weeks.


KB: Where does your passion for the field of aging stem from?

NS: It comes from a range of places. Part of it for me was that my great grandparents had 16 children, so I grew up around a lot of elders, and they were very revered, loved, and enjoyed in our family.

As I grew up, I became disenchanted with what society does with elders.  They are often isolated, frequently placed in long term care and are shut off from what happens in society. I don’t think that most people want to live like that – separated from the world, in an institutional setting.

When I was 17 or 18 and doing some volunteer work in a retirement facility I came to feel that this trend in society was problematic. I knew then that I wanted to be a part of ensuring that elders are involved in the community as I experienced it with my great aunts and uncles.

When I spend time with older adults, I usually feel a deepened sense of what’s important in life, and it’s a connection with all this wisdom and these great stories. I think that elders can bring a calmness to your life because they’ve been through so much. You can gain so much by engaging with them. I see so much potential, for example, in connecting our young people with older adults, that we can all have  a better and richer society by not isolating them.

The fundamental goals for me in how I live my professional and personal life are integrity, joy and service, and being around elders and serving them, feels to me like acting with   integrity. At the same time it always brings me joy. to hear their stories and learn from their wisdom. For me this work fits right in with my philosophy of life.

 

KB: Why is now the time to be focusing on aging organizations?

NS: In addition to my personal connection to aging, I also believe that aging is going to be one of the greatest issues for society to deal with. Now is the time to focus on it because according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people worldwide 65 and older was estimated at 506 million as of midyear 2008; by 2040, that number will likely hit 1.3 billion. So, in just over 30 years, the proportion of older people will double from 7 percent to 14 percent of the total world population. Within 10 years, for the first time in human history there will be more people 65 and older than children under 5 in the world. The aging population is growing so quickly because of the baby boomers, and we are not prepared as a society, to care for those people. We don’t have for profit, or nonprofit systems that can meet the demand for services for older adults.

We at Olive Grove are doing our part to get prepared to serve aging organizations and their leaders as they get ready for the challenges ahead, and as they seize the opportunity to create higher quality of life and capitalize on all the wisdom and talents of our older adults.

 

KB: Why is California referred to as “ground zero” for aging and how will that affect the organizations that currently serve aging populations?

NS: California has the greatest concentration of older adults in the United States because of the large population in the state and because it will have the largest ratio of older adults in the coming decades. So it is critical that California get prepared.  Those of us in California have the opportunity  to be pioneers in building this field. And there is so much going on here in the field of social entrepreneurship, in social enterprises, nonprofits, and businesses – there is opportunity to achieve impact in every direction and across sectors.

 

KB: What are some of the typical services offered by an organization that works in the field of aging?

NS: One example is organizations that provide adult day health services, which are scheduled for massive cuts from state funding. These services allow older adults to come for the day and get health, therapeutic, and social services. Other typical services include health clinics, senior centers with activities, meals and exercise, and social events, senior transporation programs, and meals-on-wheels programs. I serve on the board of an organization called ElderGivers, which connects the generations through programs that celebrate the wisdom, talents, and creativity of older adults in the San Francisco Bay Area, and on the board of the California Association of Retired Americans, which is a statewide nonprofit that brings together retired workers and community groups working for social and economic justice, and full civil rights for themselves, their families, and future generations.

 

KB: What are the key areas in which aging organizations will need the most support from consultants and philanthropists in the coming years?

NS: The key things that come to mind are leadership, which I think will be the most critical. Also plans for sustainability – including plans for earned income and diversified income streams, increasing capacity for strategic communications, tools for navigating and adapting to changes in demographics and the climate in which they work.

That’s why it’s so exciting that Olive Grove has established a whole practice around this, and that we’re going to be tailoring services and teams around these issues. We’ll be providing support that will help aging organizations and their leaders to capitalize on their strengths and the opportunities in front of them, and to face challenges with strong plans in place.

 

KB: What obstacles do you see in this field in terms of the current healthcare landscape and national economic woes?

NS: There are already cuts coming at the state level. We don’t know the extent of the cuts at the federal level, but we are bracing for that. One specific cut is that California will no longer be funding adult day health services, which has put many organizations – and families – into serious crisis mode. The biggest obstacle is that the resources are no longer reliable.

But part of my hope comes from looking back through time at social entrepreneurs that led the way through times of trouble. Many of the greatest innovations that came to exist came about during times of real challenge and crisis. They came at times of deep poverty, disease, and oppression. I don’t want to romanticize this, but I think that during this time we’re going to see some really great innovators at national and international levels – and right here in California. The truth is that we’ve never been at a better point in time for collaborations across sectors and industries. People are coming together around many of the greatest challenges and it really is the best possible time for innovation. Seeing this brings me deep hope and makes me want to be part of the excitement of coming up with the solutions. And it makes me want to do everything I can to ensure that our older adults are increasingly treasured and cared for in the way that we would all want to be.

