Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas
Dedicated to equipping the next generation of nonprofit leaders. This will be accomplished by interviewing people whose business, nonprofit and life experiences might be valuable on an emerging leader. When we use the term leader, we are referring to organizational and Board leadership.
info_outline
Lessons in Resilience, Leadership, and Teamwork - Deneé Barracato’s Story (Part 2)
10/01/2024
Lessons in Resilience, Leadership, and Teamwork - Deneé Barracato’s Story (Part 2)
[00:00:30] Tommy Thomas: We're continuing the conversation we began last week with Deneé’ Barracato, the Deputy Director of Athletics for Operations and Capital Projects at Northwestern University. Deneé reflects on her transition from a professional basketball player to a senior leader in higher ed athletic administration. She also shares personal reflections on balancing her professional role with her responsibilities as a spouse and a mother. This is a must listen for anyone navigating the complexities of leadership. [00:01:06] Tommy Thomas: Let's move away from your basketball career and sooner or later you decide that was a chapter in your life that was closed and you moved into higher education administration. Take me back to your first management job when you first led a group of people. What do you remember about that? [00:01:27] Deneé Barracato: Wow. Okay. So, I remember having the opportunity to lead a group of Graduate Assistants. And when I first started at Adelphi University, my Athletic Director took a chance on me once I decided to move into administration and move away from professional basketball and I had the opportunity to work with these talented young adults who just wanted to continue their career and their education. And as there were three graduate assistants that I had an opportunity to work with, and then a host of different student workers and staff that will work our games. And that was at the division two level. And I remember just being so in awe of their work ethic, right? So, I was a Division 1 women's basketball player. There were some perks that came along with that, whether it was gear or whether it was a scholarship, whether it was charter bus traveling or flights or those sorts of things. Pregame meals, but starting out at the division two level, just seeing their love, pure love for the sport. [00:02:33] Deneé Barracato: The way that they fundraise for things that weren't just given to them. And then seeing them work on top of having to be a student athlete, I was just really put to shame. I remember, and then even the grad assistants that I had an opportunity to oversee, I had one traveling all the way from Brooklyn, New York to Long Island, and she would do that on a daily basis. She would come in early, she would go to her classes, she would come into the office afterwards, she would work long hours, work our games ,organize and do all the things that I asked of her. And then she would get on the train later at night, go back to her home and then come back the next day and do it all over again. [00:03:15] Deneé Barracato: And for me, I was just like, oh, my goodness. I thought I had some work ethic. And then I had an opportunity to work with them and to lead them and to guide them. And I think we learned from each other. And I was younger then, I think I was about 24. And I was just like, holy smokes, I just missed out. I thought that I had a pretty good work ethic and no one really had to motivate me. I was motivated. But then you see this caliber of student and student athlete that really motivated me. Inspired me to just be better for them. Being a better leader, being a better administrator, trying to communicate with them effectively so that way we were efficient with our time, and they felt like they were getting something out of their experience. So, for me, that experience with them was probably more of an educational opportunity for me than anything else. And we still keep in touch to this day. I really appreciate how they helped me grow into a professional. [00:04:14] Tommy Thomas: In his book, It's How You Play the Game: The 12 Leadership Principles of Dean Smith, David Chadwick, one of his ball players wrote “the concept of team may be Coach Smith's greatest contribution to basketball, leadership, and society”. When you think about that from a macro perspective, how does that resonate with you? [00:04:37] Deneé Barracato: Yeah, I spoke about it before. Team is critical to your success especially when you're playing in a team sport environment or when you're working in an office setting with a group of individuals that have a common goal. Whatever that goal is, working together collaboratively and understanding that goal and doing it intentionally. Understanding everyone's differences, inviting their gifts to the table and just embracing that with intentionality through relationships is so very critical. So, I couldn't agree with Dean Smith more. It's attributed to the success that he had at Chapel Hill over the years. And so, I would agree with him. The concept of team is so important and sometimes we have to remind ourselves as administrators that they’re watching. [00:05:24] Deneé Barracato: Individuals are watching that will then translate to what they do in a group setting on their team. And so, we have to be very cognizant of that on a daily basis that we're embodying the things that we teach them and the things that we reiterate and the things that really, hopefully they will take with them beyond just college athletics and beyond their team into society and into their community post, higher education. I think, certainly his comment was very impactful and important because without people around you, and sometimes we talk about that as a village, without a village around you helping you to be successful. It'll be really difficult. Rome wasn't built in a day. But you need a team to help build it over time. And so I think, certainly that's something that I think about with a team, anything's possible. You have to do it with intentionality and understanding that everyone comes with all different shapes and sizes, but different gifts as well that can help you be successful. [00:06:31] Tommy Thomas: If I were to come to one of your team meetings next week, and maybe after a few minutes we convince you to leave the room, I asked them two questions. I asked them, what was the most rewarding thing about working with and for Deneé, what would they say? And if I ask them what was the most challenging thing about being on your team, what would they say? [00:06:54] Deneé Barracato: I'll start with the latter. The most challenging thing I think that they'll say is that I'm not around enough. That if I was around, if I was able to say hello every single day it would be more impactful, right? My leadership would be more impactful and, oftentimes I challenge myself daily to do that. I just find it really difficult to do my job at a high level with all the things that I'm responsible for while still finding my way through two campuses. Two different sides, a mile away, and going through each of the buildings. And so that's something that I know over the course of my time here and Northwestern and even some of my other stops along the way that I probably need to improve on. So that's the one thing I think that they'll say is we don't see her as much as we’d like but when she is around, I try to be encouraging. I try to thank them for their good work and all their efforts. And then I would say the most impactful thing would be, I'm hoping that they would say my energy. [00:08:01] Deneé Barracato: The support that I give them. I always try to find ways in which we can thank them for their hard work, for their time, their diligence or due diligence and everything that they do, their intentionality. Because currently in the unit that I oversee is operations, right? So, everything from events and facilities and equipment and recreation and murals. The way I describe it to them is that we're the engine in the car, and unless that engine starts or works, the car will just sit there looking pretty, but it won't move from zero to 50 or 200. And so, I encourage them in that way that the engine works really hard, but without the engine, the whole team likely won't be successful. So, I think that the thing that I try to remind them is that they're valued and that they're important. And I try to bring energy, I always talk about Let's Go Cats. We're doing this together. Thank you for your time. And I hope that goes a long way. But I certainly know as a leader, I have a lot of things to work on. [00:09:03] Deneé Barracato: And when I feel like I have it figured out, I might as well just retire. So, I'm not ready. I'm not close to retirement. So, I would say that I still have a lot to learn to get better at and more to give back to our team. But we also talk about teamwork and being great teammates and being communicative as well. So hopefully those are the things that they might say. +++++++++++ [00:09:22] Tommy Thomas: I remember from the conversation you had with Ty, y'all talked about the current building project is probably not a strong enough word to say what's going on at Northwestern right now, but take us into that and just the ambitious nature of such an endeavor. Give us a little background of that. [00:09:40] Deneé Barracato: Yeah, I'll give credit to a lot of my colleagues. A lot of our leaders on campus and our board of trustee members, our president who really stood behind what our head football coach wanted to see in terms of the momentum of the season that we finished last year in Las Vegas, when we played in the Las Vegas Bowl against Utah, and we won. It was a challenging year which started very tumultuously. And with our transition of Head Coaches and we went into the season after I think the year before we were either three and nine or one 11, I apologize. I can't remember, but it wasn't a successful season the year before. And we had high hopes for that upcoming season, but then we ran into this transition with our head coaches and it was a difficult time for our team. It was something that was well documented in the national realm. And so, what we wanted to do is we wanted to really galvanize our team and really get them to focus on why they came to Northwestern. Why that season was so important, not because they wanted to prove something to anyone else, but to themselves and what they were there to do and really embracing and coming together as a unit. And they did do that. They did that very well. Before I talked about being in awe of student athletes and our student athletes here in Northwestern are not behind. They are so very impressive and our coaching staff as well. So, our Head Coach really took that to heart and he really brought them through a very difficult season to a very successful outcome. We ended the year eight and five and we wanted to continue that momentum into this season finishing eight and five. And it would have been challenging to do that off campus, even though we had started to investigate different venues that we could potentially play in the Chicagoland areas, some on the outskirts, but nothing, as is the same as playing at home and in front of your students, fans, faculty, staff, those family members that want to come and support you. [00:11:50] Deneé Barracato: And it would have been really difficult if you took that show on the road every single week and to different venues. And for those of you that don't know, we were constructing a brand-new football stadium. And we're in a two-year period of construction. And so, for that reason, we were without a home. So, we had to figure out okay, whether or not we were going to take the show on the road or whether there was an opportunity for us to play at home. And so initially when the idea came to us from our former head coach and some of our board of trustee members. It was something that we had to look into because we, what we didn't want to do is we want us to support our team, but we also didn't want to impact some of the other Olympic sports that utilize the same footprint. [00:12:31] Deneé Barracato: And so, we wanted to ensure that was something that we could do. And through some investigation, intentionality, some collaboration and people that were pushing and all the right places, we ended up with this unbelievable lakeside venue that holds around 12,000 people. And we're slated to open this Saturday against Miami of Ohio at 2:30 PM on BTN. And so, we're just excited. It was something that came together in a matter of, wow, 70 plus days. We had a plan and then we pivoted and, now we're really excited that we're able to give our student athletes a home field advantage an opportunity to have momentum leading into this season, coming off of an incredible season last year, giving our students an opportunity to see them on campus and not have to travel far. And I would say the same thing with our faculty and staff and our coaches and the family members that support our student athletes as well, that want to come and see their sons, participate in the sport they've invested themselves into, it's certainly been an endeavor. We worked collaboratively in production, which is a company that helped put together this temporary facility and then also worked with Nations Group, who helped manage the project for us, as with something like this. [00:13:49] Deneé Barracato: There's so many different moving pieces, and we had a host of others on campus across campus, centrally and within our department that really took this seriously. And as a result, I think you'll see a beautiful lakeside facility on Saturday and then throughout the next four games after that. And then we'll culminate at Wrigley field for our last two games. Yeah, it was certainly an undertaking, but the reason is because we really wanted to give our football program an opportunity to be successful, not just last year, but leading into this year and then the following year, and we found a way to do that. As we've been talking about throughout this whole podcast, we did it with a team that brought so many different talents, so many different areas of expertise and we all worked together collaboratively to do this in a very great way. And so, I'm just proud of being one member of that team that really put it all together. [00:14:44] Tommy Thomas: At what point in your life did you begin to get comfortable in your leadership skin? [00:14:52] Deneé Barracato: Oh, I think that's an evolving thing for me. I always challenge myself to continue to be a better leader not just to be a manager, but someone that can invoke some inspiration, I think. I even work at it at home with my own children, inspiring them to be, the best that they can be at school with their extracurricular activities, whether it's an instrument or whether it's in sport or whether it's a sibling or mother to my children and I always think about well, how can I be a better mother? How could I be a better administrator? How could I be a better colleague? How could I be a better mentor? And so, I don't know that there's been one moment where I felt like I've, okay, I've done it. I think that for me it's been an area that I've been very conscious about wanting to be better for those around me. And one that I really asked the Lord for guidance and help on, right? Every day I say, I pray for wisdom and an opportunity to be better for those around me. And so, I don't know that I've gotten there yet. I aspire to be as good as some other leaders that we've seen, but I'm still a work in progress. [00:16:00] Deneé Barracato: So, we'll see when I'm ready to retire or what they say about me in the books at some point if I do make it there, but certainly a never evolving aspiration that I have with myself. [00:16:13] Tommy Thomas: When you came to Northwestern, you obviously had to evaluate the job or the situation they offered you. At this point in your life, knowing yourself as well as you do now, what do you look for in a leadership opportunity? What makes a good fit for you? [00:16:31] Deneé Barracato: At this point in my life unfortunately, I cannot only think about myself. I often think about my children, what's a great fit for them right now. My children are 14, soon to be 11 and 9. And, they're growing, and they have their own friends now. They have their own comfort levels. So, when making a decision, I always keep them in mind, certainly my husband, we never make decisions unaligned. And we also, we always try to come together and talk about what's in the best interest of our family unit. And so there might be opportunities where I think might be a good fit for me based on my background or where I've been successful and what positions might be of comfort to me. But I always try to be intentional about making those decisions. If I did have an opportunity with my family in mind first and foremost, and then, I try not to make any decisions without praying about it and without asking for guidance and wisdom and direction and where the Lord will have me even if I think it's a perfect fit or my husband or my family thinks it's a perfect fit. It might not be. [00:17:40] Deneé Barracato: Over the last five years, I've loved my time at Northwestern and certainly we've gone through many challenges just like everyone else has across the country. And I've always found peace here to a certain extent where; okay, this is where I'm supposed to be for one reason or another. And, as sometimes what you believe is good for you may not be or what you think may not be good for you is where the Lord wants you. I always make any decision based on prayer first and guidance from the Lord, but also with my family in mind. [00:18:16] Tommy Thomas: Let's talk about authenticity for a minute. Oscar Wilde said, be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. St. Catherine of Siena put it, be who God meant for you to be and you'll set the world on fire. What lessons have you learned about authenticity over the years? [00:18:37] Deneé Barracato: It's important to be yourself while evolving and hopefully growing. In your own skin, being open to having a growth mindset, one that you're not just stubborn about just because of how you were raised or, what was instilled in you, I think sometimes as people that do have faith, we're short sighted and the fact that maybe not, and not everyone thinks the same way. And hopefully carrying yourself in a way where people see you as an advocate and as a light instead of someone that they're afraid to come to or someone that you might judge them or someone that may not understand is really important to me. And so just being authentically me, who I am, I'm a Hispanic woman from the city of New York then moved to the suburbs of New York that loves sports, loves basketball, but also loves being a mom. [00:19:38] Deneé Barracato: I think it's really important, but also being open to others that might not have walked that same journey or even those that might not know the Lord or might not have embraced that side of their spirituality and really helping them understand that my job here on earth is one to be a great person to them, one that's to love them and one that will be there to support them through their life and through their journey. And that's so very important to me because I think oftentimes, we may not be seen as advocates in that realm. And so, it's important to be an advocate for all the things that I described. Being a woman of color, being a woman of faith, all those different types of things, but also being an advocate to others that might not have walked that same path and maybe don't understand. So, my job is always to try and walk in the light, be a reflection of the Lord and let people know that I'm authentically me. I'm going to have my New York accent. I'm going to represent the Latino community and represent the Lord when I have the opportunity. But also embrace people that are different and let them know that I love them despite their differences, and I want them to love me the same way. [00:20:52] Deneé Barracato: And so that's my goal. And then that's what I really hold myself to that standard. ++++++++++++ [00:20:59] Tommy Thomas: You've had to hire a lot of people in...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/33071792
info_outline
Lessons in Resilience, Leadership, and Teamwork - Deneé Barracato’s Story
09/24/2024
Lessons in Resilience, Leadership, and Teamwork - Deneé Barracato’s Story
[00:00:30] Deneé Barracato: Kelly Watts was a former assistant coach at several different institutions before she ended up at Hofstra. And she was a woman of color that was just so vibrant. She loved sports. She loved people. She loved the Lord. And every time I was around her, I just felt this spirit of joy. And she was just always so fun to be around, and she put things in perspective for me at a very impressionable age in my life as a young adult, where she always reminded me to keep the Lord first. Trials and tribulations are going to come, and adversity is going to come, but you need to stay focused and centered, and she really poured her optimism into me and I appreciated that. And then she was actually great at basketball. So, she taught me as a guard the skills that I needed to be successful on the next level. ++++++++++++ [00:01:19] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Deneé Barracato. She's the Deputy Director of Athletics for Operations and Capital Projects at Northwestern University. Her career path to Northwestern has taken her to leadership roles at York College, Queens College, and Adelphi University. She did a stint in Indianapolis with NCAA as the Associate Director of Division I Women's Basketball, and she even did a stint at Madison Square Garden's Company as Director of Strategy, where she worked with the Knicks, the Rangers, and the New York Liberty teams to further advance the marketing and business objective of the Madison Square Garden business partners. [00:02:00] Tommy Thomas: She took her undergraduate degree from Hofstra University, where she was a four-year basketball letter winner. As a student athlete at Hofstra, she led the nation in steals for women's Division I basketball and earned America East All Conference honors. Following graduation, she played professionally in the Women's Professional League in Puerto Rico for the Saints of St. Juan, as well as with the National Women's Basketball League as a member of the Atlanta Justice. In addition to her undergraduate degree from Hofstra, she earned a master's degree in exercise science and sports management from Adelphi. She's married to Michael, and they have three children, Grace, MJ, and Mia. [00:02:41] Tommy Thomas: Deneé, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:02:45] Deneé Barracato: Thank you for having me, Tommy. I'm humbled. It's a pleasure to be here with you all just to talk about sports and my journey thus far. [00:02:54] Tommy Thomas: Thank you. My guests sometimes want to know where I find all these people. Ty Brown has a podcast on leadership, and I listened to it. And I heard Deneé about maybe two months ago, three months ago. And I thought this is somebody I would love to have as a guest. You're so gracious to carve out some time for us in the midst of what I know is a busy prelude to your intercollegiate athletics this year. [00:03:19] Tommy Thomas: But before we dive too deep into sports or your current role, take me back to your childhood and tell me what was it like growing up? [00:03:29] Deneé Barracato: Oh, wow. Growing up, I had a very active childhood. I was a tomboy at heart. I loved activity. I loved sports. I wouldn't say competitively, but just out in the park, a city kid originally from the Bronx, and my parents are from the city as well. First generation here in the United States, although Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, but they were born there and moved here at a young age, and then raised us in New York city. And later we moved out to Hempstead, Long Island where I went undergrad near Hofstra. I was a very active kid, loved life, and loved sports. And when I was in middle school, I was introduced to women's basketball or just basketball in general, from an organized standpoint. And I remember I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with the idea of playing something that was pretty cool at the time. And then I realized that I was actually decent at it. [00:04:32] Deneé Barracato: And it was interesting because I have two sisters, two older sisters. I'm the youngest of three. And my father ended up coaching the middle school team, and we were all on it. And I remember my older sister, Damaris, she was actually pretty good. She played at a junior college. And then my older sister, she just wanted nothing to do with it. She didn't like the physical interaction. And as I mentioned, I embraced it. My father encouraged me to continue to play, and the rest is history. I then transitioned to a public school and started getting engaged in summer basketball, AAU later in my high school career and ended up at Hofstra university. [00:05:17] Deneé Barracato: So, I would say my family, certainly my parents both being educators, but both being Hispanics growing up in the city, tried to instill in us work ethic, education, and just avenues to further my educational career. And basketball was one of those endeavors that helped me do that. And so now in my career, I can say that I will be forever indebted to basketball, but also this industry for giving me so much. And so that's why I do what I do to give back to potential student athletes and young adults that one day want to take advantage of that opportunity to do something very similar to myself. Yeah, so that's my childhood in a nutshell but one that I'm very proud of. [00:06:01] Tommy Thomas: So, when you were in high school, what kind of career aspirations did a young 15-year-old have? [00:06:08] Deneé Barracato: I have to be honest with you. I was so enamored with the sport of basketball. I was so tunnel visioned. I was determined to play Division I Women's Basketball. I didn't even know what that meant at the time. I just wanted to play at the highest level, wherever it was. And I worked tirelessly to ensure that happened, whether that was working out two days on my own as a 15, 16-year-old doing whatever I had to do, because I really came on to the AAU summer league basketball scene pretty late. [00:06:39] Deneé Barracato: My parents really didn't know the first thing about college scholarships and what sports can actually bring to an aspiring, young individual like me wanting to play on the next level. I don't know that they fully understood that there could be possibilities to getting a full scholarship that would allow me to be educated at no cost. And so once my parents learned that, then we fast forward through everything. So, my main focus was maintaining my grades so that way I can then play Division I Women’s Basketball. And then from there, obviously, the sky's the limit with potentially playing overseas. [00:07:16] Deneé Barracato: At the time when I first started, I think it was my freshman year. I don't know that the WNBA was even a thing. I don't know that it became a thing until my senior year. Back when I was 15, 16, that was my focus and I'm a bit taken back because if that is my daughter's focus at 15, 16, then I think we're going to have a different conversation. But certainly, it was one that I was really enamored with. And I had to be honest with you, even my relationship with the Lord probably wasn't first and foremost, the way it probably should have been back then. And it's later in life that I realized that there's more to life than just basketball, sports, and my own personal