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A Recipe for Moving Forward Together
Getting unstuck so you can move forward together is a little like baking. There are key ingredients that should be combined in certain ways to get the desired result, and if you accidentally leave out an ingredient or miss a step, the results can range from disappointing to disastrous.
That’s what was happening with one team I worked with. In their previous attempts, they were missing some key ingredients and they weren’t quite getting the important steps right. And it showed in their initial results.
But when we applied the right approach for getting unstuck so they could move forward together, they finally had the recipe they needed to make their efforts successful.
In the spirit of holiday recipe swaps, I’m happy to share with you my recipe for meaningful meetings that help cross-functional teams move forward together.
Incorporating Rests Into the Rhythm of Work
At some point in the process of learning to read music, every student learns the importance of rests.
Rests – the pauses between notes – are active, intentional moments of silence designed to create specific patterns, rhythms, and feelings throughout a musical piece, and they are critically important for the musician and the audience alike.
Rests are also critical for successful strategic planning and implementation.
If you’re so busy working that you’re not taking intentional, active moments to pause, reflect, and renew your effort based on those reflections or redirect to a new path, then you’re increasing the chance that your efforts will be less strategic, less effective, and less successful.
The False Security of Best Practices
In the social good sector, our organizations’ visions and missions claim a future that will be better and different from now. We dream of a world that does not yet exist, which means that current best practices aren’t yet capable of getting us to where we want to be.
That means for us to fully realize our visions and successfully fulfill our missions, we can’t settle for what’s considered “best” right now – we must reach for better.
Practicing Values-Driven Strategy
In nonprofit strategic planning, we often start with the big stuff – mission, vision, and values. These guiding statements can and should be powerful expressions of the world your organization wants to create, what it will focus on to create it, and the behaviors it will embody on its way to fulfilling these big dreams.
But what happens when you realize that the way you’re working may not be upholding your vision, mission, and values? How do you reset and re-center yourself and your organization on the big stuff?
Origin Stories
Our society is fascinated by the origin stories of superheroes whose unique talents, skills, and life experiences enable them to save the day again and again. In our day-to-day lives, social sector leaders ARE these superheroes – and while they may not have capes or cool gadgets, they’re packing purpose, resilience, and the unrelenting drive to make the world a better place.
Honoring Loss in Our Organizations
Loss isn’t only a personal phenomenon - it’s a professional one, too. Without acknowledging and honoring loss, we prevent ourselves from creating the culture and space needed to welcome what comes next.
How to Make Time for Good Strategy
Time is often cited as our most valuable resource and commodity, but we don’t always treat it the same way we do other things we value highly.