 

To learn more about Ned and his working in the field of aging, visit our website. To learn more about the shifting demographics of the US and its projected impact, visit the Administration on Aging or the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Advancing Impact at Olive Grove

Aug 24th, 2011 by

This week, we wanted to talk about some of the success that come about through addressing organizational challenges and opportunities proactively and collaboratively (and toot our horns just a bit!). Read on and see what happens when consultant + organization = big change!


Olive Grove started working with the Education Trust-West early this summer to support them in forming an advisory board. We started with myriad options and paths that could be taken to form an advisory board, and now that we’re a little over halfway through the process, this is what has happened…

“We have far greater coherence in our thinking about developing an advisory board, there is consistency between meetings and follow through. We’re feeling that we are on track to meet our goals. We have benefited from the feedback from both consultants, and appreciate the firm hand that they use at those meetings.”

– Director of Planning, Grants and Administration, Education Trust-West

 

The San Francisco Child Abuse Prevent Center (SFCAPC) started work with Olive Grove three years ago and our partnership has resulted in significant change, so much so that their Executive Director claims the organization has been “transformed from an adolescent organization to a grown up organization.” What started as an executive search for SFCAPC has turned into so much more.

“We needed an Executive Director and we hired Emily [Hall] to do the search, and then as part of that Emily did some debriefing of the organization as a whole: funders, workers, board members. Emily coached me afterward which was good investment in the project. She helped us facilitate a pretty seminal board meeting that got us over a hump and helped us complete our strategic plan. The next most substantial project was board governance work, and overall what she has helped us with is clarity of leadership, defining distinct roles, helping execution on various things. She has our back.

I think we will see some real metrics from that work. Leadership, procedures and policies in place, more aligned vision, mission programming, budget growth. She was the catalyst that helped us.”

– Executive Director, SFCAPC

 

Woman, Inc. approached Olive Grove for support through an annual retreat. We matched the organization with our sage consultant Mary Jo Lazear, and her objective perspective and direct communication helped the organization work through critical issues in an efficient and productive manner, despite the time constraints of a single day retreat.

“The thoughts that we talked about were really crystal clear and didn’t take days and days like I thought. The whole staff was very impressed with Mary Jo’s credentials, and during the retreat she kept us focused. She went through agenda and we were able to deal with each item, when we went off a little she was there. What I liked was that she was able to direct without influencing content. She made it easy for everyone to express themselves.

When it came to us doing our workplans, she was very direct, that helped focus us – we can’t just make nice words – we need a real target. Everyone came back from the retreat feeling better – our frustrations had subsided.”

– Executive Director, Woman, Inc.

 

A big thank you to all of the leaders and organization we have been so lucky to work with and allowing us to create transformative change!

 

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Learning organizations: Benefiting from conflict, Part 4

Aug 17th, 2011 by

Bill Say and Mona Jones-Romansic share more about the drama and conflict at All Smiles this week. Whatever will happen next? And is Jim becoming the “courageous champion” at All Smiles who can take the organization to the next level?

In our last episode, Jim, the ED of the (fictitious) non-profit All Smiles, had unsuccessfully attempted to cross one of organization’s cultural boundary by speaking directly. Halted by staff reactions, Jim had backed down. Later that night he was slumped behind his desk reflecting on the day and feeling frustrated. He knew the organization needed change but felt helpless despite his leadership role. The culture of the organization was much bigger than one person. He wondered aloud, “can our culture ever change?”

Tacked to the bulletin board in front of him was Grape Vine Consulting’s organizational assessment of All Smiles. His eyes focused on the phrase “indirect communication, passive leadership, and conflict avoidant relations.”

Fed up and in need of support, Jim picked up the phone and made two calls. First he phoned Shelly, All Smile’s board president. Jim apologized for his bitter complaints about her “driven” behavior and told her he realized that this was a quality that was sorely missing at All Smiles. Shelly graciously accepted his apology. Then they spoke about the need to bring in a consultant to help All Smiles with some of their collective problems. Both Shelly and Jim acknowledged that their stylistic difference and faltering communication illustrated a bigger problem in All Smiles’ collective culture. They both agreed that, despite the tumultuous few days, their conflict was big potential gift to the organization.

Next, Jim called Grape Vine consulting and soon had committed to having Ellen, one of Grape Vine’s consultants come and meet with him and Shelly.