ambitions. And we could talk about that a little bit more, but that was what was going through my mind back then. ++++++++++++++++ [00:08:00] Tommy Thomas: What is something that people are usually surprised to learn about you? [00:08:06] Deneé Barracato: Oh, that I actually have three children. Every time I share with them that I'm married with three children and I'm closer to 50 than I am to 40 they really get surprised. And I guess that's a compliment in a lot of ways, but one that hopefully I balance really well. At work, I work really hard and I'm hoping that my children will see that work ethic in me, but at the same time sometimes that comes back to impact the amount of time that I do spend at home. [00:08:33] Deneé Barracato: Because they see me so often, whether it's at work or at conferences which is where you heard Ty Brown's podcast, because I was at the NACDA conference and convention. Sometimes they don't realize that I actually have a family at home that's waiting for me, that depends on me. Obviously along with my husband, but yeah, I think that's something that they're surprised about. And even then, I even played professionally at the next level beyond just Hofstra University. And that was a wonderful experience too. And I think the last thing that might surprise them that I probably don't talk about as often as I should is my father is a pastor. And so, I was raised in the Word and although I didn't always walk in faith, it was instilled in me and that verse that talks about raising your children in the ways of the Lord and they shall not depart and those teachings. I think my life is evidence of that. And I'm hoping that I can certainly do the same with my children. [00:09:25] Tommy Thomas: Part of this sub theme I've got going here is the coaches in my life. And I've interviewed six or seven people like you who played intercollegiate sports. And we talked about things they learn from sports and things they learn from the coaches in their lives. So, thinking back, which coach do you think got the most out of you? [00:09:46] Deneé Barracato: Yeah, I've often talked about her. Her name is Kelly Watts, and she was a former assistant coach at several different institutions, Temple, I think she was at Rutgers for a little bit before she ended up at Hofstra. And she was just a woman of color that was just so vibrant. She loves sports. She loved people. She loved the Lord. And every time I was around her, I just felt this spirit of joy. And she was just always so fun to be around, and she put things in perspective for me at a very impressionable age in my life as a young adult, where she always reminded me to keep the Lord first. Trials and tribulations are going to come, and adversity is going to come, but you need to stay focused and centered, and she really poured her optimism into me, and I appreciated that. And so, she was one. And then she was actually great at basketball. So, she taught me as a guard the skills that I needed to be successful on the next level. [00:10:44] Deneé Barracato: And we still stay in touch to this day. I've been around her parents, or her mom and her sister. And she's always someone that I admire and that I often seek advice from, and, again, she was probably the most impactful person that was from a women's basketball perspective, but also Jay Wright, who was the men's basketball coach. She's a hall of fame coach, many people remember him from his days at Villanova and now CBS, but he was actually the head men's basketball coach at Hofstra university, my entire four-year career there. And we've just stayed in touch since then. He's been a mentor as well. [00:11:21] Deneé Barracato: Someone that I can pick up the phone and call. And we talk about different things going on in the industry right now. And I often pick his brain, but also brag about him and, back when I was at Hofstra on my off days, when the men's basketball team was traveling and we were home, I would help babysit his children. And I knew Patty, his wife, and now his children are grown. They're adults and so very successful, but he's someone else that I admired just the way he carried himself, how he invoked a championship mindset with his players and how he carried himself was just top notch and bar. [00:11:56] Tommy Thomas: Tell me about the best athletic team you were ever on and what made it the best athletic team. [00:12:05] Deneé Barracato: That's a good question. I would say my experience with the National Women's Basketball League. I was drafted in the fifth round and that was a league that started when the ABL folded. And so, the WMU was there. The ABL had just folded. That would be the CBA to the NBA. And they started this league because there were certain WNBA players that maybe didn’t want to go back overseas during their off season, but still wanted to maintain their conditioning and just play competitively. So, they started this league, and I got drafted in the fifth round to the Atlanta Justice team. And I moved over there to play for a season and I just met incredible athletes, incredible humans: friends that I have to this day, friends that helped me through my wedding and playing at that top level, playing with some of the best players in the country. And Rebecca Lobo, the Miller twins. And I think maybe Tina Thompson also played in that league. There were just so many that I admired as a basketball player leading up. And obviously now they’re household names, when we talk about women's basketball. I really enjoyed my time playing at that level and playing here in the States, in Atlanta. And so, I would say that would be my most impactful team. [00:13:25] Tommy Thomas: So how did basketball change for you between high school, college and the pros? What were the transitions? [00:13:37] Deneé Barracato: I think for me, it was maturity. When I was younger, I was still tunnel visioned, very selfish and my thought process, having this ambition to play and do well for me. That I forgot the team component. I forgot the humanity component. I forgot, that, hey, I know as a woman of color, I have to fight to really get the positioning that I need, really prove myself beyond many other individuals that were in front of me. Through maturity and through grace and patience, learning how to be a great teammate was something that I saw grow in me, and I can say that now as an adult, as a mother raising my children from high school to then college and then collegiate or professional sports just understanding that being a great teammate should be your first focus. [00:14:31] Deneé Barracato: Because if you can support your teammate, if you can have a like mindset, if you can be supportive of your coaches if you can understand what it is to go through adversity with your team, but go through positive moments with your team, like winning and doing it together as a collective unit, you're going to go that much further than if you're doing it on your own. And, I think over the years, I learned that it is so critical in any environment, not only playing on a sports team, but also in the office environment or in society or in your home, right? Instilling those things into your family members and your teachers, and even as a spouse. Knowing that we have to be one unit, and we have to be a team. And sometimes that takes compromise and all those things. And so, over the years, I think that I learned that through tough experiences and teachable moments that helped me be a better person, teammate, and partner to all those that are in my life. [00:15:31] Tommy Thomas: You referenced the lady that was such a strong influence in your college career, at what point did you realize that she might be teaching you something other than basketball? [00:15:42] Deneé Barracato: Oh, that's a good question. She had such an infectious personality that it is a good question because you can see the light and the energy in her, but it wasn't until one day we were talking about her time in Long Island. At some point she lived in Long Island and we were just talking and I think I may have shared with her that I had family out in some part of Suffolk County in Long Island and she mentioned to me that the church she was going to was Upper Room and she really loved that part of Long Island and that kind of led me into a different conversation with her about that part of her life. [00:16:19] Deneé Barracato: And then seeing how she was able to marry the two. Her love for basketball and her love for the Lord. And there was nothing to be ashamed about, but there was a balance that you can have with both and do it so very well. And to see her do it at such a high level really intrigued me and really brought me back to things that I was taught and instilled as a young little girl with my parents. I think it happened organically through just conversation as any coach and player should have that dialogue, not just transactional on the basketball court, but really developing that relationship off the court. And I think through that interaction, we just started talking about life and it just made it all the more special to me in terms of that relationship. [00:17:08] Tommy Thomas: No matter how hard and dedicated you are to something; failure is always an option. So, what did you learn from team sports about failure that you brought into your career? [00:17:20] Deneé Barracato: Oh, wow. I learned to again, be patient and know that growth is critical in life. Some of the student athletes that I speak to now are just curious or, if I have a moment to spend with them, they learn that as a senior, I actually ended up waiting for four games because I was going through, now we talk about mental health and that being such a critical component to student athletes. [00:17:48] Deneé Barracato: And back then we didn't know what that was. We were thinking maybe that was depression or whatever the case may be. But my senior year, coming off of a very successful junior year, I ended up getting injured in my junior year and ended up having surgery that delayed my recovery leading into my senior year, which was for me supposed to be the pinnacle because that's when the WNBA was coming out and, to be quite honest with you, was I good enough to be in the WNBA? I don't know, it's still a college girl's dream to play on the next level. And some nuances happened within that year because of my surgery, and I didn't end up starting and that kind of impacted my psyche going into that season. And I just, for whatever reason, just didn't recover. [00:18:32] Deneé Barracato: And I couldn't get over the fact that I wasn't starting, and I wasn't going to be, in my mind, as impactful. And I couldn't just sit back and say, you know what, some of my other teammates were sitting behind me for three years when I was starting. And now it's my opportunity to sit behind them and cheer them on and encourage them and give them an opportunity to play. And so throughout that time just learning how to overcome adversity, and I mentioned before, just maturing through that process, being a great teammate, thinking of others before thinking of myself and understanding that you can still be successful. Perhaps not in the way that you envisioned, but you can still find a way back while still being supportive of teammates, while still being supportive of those around you, and improving yourself and getting back to what you believe you can actually accomplish. [00:19:28] Deneé Barracato: And so, for me, that maturity in that moment of time led me to then come back to the team, apologize and really find my way back to a team and a sport that had given me so much. And was I really going to give all that up because of my own selfish thoughts? And maybe there was some validity at that time in my life, but I think now I would have approached it very differently and taken the time to take a step back and be reflective and be a great teammate and really find ways to fill that void with support, with encouragement, with cheering, and all the things that we teach our young adults now to do. And so I use that story to share with some of our student athletes when they're in a slump or when their things aren't going their way, just to share with them that there is light at the end of the tunnel, but there's also a component of patience and of taking a step back and looking at the situation and seeing what part of that situation is in your control and how could make the best of a tough situation. ++++++++++++= [00:20:38] Tommy Thomas: So, what did you learn about...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/32941702
info_outline
Dianne Ogle on the Power of Community in Leadership
09/17/2024
Dianne Ogle on the Power of Community in Leadership
[00:00:00] Dianne Ogle: I love creativity. It's one of my favorite things. So that's why I like questions, because even if I think I know the answer, if I ask the question, it's just beautiful to hear what inspires somebody or what was bubbling in them or how they see it, quite frankly. It isn't the way I always see things or think it might play out. So, you give people a door for their own strengths, their own creativity, to participate and join in. And most of the time it's so much better than when we could do it alone. [00:00:32] Tommy Thomas: Today, we're continuing the discussion we began last week with Dianne Ogle. In this episode, Dianne shares her extensive leadership journey focusing on the importance of authenticity, community and resilience. She discusses the danger of pride and leadership and emphasizes the need for leaders to rely on their teams and build strong, supportive networks. Dianne also reflects on the power of prayer and how it has shaped her leadership approach, particularly in empowering women leaders. Her insights offer valuable lessons for anyone looking to navigate the complexities of leadership with integrity and faith. This episode is a rich resource for leaders at any stage of their career. Let's pick up where we left off last week. [00:01:25] Tommy Thomas: I'm sure you've observed this in both men and women, but give me your thoughts on the dangerous traits that can derail a leader's career. [00:01:35] Dianne Ogle: Pride, absolute pride. And thinking that you can do it alone. And you don't need anybody else, because what got you here won't get you there, as one of the books says that I use a lot. Because we need each other. We were built for community, and we need each other. And as soon as we think that we have arrived in that corner office, we don't grow. We don't desire. We don't let people in to speak truth to us and have iron sharpens. Iron is when we start digressing, and regressing, we've all seen it. We've all known people. They think they're all there. Even Christians. We're flesh, we're sinful, and we start moving backwards. So that's probably the greatest. [00:02:25] Tommy Thomas: I know, all this is broached in a blanket of confidentiality, and I won't ask you to go there, but does it take the women a while to get used to sharing everything and trusting that their cohorts, that's not what you call it, but their peer, not anymore. [00:02:43] Dianne Ogle: I think originally, initially the first group that was called into it, but they were in need of a group like this that I think they were willing. And when they saw that I was doing a confidentiality statement that they all signed and that it was going to be a safe place. Then they started testing it. Now our foundation is so strong that women will either understand what we've got and be ready to jump in. As soon as they come and join I take them through an onboarding program, and I also have them start meeting with the women one on one, but they immediately come to a meeting after they've joined, and they start seeing how honest, authentic, just real. And the prayer requests that we share, we've really grown in the power of prayer together. And that is authentic because they're sharing every aspect of their lives, not just their work. [00:03:42] Tommy Thomas: So how do they work together from the four pillars, you're bringing people from the nonprofit sector. You've got executive women from Fortune 500 companies. [00:03:53] Dianne Ogle: Now Tommy, the cool thing is we call it repurpose. We don't call it retirement. And some of them, like we had one who was the chief diversity officer at Coca Cola. And she'd been with Coke for 20 years and in her career and near the end of her career, she started being tapped for a paid board of director role. So, she's now repurposed and now she's a board director and still highly engaged with us in linking arms. We have another one who repurposed and now she's helping one of our other members who is the president of the National Day of Prayer, helping her with grant writing and supporting ministry of the National Day of Prayer. [00:04:34] Dianne Ogle: It is beautiful. [00:04:36] Dianne Ogle: We believe we don't compete. We complete. And so there are times where some will work together or we will have an opportunity to like this next National Day of Prayer in May. Kathy Brent sells the President, and she's opened the invitation for all of us to come to the Capitol and to all the festivities to help pray over the nation and all the pillars that involve. [00:05:03] So yes, we are highly diverse, Tommy, both in skin color and political views and career pathing and titles and positions. The beauty is in the foundation we love Jesus. And yes, we've worked through the weathers. [00:05:21] Dianne Ogle: I would say our women are even diverse in age. We've got some in their late thirties to the mid to late sixties. And all my nonprofit or ministry women, that's what shocked me because initially when I saw that pillar of nonprofit, I'm thinking, oh, it'd be like an exec with the Red Cross. And I just assumed it would be those kinds of women coming towards us. And it has been. There have been high level executive women in ministry work. So that's been beautiful. Andrea, who you had on your show before, she was my first one in that category. And I went to her after four months with us. [00:06:01] Dianne Ogle: And I said, I consider her Sage. She is the most amazing woman. I said, Andrea, are we meeting your needs? That was just important for me. And she goes, she's so thoughtful in the way she answers. She goes I come from a big family. I have a big donor base. I've been well supported at Cru since I became a Christian in college. And she goes, but this is so beautiful for me to have a safe place with true peers in other sectors and see the commonality or the similar pain or listen to maybe a different perspective outside of ministry that I can glean from, or I could speak into. And I'm like, okay, Lord, here we go. That's it. [00:06:46] Tommy Thomas: That was going to be a question, and, yeah, I would probably have assumed that, but you say that, regardless of what sector you're in, there probably arises a pattern of issues that you're going to face regardless if you're a private sector or government service or public service, and so y'all are able to work with the whole person. [00:07:10] Dianne Ogle: Absolutely. In and out of season. We've lost a member to death, which was really hard on the group, and it was very sudden. We have walked through lots of personal pain together. And there are groups out there for just professionals, but we work on emotional, spiritual, financial, relational issues. Some of our women are single, some are divorced, some are married, some have children, some do not. And so, you can imagine we all step into this place, but to see the love and the respect and the camaraderie, it always brings tears to my eyes. Just to go, Lord, these are your girls. You've risen us up for such a time as this and we are better together and we need to encourage one another as long as it's called today like scripture says, because it's tough out there. And we need each other. [00:08:10] Dianne Ogle: I tell my coaching clients. Part of my core purpose is to be the Hur, like in Exodus 17. I’m the Hur of Moses and we need people to come by our side to speak into, to give us rest, to help raise our hands. Because these battles that we're in spiritually, professionally, personally, they're weary. It's tough. So, we all need each other. ++++++++++++++++ [00:08:39] Tommy Thomas: If you're writing a book on the burdens of leadership that only the CEO can bear, what are some of the topics you would address? [00:08:51] Dianne Ogle: This loneliness is a big one that I hear consistently. Whether I'm talking to a brand new high level woman or talking to one of our Arete’ women, even though they're in the group, they will remember how lonely it can be and misunderstood because our churches a lot of times don't understand us or get our giftedness. A lot of times the other peers, like if they're in childbearing age and they're going to the school, a lot of those mothers don't get them. So, it's hard for them to have community. And then when you're at that senior level, as a CEO, as a board director, just the level of confidentiality and all that you have to take in and feel responsible for is unbelievable pressure. [00:09:41] Dianne Ogle: And so, where do they have their safe place, their place, just to be them authentically, have a place, a table, they could just lay an issue out like an advisor we call, like our own personal advisory council. Here's my issue, help me with this. Or let me just speak it through so I can hear my own voice talking about it in a safe place where it's not gonna go to the media, it's not gonna go to my board directors. It's just something I need to wrestle through to make sure that I've got the wisdom, discernment, knowledge, and understanding for this role. Each and every day I've been called to it. [00:10:24] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned early on, you came out of an athletic family and have done the statistics and all that. So, you'll appreciate a couple of these athletic kind of questions. [00:10:33] Tommy Thomas: David Chadwick, a pastor in Charlotte has written a book on Dean Smith’s life: It's How You Play the Game. The 12 Leadership Principles of Dean Smith. [00:10:42] Tommy Thomas: And he says the concept of team may be Coach Smith's greatest contribution to basketball leadership and society. Your thoughts on that. [00:10:53] Dianne Ogle: Amen, brother. Amen. Like I said earlier, we are not called alone, and we need our teams, both in our organizations and outside of that, because that's when … I tell people I have one brain, like I just have one. And so I gather even my women say, okay, let's talk about our content. Let's talk about our annual retreat. And even though I might come to the table with my own ideas, I want to have an open heart and ask questions. I feel really strong about the power of questions to gain others’ ideas and inspiration, and God uses us all so uniquely with the way he wired us with our personalities and our strengths and the way our stories have unfolded. [00:11:38] Dianne Ogle: We do a lot of assessments in Arete too, over the years, not all it wants to beat us up, but so that we can not only know ourselves better, but the people that we work with in our different teams. And we have deeper understanding and appreciation, and we know who to tap for what assignment. [00:11:56] Tommy Thomas: Here's a quote from Mother Teresa and I like to contextualize this. In the context of Arete’, I'm not called to be successful, but to be faithful. And so is there a tension there between the context in which the women you're working with that’s their existence. [00:12:18] Dianne Ogle: And a lot of my women, as you can imagine, are high achievers. They're highly responsible. When you do these assessments on Strength Finders, they're big-time learners. They're always insatiable to continue to grow and learn. And there is this tension, from the world's expectations and definitions of success and what God sees as success. And sometimes that's not the same. And are you okay with that? In different seasons, sometimes you're more front facing and other times he might have you in a prayer closet. [00:12:51] Dianne Ogle: Or going through a tougher season to sharpen you and to get the dross off of us so that he can use us again. Yeah, that's just really important. [00:13:03] Tommy Thomas: Here's one from General George Patton. Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. [00:13:13] Dianne Ogle: Yes, I love creativity. It's one of my favorite things. So that's why I like questions, because even if I think I know the answer, if I ask the question, it's just beautiful to hear what inspires somebody or what was bubbling in them or how they see it, quite frankly. It isn't the way I always see things or think it might play out. So, you give people a door for their own strengths, their own creativity to participate and join in. And most of the time it's so much better than when we could do it alone or to your point, overreach and over lead and overmanage, then it's all about me, versus it's about us and how we're perfect, how we're navigating and pressing forward. [00:14:01] Tommy Thomas: Here's another one. The best bosses aren't usually those who boost the bottom line as much as it is those who make you a better person and better at your job. [00:14:13] Dianne Ogle: And that's called development, leadership development, and the organizations that get the value, and that's what my husband does. That's his sweet spot with large organizations. [00:14:26] Dianne Ogle: And the organizations who believe that, whether it's coaching like what I do, whether it's the big-time strategies of leadership development, if we miss or you start pulling those budget dollars back from really pouring into your people, it will negatively impact your bottom line when you're too focused on the money and not the people. [00:14:47] Dianne Ogle: And then you lose your legacy. When we're focused on the people and where they're going and have a true sense of wanting to see them succeed and learn and grow and step into their authentic, strong self and grow every stage and step of the way. That's part of our legacy, isn't it? [00:15:10] Tommy Thomas: We talked about creativity and innovation a few minutes ago. Here's another quote. If you never color outside the lines, the picture will never change. [00:15:21] Dianne Ogle: And then it gets dull and boring and antiquated. It's then we're no earthly good, and we serve a creative God Elohim who all we have to do is step outside and see the ocean, like where you live or the beautiful flowers that my husband's planted in the trees that I live around here in Georgia. And we see his beauty in and out of season. So, creativity and innovation is like water to the soul. It should be that fresh flowing spring for any individual and organization to continue to thrive and strive for each season. [00:16:05] Tommy Thomas: Here's another one from Coach Smith. What do you do with the mistake? Recognize it, learn from it, admit it, forget it. [00:16:14] Dianne Ogle: Confess it. Yeah. You got to confess it and go, Lord, help me. If I have a blind spot, am I not seeing this? Did I know it? Is there sin here? Do I need to apologize to somebody or the team or the organization? Learn from it. Have a humble heart. There's nothing more beautiful about a leader who has a cloak of humility that can admit and model when they've made a mistake. And then how are they learning from it? Doesn't mean we have to be perfect. And that's the air that so many leaders believe, is that, oh, I'm in this position, so, I've got to be perfect. No, we should all be learning. And part of what we learn is to model when we have failed or made a mistake and that it's not the end of the world. [00:17:06] Dianne Ogle: We'll pick ourselves back up. Hopefully, the consequences aren't too great, and we can keep navigating forward and we can shift and learn from it quite frankly, and model it to others to learn from. [00:17:19] Tommy Thomas: No matter what job you have in life, your success will be determined 5 percent by your academic credentials, 15 percent by your professional experience and 80 percent by your communication skills. [00:17:34] Dianne Ogle: Well, communication is critical, isn't it? Whether it's in writing, whether it's oral, whether it's your prayers to the Lord, having that grounded and rooted time where you have the vertical in line so that you can do the horizontal for all that he has called you to do. Not what your talents tend to want to take us up, take over. No, he gave us our threading and our talents and our strengths, but we have to align it to his pace, his cadence, his work and his will every step of the way. [00:18:12] Tommy Thomas: Peter Drucker, the most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said. [00:18:19] Dianne Ogle: And that's called discernment, leaning in. I think if leaders talk too much, they really miss out on pressing in and seeing and hearing using those languages in hearing beyond what is physically said or heard. And sometimes then a strong question can elevate and illuminate something brand new. Or a way to go in and comfort somebody or encourage them or help them out of an area where they might be stuck. +++++++++++++++ [00:18:56] Tommy Thomas: Let's go back to staff leadership for a minute before we bring this to a close. [00:18:59] Tommy Thomas: What would go into a decision you might make to give somebody a second chance who had of course, I guess the degree of egregiousness would factor into that, but we all would like to have a second chance. [00:19:11] Dianne Ogle: Absolutely. And God's a giver of second chances every day, right? None of us are perfect. We've all sinned and fallen short of his glory. So why wouldn't we model that as Christ followers and Christ leaders? If we're truly being cloaked with his spirit and his power through us, we should be modeling second chances. Now, does that mean we're fools? No, sometimes we have to do the hard thing and fire people. [00:19:38] Dianne Ogle: Nobody likes doing it that I've ever met, but sometimes it might be in the best interest of the institutional organization that you are entrusted with. Sometimes God's not done writing their story either. And it may be the best thing so that he can continue to do his work in and through them apart from the organization. But yes, he's always in the business of second chances. Thank you, Lord. [00:20:06] Tommy Thomas: If you were creating a dashboard to get at the health of a nonprofit organization, what would some of your dials measure? [00:20:15] Dianne Ogle: Just the health of your people and where are your priorities? What's that vision, mission, values that hopefully you've aligned with what the Lord wants you to do in that nonprofit and having the metrics. So many times, I find nonprofits not wanting to have measurements and metrics. I don't really understand that because it's just in the spirit of excellence. It's not to shame you or to say you're a failure. But if we don't know where we're going, how are we going to know we ever got there? And so just having those benchmarks on a dashboard and in a visual way, which they make so beautifully these days, it can use it to help us to renavigate, to encourage, to inspire, to help make sure maybe we need to hire somebody we don't have on our team that needs different skill sets to contribute to where we're going. [00:21:11] Tommy Thomas: If you were a judge on a non-profit version of Shark Tank where nonprofits were coming to you for early-stage investment, what questions would you need to have solid answers for before you would open your checkbook? [00:21:26] Dianne Ogle: I'd want to know their viewpoint and their philosophy on leadership right from the beginning. [00:21:33] Dianne Ogle: And you hear that on Shark Tank, it seems like they get invested if they believe that person has the passion and that they will lead well through every stage of those businesses. Same thing with non-profits. You can say you can have all these ideas, and a lot of people start opening for nonprofits because they are visionaries. [00:21:52] Dianne Ogle: They might have a vision. They may not be great executors. So, can I hear from that senior leader that they would have the wisdom to know that they need to put a team into place? To be able to get that momentum going. The name of our business is business momentum group but getting that ministry momentum going is...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/32935417
info_outline
Empowering Women in Leadership: Dianne Ogle’s Journey
09/10/2024
Empowering Women in Leadership: Dianne Ogle’s Journey
[00:01:07] Dianne Ogle: I had my first child in Texas and I was working for a corporation running their marketing department. And I had to put my oldest son in with a lady who had a small group of children in her home. And every day I'd go get him. I would see him in a swing. And I told my husband, I cannot do this. I feel like I couldn’t run this marketing department yet. I want to have more of an impact on my own son. And so, my boss said, great. She said go start your own business, figure out what that looks like. And I'll be your first client. And I thought, oh my goodness, how am I going to do this? [00:01:47] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Dianne Ogle. Dianne began her career in sales and marketing before making a name for herself as a leader who could grow organizations and identify trouble spots and bottlenecks that tended to enter an organization's growth and effectiveness. As a prominent figure in the Executive Women of Influence Network, Diana has dedicated her career to empowering women in leadership roles across various industry sectors. Her leadership experience spans leadership development, team dynamics, and organizational strategy, thus making her a sought-after advisor and coach. Her impact is widely recognized, and she continues to inspire and support women in their professional journeys, helping them to navigate the complexities of leadership and achieve sustained success. [00:02:38] Tommy Thomas: Dianne, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:02:41] Dianne Ogle: Thank you for having me, Tommy. I'm excited to be here with you. [00:02:45] Tommy Thomas: I've been looking forward to this. You come with good recommendations from one of my previous guests and one of my future guests. I'm looking forward to this. Take me back to your childhood. What was that like? What are some of your fondest memories? [00:02:59] Dianne Ogle: I grew up in the Midwest. I was born in Colorado but grew up in Indiana with a high work ethic, middle class. Early on, my parents took us to a church that didn't really preach the gospel as far as what the Bible taught. And one summer when I was 11, my mom took us to a local Baptist church that had VBS. That was the first time both my mom and I heard the gospel. And she became a Christian with the mother’s group that they had. And then I did shortly thereafter and so it was a beautiful place to grow up and go to college. And we lived on the baseball field because I had a brother who played baseball up until minor leagues. And so, there were three of us. I was the oldest of three. So, it was just a great way to grow up in the Midwest. [00:03:57] Tommy Thomas: So, what was high school like? [00:03:57] Dianne Ogle: I had to change high schools in my junior year. I went to one school in Indianapolis from kindergarten until my sophomore year. And then my parents went north of Indianapolis. And at the time it was a really rural area in Fishers, Indiana, which now it's like the largest high school. But back when I transferred, it was farm kids and I was the city girl moving out into the farm kids and I went kicking and screaming. That was not a good transition for me, but the Lord's hand was in it even then. I had to take the driver's ed course and I had the athletic director who was a tough football coach, and my dad was a barker, so he didn't intimidate me, but he quickly got me involved and got me to be a stat girl because my brothers were athletes. [00:04:58] Dianne Ogle: And he taught me to do the statistics for football, basketball, and track. And so, it was a great entry into a smaller school that was very established with kids who had been growing up together. And then I got a chance to be in musicals and got to play in Annie Get Your Gun. So, it was just a fun, great group. [00:05:22] Tommy Thomas: What kind of career aspirations did a young 16-year-old Dianne have? [00:05:29] Dianne Ogle: I had a lot of parents thinking I should go to California to go into acting. I had a lot of common sense of knowing the value of a dollar. Because I was raised that if you wanted extra money, you had to work. So, I started working as a babysitter at age 11, got my first job at 15. I bought furniture, I bought my car. And so, I had a really deep, intrinsic work value at a very young age. And I didn't have a lot of role models of women. Unless you wanted to be a teacher or a nurse, there was not a lot of women, at least in my little world view at that time in the Midwest. [00:06:06] Dianne Ogle: Mom stayed at home with us. Now I knew she had worked at the Air Force Academy back when she was single in finance but other than that, I didn't have a lot of visual people ahead of me that I could see. Now my dad was in business. And so that's started me out in that track of well, maybe that's what I’ll tip my toe into. [00:06:29] Tommy Thomas: What's something that people are always surprised to find out about you? [00:06:35] Dianne Ogle: They are probably surprised that I come from all brothers, that I was raised on a baseball field, that I love sports, and I can talk with the best of them about many sports. And now I have three boys, and I've got a grandson. And so, Boys-R-Us is what we call ourselves. And I now have two granddaughters. Yay, I've been redeemed. But it's interesting because now the Lord has had me working with mostly all women. So, it's interesting. I was raised with mostly all men and then God's used it to now have me work with women. So it's been a sweet time. ++++++++++++++++ [00:07:10] Tommy Thomas: You graduated from college, and you got out in the workforce. Take me back to the first time you ever had a staff. And what do you remember about that element of basic leadership? [00:07:23] Dianne Ogle: I started my career in Indianapolis at a computer software company. And then about a year and a half in, I was working in Pittsburgh running a sales territory and their president's club, only women. So, I learned really young about being the only woman in a whole salesforce and I didn't see any women ahead of me. And then I was tapped in Pittsburgh to come to central Florida and open an office for a temporary help company, which is in your industry. I didn't have any experience in it, but I thought I would just go down there. And that really was my first hand at leadership because before that, as you can imagine, I'm in charge of a sales territory and my clients and peers, but I wasn't having anybody that I was personally in charge of leading until I moved to Florida, had to launch this office. [00:08:19] Dianne Ogle: This was back in the early eighties and I had it doing over a million dollars in annual revenue within three years and they eventually had me take over Tampa and then do trap troubleshooting up here in Atlanta where I'm at. But yeah, that was the first time I got inherited by a staff, but then I had to build staff. I had to train them both inside sales and outside sales and didn't get a lot of training. It was just let’s go do it. I really did it based on my own values on what I saw worked. I have a high work ethic and integrity is huge for me. And so being able to just navigate that was really important for me. [00:09:05] Tommy Thomas: If I could have shadowed you earlier at that time, as you were building that team, what would the typical weekday or month look like? Dianne Ogle: I started out with team meetings, daily team meetings, especially for my internal staff, of course that was back before computers. And so, everything was on these huge Rolodex clocks and these files that were flipping around and we had clients, we had built it to Martin Marietta and law firms and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. We were considered a little bit higher level administrative, so we didn't do lower and then we did some permanent placement. We would start off our day on just trying to get our grounding. Who was going to do what and what was coming up. Because every morning you had either calls coming in from clients or you had employees that either could or could not make their commitment, which was always a challenge. And then my sales staff, who are you going to visit? What appointments do you have? What do you need? How can I come alongside you? Do you want me to go with you? And so just that constant motivation and help to make sure that they were adhering to what we needed the office to do. [00:10:24] Tommy Thomas: If I could have been in one of your staff meetings and you took a break and left the room and I asked them, what's the toughest thing about working for Dianne? What do you think they would have said? [00:10:35] Dianne Ogle: Probably just adhering to their commitment to their numbers and even if the climate is tough, and it is hard with rejections, especially my sales team. But having to get back on the phone or having to try to get back in front of people, which is, like I said, we didn't have computers. So, all of it was either you had to just do cold calling. Knock on those old doors, which I got kicked out of some buildings early in my career, but you just had to have that tenacity and not every day is that easy. And so that's probably what they would say is that, boy, she's going to keep making us get up and go back out and try to call that person again and try to see them. Because we found that the more we could see people in person and have that face to face, the stronger that trust bridge and relationship could happen. [00:11:28] Dianne Ogle: And then we can not only help navigate any kind of problems or issues, but we have a chance to grow together. And so, we all knew, and that's what I kept telling all our team, both internal and external. We've got to be able to find ways to get in front of them to build those relationships. [00:11:46] Tommy Thomas: If I flip that, what would they say was the most rewarding part of being on your team? [00:11:51] Dianne Ogle: Probably their autonomy. I'm not a micromanager. And so, if they wanted to do their schedule a certain way, I wasn't going to micromanage how they did it. I always want to just come alongside to encourage and spur them on and help to motivate them for their highest and best. And quite frankly, it's tough every day, whether you're going through something personal, cause we're all whole people, right? [00:12:15] Dianne Ogle: And how we show up each day can change based on other areas of our life that could be impacting us. And so just helping to navigate that I care deeply about not only today working with my C level clients, but also back then. We are real people. We have real issues. And so how can we be there to support each other? [00:12:38] Tommy Thomas: You started out not having many mentors. When did mentors show up in your life? [00:12:45] Dianne Ogle: Once I asked. [00:12:47] Tommy Thomas: Okay. [00:12:48] Dianne Ogle: I had my first child in Texas, and I was working for a corporation running the head of their marketing department. And I had to put my oldest son in with a lady who had a small group of children in her home. And every day I'd go get him, and I would see him in a swing. And I told my husband, I cannot do this. I cannot feel like I could run this marketing department yet. I want to have more of an impact on my own son. And so, my boss said, great. So that's when I made the transition from corporate into on my own. Cause she said just do your own job, go start your own business, figure out what that looks like. And I'll be your first client. And I thought, oh my goodness, how am I going to do this? And so, I ended up listening to a lady who was a speaker. She came from a similar but different background than me, but I could see, we saw things similar, and I thought, that's it. [00:13:48] Dianne Ogle: I'm going to go up afterwards and ask her to mentor me. And what I didn't know, she was highly sought after. She was an author and a public speaker. And she heard my why and my desperation. And she goes, of course, but you'll have to do homework. I'm like, fine, put me to work. And her name's Betty Price out of Dallas. And she was a gem. She shared; she opened her heart. She showed me how to write contracts. She showed me how to set up a business and really grow it. So that was absolutely amazing. [00:14:20] Tommy Thomas: Before we get a little broader, what are some times in your life that have really tested your metal and what did you learn? [00:14:36] Dianne Ogle: I got married at 30 and then we moved from Florida to Texas for my husband to go to seminary to get a master's in religious education and marriage and family counseling. And so, I was the breadwinner, which didn't bother me at all because I'd been independent and been earning my own income, but it bothered him more because he came from a hospitality background. And so that was an interesting season for us because I didn't fit the mold of most seminary wives or any that I ever saw. And we couldn't live on campus because my job location would bend too far for me to commute in that big metroplex. That was a hard season. Being a newlywed, having a heart for the Lord, but not finding community for anybody who could really. In fact, I got a lot of judgment and condemnation because of what I did. And I wasn't fitting that traditional role of a seminary wife. That was painful back then. [00:15:41] Tommy Thomas: Frederick Wilcox says progress always involves risk. You can't steal second base with your foot on first. What's the biggest risk you've ever taken and how did it turn out? [00:15:53] Dianne Ogle: Starting my own business. That was out of desperation. I had no vision. So that was also something I really wrestled with. Cause I'm like, I don't sell Tupperware or Avon. I don't know, what do you do? But it helped me. At least my old boss said do what you do now for me. And you'll figure it out. And sure enough, I started having small businesses tap me to help them. At least I initially started helping them on how they could grow their business through effective sales and marketing and with the teams that they had and how to develop those teams so that they could be a producing, performing, high performance, achieving team together. But that was a huge risk because we were still meeting my income. And so, you go from the luxury of having great benefits and a great package to, oh my goodness, I got to build this thing fast. [00:16:49] Tommy Thomas: It's been said, most of us learn most things from our failures. If that's the case, why are most of us so afraid to fail? [00:16:57] Dianne Ogle: Because sometimes the stakes are high. Like in my case, we needed my income, and we needed it, it wasn't a luxury. We didn't have a lot put aside or family that would just say, oh, let me write you a check or any kind of investments back in that day. And so, there was a lot on the line for us to succeed or for me to succeed for sure. And yet still support my husband and our joint goals moving forward. ++++++++++++++ [00:17:27] Tommy Thomas: Let's move a little bit into your current organization. I'm fascinated and I'm going to probably mispronounce the title. So why don't you save me that embarrassment? And you tell us about your women's collaborative. [00:17:39] Dianne Ogle: It's called Areté Executive Women of Influence. Areté is a Greek word. It is unique. But when, and I can tell you the backstory, the name is a Greek word that means excellence and the Greek men and women attained it, especially in the face of adversity. And when I saw that definition, I'm like, that's it. That's the name. Because we all could either opt out or we press into the pain and stay in the game that God's called us to through that whole sphere of excellence, right? It's not perfectionism, but it's excellence. [00:18:19] Tommy Thomas: Where did the idea come from? Did you think about it on the tennis court one day or did somebody approach you? [00:18:26] Dianne Ogle: We serve a master weaver. He weaves our story, weaves our expertise. So, one of the clients that I had when I first started my business, someone in New York City found me and said, hey, we want to start a chapter for women business owners that are at a higher level. We want to start a chapter there in Dallas and we want you to launch it, grow it, run it. And of course I had no background in that. I had other background, but I knew what it would take. I could see what it would take. Initially I said, no, because by then I think I had two little boys at home. I had other clients on my books, but they kept coming back around. And I thought, you know what? If I can rally women, because I too know the plight of the high-level woman and I can encourage her. Then I need to be open to it. And so, it was very quickly the Lord let me know that I should take that endeavor on. And so, I grew a very large chapter in Dallas, ended up taking over their Houston chapter. And then there were some ethical issues. I just couldn't protect my Dallas women anymore. [00:19:39] Dianne Ogle: I finally let them know I need to step aside because I cannot continue to be this placeholder for some integrity issues that I just can't be a part of anymore. So, they said Dianne, start your own. I'm like, okay. That's not my vision but they were desperate. So, I started my own with that particular group. They all came with me, not that I was trying to do it out of ill means. It was their choice. And so, I launched it, figured out how to do a 501C(3) and did that until we moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. And I had my third boy at age 40, and I did that for just a small bit. And I finally handed the baton over to them and said, you take the organization. [00:20:22] Dianne Ogle: I'm going to get this back to you because I needed to be more present for my boys in that new season. So then fast forward, we moved to Orlando and oh, back up, one other caveat. They called me their little Christian leader. And so, I always felt handcuffed in my leadership with them. They knew I was a Christian. I'm not a Bible leader, but I'm authentically going to be who God created me to be. But they put me on notice that you better keep that in a box. And I thought, I told my husband, I said, that is too hard. That doesn't fit who I am. I'll never do that again. Love when you tell the Lord, never going to do that again. [00:21:06] Dianne Ogle: That was hard. So fast forward in 20, the crash happened in 08. My husband had been with Wyndham Worldwide at that point for a decade and his job got released, finally catching up to him about 2010. So, I started introducing him to some men that I didn't know. They didn't know my backstory. They didn't know me, but I would get us in front of some men. Cause I wanted to teach my husband, just have to tell your story and see what God's doing and see if there's any fits. Tommy, four men in a short amount of time would look across the table at me and I'm trying not to keep the conversation on me at all and said, Dianne, you need to start something for the high-level woman. By the fourth one, who was the president of the Central Florida Chamber, he just knew he couldn't meet the needs of his high-level women and that he would come in contact with another one. It was his partner. Another one. It was his wife who was an engineer. It was, they were all coming from different places and spaces, but they heard the plight of the high-level woman. [00:22:10] Dianne Ogle: So, I went back to my prayer closet, and I thought, Lord, I always say, here I am, use me, send me. I thought, woe to me if I start putting guardrails up going, been there, done that, this is too hard, I know what it would take. And he quickly showed me four columns, like those Grecian columns. Before he gave me the name of Areté, which is interesting how God works, but I'm a visual girl. And he showed me that they would come from profit, non-profit, academia, and public service sectors. Because I...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/32783757
info_outline
From Immigrant to Innovator: Samuel Chiang's Leadership Insights
09/03/2024
From Immigrant to Innovator: Samuel Chiang's Leadership Insights
