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Stop Pivoting. Start Practicing.
As children, practicing new skills is part of our daily lives. But as adults, we often forget how important it is to practice new skills, techniques, approaches, and processes.
Humans are learning creatures. We’re built to explore and test our environments and then adapt our approach based on the results of our experiments. Our first tries usually fail or fall short, which gives us great data for trying again, finding a new way, or continuing to practice a particularly tricky thing.
To get really good at what we do, practice matters.
But over the past few years – when the emphasis has been on pivoting to deal with “unprecedented” times – even organizations that typically embrace taking the time to practice, refine, and improve their approaches may have struggled to get back into that rhythm.
That’s because when you are constantly pivoting, practice becomes impossible.
In this post, we explore how to get out of the cycle of endless pivoting and into a culture of practicing the skills, approaches, and processes that will advance your organization, your strategy, and you as a leader.
When Why Isn’t Enough – Start with Who
In the social good sector, “who” is one of the most powerful questions we can ask and answer for ourselves and our organizations. And yet it’s one we often gloss over, make assumptions about, and generally just don’t spend enough time contemplating and clarifying.
Our “who” matters because our work, in almost every circumstance, is about people.
Without understanding the people we serve, our organizational identity, and the many people and partners who power our organization, we are unlikely to solve the issues our “why” seeks to address.
Lack of clarity around our “who” hampers our impact, frustrates our dedicated staff and volunteers, and loses us supporters. It also puts us in the perpetual tailspin of having to prove our value without having a clear understanding of what that value is – since value is in the eye of the beholder.
The exercise in this blog post can help you and your organization identify 5 critical “whos” to help inform your strategy.
![Modern Strategy for Meaningful Results [PODCAST]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ba29412635cf7edb559199/1644503840462-10VVWYXPG3XHV4DLT7H2/We+Are+For+Good+-+1.png)
Modern Strategy for Meaningful Results [PODCAST]
I recently had the chance to visit with the We Are For Good podcast team about the benefits of modern strategy for social good, involving your community in your strategic planning, and what it looks like to get your strategic plan so clear you can fit it on one page.
While we focus on strategic planning for nonprofit organizations and leaders in this episode, the practical advice and approaches here work for social good businesses and anyone else who's looking for a better way to articulate and activate their strategy.
Creating an Environment Where Strategy Can Succeed
Strategy succeeds when we intentionally create an environment that enables success.
That may sound obvious, but so many organizations struggle with this simple truth.
If your work environment is essentially a harrowing obstacle course ranging from minor frustrations, like not being able to get the right people in a meeting for two to three weeks, to major barriers, like having out of date or faulty technology systems that actively reduce your ability to do your job every day – your chances of success dwindle quickly.
On the flip side, when your environment and organization culture are intentionally designed to support you, it becomes a whole lot easier to achieve your goals and feel great while doing so.
The Art of Being Ready
Chances are you’ve been inspired at one point or another by a motivational quote having to do with preparation and planning. Intellectually, these quotes make sense. The better prepared you are for a variety of situations, the more capable you’ll be when the time comes.
But practically speaking, our days are full of challenges and opportunities that need to be addressed right now. Knowing how to prepare ourselves for a future we can’t foretell and making time to do that preparation are both big roadblocks for so many leaders I know.
Getting out of this pattern requires us to get better at being ready for what’s next.
This is an intentional choice leaders need to make – to create the habit of being ready. And as with any new habit, the path starts with small, manageable steps.
The #1 Thing You Can Do to Improve Your Organization
In the nonprofit sector, and in most fields where we have the ability and power to change people’s lives – listening is both essential and paramount. And yet, it’s a skill that many of us don’t spend enough time working on.
In the digitally distracted, pulled in every direction, inefficiently multi-tasking world we find ourselves in, listening has only grown in importance, and it can be a major differentiator for organizations and leaders who focus on building this critical skill.
In fact, the #1 thing you can do today to improve your organization is to listen to your people. Let’s talk about how to do that well.
Why “Succeeding Against All Odds” is Killing Your Nonprofit’s Impact
One of the unfortunate narratives in our society is that social good organizations will be able to make a significant, proven impact with limited (or nonexistent) resources. With duct tape, twine, good hearts, and plucky ambition, nonprofits are expected to solve societal issues that both the government and the private sector have failed to address.
What exacerbates this narrative is when nonprofit organizations and leaders lean into it – showing that they can, in fact, conjure miracles out of thin air. These organizations are applauded and often pointed to as examples of how the nonprofit sector should operate.
The story goes like this: an inspiring executive director and small, but dedicated team of volunteers with hardly any funding, infrastructure, or community support overcomes countless obstacles and succeeds through sheer will and determination to make their community a better place.
It makes a great movie plot – but it’s not a great strategy for sustainable growth and meaningful impact.
A New Approach to Goal Setting
It’s the beginning of a new year, which often means new goals, new priorities, new visions for what we – and our organizations – will accomplish.
It can be easy to get caught up in choosing impressive goals – ones that follow best practices, align with what funders want to see, or push our impact to a whole new level. And if we’re doing it well, we will already have invested in the approaches, systems, and communications it takes to drive accountability, collaboration, and integration so that we can make meaningful progress toward those goals.
But what happens when you’ve done everything right, achieved every goal, and yet something is still missing?
Permission to Focus
Whether it’s a laundry list of new year’s resolutions or an incredibly ambitious organization plan, there’s something about the dawn of a new year that brings forth SO MANY different ideas about what we want to accomplish and how we want to spend our time.
We declare big goals, get excited about the future, put together detailed plans, and then… well, often we get overwhelmed, and rather than hitting those big numbers or milestones, we miss our marks.
When we try to do everything, we’re working against ourselves and our ability to achieve our goals.
Good strategy gives you permission to focus on what matters most.
Winning Small
When you’re working in the social good sector, there is a lot of pressure to “win big” – whether it’s landing big gifts, getting big outcomes from a program, or maximizing the donations given for the largest possible reach. After all, when you’re working to make the world a better place, there are so many areas in which big wins can make a really big difference.
Here’s the tricky thing about big wins, though – when we focus all our energy and celebration only on the really big wins, we may actually lose ground in the small, sustainable wins that add up to bigger results.
Making time to celebrate small wins with your team will improve team dynamics, organizational culture, and overall performance.