Sitting in their respective homes, Shelly and Jim both had a similar though unusual feeling. They both felt excited and inspired, which was rare in their experience at All Smiles. They also felt joined with the other in a supported way.

Let’s see what happens when they meet with Ellen!

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Executive Search Q&A Continued: Finding the Right Fit

Aug 10th, 2011 by

Our Q&A with Nancy Painter, Vice President of Executive Search at Olive Grove, continues this week with questions on how to find candidates that not only have the right skills, but the right fit for the organizations Nancy works with.

KB: What is the most significant characteristic you’re looking for in candidates? Is it the mission match or experience, the skills, or the personality fit?

NP: This is completely determined by the organization, their needs and the engagement of the search committee in the process.  We bring prospects to discuss with the committee across a broad spectrum of experience and skills, some who they may know and others they are introduced to for the first time.   One of things that I think is really valuable about a search consultant is weighing the attributes that are required for that role and then helping the organization figure out which ones are the most important as the process moves forward.  Sometimes those assumptions about what is critical change through the learning that occurs through the process.

At times, the selected candidate is not the one with the most experience—the one who can rightfully claim they have done it all before.  It’s the candidate with the most passion for the mission, or the one who can articulate the mission in ways that engage others or who can redefine the mission for a new audience.  “Perfect” candidates are not always the ones who have successfully demonstrated in their past positions all the skills required in exactly the same way required of the new position.   The search committee moves through a dynamic process of reviewing real people, with real experiences and selecting the ones they have confidence can lead their organizations.  We are their guides through those decisions, but we don’t make those decisions for the committee.

 

KB: What are your special tools for trying to figure out what an organization is looking for in a candidate? How do you find out the intangibles and culture fit needs?

NP: One of the things I try not to do is lead the conversation with an organization or a community. I don’t want them to shape what they think is important by the questions that I’m interested in having answered.  I begin with a very open-ended conversation about what they believe is needed and what is important.  The best thing I can do is listen–listen and then feed back what I’ve heard to test the consistency and the nuance in the needs of the organization.  To really be helpful in finding the right people for a role, I need to understand what the tensions are, what the challenges are, and know the full range of voices that need to be heard in order for the whole community to be served. Often, we ask to speak to a broad group of people all around a role. Board, staff, peer organizations, collaborators, funders—even people served by the organization can be tremendously helpful in filling in the whole picture of the value of an organization to the community.   This kind of constituent engagement is really important in setting up the new leader for success.

When I talk to stakeholders, I ask basic questions, but they lead to very deep understanding of the organization from different perspectives. By learning as much as we can about the issues they work with, the approaches they take, the comparison between others in the field; and by understanding them through their internal audience and the external audience we create a full picture of what it means to lead the organization.  We try to immerse ourselves in their work and then test the assumptions by asking questions that prospective candidates will be asking us.

Sometimes, we’re called upon to help change the culture of an organization through a search. So in that case, it’s important to stay focused on what change is desired, instead of focusing on what the current culture is. I like to look to the future–I ask, “what are you building and what do you think it will it take to get there?”  A good search consultant will ask about the future and test the organization’s resistance to change.  Change is inevitable with new leadership.  It’s a healthy process, but organizations need to be prepared for it. A search process can really help an organization to consider change and not be fearful of it.

 

KB: Why don’t you like to be in the interviews with the client?

NP: The bottom line is that my opinion really doesn’t matter. My role is to help the organization examine whether a candidate can lead them.  It’s important to create ownership of the choice from the organization through the interview process.  The emotional commitment and belief in the qualifications and leadership of the candidate is a form of investment in the future and those interviews are the beginning of the ties that will contribute to the leader’s success. It’s the buy-in from the committee and the board that drives the process. My role is to make sure that the decision-makers are armed and ready to ask the questions that they need to ensure that the candidate has the right skills, experience and culture fit.  A search consultant’s role is to assist in ensuring that this engagement between the decision-makers and the candidate is rich and provides the kind of experience that will help them understand more about each other.  Together they need to decide whether they are a good match and can l leverage each other’s skills toward the mission.  We should not be making decisions for the committee.   If a consultant sits in the interviews, it’s too easy for the committee to ask, “What do you think?”  If I’m not in the interview, the committee will rely on their own experience with the engagement to make a decision.

 

KB: Do you convince people to leave one position to take another?