[00:00:00] Samuel Chiang I would say to an upstart, boards are extremely demanding. And sometimes, those boards are like your father and mother, and they want to actually be helicoptering you all along. Be certain that you have people who are for you and not people who are wanting to have their agenda done through you. It's probably the number one thing, and you say, what does that mean to have people who are for you, people who are going to be praying with you through the thin and thick things, and they not only believe in the vision, but also, they will call you to accountability because they know it's good and proper for you. +++++++++++= [00:00:47] Tommy Thomas: Today, we're continuing the conversation we began last week with Samuel Chiang. In this episode, Samuel delves into the intersections of faith and technology. He discusses his journey from Taiwan to becoming a global leader in Bible translation and digital innovation. He shares insights on how artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are transforming the nonprofit sector. He also reflects on the challenges and opportunities of leading in a complex and rapidly changing world. Samuel’s thoughtful perspectives offer valuable lessons for leaders in any sector, particularly those navigating the intersection of faith in technology. This episode is a must listen for anyone interested in leadership, innovation and the impact of technology on global missions. Join me as we pick up where we left off last week. [00:01:46] Tommy Thomas: If you were writing a book on the burdens of leadership that only the President or the CEO could uniquely bear, what would be some of your topics or chapters you would discuss? [00:01:59] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, so this is a very interesting question. For me, at the stage of life I'm in now and looking back, I think I would be consistent to say that the formation of the soul in a leader and in discipling and mentoring is absolutely critical. [00:02:27] Samuel Chiang: And quite frankly, I'm thankful that I have been mentored by books in many different ways. Whether it's your classic Bobby Clinton, The Making of a Leader, or your Bill Hall, he wrote a trilogy of books, Disciple Making Pastors and things like that. Those sorts of things spoke into my life very deeply and it's been a part of my practice. My practice has been, how does a leader disciple? In a workplace and really, quite frankly, in a non for profit to a for profit, both our workplaces, the discipling in both mentoring must go on in both. But when you move into a C suite level, there is an extra dimension in terms of the formation of the soul formation, in the C suites. What is it God is up to, to have individuals in the C suites and how are they dealing with things on the inside? Those are very important topics. [00:03:32] Tommy Thomas: Any books you're reading on those topics that people might learn from. [00:03:38] Samuel Chiang: Oh, there have been many different books. Probably, Jim Wilder, is a wonderful, great read. Others would be thin little books, but profound, equally. And I read them over and over, Ari Nguyen's books. I would say they're very important as well for the soul. I would say also those books are not ones in which people want to learn how to, those ones are much more feeding into the being side. How am I, and what are my biggest shadows? That is a detriment for leading others. [00:04:01] Tommy Thomas: Maybe a lighter question. If you were a judge on a nonprofit version of Shark Tank, and people were coming to you for early-stage investments, what questions have you got to have answers to before you open your checkbook? [00:04:43] Samuel Chiang: Oh, yeah. Okay. What is the problem that you're trying to solve? What is your purpose? And who is on your board? [00:04:51] Tommy Thomas: Unpack the board piece for a minute. Boards are so critical. And what are you telling an upstart about their board? [00:05:04] Samuel Chiang: Yeah. I would say to an upstart, boards are extremely demanding. And sometimes, those boards are like your father and mother, and they want to be helicoptering you all along. Be certain that you have people who are for you and not people who are wanting to have their agenda done through you. It's probably the number one thing, and you say, what does that mean to have people who are for you, people who are going to be praying with you through the thin and thick things, and they not only believe in the vision, but also they will call you to accountability because they know it's good and proper for you. [00:05:52] Samuel Chiang: And people who are for you, probably, I always look for advisors or board members who are, if you will, not only right handed, but some of them would be left handed. We need both sides of people who are highly logical, but also highly creative. And so therefore, many people who are startups, have to pivot. They have to be agile. They must think laterally and people who are very logical might not be able to pivot as quickly, but people who are highly creative could maybe see the things that the entrepreneur startup sees. So, you need a combination of both. And I will highly always recommend both men and women. The perspectives are real and they're meaningful. [00:06:46] Tommy Thomas: Do you think it's important to have someone on the board who's a logical, or a natural critic, you say you want people for you and I get that. And then I see the piece about, holding you accountable. If I remember right, I think Rich Stearns told me at World Vision at each Board Meeting, they appoint, and they got a name for this person, but this person is supposed to say, yeah, but he or she is supposed to listen and then come back with a counter argument. [00:07:17] Samuel Chiang: Yeah. Okay. The original question was about a startup. And then it applies whether you're going to have a counter argument. Would you have somebody who is going to be an appointed critic or appointed somebody who's going to say the bots. Absolutely. That would be healthy for the board. And I used the word health in a very, meaningful way. You don't need just help, but you need health in the board and the health of the board, should have somebody who's going to be an open critic, constructive, and positive. For the whole board to receive those thoughts. It's absolutely important. +++++++++++= [00:08:09] Tommy Thomas: Let's stick with our startup nonprofit. You're developing a dashboard to help the founder get at their health. What dials are you putting on the dashboard? [00:08:20] Samuel Chiang: Wow. I will say, on the dials, I would want to know, what are we measuring? And, depending on the type of nonprofits, I would say, yes, you want to measure your financial health, but you want to be able to measure your human health. You want to be able to measure your social capital health, depending on the type of not for profit. You may also want to measure your natural health. So, there's several different items to measure from your human capital, financial capital, social capital, natural capital, and then, on a dashboard, I also will want to know what is our pathway to solving the problem. [00:09:06] Samuel Chiang: For any social entrepreneur, you have to ask the question, for the Shark Tank question that you're asking. What was your purpose? What problems are you trying to solve? And who's on your board? You have to have a clear pathway to solve your problem. And then, probably, what does sustainability look like in multiple horizons? [00:09:32] Tommy Thomas: I've read two or three articles in the past six months, about the productivity of people that would be my age and your age and older. And it seems like a lot of us are pretty productive. After working your way through a career, do you have any thoughts on employing people in their upper years and what you might expect there. [00:10:00] Samuel Chiang: For people who are in their upper years, I will want to say to them, you still have a lot to offer, and that offering is for people to be taken either one sip at a time, one bite at a time. You cannot give it to them all at once. And nobody wants it all at once. It may not be relevant all at once. And I would say to be very selective on the assignments that you're going to take. Be watching out for the talent that may be placed in front of you. And it would be wonderful if the relationship developed with those talents are such that they're coming for you. So, they want to learn from you. That's a whole lot easier than if you want others to learn about you. Ao those are some initial things I would say. [00:11:07] Tommy Thomas: Let’s go to succession planning. You've experienced that in different organizations. I'm sure on boards you've sat on, y'all have done it. What's the pros and cons of promoting from within to the CEO chair? [00:11:25] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, so it really depends on the season that the organization is in. Sometimes, it is better to bring somebody from the outside. I would say this in a healthy organization that's larger, if leaders develop, the way the management system works, I would say it would be, my preference would be to promote someone from within for a larger organization than to bring them out from the outside. Yeah, it does matter depending on the season the organization is in. [00:12:04] Tommy Thomas: How much of a role should the outgoing CEO play in hiring his or her successor? [00:12:11] Samuel Chiang: Again, it depends on the stage of the organization. I would say that the hiring process probably is best as a muted voice rather than an active voice, because it's really the board's responsibility. And, to have a CEO, to have an active voice, some dynamics just get weird. And then, if there's an active voice by the outgoing CEO, on the next hire, and the next hire did not go well, et cetera, too many dynamics. So better to be muted. [00:12:52] Tommy Thomas: What about the outgoing CEO maybe sticking around in an emeritus role as emeritus CEO, or even serving on the board? [00:13:03] Samuel Chiang: Yeah. I have met with a situation in one of the boards I currently sit on, the outgoing CEO or former leader is in the emeritus role. As long as there is a real understanding of that emeritus role in terms of a job description. Pretty boxy. And if there's a continued passion for that person to be in the boxy emeritus role, I'm all for it. ++++++++++++++ [00:13:37] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to a couple of quotes I wanted to get your response to. If you never color outside the lines, the picture will never change. [00:13:49] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I totally agree. Tommy Thomas: And y'all did a little bit of that, with Wycliffe and the Seed Company. [00:13:56] Samuel Chiang: Oh, we did. And I think they still do. [00:14:02] Tommy Thomas: No matter what job you have in life, your success will be determined 5 percent by your academic credentials, 15 percent by your professional experience, and 80 percent by your communication skills. [00:14:16] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I agree with that. And I think the communication skills are one of EQ, because I'm thinking in a smaller startup and the median size organization. Yes. Your communication skills are really you at the leader, but even at larger organizations, that communication skill could be outsourced by other people and, outsourced to someone who has your voice and writing things for you, but you yourself must have that ability to be relational with your colleagues and with people who are in your company work organization. [00:15:00] Tommy Thomas: Never tell people how to do things, tell them what to do. And they will surprise you with their ingenuity. General George Patton. [00:15:11] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I totally agree with that. Yeah, and especially these days with all the generative AI and all that stuff. [00:15:20] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, you try to outsmart that. No, you're not going to, it's not going to happen. So, I agree with General George Patton. [00:15:28] Tommy Thomas: A lot of people have said they, I guess their persona of General Patton is that he would have never operated that way. I've not read enough about him to make a meaningful comment there. [00:15:39] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, it would. I'm still learning, so I'll have to find out. [00:15:47] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, let's go back to board for a minute. Here's a quote. The fewer board members, the better. If it's 18, I'm just not interested. Ernest Happel. [00:15:56] Samuel Chiang: I totally agree. It's very difficult. Yeah, Jesus had a reason for a dozen. [00:16:07] Tommy Thomas: Let’s close this thing out with a couple of, maybe penetrating questions. If you had a do over in life to do, what would it be? [00:16:27] Samuel Chiang: Probably I would maybe want to stay at home a little bit more, travel a little bit less. In 1992 to 2000, 2001, it was 100, 120 days a year. 2002 to 2016 was about 150, 160 days a year and it went down a little bit and right now it's gone back up. I would say I would maybe want to travel a little bit less. Though I will say this. I have always asked our kids, would you like me to be gone during the week and come home on the weekends? We're taking longer trips and then staying home longer. They, without fail said, no, take short trips, always be home on the weekends. That's what we practiced. [00:17:22] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, as far as redo - No, I think other than that, I don't think there's too many things that I would want to redo. [00:17:30] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. If you could tell a younger version of yourself one thing, what would it be? [00:17:40] Samuel Chiang: I probably would say something to the effect, don't just think about discipleship and mentorship of others. Think about your interior life earlier and how God is actively creating that infrastructure, the interior life. And that's probably something I would want a younger leader to hear, learn, and experience earlier. ++++++++++++++ [00:18:11] Tommy Thomas: Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is [email protected]. Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable. Links and Resources - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Connect [email protected] Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: |
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/32760067
info_outline
Transformative Leadership: Samuel Chiang's Journey from Taiwan to Global Impact
08/27/2024
Transformative Leadership: Samuel Chiang's Journey from Taiwan to Global Impact
[00:00:15] Samuel Chiang: When I was probably 11, maybe 12 years old, I told my grandfather I wanted to be like him. He was a lawyer, and he immigrated to Canada after us. And he was a specialist in the Canadian government when he arrived in Canada, because he knew Chinese law. When I said to him, I want to be like you, he said to me, your English must be impeccable. And I said, okay. He said, but I wouldn't want you to practice as a defense lawyer. I said, why? He didn't answer the question right away. He said, you may want to be a corporate lawyer. That always stuck with me. And then he said, you don't want to be a defense lawyer because sometimes you could be defending somebody, and then in the midst of a trial, they confess to you everything. [00:01:16] Samuel Chiang: And you're stuck. He said, it's very painful to handle that type of thing in the midst of a trial. ++++++++++++++= [00:01:24] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Samuel Chiang. Samuel has a diverse and accomplished background that significantly influenced his leadership. He was born in Taiwan and later moved to Canada where he grew up and began his professional career. He graduated from the University of Toronto when he began his career at Ernst & Young in Canada. In addition to Ernst & Young, Samuel has served in senior leadership roles with The International Orality Network, Trans World Radio and Partners International. He also served as the president and CEO of The Seed Company, a Bible translation organization within the Wycliffe family. Under his leadership, the organization focused on making scriptures available in oral and written forms for unreached and Bibleless peoples. Along the way he gained a great appreciation for using technology in the workplace. And he pioneered the use of AI in both the private and non-profit sectors. He and his wife Robbi make their home in the Dallas Metroplex. Let's pick up on the conversation with Samuel Chiang. [00:02:46] Tommy Thomas: What's your happiest memory of childhood? [00:02:51] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, it depends on which segment. I remember, in my early teens, playing my violin. Whether it was solo, whether it was ensemble, whether it was orchestral, that was very special, that I remembered. I remember playing tennis, teaming together in tennis. [00:03:11] Samuel Chiang: It was great. You might not know this about me, I'm a five-time immigrant, and so my immigrant experience, even when I was younger, first arrived from Taiwan to Canada, everything was new. That was a wonderful memory. [00:03:28] Tommy Thomas: At what age did y'all come to Canada? [00:03:31] Samuel Chiang: I was a little bit over 10 years old. And, so everything was new, yeah, all the senses were new. I only had the alphabet and seven phrases of courteous language, thank you, excuse me, will you please, those types of languages. And that's how I started in Canada. [00:03:54] Tommy Thomas: Do you remember how long it took you to get reasonably fluent in English? [00:04:01] Samuel Chiang: Oh, my goodness, it was quite a long time. Let's just say, you're grade five, grade six, grade five, in Canada. Probably I did not become fluent until I was nearly 16. [00:04:15] Tommy Thomas: Wow. So, what's the greatest gift that your parents gave you? [00:04:24] Samuel Chiang: I think immigrating to Canada. They're both Christians. They said to us, we don't want you to be conscripted into the military in Taiwan. And so, we want to give you and your brother a chance to experience things very differently. And I believe the gift of Canada in that immigration and the growth in that environment was the greatest gift my parents gave to us. [00:04:55] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like in Canada? [00:05:00] Samuel Chiang: I went to a high school that was 66 percent Jewish. And I knew the sons and daughters of literally captains of industries. And I watched how they grew up in a very unique setting. Jewish people, by and large, love the arts, are great contributors to society as a whole, from history to research, etc. And when they love the arts, their sons and daughters are top in their forms in terms of music, et cetera. So it was, they pulled me along. I was a learner. I thought I was good at playing my violin, but these other students were even better than I am. And they pulled me along. [00:05:45] Tommy Thomas: You decided to go to university. Did you consider a lot of colleges and universities, or did you pick one and say, I'm going there? [00:05:55] Samuel Chiang: My goodness. in Canada, it's interesting in Canada, you get to pick three. I did. And then it was ultimately my parents saying to me, if you went to this university and lived at home, we'll pay for everything. I accepted that and actually stayed home and went to University of Toronto, and studied economics and finance and accounting and it was good. It was good to be in Toronto. [00:06:23] Tommy Thomas: How did you get into the econ and finance and accounting field? Did you know somebody that had been a CPA or an economist? [00:06:32] Samuel Chiang: No, numbers were always of interest to me. And, let me rewind the conversation a little bit, for myself. When I was probably 11, maybe 12 years old, I told my grandfather I wanted to be like him. He was a lawyer, and he immigrated to Canada after us. And he was a specialist in the Canadian government, when he arrived in Canada, because he knew Chinese law and when I said to him, I want to be like you, he said to me, your English must be impeccable. And I said, okay, he said, but I wouldn't want you to practice as a defense lawyer. I said, why? He didn't answer the question right away. He said, you may want to be a corporate lawyer. That always stuck with me. And then he said, you don't want to be a defense lawyer because sometimes you could be defending somebody, and then in the midst of a trial, they confess to you everything. [00:07:42] Samuel Chiang: And you're stuck. He said, it's very painful to handle that type of thing in the midst of a trial. And I listened to that. And so, I thought, do I want to be a corporate lawyer? But reading was not my strong suit. Not yet at that time. And then I love numbers. And so, that’s the way I went into accounting, finance and economics. [00:08:12] Tommy Thomas: So, what was your favorite part of college? [00:08:21] Samuel Chiang: At University of Toronto, there were two things. One was in social sciences, sociology, and then the other one was actually computer science which surprised me because in high school, I never took computer science, but at University of Toronto, at that time still had to use those card decks where you punch holes and all that, and we used that to solve problems. That was solving problems and I loved it. [00:08:50] Tommy Thomas: You and I would be from that age. Yes. We took Fortran and COBOL, and we had those big, big boxes of cards. And, yes, I remember those days. What is something that people are always surprised to find out about you? [00:09:13] Samuel Chiang: They would say to me, even most recently, they would say, oh, you speak English so well. I don't know what to say about that. That's a surprising thing. Actually, the world over, I have had people saying that to me. [00:09:30] Tommy Thomas: Think back to your first management job when you actually had some people that you were responsible for. What do you remember about that? [00:09:40] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I remember very specifically at Ernst & Young that even when I have people reporting to me, even though I was maybe really green in my experiences, people were just very respectful. They were very accepting and very professional. [00:09:58] Samuel Chiang: That just made me feel like they were helping me to do what I needed to do. And even though I might not even have much experience in doing any supervision, I always remember the way that people accepted me. They were very professional, very respectful. [00:10:21] Tommy Thomas: Each of us probably has times in our life where in the South, we would say our metal has been tested. I'm not sure what the Canadian equivalent with that, or the Chinese equivalent for that would be, but have you had times in your life when your metal was tested? And if so, how did you come out of it? [00:10:39] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, so very specifically, I remember in high school, in one of the violin pieces in the ensemble, I worked hard to get the lead part in that ensemble, very specifically for a competition. I didn't get it. Another student who was a great younger got it. And yeah, my heart was crushed. But that was one of those sorts of moments. I had to really console myself to say, okay, this is the Bach triple violin concerto. So, there are three leads. I got none of those, but I'm still the lead for the entire ensemble. And that's a role to play. So, I better play it well. And so that was the first time. The second time was, that I recall very specifically, was in an organization. On the one hand, being interviewed to be the CEO of the organization. On the other hand, I had a whole group of people complaining about me and they were doing an examination about my ministry practices and procedures and all that stuff. [00:12:02] Samuel Chiang: And, I remember during the interview that the board chair said, I just hope that examination piece will go away soon so that we can interview you properly. As it turns out, that examination piece did not go away anytime soon. It took nine months, but it was great. It was a wonderful experience with the Lord. I would never trade it for anything else. Because I was in that situation, they decided not to interview me further for the candidacy of CEO for that organization. That was crushing, but between the two, I would never trade the experience with the Lord going deep with him, and don't even want to come out of the water, if you will, we're out of the ocean, if you will, and just want to stay longer. So that's a heart matter that was very deep within me. [00:13:06] Tommy Thomas: You've built a lot of organizations over the years, been CEO, founded companies. Let's talk about hiring for a minute. When you're hiring at the cabinet level in general, what are you looking for? [00:13:18] Samuel Chiang: At the cabinet level, the C level, I often look for their EQ, the emotional quotient, that's pretty important to me, their character, their culture. And then their competency, character and culture. Those are non-negotiables competencies, you could throw that where you could delegate some of it away, but their emotional quotient, their culture, their character. [00:13:50] Tommy Thomas: What's your favorite or most effective interview question? [00:13:57] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I think we might even start around the same place. Tell me a little bit about your childhood. I would love to hear the friends and the friendships and the relationships that you have had. And then I also ask often, tell me a little bit about how you left home for your work, for your college, for your university. [00:14:23] Tommy Thomas: Wow. That is a penetrating question. Yeah. How you left home. Yeah, one of my recent podcast guests said that one of the things she wished that she learned earlier was how to terminate somebody with grace and dignity. What have you learned about terminating people when it's just not working out? [00:14:52] Samuel Chiang: My biggest piece about termination is, I have to be very clear. I have to tell myself not to pass on any problems further. Oftentimes you terminate because people handed it to you. And, with grace and all that be very clear, keep the dignity of the individual, offer ways to consider rescaling, or in some cases offer them the possibility for HR to help them to look for their next assignment. [00:15:28] Samuel Chiang: Those are some of the things that I have practiced and have practiced consistently. The clarity is very important for people. [00:15:43] Tommy Thomas: You've been president of The Seed Company and other organizations but take us into that presidency. How did you get there? What was it like when you got there? [00:15:57] Samuel Chiang: Oh, wow. Yeah. I have served on the board of The Seed Company. And I learned a lot. And then I remember, it's a long story. I'll keep it short. I was invited to come off the board to apply and I did. And it was the summer of 2014. And during that time, I wasn't quite sure I was supposed to apply, even though I'd been invited. So, I prayed, and it was during the time that the summer of 2014 was, the Ebola crisis in West Africa. I was actually in West Africa at the time, and the Lord met me, twice. Nothing audible, but it was a sense of understanding from the Lord. And because of those two understandings, very deep, very unique moments. It was almost like he was having inner conversations with me. It was out of that experience that I put myself forward. [00:17:08] Samuel Chiang: And then I also asked the Lord, I said, I need to know that I have a specific assignment within The Seed Company or Bible translation as a whole. And he did, he put on my heart the need for the Old Testament very specifically. So, it was through that and ultimately, the visa process that came into this country, in the United States on a O-1 visa. And then, when I was pointed into the role and started, the board was ever so kind to provide an onboarding coach. That was marvelous in the sense that I lived overseas, working in Hong Kong for 25 years, coming into the United States. I discovered much later; I have multiple massive gaps. And the board was so kind to bring along onboarding coaching and subsequent coaches for me to bridge the gap and understand things. And so that was wonderful in the role. It was challenging. It was knee driven every day, asking God for things that I've never asked before, and then watching and understanding God's leading in that. +++++++++++++++++ [00:18:29] Tommy Thomas: Now, I probably don't know all the, know the whole, how to explain that, but my understanding was that The Seed Company was, at least at one level, a way of shortening the Bible translation process from the classical Wycliffe M.O. Is that correct? Is that more or less, right? Yes. So you, if you're operating there, I'm assuming you had some pushback from people that had been in the field translating the classical way for many years. How did y'all resolve that and realize that those two things could probably peacefully coexist? [00:19:07] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, I think I'll answer that on multiple levels. One level is for the desire of people receiving the scripture sooner rather than later. Everyone, it's almost a justice issue, isn't it? Everybody has a right to the scripture, and will they receive it sooner rather than later? So that is the DNA within and then the indigenous model, which The Seed Company was founded upon, of the indigenous church doing the translation of the Word. That's a little bit different and we need both. [00:19:49] Samuel Chiang: We absolutely need both of the people who have been called. But the calling of the missionary and the calling of the indigenous translator, they're the same call to serve God, and in a very specific field, Bible translation. And so, we need both. Coexistence doesn't always come easy, even today. I'm still involved in Bible translation in other organizations. And even today, it's still not easy. Even with church-based translation, and even with artificial intelligence, that friction continues and the friction that continues, it's really a sense of working it out relationally, horizontally, and then vertically with God. What is God's desire in all of this? So, man's side of holding on to the tension is always very interesting. [00:20:57] Tommy Thomas: A pastor on the East Coast once told me, see if I remember this right, he said the most difficult thing in the world is living in the center of the tension of God's will. [00:21:07] Samuel Chiang: Oh, my goodness, it really is. And then in Bible translation, it's not only living in the center of God's will, but the desire to have quality assurance, really super wonderful, clear, natural language of the translation, so that the community as a whole will say that is God's Word for me. [00:21:33] Tommy Thomas: What's the most ambitious project you've ever undertaken and how did you get the team to follow you? [00:21:41] Samuel Chiang: Probably the most ambitious one that I've taken was when we did the First Light Project. First Light Project was a technology project. And then to have content providers that will link in with the studies of the Chinese word of all resident on a software program into China. Now, we have to remember, this is back in the mid 90s and late 90s. And everything back then, it was still slow. A cell phone was not really in existence. People remember satellite phones. And then people in China were still at that time, having some scriptures, scripture was at that time, sometimes carried into China. And oftentimes, the good work of your friend Ed Cannon, FEBC, and then, Trans World Radio were broadcasting into China and people were scribing word for word the precious word of God, and we thought in a multiple horizon scenario, they will have the software and technology available to them. [00:23:01] Samuel Chiang: Maybe what we could do is provide Bible resident on the software with content writers on it, and then give it to the church in China. That was avant garde. It was at the forefront of its time. And, trying to get people around the world on it, has been, that wasn't just in Hong Kong, but it would get people around the world on it was both exciting and exhausting. [00:23:27] Tommy Thomas: So, if I could have shadowed you for maybe a year or so during that time, what would I have observed? What would you be doing? Oh, wow. If you were shadowing me back in the 90s during that period of time, you would probably get something like this on a typical day. I would be in Hong Kong. Early in the morning, making calls to North America, trying to raise funds. I would be during the daytime working with technical teams and contacting teams first to make sure the accuracy of the Bible in digital format will be there. And then in the afternoon, I will be working with the technical teams in India because it was not a Chinese team that wrote it. It was actually the technical team in India that wrote the software for it, for the Chinese Bible. And so that would be a typical day of working, very exciting. [00:24:26] Tommy Thomas: I want to stick with the technology piece for a minute. I know our good friend, Bill Hendricks, told me that you'd been involved in a couple of AI projects. Can you take us into the world of AI and how it intersects with the nonprofit sector in general, and maybe talk about some pros and cons, some risks and rewards. [00:24:46] Samuel Chiang: Yeah, sure. A little bit about AI, artificial intelligence, is, for me, the ones I have been involved in, very specifically, it was 2016 on a Sunday morning. I read in the news that Google AI beat the South Korean in gold chess. And then the newspaper reported that in any given second, the Google AI could calculate a hundred million moves. That got my mind thinking very quickly about the number one issue at that time in Bible translation was in sign language, there was not a scripture, not a full text of scripture for sign language. And it got my mind thinking that people who are deaf in the deaf community when they sign, our body could only make so many gestures. To us, it might seem like millions, but it's a limited set. It's not unlimited. So, we thought maybe the computer vision could help solve that. And so that got us started on the artificial intelligence side of things and we created a not for profit and, and ultimately, we...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/32758262
