Strategy Secrets: Fewer Inputs, Less Stress
Nonprofit executives - want to significantly reduce your and your team's stress levels? Here's a critical distinction you may be missing.
An idea is not an obligation.
Just because:
→ A board member shared it at a board meeting
→ A major donor brought it up in your latest conversation
→ A corporate partner approached you about co-creating a new program
→ Your team is excited about a new tactic
→ Another department head is considering a new approach
→ You had an amazing idea about the future of your organization
Does not mean that idea becomes a "to do" on your list.
If you already made a plan for the year, then you've made plenty of commitments about what you and your team will accomplish.
If your plan included bandwidth to take on new projects (bonus points!), that doesn't mean this latest idea is it.
Just because an idea was spoken out loud, it doesn't mean you should pursue it - even if it's brilliant and everyone is super enthusiastic.
Managing stress, making time to be strategic, and providing meaningful support to your team all require you to limit the new things you introduce into the mix.
So, should we stop ideating? Of course not.
Here's what you can do with those ideas instead of rushing them or losing them:
Collect and review them on a regular basis - let's say quarterly. By having a system for capturing new ideas and a process for evaluating them, you can review a group of ideas to see which ones best align with your organization's strategy, priorities, and capacity.
Plan for experimentation. Leave room in your capacity and budget to pursue one or two meaningful ideas as experiments each year. Make sure they've gone through the review and alignment process above and that you're clear on what you're trying to learn or accomplish by implementing them.
Appreciate them, then let them go. Not all ideas are going to get implemented. That's okay. Sometimes the joy is in having the idea itself. When we recognize that brainstorms and idea generation can bring joy for their own sake and don't necessarily need to be activated, we give ourselves room to dream while also maintaining space to build intentionally and well.
Creating space between when an idea arrives and when you'll implement it is a gift you can give yourself and your team and a great way to reduce workplace stress.
Need help putting this approach into practice? Send us a message to get started. You can also join the conversation on LinkedIn.