NP: We don’t try and convince anyone, we try to present an opportunity. That’s really what we do when we frame a position. We say, “Here is what the organization is poised to do, and as its leader, here is the opportunity for you to create this kind of change or make this kind of impact.” It could be rebranding, or shifting the organizational culture; it could be a capital campaign or redesigning the business model. Whatever the future requires, there is someone who is excited by taking on that challenge.  Leaders want to make the most of their ability.  They’ll ask, “Where can I do the best work that I can do?” During our sourcing and interviewing we are asking people to explore with their eyes open, what the value of their impact is and could it be greater or better served in this new opportunity?  People move positions in the nonprofit sector to gain greater alignment with their own mission orientation and to build their own capacity to make an impact.  That’s my commitment to serve the nonprofit sector…to assist people in recognizing when their skills and experience are being put to the highest use.

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Q&A with Nancy Painter, Olive Grove’s VP of Executive Search: Getting to the Roots of Recruiting Leaders

Aug 3rd, 2011 by

Executive Search can often seem mysterious and even clandestine to the casual observer. It has been labeled many things: exorbitant, exclusionary, transformative, unnecessary, competitive, high-stakes, and game-changing. We decided to get the roots of executive search by doing a Q&A series with Olive Grove Vice President of Executive Search, Nancy Painter. Nancy has been recruiting nonprofit executive leaders for 20 years, placing leaders in a wide range of positions at diverse institutions all over the country. We hope that through this series we can illuminate the search process and how it can be a valuable and even transformative process for organizations that are looking to change the shape of their future.


KB: There are lots of intelligent, skilled people at nonprofits. Why should they hire an executive search consultant if they could do the job themselves?

NP: Well the question I would ask is, what’s the highest and best use of your skills? If a search takes at least 100 hours and sometimes two or three times that, is that the best use of your internal capacity?  It makes sense to bring in a professional who has the skills and process to help you understand what is needed and do the work to attract a quality group of prospective new leaders.  Working with an executive search consultant can significantly reduce the time and energy that staff and board members have to spend on seeking a new leader, but the real value is deeper than that.

A search consultant can help evolve the conversation about leadership and vision in an organization and set the stage for real change.  It’s not unusual for a search consultant to understand through the conversations that they have with constituents, what the barriers to change are from a different prospective.  Additionally, prospective candidates feel freer to discuss their concerns or questions about the organization and this kind of frank interchange can attract candidates that otherwise would sit on the sidelines – leaders that are excited to work on the challenges that the organization is facing.

Search consultants also have a better understanding about how the position and organization is seen as compared to others in the same sector.  A good consultant can make a position stand out. Having a position description that reflects the future you need to build is extremely important to a successful search, and a consultant can be indispensable in making that happen. Not to mention, a good search consultant is not passively collecting candidates who are actively looking, they are diligently and thoroughly considering where to engage the talent needed for the role.  They build networks of people to source and discuss the position with in order to seek out those who are recommended for the role by their peers.

Ultimately, whether or not an organization believes that an executive search consultant is the best use of their resources, they need to consider whether they can produce the same results if they take on the search internally.

 

KB: How long is a typical executive search?

NP: A typical fully retained search process is four to six months. It can be less, but that requires the process to be a substantial priority for everyone involved—one of the reasons that a search can be delayed is the inability to gather decision-makers for key discussions and interviews.  It is sometimes just a reality with busy board and staff members that the process needs to conform to the time they have to put to the process.

 

KB: What scares clients the most about starting an executive search?

NP: Failing. Like with most efforts, no one wants to go through this arduous process and have it fail.

We would all like to believe that with effort everything we do will be successful.  The unfortunately reality is that some searches do fail.  The process involved in a fully retained executive search is designed to minimize risk of failure–it creates, through the discovery phase of the search, an environment where the issues and areas where there is not consensus can be discussed openly.  The search can’t solve the challenges an organization faces, but it can identify them and position them as opportunities by making them visible.   It clarifies the challenges and opportunities in the role not just for the decision makers at the board level but for the candidates.  It sets the stage for a realistic and fruitful engagement with prospects.  It also requires the board and the staff to consider their part in the future success of a new leader.

 

KB: What does sourcing actually mean?

NP: Sourcing is outreach.  It is the dialog the search consultant has with the community about the position…the broadest sense of the meaning of community.  It can mean reaching out to those in academia or business, talking to people who are board and staff members at other nonprofits, or those who work in government or policy roles that impact the work of the organization, it means connecting with organizations with missions focused on the same as the one in your search, or foundations that fund that work.   Sourcing is an active process of reaching out to inform and engage the broadest community in the search for your new leader.  It may mean talking to people who have known your work for years and to people who have never heard of you but who share a common concern or simply have the reputation for doing great work.  A good outreach process becomes a megaphone for your organization and the impact you are making—it builds awareness and enthusiasm not just for the position but for the issues and mission of your organization.