info_outline
Navigating Leadership Challenges: Judy Douglass on Resilience and Faith
08/13/2024
Navigating Leadership Challenges: Judy Douglass on Resilience and Faith
[00:00:00] Judy Douglass: A couple of years before we moved from California to Florida the Lord said to me, I'm sending you a son. And I said, no, thank you. And he said, I'm sending you a son. I said, okay, whatever you say, and time passed, and it didn't happen then and two years passed and he said, when you get to Florida, someone will say, can you take this boy? And I said, if that happens, then I guess this is from you, Lord. Tommy Thomas Today, we're continuing the conversation we began last week with Judy Douglas. In this episode, Judy delves into her personal and professional journey, highlighting the importance of resilience, humility, and faith. She shares stories from her time working with Bill Bright and the transformative impact of adopting a foster child. This episode is packed with valuable lessons for leaders and caregivers alike. Let's pick up where we left off last week. [00:01:06] Tommy Thomas: I'm curious. and here again, you've probably already alluded to this, but times in your life that have really tested your metal and what did you learn from those? [00:01:19] Judy Douglass: I've mentioned that one was working with Bill Bright. And he just had strong different opinions than I did. And I needed to be responsive to him. He was the boss. So there were a couple of times when he wanted me to do something I really didn't want or think I could do because I didn't agree. [00:01:48] And I asked the Lord, I said, maybe I should just leave the staff now. And the Lord said, no. He said, you can do what Bill wants you to do. And you've already demonstrated that you can help him see another perspective. and I'll give you an example of that. So, at Explo 74 in Korea, we went to Yeouido Island. [00:02:19] Judy Douglass: And we had about 100,000 there, I think. I don't know. But the Korean people were reporting to the press that there were a million there every night. And I had another reporter from Christianity Today there also, and we said, there's no way there are many people here. And so, we actually walked the whole island. And then said, all right, with Americans, you could only get this many because they're not going to be crunched up tight, but the Koreans are smaller, and they are willing to be right next to each other. And so, we got the biggest number we could possibly find. And it was not a million when Bill started to talk about it. [00:03:12] Judy Douglass: And he said, there were a million people. And I said, Bill, there weren't a million people there. He said, that's what we need to say. I said, but it's not true. He said, that's what the Koreans are reporting, and we need to not offend them by not believing what they're saying. I said, okay, so here's how I can do that. I can say the official reported numbers were by the police. And so, then that was true. That was their official reported numbers. But it's still always every time I heard somebody say there were a million people there. No, there weren't. No, there weren't. But that was hard. And I had a few run-ins with Dr. Bright that made me want to leave the staff. God just says this is where I want you and the other was waiting on Steve. It was a long wait, we got married, I was 31, now that wouldn't seem so strange, but 50 years ago, it seemed strange. You don't wait that long to get married, but God said, no, you wait, you just wait, I'm going to do this. So those are two that were challenging for me. There have been some others, but those are probably the bigger ones. [00:04:33] Tommy Thomas: You've observed a lot of leaders over the course of your life. What's the most dangerous behavior or trait that you've seen derail a leader's life? [00:04:49] Judy Douglass: Pride. They think they know, and they may know, more than others. But to think you're better or more, make decisions, but also pride leads to a sense that I can do what I want. I'm the boss, I'm in charge. And that's what leads to a lot of the failures that we've seen publicly lately is that. So more than anything, I think it's pride and that's why even as I talk about Bill Bright and Steve Douglass, both very capable men, great leaders, I watched them. [00:05:31] Judy Douglass: They were maybe two of the humblest people I've ever met. And so I just get concerned when people have to draw attention to themselves. For me, one of my key things as I work with people and have a team, I still have a team of 15 people. They do all the work. I just love on them. I'll tell you a story back in my early days of doing the Collegiate Challenge Magazine. No, the Worldwide Challenge. Bruce Cook, who was Steve's roommate at Harvard, said something to me about a project that we had done for the magazine. And he says, that was really good. And I said, it was good, wasn't it? I said, I didn't do that. So and so did it. And I named who it was. And I said, they did a great job. [00:06:25] Judy Douglass: And he said, one of the most important leadership principles that you can learn is to lift up the other people, to send the credit where it belongs and not take it yourself. I just am so grateful that God has helped me grow in that. So, I would recommend it to anyone. [00:06:51] Tommy Thomas: It's been said that we learn most from our failures. If that's the case, why are most of us so afraid to fail? [00:07:00] Judy Douglass: Good question. I suppose I'm sure I can think of many, especially as a parent, but, one real failure was at two different times, but very similar. I had two women on my team that I was working a lot with and, I've already told you, I'm not a big rural follower and yet they were very structured and wanted to know exactly what was going to happen and who, and I just am a little looser and so, both of them ended up leaving our team. I didn't ask them to, I was sure we could come to some ability to work together, but they just felt they could not live on a team that was not more structured and that's who they were and everything. Now they're still friends to me that I could not help and see where I could work better. [00:08:07] Judy Douglass: To be able to come together better because they were gifted people, and I was sad to see them go. So that was major. Probably another area that tested my metal and where I've seen failure is this boy that God sent us, right before we moved. A couple of years before we moved from California to Florida so, the Lord said to me, I'm sending you a son. And I said, no, thank you. And he said, I'm sending you a son. I said, okay, whatever you say, and time passed, and it didn't happen then, and two years passed and he said, when you get to Florida, someone will say, can you take this boy? And I said, if that happens, then I guess this is from you, Lord. [00:09:03] Judy Douglass: Three weeks after we got here to Florida, this new friend said, do you know someone who could take an eight-year-old boy? And tears just came, and I said, we might, I probably ought to talk to Steve about that. Anyway, this boy, his mother was an addict, and he didn't know his father and his grandparents were raising his older half-sister and he was living in neglected and dangerous places and lots of stuff and the county finally took him away. And the grandparents had him, but they said we can't do two of them. And so, they were looking to put him in foster care, hopefully adoption. It took a while, like a year to work out with the county and he came to live with us. [00:09:58] Judy Douglass: He was almost 10. He couldn't read or write. Basically all sorts of issues in his life. And God sent him to us. He was shocked. We go to bed at a certain time, dinner at a table that we ate. We had dinner, and it was just so many things that were different for him and for us. And so that was challenging. But as he got older, it was harder and harder because he just was so wounded by all the things that happened to him and didn't happen for him. And we just, we know we made mistakes. We didn't do it all right. It was hard, but in the end, it took about 16, 17 years, a long time. He's a good man now. [00:10:49] Judy Douglass: He's married, he has a stepdaughter, and then two little girls. He has a good job, drilling water wells out in the country, and they have a farm, and they raise animals, and all sorts of things, and he works. My husband, in his frustration, used to say he's the most creative work avoider I've ever seen. And in the later years, the last few years, we looked at him and said, he works harder than any person we've ever seen. And so, God redeemed what we've made a lot of mistakes. We didn't know what we were doing. And he had a lot of more pain. He made a lot of bad choices, but God did a miracle for him, for us, and this Prayer for Prodigals Ministry that grew out of it. [00:11:44] Tommy Thomas: If you were writing a book on the burdens of leadership that only the CEO can bear, what would some of your chapter titles be? [00:11:54] Judy Douglass: Oh, I don't like titles, so I'm not going to tell you that. Thinking up titles is one of the hardest things I do. I would say that it is important to be authentic, to really be the person that God has created you to be. And treat people the way they need to be treated. To believe they have value and that they can contribute well. To honor people for their work. To be kind and engage with them whenever you can. A lot of times before COVID and when Steve was still President, and I was at the office a lot. I used to just spend an afternoon going from desk to desk and talking with them and showing them that they were valued there and telling them how their contribution was really of great value and asking needs or prayer requests. And I wrote a blog post once called it's the people and I refrain from saying stupid. Because people think they're the ones that are important and people that God has sent to participate, to partner with you in the work he's given you. They're there. [00:13:28] Judy Douglass: You can't do it without them. So don't think you can. Recognize the contributions that they make both in your own mind, but to them and to others as well. [00:13:44] Tommy Thomas: I want to get you to respond to a couple of quotes. This is always a fun part of the podcast to me. I'll go with this first one from CS Lewis. Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pain. It's his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. [00:14:09] Judy Douglass: That's fairly easy for me to answer because that's exactly what happened with our son. Without a doubt, the hardest, most painful part of this was all of those years trying to help him learn to be a person and a responsible one. But the pain that we experienced in that changed us a lot, helped us to learn to love and grace go further than strong words and anger or rejection in helping a person redeem. And out of that has grown the Prayer for Prodigals. The Prayer for Prodigals Prayer Place on Facebook. A Facebook page of prayer for prodigals and every June 2nd a Prayer for Prodigals Worldwide Prodigal Prayer Day and we invite people to give us first names of someone they want prayed for and unless they ask us later to take the name off, we don’t. [00:15:22] Judy Douglass: So it accumulates because who doesn't want people to pray for your loved one? Whoever it is, most often children or grandchildren, but also your spouse, or your brother, or sister, and so this year on June 2nd I was at my Grandson's graduation so I didn't participate as much, but people gather in small groups, or we do a zoom call kind of thing. And we had the largest number that we know of praying, after I don't know how many years is up to, we have about 11,000 names that I'm halfway through praying, since I wasn't available on the day of prayer this year, I'm praying through it slowly myself and naming every person and bringing them before the Lord. [00:16:11] Judy Douglass: So great pain that we went through, and yet God has brought very fruitful help to so many people through this opportunity. [00:16:25] Tommy Thomas: Here's a new quote. I've not asked this to anyone yet. Beware of the shorn beard of reputation for it is hard to regrow. [00:16:41] Judy Douglass: That goes with pride. I think it's also evident in an awful lot of people being, yeah, their reputation has been harmed by things that have come out. And it is hard. Some try and it works, but most of the time it doesn't work if they try to come back. And so, I just go back to Jesus saying that he is humble and that we should be humble like he is and so that'll probably save us a lot of trouble later if we walk in humility and not in pride. [00:17:27] Tommy Thomas: The last one. I'm not called to be successful, but to be faithful. Mother Teresa. [00:17:39] Judy Douglass: Yeah, I think I would agree with that. It's hard to say much more to that. I think, how are we faithful? We're faithful to become the people that we're made to be. We're not accidents. And if you look at Ephesians 2:10, it says he made each of them. In the Psalm 139, he says he made each one of us. He was there forming us. So, it's no surprise that I'm not a rule follower. Maybe that wasn't one of his anyway. And it's no surprise that I don't have musical ability. But I can do words pretty well. And in Ephesians 2, he says, you are a work of art, a masterpiece designed for the good works that I've already prepared for you and so, God wants us to walk closely enough with him to discover those things, to be intentional, to discover them, and then to live them out. And do things I had to do, break an engagement, give up a dream, wait when I didn't want to wait, while God was doing work in me, and then he has to be faithful to what he's given us to do. [00:18:59] Judy Douglass: That doesn't mean it won't change some because it will. But faithfulness is to be obedient and surrender to the Lord in a way that I can do what he wants me to do. And the outcomes are up to him. I'm not doing them to be known. I'm not doing them to get accolades. I'm doing them because this is the work of God, the good works that God has prepared for me to do. And God loves faithful people. He loves others too. [00:19:38] Tommy Thomas: If you could give a younger version of yourself, a piece of advice, what would it be? [00:19:49] Judy Douglass: There's lots of little things, specifics, but I would say two words that have been key for me. One is to keep trusting God, even when hard things happen. Was I happy that my husband left two years ago? No. But I'm trusting that God knew what he was doing, that it was his time, and there were good reasons. God did tell me, but I therefore was trusting that he would stay with me, which he said the night Steve died. I said, now what am I supposed to do? And God said, I'll be with you. I said, I know that, but what am I supposed to do? And he says, no, every step of the way, I will be with you. And He has. And then the other is the practice of giving thanks in everything has probably transformed me more than almost anything. Learning in the good things I can easily say thank you for, but in the hard things, little hard things, big hard things, confusion, misunderstandings, great pain. Thank you, Lord. Because I trust you and that's made all the difference for me. [00:21:11] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice anybody ever gave you? [00:21:20] Judy Douglass: Just what I said, that was advice that I got from people, and learning to live it out. It's more important, and some people wouldn't agree, but a lot of people in leadership are trained to be leaders. I was never trained to be a leader. I just did what God wanted, and that's how He led me. So, for me, it has everything to do with my relationship with God. I let Him meet my needs and work in me. Give me comfort, give me courage, depending on what the need is. And yeah, the best advice I have is, oh, I'll tell you what the best advice is. This is one of Steve's famous ones. You want to know what God's plan for you is and what your job description is. Walk closely with God and do what He says. If you want to know God’s plan for you, Steve would always say “Walk closely with God and do what He says”. [00:22:22] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is [email protected]. Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable. Links and Resources - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO by Judy Douglas by Judy Douglas Connect [email protected] To book Judy for a speaking engagement or to learn more about her incredible life and ministry go to . Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: |
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/32525357
info_outline
Leadership and Faith – A Journey with Judy Douglass
07/30/2024
Leadership and Faith – A Journey with Judy Douglass
[00:00:24] Judy Douglass: Two people who've had the most impact on me. One would be Bill Bright because when I did the magazine, all of a sudden I was reporting to him and some other people as well because he didn't have time to really supervise and so those were sometimes tense times. Bill and I have one huge difference. Bill loves superlatives. Everybody was the greatest or the most talented or the best and that's the way he talked. I'm a journalist. Don't even believe superlatives are acceptable words, because nobody is the best or the greatest or anything. And so Bill would write these flowery promoting things and I would get it and bring it back to what I thought was realism. And he would come back, and he'd say, no, you need to… And I would put a little bit more back, but not all of it, and we would go about five rounds before I didn't go back to him anymore. I just decided we'd gotten it as far as I was willing to go and as much as he really needed. But that was challenging because we didn't always agree on things and yet he was always kind and gracious to me and positive and encouraging. But more than anything, he was trusting God. ++++++++++++ [00:01:53] Tommy Thomas: My guest today is Judy Douglass, a prominent figure within Cru, formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ. Throughout her career, she has held various roles within Cru and has become well known for her leadership and speaking. She served in positions such as staff member, mentor, and advocate for women in leadership within the organization. In addition to her work with Cru, Judy is a prolific writer, addressing topics related to faith, leadership, and personal growth. These writings offer practical guidance, encouragement, and hope to individuals navigating various challenges in life, particularly in the context of family relationships and spiritual journeys. Judy, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:02:38] Judy Douglass: Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm looking forward to it. [00:02:41] Tommy Thomas: I've been looking forward to this. I was thinking back, I guess the first time I met you was probably ‘73 or ‘74. That was, before the turn of the century, huh? [00:02:51] Judy Douglass: Definitely before the turn of the century. Yes, I was on staff then too. [00:02:57] Tommy Thomas: I want to learn a little bit about your childhood. I know when I listen to a podcast and they start asking people those questions my ears perk up. So maybe take me back. What was it like growing up in your hometown and your family? [00:03:11] Judy Douglass: It was like it is for most people who grow up in Texas. [00:03:16] Tommy Thomas: Hot? [00:03:16] Judy Douglass: Opinionated. My family helped settle the State of Texas on both my mother's and my father's side. My mother's side, they came with Stephen F. Austin when he settled down near San Antonio. And on my father's side, it was after the war. And they moved to Dallas, which was just beginning to become a city. And so, I'm very Texan through and through, though I haven't lived there in a very long time, but my family is still there. [00:03:49] Judy Douglass: I have three sisters, and we are still alive, and we get together every year or year and a half. When my mother died, we all agreed if we weren't intentional, we wouldn't see each other. So, we became intentional, and we do that. My father was a doctor. My mother had been a nurse, basically. There was this expectation that you can do anything, you'll be supported and encouraged, and that was true. [00:04:23] Tommy Thomas: So, what did you want to be when you grew up coming out of a medical family? [00:04:33] Judy Douglass: I really don't like anything medical very much. From the time I was eight years old, I wanted to be a writer. I started a novel when I was eight and it was about my favorite topic, horses. And so, I loved horses, and I loved writing and they started to go together at a young age. I still have the manuscript of the chapter I wrote of my only novel ever. [00:04:59] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like for you? Did that manifest itself in high school? Those two loves? [00:05:05] Judy Douglass: They did. My high school was a very high-level school. And so, there were lots of smart kids. I didn't care for the social structure, but I loved the fact that I got a great education. Probably my biggest opportunity came when I studied journalism for a year, and the journalism teacher saw real hope in me, I think. And so, she encouraged me to work on the school paper, and she did things like she took an article I'd written for the paper and sent it into the Texas High School Press Association writing contest, and it was a feature, and I won for the whole state of Texas. [00:05:57] Judy Douglass: I didn't even know I was entered, but that was encouraging that I could do that, and that she thought I had enough potential that she would enter that for me without even telling me. So that was really a good thing. The horses, I had this, my father wasn't about to buy me a horse. He refused many times since I asked him many times, but he had a doctor, friend, with a horse and no one to ride it. And so they got together and I got a horse and I rode that horse for a number of years. At first, just fun with my friends, but then he said, she's a saddle horse. She's really a good horse. So, he wanted her trained. So, we went over to the training state of stable where I learned to write English and do some jumping and learned all the more proper things than just enjoying riding a horse. [00:06:53] Judy Douglass: And so that was maybe one of the happiest days of my life when my father says, I have a horse for you. It was a great experience, and I loved it and it paid off later. +++++++++++++++++++++ [00:07:05] Tommy Thomas: My next question was going to be, what are people always surprised to find out about you? But what I would imagine, I certainly didn't know the horse story. Is there anything else that people might be surprised to know that might know you or would call you a friend? What might they not know? [00:07:21] Judy Douglass: Probably a couple of things that would surprise them because I'm very much a strong advocate for what I care about. They might not know that I'm really a soft-hearted pushover and I'm interested in making sure people thrive than even making sure things happen the way I want. And the other thing that always seems to surprise them, not anyone in my family, but them, is I'm not a rule follower very well. I know rules are needed. And I know it is required, but basically when I see rules, I look at what's their objective and then it's how can I fulfill that objective, maybe keeping the rules and maybe not. [00:08:09] Tommy Thomas: So, you've served a long time with Cru. Anytime I interview somebody that's been with an organization a long time, I ask them when you joined, did you think it would be a career? [00:08:21] Judy Douglass: It didn't surprise me, but because my parents were not happy that I was joining Campus Crusade for Christ, I said, it's just a two-year commitment because that's all we were signing up for. But in my mind, it probably was longer, but I sure didn't know it was going to be the 60 years that I've been part of the Cru staff. [00:08:44] Tommy Thomas: Oh, so when I met you, I think you were managing one of our magazines. And I suppose you had a staff reporting to you. What do you remember about that first management experience? [00:08:56] Judy Douglass: Oh, my goodness. I remember, one, that I was over my head, because what happened was, I went out there and I was planning to go on campus. When I decided to join the staff, I had to give up two important things. I was engaged to a young man I'd gone with all through college. And he wasn't interested at all in being a part of Cru. And, I said, Lord, when are you going to tell him? And God said, if you marry him, you won't be able to do what I want you to do. And, okay, that was something I wanted. I told the Lord when I met him that I would choose your way. And so that, I choose your way, was my pattern through life. [00:09:42] Judy Douglass: And, so I said, okay. But I was also giving up my dream to become a writer and to maybe eventually be a magazine editor. But when I got to the staff conference, Bill Bright called me into his office and he said, we have this magazine we started to use on the campuses, to help staff talk to students about topics. We wondered if instead of going to one campus, you would come to headquarters and do this magazine for all the campuses. And I'm like, what? Yes. So, God gave me my dream back just right away. The other one came later. [00:10:27] Tommy Thomas: Was that the Collegiate, I'm trying to think, was that the Collegiate Challenge? [00:10:31] Judy Douglass: That was the Collegiate Challenge. And I did that for several years with the whole editorial staff and then their man named Robert was the designer and he was far more knowledgeable than I was. And what was interesting was that we and Campus Life Magazine from Youth for Christ at the same time, we're looking at most Christian magazines, which were tiny print little pictures. Yeah. Just not even readable. And not certainly enticing. And I said, we got to do something. And Bob was really creative. And we ended up making a magazine that when we took it to the Evangelical Press Association convention and entered their contest, we won Periodical of The Year of all the categories, because they'd never seen a magazine like it. [00:11:27] Judy Douglass: And it was full of color, and it was stories, and it was just a totally different thing, but that was that then we decided to start what became the Worldwide Challenge because we realized that staff were having a hard time convincing their parents that they should join this organization that parent’s thought was a cult and also help people, donors and those parents and anyone else understand what it meant to know and walk with God. And the things we were teaching the students, lay people by then, we wanted others to hear. And so, we said, and this is one of the biggest things, hardest things I ever did was we said, okay, we'll do this magazine. Basically, I was the editor, and we had about six journalism school graduates. [00:12:23] Judy Douglass: We were not very old and not even very old in the Lord. Not really strong. We had no knowledge of what went on in the churches out there. And so, we're going to do a magazine that's going to represent our ministry. And we were really over our heads, but God was so good. We had no subscribers. We went to our staff and talked them into giving it to their donors. And so we had to start it off. We had 35,000 subscribers because the staff did that. Our theme for our campaign was tell your supporters you love them 12 times a year. And so it was unbelievably wonderful. God gave us wisdom on how to put together a team and I just marveled at what we were able to do and how God used it in people's lives. [00:13:18] Judy Douglass: And it only ended recently because of the cost of postage and the use of net and that there were other ways to communicate, but when I look back at my years on staff, that's one of my main highlights is getting to start the worldwide challenge and see it touch so many lives. [00:13:40] Tommy Thomas: Now was my friend Chuck McDonald on your team? He and I joined the staff about the same time. [00:13:46] Judy Douglass: Chuck McDonald was on my team. [00:13:48] Tommy Thomas: And he was a University of Missouri J School graduate, if I remember. [00:13:53] Judy Douglass: Which at that time was considered the best. ++++++++++++++++ [00:13:55] Tommy Thomas: So, let's go to mentors. Someone in your life who has brought you along on this journey. The two people who had the greatest impact on my life were Bill Bright and Steve Douglass [00:14:06] Judy Douglass: Two people who've had the most impact on me. One would be Bill Bright because when I did the magazine all of a sudden I was reporting to him and some other people as well because he didn't have time to really supervise, but I did a lot of work with him planning the magazine, editing the magazine, helping him write books, helping him write the first five transferable concepts. And so those were sometimes tense times. Bill and I have one huge difference. Bill loves superlatives. Everybody was the greatest or the most talented or the best and that's the way he talked. I'm a journalist. Don't even believe superlatives are acceptable words, because nobody is the best or the greatest or anything. [00:15:02] Judy Douglass: And so, Bill would write these flowery promoting things, and I would get it and bring it back to what I thought was realism. And he would come back, and he'd say, no, and I would put a little bit more back, but not all of it. And we would go about five rounds before I didn't go back to him anymore. I just decided we'd gotten it as far as I was willing to go and as much as he really needed. But that was challenging because we didn't always agree on things and yet he was always kind and gracious to me and positive and encouraging. But more than anything, he was trusting God. I've known a lot of people who trusted God and I've read many but knew Bill very well. [00:15:58] Judy Douglass: And he trusted God more than almost more than anyone I'd ever seen. And that was a huge thing in teaching me to walk with God on a consistent basis and believe that he would lead me and give me what I needed before me. So, he was probably at that time the biggest influence spiritually in my life, the biggest mentor. The other person I would mention is Steve Douglas. Steve and I dated for five years before we got married. But we were friends and then we were dating, and it was a long time. Sometimes everybody said, give up on him. And I said, yeah. And, so I said, Lord, I'm done. [00:16:48] Judy Douglass: And the Lord said, no, wait, don’t give up. Don't quit. And so, it took five years before Steve came to a census. But the point I want to make is he was concerned that his parents had not had a good marriage. His father was an alcoholic, and he just was afraid he had too much of his father in him, which, not true, really, except for smart. He was afraid he wouldn't be a good husband as opposed to being so afraid of marriage. And he loved me. And so, from him, I learned a lot of principles of managing and leading because that's what he did. He went to Harvard. And then he came to Cru to reorganize it, which I didn't appreciate. [00:17:36] Judy Douglass: I had to move out of the president's office. But he spiritually just loved the Lord and sought him and wanted what God had for him. And then we were married for 47 years until God took him home two years ago. So just watching him live his life, lead the ministry in the 20 years he served as President. And I just learned how to work with people. He was maybe the kindest person I'd ever met. Just always responsive to people. Responsive to those who worked for him lifting them up. One of the girls that traveled with me, we were on a trip together with Steve and his assistant and we were coming home from a long international trip. And so we're all tired and she's dropping us off at our house and he says, what can I pray for you? And she says, oh, I've got a chair that's falling apart and I just need somebody to help me put it together, so pray for that. [00:18:47] Judy Douglass: He's knocking on her door with his tools in his hand and he fixed her chair and she's never forgotten it. The president, tired from a long trip, hurt her knee and went to meet it. And that would be what he was like. He was amazing with our children. He coached soccer for our older daughter for 12 years, I think maybe it was only 11, but because he wanted to be with her. Because he's naturally a coach, by the way, I've always thought if he weren't leading this ministry, he would be a coach somewhere. Also, he loved the girls that were on the soccer team. Before every game, he called each one to tell her what she would be expecting to do the next day, and his confidence that she would do a good job. [00:19:38] Judy Douglass: And he also did it so he could have opportunities to tell people about Jesus. And, he was very intentional. I'll tell you one other thing he did. I'm nice to people. I really am, but I don't go out of my way all the time. And so in our neighborhood, he would go walk in the morning and to get exercise. He'd listen to scripture on the way out and then he would pray on the way back. He would look for opportunities to meet the neighbors and talk to them. And for several years, until his body was really not working as well, he picked up trash in our neighborhood and the whole neighborhood knew what he did. [00:20:27] Judy Douglass: They didn't know who he was necessarily, but they knew, oh, he's the man who picks up the trash. I have great pictures of him. So, he's seeing, cause it's usually still dark and his pictures, his paper wrapper and a thing that holds three paper, plastic bags. So, he can put the trash in it. [00:20:49] Tommy Thomas: Wow. [00:20:49] Judy Douglass: It was amazing. I learned a lot from both of those two men. There were others, but you asked for the most. [00:20:56] Tommy Thomas: You've probably already answered this question, but maybe not - relative to team leadership, what's the most ambitious project you've ever undertaken? And how did you get your team to rally around it? [00:21:11] Judy Douglass: Two. Okay. One was starting the Worldwide Challenge. And I already basically explained, none of us really were equipped to do that job. They entered into it, and we learned and grew together, and the exciting thing is I can name one thing after another that those people are now doing so that they learned well, I learned well, we all worked together, the magazine benefited staff and their donors, and their parents and it was amazing and I am grateful. The biggest thing that I ever did was the Global Women's Leadership Forum. No, actually, the biggest thing that I did was adopt a boy, but that's another story. The Global Women's Leadership Forum, because I'd always been able to do things that I thought I could do, and others apparently thought I could. [00:22:13] Judy Douglass: I looked around a lot and noticed that again, I didn't come from an evangelical Christian background, so I didn't know any of the rules. I just saw, where are the women leading? And so, I just had it that I should see what I could do about it. I first did study and learn some things and when Steve became the U.S. Director, I suddenly had a little more beyond the magazine that was different, and I wasn't doing the magazine because I had two children by then and so I started writing to all of our mothers, encouraging them that God could still use them, even if they've got 5 children at home. [00:23:06] Judy Douglass: There were ways that the ministry could benefit from what they had to offer. And so, I wrote a book called What Can a Mother Do? And it's finding significance at home and beyond. It's still mostly a really good book, things have changed, but as my kids got older and I had a team of people, I didn't have to work all the time. They did a lot of the work, but I began to know a lot of the other women on the field and all of the women in any leadership were called senior women, as opposed to a real title so I just got to know some and grew and studied and got bold. And when Steve became President, he was willing to stand behind me. [00:23:57] Judy Douglass: And we said, we're going to have a global conference to bring together women who have shown potential to lead and help them get started at it. And we called it the global women's leadership forum. And in 2004, so we just celebrated 20 years since this happened. We brought...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/32356292
info_outline
Navigating Nonprofit Leadership: Vonna Laue on Team Dynamics and Personal Growth
07/23/2024
Navigating Nonprofit Leadership: Vonna Laue on Team Dynamics and Personal Growth
[00:00:00] Vonna Laue: One of the indicators for nonprofits that anyone who hears me speak knows that I'm always going to harp on a little bit, and that is available cash. Not just cash, because you can look at the balance sheet and see, wow, we've got $700,000 in cash. If that's what the board looks at and starts making decisions based on, you could find yourself in trouble because the available cash that I'm talking about takes that cash number, but then it subtracts two things out of there. [00:00:33] Vonna Laue: It subtracts the things that we're going to pay this week. So maybe we've got payroll coming up this week and we've got a bunch of accounts we're going to pay. I'm going to take that out of there. And I'm also going to take out any temporarily restricted funds that have been given by donors for a specific purpose. If those amounts are held in that cash number, I'm going to back those out. If you back out those two things, that $700,000 might be $200,000. And that board and those leaders are going to make significantly different decisions based on $700,000 versus $200,000. Right? That's a financial metric. ++++++++++++++++ [00:01:10] Tommy Thomas: You and I have a mutual friend, Alec Hill, former President of InterVarsity. And he wrote of some of the pain and suffering he experienced while being the President of Intervarsity. And he writes, if we pause and reflect long enough, pain is a great teacher. Our character can be transformed more through a day of suffering than a month of study. As I think about your book that's coming out here in a couple of weeks, I would imagine that played into the writing of the book. [00:01:39] Vonna Laue: You are absolutely correct. So, the book is Glad I Didn't Know, and then it's subtitled Lessons Learned Through Life's Challenges and Unexpected Blessings, so it absolutely does play into that. The premise of the book is that there are a lot of difficult things that we go through that if we'd known in advance, we would have done everything we could to avoid those, but if we had avoided those, we'd have missed out on what God had planned for us and the lessons that we learned as a result of it. [00:02:12] Vonna Laue: The flip side of that is also the unexpected blessings. And when I look at things like serving on the World Vision Board, if someone had told me in advance, you're going to be on the World Vision Board. I'd have thought, okay, I need this education and I need this experience and I need to network with this person, and I'd have totally messed it up. But I just faithfully follow one thing to the next. And so would totally agree with Alec there. And I'm glad I don't know a lot of the things that I'm going to go through. And each time we go through something, it makes it a little bit easier the next time to look back on the faithfulness of God and realize, okay, we're going to come out the other side of this and there will be blessings as a result of it, even though it's a challenge at the time. [00:03:01] Tommy Thomas: What lesson did you learn from writing this book? A real practical question. [00:03:07] Vonna Laue: Yeah. One of the things that just in the process that I learned initially, I had chapters for the whole book, and I was just going to write their life stories. And then in some discussions and some just careful consideration, I realized if I did that, it would be really easy for a reader to say, oh, that's nice for that person and dismiss it. And the applicability that it had to their lives. And so, within the book, there are 16 other contributors that all contributed a story of their life that they were glad they didn't know. And so, the encouragement there and just the lesson was if we're willing to be honest with ourselves and honest with those around us, we've all got those stories and in sharing them, there is a blessing to be had both by the giver and the receiver. [00:04:09] Vonna Laue: Tommy, I had a number of people that wrote chapters that when they submitted them said something like, I needed to do that. Or it was a blessing to me to go through this, and there were a few people that I had ideas of the stories that they would contribute because I knew specific things about their life. But all of them, I just asked them to do a story. And many of the ones that I thought the story they would do was not the story. They actually contributed. And so fun to see, just how God's orchestrated that. [00:04:45] Tommy Thomas: What's the most dangerous behavior trait that you've seen that can derail a leader's career? [00:04:54] Vonna Laue: I'm going to look at, especially those who have been leading for a long time. A few years ago, I was pondering a few of the leaders that had not finished well. And, you get, I think you use the word distinguished when you introduced me and I translated that to experienced or old, one of the two, some length of time and so as I think about that, it really hit home. Partially because of the people and the disappointment that I had in the situation, but partially because I realized I'm not in the first half of my career. And so, I want to make sure that I do what I can to finish well. And so back to your question. One of the things that really came out to me was the idea of having people speak truth into your life. The more experience we gain in leadership, the scarcer it becomes to have people who will candidly share the truth with us. With time, leaders tend to surround themselves with fewer people who are ready to speak honestly and openly with them. [00:05:51] Vonna Laue: And the longer we lead, the fewer people I find that leaders have around them that are willing to speak truth into them. We talk about being put on a pedestal. That can happen in a number of different ways. It doesn't mean we're famous. Doesn't mean we have all the glory that some of the people you would think of might have. It can happen to any leader, but we rise up far enough in our career or our organization that we just don't have as many close confidants around us that will challenge us. That will speak truth. And I think that when that happens is when people are more likely to not finish well. [00:06:38] Tommy Thomas: I'm sure. Ross Hoskins at One Hope, he says, surround yourself with people who know you better than yourself and will tell you the truth out of love. This is how we grow. [00:06:49] Vonna Laue: Amen. He just perfectly summarized what I would agree with. Perfectly. [00:06:57] Tommy Thomas: So, if you were going to write another book and this book was going to be about the burdens of leadership that only the president or the CEO can bear, what would be some of your chapter headings? [00:07:10] Vonna Laue: Have to think about that one a little bit……Chapter headings? [00:07:18] Tommy Thomas: Or topics that you think have to be talked about. [00:07:22] Vonna Laue: Yep. I think the topics definitely are similar to what was just said, choosing people that are extremely accomplished to be around you. We talk about having smarter people than you. I'm a big fan of that. I would also say working in a team. We are not as good by ourselves as we are with a team around us. And so, when you're looking at that key leadership position, you're only as good as the team that is around you. I think also you've got to have that personal and spiritual aspect to it. So encouraging leaders, I often find, and as I speak on personal leadership, when I'm at my busiest, the two things that are easiest for me to give up are my workout and my devotion time. The two things I need most when I'm busiest are my workout and my devotion time [00:08:19] Vonna Laue: The two things I need most when I'm busiest are my workout and my devotion time. And so reminding leaders that you're only as good as you are healthy. That’s really important and that's, in a number of different way,s that health spiritually that health physically and the health relationally, you know that you don't sacrifice those relationships that are closest to you because you don't get the time back. We often say I'll do that when this project is over. I'll do that when this season is over. And I think all of the people listening to this podcast probably realize there is no normal, right? We used to say when things get back to normal, I'll do this. And that hectic life that we live as Americans, I think is just normal. And so those are a few of the keys that I think are so crucial for leaders. [00:09:18] Tommy Thomas: I remember when I interviewed Rich Stearns and I'm not going to remember the person's name, but he was talking about his career at Parker Brothers, and he said that there was one of the people in the family that didn't know anything at all about toys, but he knew how to hire a team and that was what made the success of Parker Brothers was this man's ability to bring people onto the team that could lead. [00:09:41] Vonna Laue: I would fully agree with that. I mentioned that I usually am doing a lot of different things. So right now, I'm serving as the COO and CFO of an organization and director of internal audit for another one and doing some audit and advisory with a third and some projects, all of that. But the way that works is the teams that are established in each of those places. Within the team, the mission’s organization where I serve, the director of global services role that I have, that's like the COO role, that has operations and finance and personnel and IT and security, that's a lot just in and of itself, but I have four phenomenal directors. That they need encouragement. [00:10:31] Vonna Laue: They need a champion, and they need a sounding board. And as long as I can provide those things, they will do their roles far better than I ever could. In fact, I often say when you hire, you better keep them happy and keep them around because you probably can't do their job. +++++++++++++++ [00:10:50] Tommy Thomas: If you were creating a dashboard to get at a nonprofit organization's health, what would be some of your dials? [00:10:57] Vonna Laue: Oh, I love dashboards. You just spoke one of my love languages there. So, one of the things that I think is key to a dashboard is that I'm a CPA, so it has to have some financial indicators on it, right? [00:11:11] Tommy Thomas: Absolutely. [00:11:13] Vonna Laue: You have to have those. And the basic ones, you're going to have some things like where you are versus, actual. And you're gonna do some trend analysis in that a little bit, I say, this way in a church. Everybody knows it's December. What season of the year is the lowest attendance and the lowest giving season? Always summer, right? And how do we know that? It's because of trends. And so, trend information can be really helpful. So, I think that a dashboard should include trends. One of the indicators for nonprofits that anyone who hears me speak knows that I'm always going to harp on a little bit, and that is available cash. [00:12:08] Vonna Laue: So not just cash, because you can look at the balance sheet and see, wow, we've got $700,000 cash. If that's what the board looks at and starts making decisions based on, you could find yourself in trouble because the available cash that I'm talking about takes that cash number, but then it subtracts two things out of there. It subtracts the things that we're going to pay this week. So maybe we've got payroll coming up this week and we've got a bunch of accounts we're going to pay. I'm going to take that out of there. And I'm also going to take out any temporarily restricted funds that have been given by donors for a specific purpose. [00:12:46] Vonna Laue: If those amounts are held in that cash number, I'm going to back those out. If you back out those two things, that $700,000 might be $200,000. And that board and those leaders are going to make significantly different decisions based on $700,000 versus $200,000. Right? That's a financial metric. But as far as dashboards as a whole, my real encouragement there is to look at what your key drivers are. So, look at the financial pieces that you need to monitor, but also look at your non-financial and make sure that they are included in that dashboard as well. Maybe it's your turnover percentage. Maybe it's your involvement in X program. How many meals are we feeding? How many beds have we provided depending on what your program is, but that dashboard report ought to tie to whatever your strategic plan is, so the strategic things that you're looking at. Those are the guideposts of that dashboard that you're going to be monitoring to make sure that your strategic plan is being fulfilled. [00:14:00] Tommy Thomas: On a little bit lighter note, but still probably following the same track. If you were a judge on a non-profit version of the Shark Tank and people were coming to you for early-stage investments, what questions would you need solid answers to before you would open your checkbook? [00:14:18] Vonna Laue: I'm always going to want to know what their budgeting process is. Again, you’re asking an accountant. I want to understand that. I want to understand who they've vetted this with. What are the focus groups that you've talked to? Who are the mentors or coaches that have processed this with you? What are your strengths? And where you don't have strengths, who are the people that you have identified and already discussed with that are going to come around you to shore up those weaknesses, if you will. So those are a few of the things that I want to make sure that this is well thought out and it's not just the flavor of the week. [00:15:00] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to board service for a few minutes. So, you're now the chairman of the World Vision Board, or the chairperson, I guess I should say. Give us some highlights of what you've learned about the Chairman's role. I know you watched Joan for several years and watched her successes, and I'm sure lack of on some days. What have you learned there? [00:15:22] Vonna Laue: I will tell you, Tommy, when they asked me if I would consider taking the chair role, the first thing I said was, did you ask this individual? And I named someone from the Board, and they said, yes. And he serves on a couple of large for-profit boards and doesn't have the time and capacity. And I said, okay, as long as you've shown the discernment that you asked him first, we're good. But then I actually went to that individual and I said, if I do this, will you coach me? Would you be willing to debrief with me after the meetings? [00:16:01] Vonna Laue: And honestly, we just finished up meetings on Tuesday this week. And he and I have a call scheduled for Monday. And he said I'd love to do that. He graciously agreed. And so that, to me, was important. Because I didn't know the role. I had served on the board, but that role is different. And so, the relationship between the Board Chair and the CEO is obviously the most critical. We have a pretty, no, we have a very sophisticated board. I'm odd by who God has assembled in that room. And so, when I first came into it, I would say I was just trying not to embarrass myself, but they are such a gracious group of people. "To run an effective Board Meeting, I review agendas and pre-reads in advance, addressing my questions beforehand so meeting time is focused on others' concerns." [00:16:51] Vonna Laue: And it's important to me that the meetings are well run. And that means I want to see the agendas in advance and speak into those. I want to see the pre reads in advance and have gone through all of those so that if I have questions, I can answer them. I'm not asking those questions during the meeting that's reserved for others, and that those may be questions that others would have. So, let's get those addressed in the pre reads or be prepared. So, I think that the preparation that goes into the time before the meetings is critical. ++++++++++++++= [00:17:26] Tommy Thomas: So, here's a couple of quotes about boards and board chairs. And one is the Chair and the CEO must learn to dance together. And neither can stray very far from each other's gaze or proceed independently. [00:17:42] Vonna Laue: Yeah, I would agree with that. Those are two key roles in the organization. And you have to, I'll use the same analogy I used before. You better be pulling in the same direction. The Board Chair has a responsibility to be the voice on behalf of the Board, and so I feel like that's an important responsibility that it's not Vonna's opinion that I take into there. I seek wise counsel from my board and want to make sure that when I'm having conversations with my CEO, that either the board is informed about those things or that, I'm able to speak on their behalf. But on the day-to-day interactions, if you will, or week to week, those two leaders better be aligned. [00:18:30] Tommy Thomas: Another one, Dr. Rebecca Basinger. Governing boards are charged with safeguarding an institution's ability to fulfill its mission with economic vitality. To this I add, responsibility for tending to the soul of the institution. [00:18:50] Vonna Laue: In an institution like World Vision, the soul of that organization to me is very critical. And it's interesting. I chair the World Vision U. S. Board. I have the privilege of also sitting on the World Vision International Board because we are a federated model and there are World Vision offices around the world and Christ at the center is one of them. It's our foremost principle by which we operate. And, if that's not lived out in the board, the tone at the top is critical for everything. And so, I would agree that the soul of the organization starts with tone at the top. [00:19:32] Tommy Thomas: So, it's been my experience that the good news about having successful executives on the board is they're used to getting things done. The flip side is that they might have a hard time taking off their CEO hat and putting on their board member hat at a board meeting. Have you experienced that? [00:19:53] Vonna Laue: To the credit of the current board that I have at World Vision US, I would say I don't struggle with that there. There is a spirit of collaboration by God's grace that exists within there. And so, people are willing to share their experiences and their opinions, but they're not sold on them. They're very open. Have I experienced it in other boards? Absolutely. And one of the challenges that I see in the nonprofit sector, Tommy, is that there are experienced board members that come in with for profit expertise. [00:20:32] Vonna Laue: Which, 90 percent of the time, is fantastic. 