Sourcing is also work.  It takes on average 4-6 weeks, but can take longer depending on the skills and experience required of the role.  A good search consultant does not rely on advertising.  Advertising simply provides access to people who are actively job hunting.  A rich process seeks out the leadership you need by engaging prospects in conversation about the value of your mission and the potential value of their leadership on mission impact.  People attracted to nonprofits are concerned about making a difference.  You need to be able to make the case that your organization can allow them to have a greater impact and be more valuable to a cause that aligns with their own values.  You can’t have that conversation through an advertisement…no matter how good it is.

 

KB: How many people do you think the position description gets seen by through your sourcing and outreach?

NP: It’s almost impossible to tell…the process by design is intended to be viral. The targeted source list can be between 100-900 people depending on the search. The target is constantly expanded; each person you talk to may lead you to 2 more referrals or 2 more organizations that you had not yet tapped.  Then there are informal networks; small networks or list serves or even just a very well connected person who sends it out to their LinkedIn contacts which expands the circles of outreach.   We can guess that the number is some exponent of the original list, but it’s hard to know what that exponent is.

You know that you’ve reached the tipping point in the search process when every new person you speak with points you back to someone that you have already been in contact with.  At that point you can be confident that you’ve exhausted the market, at least for the moment.  Time can open new prospects who could not consider the role before, but delay has many costs as well.  A strong process should yield a good number of well qualified candidates.

 

Tune in next week to read the rest of the interview…

 

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It’s the 30th Anniversary of MTV – Oh my.

Jul 27th, 2011 by

This week we have a special guest post from our friend Dan Cohen. Dan is the founder of Full Court Press Communications, a firm he founded to use communications to make social change – a mission we wholeheartedly support. Enjoy!

August 1 is the 30th Anniversary of the launch of MTV.  Prior to MTV’s arrival, music was an auditory experience.  A distant thing heard on records, cassettes and on scratchy AM radio.  There was no way to connect a face to an artist unless it was on an album cover or you saw the artist live.

Fast-forwarding three decades, the modern artist IS the image.  Can you really imagine Beyonce, Lady GaGa or even CeeLo Green without seeing their faces or remembering their music videos?

Like any child of the 1980s, MTV was a formative part of my adolescence, but reflecting on it now, I see lessons from the seismic shift begun in the 1980s that still resonate for us all as communicators.

Video mattered then.  Now even more so.

Today, the video is the undisputed king of communications – in every possible way.  Need proof?  Internet traffic is dominated by Netflix and YouTube.  Cell phones are built worldwide to carry live and streaming video.  Third graders now create video projects in lieu of book reports.

Some questions to ask yourself or your organization are,

-       Am I using video in a transformative way to reach my target audiences?

-       Am I using video to present my organization in a new way or to change opinions about us?

If the answer is no, pick up your Smartphone or your Flip camera and start looking at the work you do through those lenses – and see what looks different.  Think of a way you might transform what you do to make it more appealing to viewers.

Did you know you own your own TV network?

Today, all of us struggle to create consistency, or even near permanence, in the eyes of our key audiences.  Social media tools (YouTube and others) and our own organizational websites now give us the ability to broadcast directly to folks that opt-in to receive our messages.  We now own our own TV network, just like MTV, and have a window to climb into our audience’s minds.

Need proof?  I randomly selected Sierra Club. It has its own YouTube channel with 1.5 million views and 1,800 subscribers. These 1,800 comprise an audience that has “subscribed” and Sierra Club knows they can reach each time they post a video.  The viewers can then take the video and repost it on Sierra Club’s behalf across social media. Sierra Club has their own broadcast network…and you can too.

Tap into something universal

Successful pop music taps into universal themes like love and loss.  So too, does powerful storytelling.  To successfully engage our target audiences, we can tap into these universal themes.

What are the universal themes of your work?

  • Do you help the little person take on the big challenge?
  • Do you identify new ways to solve old problems?
  • Are you bringing forth old wisdoms to solve modern-day problems?
  • Do you have heroes and villains?

Once you have identified these themes, help your target audiences visualize them.  It is not enough to tell them anymore, you need to show them.

One of the great modern day practitioners of this is The Story of Stuff Project.  They take problems that seem impersonal or distant, and make them real and immediate through tapping into a universal desire to “do something” even when it seems like we cannot.  They tell these stories in highly compelling ways and provide opportunities for their target audiences to get engaged.  Seeking and telling these stories is simply part of the organization’s DNA.

Is it part of yours?

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