10 percent of the time can be challenging because there are unique things. I say if you don't believe there are uniquenesses, go ask the local Ford dealership how many contributions they've received this month. You know what I mean? They don't get any of those, right. There are some unique things. There are some unique laws and regulations that either do apply specifically or specifically don't apply. And so in some board settings, I've seen where for profit leaders have a hard time taking off that hat and being able to understand the nuances that are involved in a nonprofit organization, but really, it comes down to the spirit of humility and service. [00:21:21] Vonna Laue: And one of the things that when you contacted me first, I believe that you couched it this way and said, would you be willing to be considered for board service at World Vision? And I tell people that I responded to you, I'm willing to be considered, let me pray about it. And that I said, that's not trying to buy time or push you off. I legitimately meant that because I think that you have to be passionate about a ministry or a nonprofit board that you're going to serve on. And if you don't have that passion for that particular organization, then you find another one that you can be, because I think that...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/32201562
info_outline
From Dairy Queen to Managing Partner in a National CPA Firm - Vonna Laue's Leadership Journey
07/16/2024
From Dairy Queen to Managing Partner in a National CPA Firm - Vonna Laue's Leadership Journey
[00:00:00] Vonna Laue: I started working when I was 13 at Dairy Queen. And if you work at a fast food restaurant, at least at that time, more than six or nine months, you're in a leadership position and you've got a crew that works with you. So I had that opportunity. And one of the biggest things looking back on it, and I didn't actually realize that until our girls got involved, but 4H was huge in my life. And at the time it was fun. I used to horse show and did a lot of the competitions at the county and state level. But when I then took our daughter to a 4H meeting and realized, wow, this is where I learned a lot of my leadership skills. They operate with Robert's rules of order and the kids run the meetings and they're elected to positions. And so I had that opportunity at a really young age. +++++++++++++ [00:00:55] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Vonna Laue. Vonna is a distinguished leader in the nonprofit sector, particularly known for her extensive work with churches and ministries. Early in her career, she served as a partner for a national CPA firm specializing in audit, tax, and advisory services for the nonprofit sector. She later took on the role as Executive Vice President at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, where she focused on enhancing trust within the church and ministry communities. Her experience is widely recognized. She has authored multiple articles, co-authored three books, frequently speaks at national and regional conferences, and in 2010, she was inducted into the Church Management Hall of Fame, underscoring her significant contributions to the field. [00:01:45] Tommy Thomas: Vonna, Welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:48] Vonna Laue: Tommy, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. [00:01:50] Tommy Thomas: I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I first met you; I don't know how many years ago it was, but, Rich Stearns, the then President of World Vision had asked me to help him find some board members. [00:02:02] Tommy Thomas: He gave me some parameters and you were the one of the ones that identified. So, I guess that was our first encounter. [00:02:12] Vonna Laue: It was and that was 2016. [00:02:14] Tommy Thomas: In the words of Crosby, Stills, Nash Young, so much water has passed underneath the bridge since then. [00:02:24] Vonna Laue: Amen to that. [00:02:26] Tommy Thomas: Let's give us a few start up questions. I'm always curious, and I don't know these things about you. Before we get too deep into your professional career, take me into your childhood. What was childhood like? [00:02:39] Vonna Laue: I always enjoy telling people that think about birth order, that I'm a fairly complicated person because I was an only child and that automatically raises some red flags for some people. [00:02:53] Vonna Laue: And then when I was eight, my parents divorced and both remarried within about a one-year timeframe, and I became a middle child in two families. So, if you're gonna play the birth order game, I'm gonna give you a lot of information to mull over in that. [00:03:09] Tommy Thomas: Where was your childhood geographically? [00:03:13] Vonna Laue: Absolutely. I grew up in South Dakota, which is one of the smallest populated states in the country. There were two stop lights in the town my mom was in and one stop light in the town my dad was in. We may get into it more, but I had the privilege of going to a Christian school. And so, I tell people there were three in my graduating high school class. It was a definitely small-town America, and everyone knew what you were doing pretty much all the time. [00:03:46] Tommy Thomas: Now we've heard these stories; Even my parents who were raised in Alabama and Georgia, they didn't have the snow part, but they had the part about walking to school five to six miles a day uphill. In South Dakota, did you have to walk to school in the snow several miles a day? [00:04:03] Vonna Laue: I walked to the bus stop, and because I went to a Christian school, we wore skirts and dresses every day. And it didn't matter if it was 20 above or 20 below. And they also didn't have snow days when I was a kid. You went to school unless it was absolutely catastrophic. So yeah, I walked to the bus stop in the snow, in a skirt, many times, every winter. [00:04:30] Tommy Thomas: Thinking back, what was the greatest gift you think your parents gave to you? [00:04:36] Vonna Laue: Actually, it was that very thing of education. When my parents, even when they were still married and we were living in a small town, they wanted me to get an education. And the best way to do that in their mind was through the local Christian school. And so, while my parents were in a mainline denomination and didn't have a relationship with Christ, that's where I went to school. And those three years and the education and the relationships that the Lord gave me there were critical for me. [00:05:09] Vonna Laue: And then when life changed drastically and over the next four years, we moved multiple times and were in different education settings. I kept begging to go back to a Christian school. And so ultimately my seventh-grade year was able to do that, in a different Christian school. And again, they agreed to that because of the education that they felt like I would receive there, but it was through that I came to Christ. So, I'm a big proponent of Christian education. And subsequently, my parents, grandparents came to Christ. They didn’t know it at the time, they weren't doing it for that reason, but that was by far the biggest gift they gave me. [00:05:50] Tommy Thomas: You turned out at least initially as a CPA, was that a dream from high school? [00:05:57] Vonna Laue: It wasn't. I don't remember, sometimes there are people that remember what they wanted to do in elementary school and that's what they did. We sponsored cadets at the Air Force Academy, and one of those wanted to be a fighter pilot from the time he was five years old, had every plane hanging in his room and to this day he is a fighter pilot. That wasn't me. I didn't have that idea when I was little. When I got into middle school, I was volunteering at a hospital and thought I'd go into nursing and then wasn't really wild about nursing. And so, when I initially started taking college classes, I thought that I would major in chemistry and physics. [00:06:37] Vonna Laue: And had a semester that I was able to go to Bible college in Minnesota and wanted to take that opportunity. I knew that I couldn't finish there, but wanted to go and take some foundational courses and take things that would transfer back to a state university in South Dakota. And when I went, one of the classes that I took was an accounting class. And I took that class and I thought, this is easy. And then I looked around and realized, not everybody in this class thinks this is easy. Maybe there's something to that. And so, it was then, and I to this day wish that I had gone back to that professor, and just let him know the way that changed the course of my career. [00:07:23] Tommy Thomas: Gosh, I remember my two accounting courses in graduate school. I couldn't say that they were easy. Probably the first one was easier. We were taught our first accounting course by the CFO of Coca Cola Bottling Company in Birmingham. He brought stuff from the office every day to the classroom at night. I think that made accounting maybe a little bit more tolerable for me. [00:07:45] Vonna Laue: Yeah. Real world application, I think does make it at least a lot more enjoyable. ++++++++++++++ [00:07:50] Tommy Thomas: What's something that people are always surprised to find out about you? [00:07:53] Vonna Laue: I usually can pull a few of those out. I would say the one I would share with you and your listeners today is, I was apparently the nation's youngest emergency medical technician and always will be because they passed a regulation not long after I got licensed, but I was 13 when I licensed as an EMT. [00:08:14] Vonna Laue: So that usually surprises people. [00:08:17] Tommy Thomas: That's a good conversation starter. [00:08:21] Vonna Laue: I thought you might like that one. [00:08:23] Tommy Thomas: So, you're out of college now. You're in accounting. Can you think back to your first management job and when you had somebody reporting to you? What can you tell us about that? [00:08:37] Vonna Laue: I'm thankful. I'm going to back up a little bit just in the leadership journey because I'm thankful for the opportunities I had even when it wasn't my career, if you will. I started working when I was 13 at Dairy Queen. And if you work at a fast-food restaurant, at least at that time, more than six or nine months, you're in a leadership position and you've got a crew that works with you. So, I had that opportunity. And one of the biggest things that looking back on it, and I didn't realize that until our girls got involved, but 4H was huge in my life. And at the time it was fun. I used to horse show and did a lot of the competitions at the county and state level. [00:09:23] Vonna Laue: But when I then took our daughter to a 4H meeting and realized, wow, this is where I learned a lot of my leadership skills. They operate with Robert's rules of order and the kids run the meetings and they're elected to positions. And so, I have that opportunity at a really young age. Obviously when I came into the CPA firm, I served there 20 years and over the course of that time, started as a staff accountant and just worked my way up from there into a senior role and a manager role, a partner role, and then ultimately when I left the firm, left as the managing partner at the time of the national firm, so a lot of opportunities and challenges along the way in that, but I think probably the biggest thing is just how important people are and the way that you treat them and the relationships that you develop with them, not in a way that you're manipulative. But in a way that you truly are investing in them, that will serve you and your organization well, but it goes with them wherever they go beyond there. [00:10:37] Vonna Laue: So I look at that as an opportunity to make an investment long-term in a person. [00:10:42] Tommy Thomas: So if we could go back to that last three or four years in the CPA world, and here you are the managing partner, and you let me come into your staff meeting one day and after about five minutes, we dismissed you and I was talking to the staff and I asked them, what's the most exciting thing about working for Vonna? What do you think they would have said? [00:11:04] Vonna Laue: It's a great and scary thought all at the same time. I think that I would take them on the people journey with me, if you will. When I left and moved from our Colorado offices to the California offices, one of the things that really blessed me was one of the staff people that I worked with said, when you traveled with Vonna, she invested in the people in the hotel. When we would go to visit the same client year after year, the hotel clerks knew her because she would take time to visit with them and invest in them. I think sometimes that was annoying to people, and sometimes it was good, but created some interesting and maybe even exciting things along the way. [00:11:52] Vonna Laue: We had a brand-new staff accountant one time, and we were driving back from an audit between Denver and Colorado Springs, and there was a wreck that happened right in front of us. And this poor staff accountant hadn't worked there for a week or two, and I pulled over and threw him the keys to the car and my cell phone and told him to call 911. And I just got out, and he had no idea what this accountant was doing. So I created some excitement, I think, just by the different ways that I would interact with people. [00:12:22] Tommy Thomas: If I flip that coin, what would they say was the most challenging aspect of working for you? [00:12:29] Vonna Laue: I tend to do a lot of different things. I think you've come to know that about me over the years, Tommy. And I try very hard to let people know that my busyness is my problem and not theirs, but I think that people often are concerned that they're a bother or they're concerned they can't get time. So, I try to work with the people closest to me frequently on how best to manage. And I'm sure that's not an easy thing. [00:13:07] Tommy Thomas: Successful people are often asked, what makes you so successful? I'd like to frame the question this way, what's a factor that's helped you succeed that people from the outside probably wouldn't be aware of? [00:13:20] Vonna Laue: I'll start off with the primary one beyond the obvious one and everyone's the Lord, right? And then, and I 100 percent agree with that. If God had only ever given me what I prayed for, I'd have sure missed out on an incredible amount of opportunity. So that is a given. Quite honestly. My husband is very instrumental in my success and a lot of people don't know that because Brian's behind the scenes and most people don't know him, but I talk about being raised in a small town and we still laugh about it to this day, but I was terrified to be around people. We went to a football game one time that had a couple thousand people at it. [00:14:08] Vonna Laue: And I said, would you go get me popcorn? And he said, you can get it yourself. And he wasn't being rude or mean. He just knew that I needed to grow. And I was like, no, I don't need it. And he's like go get your popcorn. And he just has had the foresight over the years to stretch and grow me. And now I think this year I will have probably seven international trips, have the opportunity to speak to hundreds of people at a time, just amazing opportunities and that's a big part of it. But on a personal front, I think that the key to that is being willing to be stretched. That's not easy. It's a lot easier to go with the routine, to go with the things that are known. But when you're willing to open yourself up to opportunities to be stretched, to take advantage of uncomfortable situations, you get a lot more opportunity that follows. ++++++++++++++++ [00:15:11] Tommy Thomas: I'm going to make the assumption here that you've had some good mentors in life. Can you take us down that rabbit trail? [00:15:17] Vonna Laue: I love to talk about mentoring. One of the things that I found throughout a good portion of my career was that it was really hard for me to find a mentor. And the reason that I say that is because I could find godly women who would invest in me personally and spiritually, but many of them had the perspective of a stay-at-home mom and that they didn't understand why I had the desire to have a career. I love my girls who are grown now, but always laughed that they would not have wanted me at home with them all the time because I don't care that you're two. You should be able to organize your closet by short sleeve, long sleeve, skirts, dresses, get it organized. So, I had that challenge, with those women that I wanted to speak into that portion of my life. And then when I looked for someone who professionally could invest and develop me, there was almost the opposite of that. [00:16:21] Vonna Laue: And it was, you got to give everything you have to the job. You're never going to get ahead if you try to balance family. Now, obviously both of those I'm saying to an extreme, but I just had a really difficult time for a long time finding someone who understood my faith and commitment to family, as well as my desire to be excellent in my career. And over time, I have done that. Tammy Heim has been a great mentor to me and a good balance of those things. And there have been others, but it has given me a commitment that we find that for other people. So, two things I would say, one is I have a distinction of my own between coaching and mentoring. Coaching I believe is professional in nature. [00:17:10] Vonna Laue: Men and women can work together in a coaching situation. I personally believe that mentoring often flows over into more personal aspects of your life. And it's a holistic approach to family and work and all of those things. And my idea with mentoring is that it should be the same gender, because I don't want to be talking about the difficulties I'm having at home with a male counterpart. That just isn't appropriate to me. So, I differentiate those two things based on that. And I know not everyone does, but over the last couple of years have had just the extreme privilege of starting some peer mentoring groups for young ladies. And each group is three young women in similar stages of life, but in different roles and in different organizations. [00:18:00] Vonna Laue: So, they don't come in and fix each other's problems by, oh, you need this software, or you need this vendor. They really listen and help each other problem solve. And then each group has a seasoned leader in it that can contribute maybe some of the stories that she's encountered over time, or even just to be the brakes like, but you could do that, but you might consider what could happen as a result. [00:18:25] Vonna Laue: Two years ago, we started with two of those groups, we're just wrapping up the second year with five, and next month will start 10 groups committed for the following year. So excited about the opportunity to invest in other young women. [00:18:42] Tommy Thomas: So, let me take that just a little bit further and we may come back to it later. Board service has been a big part of your life, certainly in the last 20 years. In your mentoring, are you talking to these women about board service and the pros and cons and if you serve, what's your best contribution kind of thing and trying to give them some opportunities to do that, right? [00:19:09] Vonna Laue: The first board I served on was not World Vision. I want to remind people, both young people who are getting into board service, get involved in a local community board, whether that is. I served our hospital in Colorado Springs on their governmental committee. Whether it's a local chapter of some organization, the church network and Christian Leadership Alliance served on some of those, taking the opportunities to get involved in that at a more local level and then work your way up just like you would in almost anything else you do. You don't take up woodworking and become a master craftsman overnight. You start small. So, encouraging them to do that and then encouraging boards and leaders to give young people opportunity and don't expect them to come in with 25 years of experience. [00:20:10] Vonna Laue: You open the opportunities for them to come in and the things that they will contribute to your board discussions you can't imagine. So, I'm excited about what the future looks like. [00:20:27] Tommy Thomas: So, going back to personal leadership for a minute, in the book, It's How You Play the Game: The 12 Leadership Principles of Dean Smith, leadership principle #10 is making failure your friend. Can you share something from your life where this has been in play? [00:20:45] Vonna Laue: Nobody likes to fail, but it absolutely is true and the things that you learn from that and I look back on my time as Managing Partner at the firm and what a blessing that was and how gracious those partners were with me, because I would say, at least one of my biggest failures was just in how I handled the people involved there. And I just got done saying I love people and I do, but I will say all of those leaders are incredibly successful people and, no, I don't mean anything bad by this for those that are in a professional service firm, but it is so true that it's like herding cats because they all have their own realm and their own domain. [00:21:33] Vonna Laue: And they're really good at that. And I...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/32030977
info_outline
The Art of Assembling and Leading an Orchestra - Insights from Sergey Bogza
06/27/2024
The Art of Assembling and Leading an Orchestra - Insights from Sergey Bogza
[00:00:00] Sergey Bogza: Obviously there are strengths and weaknesses in each generation. The conductor is how to utilize the strengths. Every generation brings a perspective. It's certainly a fascinating process working with the baby boomers, so to speak. The work ethic - you're going to get stuff done with baby boomers. They just know how to get stuff done, and they know how to work, and show up on time, and be diligent in their work. +++++++++++++++ [00:00:38] Tommy Thomas: Sergey delves into the unique dynamics of working with different generations within an orchestra, highlighting how he leverages the strengths of each age group while minimizing their weaknesses. He discusses the strategic process of assembling and leading an orchestra, emphasizing the importance of understanding each member's skill set before making changes. He also reflects on the balance between rigorous rehearsals and the freedom of live performances, sharing his philosophy on leadership and creativity in the fine arts. This episode is a deep dive into the art of orchestral leadership and the life lessons that come with it, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in leadership, teamwork, and the performing arts. Let’s pick up where we left off last week. [00:01:40] Tommy Thomas: I want to go to I guess how you assemble an orchestra like, and we'll just take Panama City. When you came to town you had a group of people that I suppose were members of the symphony. How do you build the team? Did you have to go out and bring new people in? Did you have to release some that weren't up to what you thought might be possible? [00:02:07] Sergey Bogza: Right? There's a little bit of both. And what I didn't want to do is to be a one-chapter hero or a one act hero act, or I don't know the best way to describe it. And it all started with, first of all, trying to understand everyone's skill set and not making any changes right away. I wanted to become an informed, compassionate leader first, before initiating any changes, before releasing anyone, before recruiting anyone. I wanted to give everyone a fair shot. [00:02:54] Sergey Bogza: I also wanted to give myself a fair shot of getting a clear understanding of where we are as an orchestra from a leadership perspective, from talent depth, and get a few concerts under my belt to see here's where we are and to be able to assess and get a clear understanding of where we are as an orchestra. And then only after that, start making strategic decisions. How do we become a better orchestra? So, the first three, four or five months I was in the data collection phase of talking to people, interviewing orchestra members, and having chamber concerts with selected orchestra musicians. And after I got a clear picture of where we were, only after that, we started making strategic moves, whether it was by way of an audition, or by way of closely working with people. [00:04:00] Tommy Thomas: I want to ask you an innovative kind of question, as it relates to the orchestra. Is there room for the orchestra members to innovate or be creative, or is that pretty much in the hands of the conductor? [00:04:17] Sergey Bogza: It's a little bit of both, frankly. And it's more on the conductor. The conductor will shape more, for example, with a piece that the orchestra has never done, or with a brand-new work that nobody knows. A world premiere. It's the conductor that has a thing called the score where everyone's parts are in it and the role of the conductor is to take all of that data and assimilate it into a vision and then communicate that vision to the musicians or traditional works. For example, classical works that everybody has played. It is a much more collaborative process. Everybody brings something to the table. It’s a collaborative process and they offer and then we kind of mold together into one vision that we present to the audience. So, it's a little bit of both. If I'm being 100 percent honest. [00:05:17] Tommy Thomas: Over the years, you've worked with people from probably the boomer generation, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z. Have you noticed any differences in the generations in terms of when it comes to working together as a team. Is there any group that does it better or any group that says, no, we're not going there? Or am I being too general? [00:05:42] Sergey Bogza: No, I don't think you're being too general. I suppose in my position, especially in the world of fine arts, you work with all groups of people. And I would say that the four groups that you've described have some similarities. There are some overlaps. Obviously there are strengths and weaknesses in each generation. The conductor is how to utilize the strengths that every generation brings and perspectives. It's certainly a fascinating process working with the baby boomers, so to speak. The work ethic - you're going to get stuff done with baby boomers. They just know how to get stuff done, and they know how to work, and show up on time, and be diligent in their work. But there is also value in millennials and Gen Xers. In our family, my brothers and sisters span about 20 years. So, I've got a chance to get to know each of those generations quite intimately. +++++++++++++++ [00:07:04] Tommy Thomas: If y'all invited me to one of your practice sessions and after a while I convinced you to let me have some time alone with the orchestra. And I asked them two questions. I'd like your response. What would they say is the most challenging aspect of working with you? [00:07:24] Sergey Bogza: That I'm too punctual during the process. But too free during the performance. [00:07:34] Tommy Thomas: You want to unpack that a little bit. [00:07:36] Sergey Bogza: Sure. Probably during our rehearsal some musicians would probably criticize and say that it's too surgical work, that it's too detailed and too punctual, and we're going to start here. We're going to end there. And now we're going to take a break and now we're going to work on this and now we're going to work on that. And it's very, it's super structured and organized and buttoned up. But when the performance comes, I'm a free man and people will say hold on, we've done this punctual work and then it comes to the performance and then we just sail free and the performance and the sailing free can feel sometimes a little dangerous or on the edge. [00:08:29] Sergey Bogza: And that's what I live for. That edge in the performance. I feel I can be free in the performance, but for the musicians, they want to keep some of that structure that we've had in rehearsals. So as a leader, I'm still learning how to balance those, how to put the group together and give it that freedom, but not for us to fly during the performance. But not to fly dangerously, I love to fly dangerously during performances. It’s what I live for, but it's not always to everyone's comfort level. [00:09:03] Tommy Thomas: But you couldn't mean you couldn't have that comfort. I don't imagine if you hadn't gone through all the rigor of what you just described in the first two or three minutes of this piece that you've practiced. I've heard basketball coaches say that the ball games are won in the practice session. Dean Smith used to say that at Chapel Hill, they won or lost before we got to the game. [00:09:25] Sergey Bogza: 100%. And that's my philosophy. We set the boundaries, or we set the structure during the rehearsals, but in the performance, we just fly. And sometimes I like to fly too dangerously in performances. And so that's probably if, when it comes to some of the criticism of musicians, that's probably one of the things that would say is that, things that we thought were all going to be this loud in rehearsal are now twice as loud in the performance because a spirit has taken over or some things we thought that we were going to take play this fast in rehearsal are now a little slower in performance or now a little faster in performance. But in the performance, you adjust to the spirit of the night rather than the spirit of rehearsal. And that is where the magic happens in performances. And I've always felt that I'm a much better performer than in rehearsal. As a coach in rehearsals, I tend to be too tedious, too formulaic. [00:10:39] Sergey Bogza: And then like a switch happens when there's an audience and I can't help but to be free. After all, it's what everybody else came to see. They came for the magic, for the wonder of music. And if we perform where the scenes are seen, where the work that the orchestra has put is obvious, where people can see the effort, we've missed the mark. It needs to feel effortless. When you fly too dangerously, it's sometimes uncomfortable to some people, but it's what we do. [00:11:28] Tommy Thomas: So, on the flip side, what would they say would be the most rewarding part of being a member of your symphony? [00:11:37] Sergey Bogza: The rewarding part, whether it's working with the symphony, the board or other musicians is that we complete projects that we start. And we don't take on projects that have a low chance of success. When we get together and we agree to do something, the majority of cases people know one way or another, this project will cross the finish line. And I think for most people, it's a rewarding aspect. How many times have people started something and never completed it because of the determination factor that didn't come through or somebody else didn't complete a portion of their role with the symphony? We like to do projects that we have a good feeling that we're going to complete. [00:12:36] Sergey Bogza: And when working with the symphony, whether we do concerts or music education projects, our goal, and in most cases when the people sign up, they internally know that this project will cross the finish line. And instilling that confidence that what we work on will be presented eventually, it will complete. This is not a vanity project that will just patter out because of lack of focus or lack of enthusiasm. I think it's what gets people going and people are willing to contribute so much more when there's this confidence that we will cross the finish line together. [00:13:23] Tommy Thomas: A quick question, maybe two, about the pandemic. I can't even imagine what the pandemic was like for an orchestra or a symphony. And then maybe the second question, what did you get out of the pandemic that's a lesson that you can take forward? What was the silver lining? [00:13:41] Sergey Bogza: Time is valuable, and time is fleeing. That's what I took away from the pandemic. And for me, I remember even before the pandemic, people would often say, if I had the time, I would learn a new language. I would travel. I would spend more time. I would learn a new skill. I would discover composers I've never heard before. And then the pandemic happened. And people have all this time and to my surprise, more often than not, whatever people said they wanted to do when they had the time, people didn't pursue those things for one reason or another. So, my thought was like, okay, you must make the time. [00:14:33] Sergey Bogza: One must find the way to achieve your dreams. Because as I've said, during the pandemic, everybody had so much time on their hands to develop new skills, whatever, to achieve some portion of their dreams, but utilizing time to your best advantage is a skill. Probably the time I've learned from the pandemic is that time is valuable. You never get it back. So might as well utilize it to the best of your advantage and use it for your own or your good and to do something valuable with it. That's the lesson I took away from that pandemic. [00:15:11] Tommy Thomas: It is said that we learn most from our failures. If that's the case, why are most of us so afraid to fail? [00:15:33] Sergey Bogza: I'm trying to give an answer to this, but I'm having a hard time coming up with the right answer because strangely I've got used to failure. It's part of my DNA and I suppose I'm not afraid of failure. I hope it's not coming off, sounding too proud. But I wish more people would take on projects that would make them scared. There's so much reward on the other side and embracing, I don't know, maybe it's getting comfortable with fear. [00:16:13] Sergey Bogza: Once one finds a way to be comfortable with fear, whether it's fear of public speaking, of doing something difficult, of doing something where you might embarrass yourself, there's such a reward and beauty on the other side when you can talk to that version of yourself that is fearful. It's the reason why I feel I've taken up endurance sports. During the endurance run, I always come across that weak, pathetic version of Sergey that says, go home, practice your piano. Why are you here in the middle of the mountains running? Your knee hurts. Your head hurts. You're a musician after all. What are you doing here? And when one meets that, and gets to understand those evil thoughts of one's weak, pathetic version of themselves, and one gets comfortable with that part of yourself, and one learns how to have that conversation, that I know that voice. Whether it's music or any other field that says maybe this is not for you, maybe you don't belong at this level, you're not meant to achieve these things. And one learns how to confront that and have an honest conversation, or at least be on equal terms. There's so much freedom on the other side of fear. ++++++++++++++++= [00:17:58] Tommy Thomas: I'd like you to respond to a few quotes. This is always a fun part of the podcast to me. And here's one that would certainly be in your area. It's from Ben Zander, the Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. He says the conductor doesn't make a sound. The conductor's power depends upon his or her ability to make other people powerful. [00:18:22] Sergey Bogza: I could not agree more. Adding anything to that quote would be taking away from it. [00:18:35] Tommy Thomas: Here's another one. No matter what job you have in life, your success will be determined 5 percent by your credentials, 15 percent by your professional experiences, and 80 percent by your communication skills. [00:18:54] Sergey Bogza: I have no response except to say, keep them coming. Those are wonderful quotes. Communication is, I suppose everything. And in a world of conductors, where we make no sound at all, and we communicate without gestures, with our eyes, where we communicate nonverbally, where we communicate how we dress, how we look at people, our postures, our demeanor, our facial expressions. Our orchestras often say within 10 seconds of the conductor on the podium, even before they give the first cue to start, we know the type of person they are. And if we're going to have a successful concert. [00:19:48] Tommy Thomas: Phil Jackson, the former coach of the Lakers, the strength of the team is each member. The strength of each member is the team. Another one. No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it. [00:20:14] Sergey Bogza: That is true. Wow, these are wonderful quotes. Keep them coming because I feel like I've just become a student. And I'm learning. There's no response to that. This is beautiful. These are beautiful quotes. And yeah, they apply to orchestras, just like any business or any organization that requires a team to make it tick and work. Another athletic quote from Casey Stengel. Getting good players is easy. Getting them to play together is the hard part. [00:20:53] Sergey Bogza: I have something to say about that. In the musical world, and especially in a professional orchestra, where you're not learning, when you're not working with amateurs, when you're working with people that have years and years of training, and to be in a music world there's no way you cannot have an ego to get on stage, to pick up an instrument, to make a sound and to have that confidence. I have something valuable for people to listen to that takes a certain amount of conviction and takes a certain amount of ego in the best sense of that word. Now, when you get 65 musicians that have that pedigree, that have that background, and to mold all of that into a group, that is tricky, that is difficult. [00:21:52] Sergey Bogza: And that is where quality of leadership is essentially determined. I have had a friend who said, you don't really know how good of a conductor you are until you've truly worked with a professional orchestra. It's easy as a conductor or a coach to work with. I don't want to say it's easy. It's a different ball game. If you're working with, say undeveloped talent, where you have to do drills and you have to instill the basics. But when you're working with professionals who have done it, who know the business, who know how it goes, when on the first go around the orchestra is sounding amazing, when you don't need to point out little deficiencies, when you no longer need to correct wrong notes, wrong rhythms, or the orchestra is not together, when the product is great from the get go, that's when you really learn the kind of leader you are and the depth of your conducting abilities. [00:23:06] Sergey Bogza: Because then you really must give the magic, then you must give the musical leadership, the intentions behind the music, the spirit of it, you have to inspire a great product of what you're already getting that's wonderful. And that's when you really learn what level of a musician you are. Are you an artist or you are a drill sergeant or you're a basic conductor that just knows the basics? That's the tricky part. It's when you get a well-oiled machine. For example, when I grew up, I loved basketball. And in the mid 90s, of course, it was the Chicago Bulls. [00:23:50] Sergey Bogza: Imagine becoming a coach of a team like that. Winning championships, we've got the best player in the world, you've got the best synergy and your goal as a coach to drive that, to give them something even more, we're not coaching a team that's losing every other game, where you get the best team and your goal is to continue that energy and to elevate it. That's where you really learn who you are as a leader and as a coach. [00:24:29] Tommy Thomas: Here's a different kind of quote. If you never color outside the lines, the picture will never change. [00:24:38] Sergey Bogza: Yeah. And in the world of music, when you're working with works that have been composed 200 years ago, 300 years ago, 100 years ago, that have become staple in our repertoire world, works that everyone has, everyone knows. And when they come to a concert and you're performing that piece, the conductor's role is to color outside the lines, to give those works a new perspective, a new life. And in that sense would have missed the point by coloring inside the lines. We'll close out with a couple of, two, three lightning round questions. The first one, have you changed in the last five years? [00:25:29] Sergey Bogza: Oh, yes. I think I'm a different person than I was five years ago. I'd like to say that I'm a more patient and sympathetic person. And I give that credit to my two dogs, Samson and Stella. I've become a dog owner in the last five years. It's a new area of life that I've discovered and taking care of two animals daily has changed who I am as a person. That's one of the things I wish I had done earlier in my life, is to become a pet owner. [00:26:21] Tommy Thomas: If you could meet any historical figure and ask them only one question, who would it be and what would you ask? [00:26:40] Sergey Bogza: It would be the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. And the question I would ask him is, where did you find the energy and the meaning to carry on? [00:27:02] Tommy Thomas: Final question, what's the best piece of advice anybody's ever given you? [00:27:09] Sergey...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/31917972
info_outline
From Immigrant to Maestro: Sergey Bogza's Musical Journey
06/18/2024
From Immigrant to Maestro: Sergey Bogza's Musical Journey
[00:00:00] Sergey Bogza: In Russia, before you went to first grade, it was the parent's responsibility, at least that's what my mom said, for her to teach us how to read and write and know multiplication tables up to 12. So, a first grader starting school knows how to read, write, and knows multiplication up to 12. And so, the entire summer preparing for school exams was my mom drilling me on how to write cursive, how to read, and drilling on multiplication tables. And then there was a time where you have to go and pass the exam and they identified your placement. And I remember it was a hundred percent or one mistake that I made and the sense of accomplishment. After four months of just mom working with you every day, just passing with flying colors. I remember that being such a validation of the efforts that you've put in. +++++++++++++ [00:02:51] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Sergey Bogza, Conductor and Music Director of the Panama City Symphony. When you talk with Sergey, the conversation could go a lot of ways. We could talk about how he excels as an endurance athlete, regularly competing in ultra marathons and long-distance bike rides. We could talk about his proficiency in the kitchen, as it relates to Slavic cuisine. Or we can talk about his two dogs, Sampson and Stella, and how they help him train for his endurance feats. We'll have to leave those topics for another day, because today I want to talk with him about his love for music and his journey from immigrating to the United States in 1995 to becoming the Conductor and Music Director of the Panama City Symphony. [00:03:40] Tommy Thomas: Welcome to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:03:42] Sergey Bogza:: Thank you for having me. [00:03:45] Tommy Thomas: One of the benefits that I've derived from being a Rotarian is the good speakers we have. And I remember you speaking to our club in Panama City, probably a year and a half or so ago back when we met at the Yacht Club. A lot of times my listeners want to know how I get these guests. And that's how I got Sergey. Before we dig too much into your professional career I'd like to go back to your childhood. I know you're an immigrant. Can you tell us a little bit about that story? [00:04:14] Sergey Bogza: Sure. We moved to the United States in 1995. This was just a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union. My dad had a big family, and he wasn't sure of what the future might be, and he didn't see a lot of opportunities. Mid 90s in Russia was a tough time and when the borders opened and we had a chance to immigrate to the land of milk and honey and opportunity, even though we've never been, my dad took a risk and moved us to the United States. And it's one of the things that we're always grateful to him, to our mom for taking that chance and giving us the opportunity of making a life here in America. [00:05:04] Tommy Thomas: When I talk to someone who immigrated, I have a hard enough time with English as a native speaker. Did you speak English fluently when you came? [00:05:13] Sergey Bogza: Oh, no. Zero. [00:05:16] Tommy Thomas: What grade would you have been? Were you a bit in school by then or just starting? [00:05:21] Sergey Bogza: I was nine when I moved to the United States. And I was completing second grade in Russia. And when we immigrated to the United States, they ran all the tests. And zero English, but, geography, math, arithmetic. It was pretty advanced in the way I was doing it. So, they put me in fourth grade. I was supposed to finish second grade in Russia. We moved to the United States and I ended up finishing fourth grade, so I got a clear leap. [00:05:55] Tommy Thomas: What's your happiest memory of childhood? [00:06:01] Sergey Bogza: Happy childhood in Russia, let me think. [00:06:04] Tommy Thomas: Or you could do it post nine-year-old. [00:06:07] Sergey Bogza: I think probably two happiest memories that I can think of is in Russia, before you went to first grade, it was the parent's responsibility, at least that's what my mom said, for her to teach us how to read and write and know multiplication tables up to 12. So, a first grader starting school knows how to read, write, and knows multiplication up to 12. And so, the entire summer preparing for school exams was my mom drilling me on how to write cursive, how to read, and drilling on multiplication tables. And then there was a time where you had to go and pass the exam and they identified your placement. [00:07:01] Sergey Bogza: And I remember it was a hundred percent or one mistake that I made and the sense of accomplishment. After four months of just mom working with you every day, just getting passing with flying colors. I remember that being such a validation of the efforts that you've put in. And probably another memorable experience was that in Russia, I don't know why, but it was important that you learn and memorize poetry of great literary figures. And somehow there was always time we had to learn these long poems, memorize them, but in addition to that, when our parents had guests come over, we would be put on a chair and had to recite those poems from memory with intention and delivery. [00:07:59] Sergey Bogza: And there was one time I remember reciting a poem, I forget what it was, but I started it, and it made an impression, but as I kept going, I noticed people started losing interest, and I remember adjusting my delivery to, as a kid, this was happening on such a subconscious level, and having the audience turned around going from uninterested to, oh, he has something to say. I just remember that being a powerful experience as a child, how you deliver things, how you say things makes an impression. So yeah, it's stored somewhere way out there in the back of your brain. But those two things I remember vividly from my childhood, making kind of an obsession making an impression on me. ++++++++++++++ [00:08:49] Tommy Thomas: Now, was music a part of your upbringing in Russia, or did that happen once y'all got to the States? [00:08:56] Sergey Bogza: That happened when we got to the States, but when my parents got together with friends, the guitar and community singing was always part of it. It's almost like a Slavic culture that when people got together, the guitar or piano was present. People sang folk songs or religious songs, whatever it might be. So, music was always around, but it only started as a formal training once we got to the United States. [00:09:26] Tommy Thomas: Can you describe your high school experience in three words? [00:09:32] Sergey Bogza: High school experience in three words: musical, tedious and focused. Tommy Thomas: And was that because of the home emphasis or by that time, had you gotten into the classroom and that had become a part of your career path, so to speak? [00:09:53] Sergey Bogza: By the time I got to high school, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. So, I was in two different bands. I was also in singing and choir. So, it was a musical experience in high school, tedious, because I have to go to these classes that I had no interest in, but still get good grades. So, I can get a scholarship and focus is the word I use because I knew what I wanted to do in high school, or I wanted to know what I was going to do with my life post high school. So, it was a matter of just, I need to finish these four years, I need to graduate, and I need to stay focused, get good grades, and get my musical training, continue with my piano lessons, sing in choirs, and play trumpet in a band. But at the same time, I had to go to these classes that I just had little interest in. So that monotony and tedious was, it's the reason I use that word to describe the high school experience. [00:10:55] Tommy Thomas: What is something that people are always surprised to find out about you? [00:11:04] Sergey Bogza: There are things besides music that I love and enjoy. [00:11:09] Tommy Thomas: Thus, our segue from our intro and I wish we had time to get into some of that, but we'll hold back a little bit. Obviously, you got comfortable in your leadership skin early in life. I liked that story about telling the poem. I think that even in elementary school it said something about your stage presence and how you were comfortable in that format. Successful people are always asked what makes you so successful. I like to frame the question this way. What's a factor that's helped you succeed that most people on the outside wouldn't realize or recognize? [00:11:49] Sergey Bogza: Wow. That's a great question. And the world of art is a unique world. And sometimes when people look at artists or musicians, they usually catch them when they're doing their art on stage. They catch them when they're doing the 2%, the final product, the performance, when there's this flair, flow, artistry, dashing gestures. And things are just happening. You're in a state of ecstasy. When people see musicians, they catch them at that moment. But what people don't often see is the 98%. The sort of the monotonous work, the planning, the staging, the details. And if I were just to answer that question as to what people don't realize, or what makes it successful is the attention to detail that makes those 2 percent feel like magic. [00:13:01] Sergey Bogza: That's the tricky part of being an artist. What you showcase to people and what you share with people is just a fraction of all the work, the monotony, the tedious, the details, the reworking things, the 50 different drafts that you come up with that nobody will ever see. And all of that is at the service of making that 1%, the 2 percent of the time that you share with the audience to feel like magic, freedom, exploration of the divine, to make your art have a feeling of divineness to it. That's the tricky part. That's what I think most people don't realize. And people will always say obviously that is talent. That's a born talent that you were given by God. And no way. If you knew what this so-called talent has gone through, you would call it maybe craftsmanship, you would call it just stubbornness. There's so many other words to call what people describe as talent, but that's what I would say is the, in other words, you have a view of the forest. [00:14:25] Sergey Bogza: But you know the little details and you don't get the little details yet. Forest, but you have us, but you also know the details that contribute to the feeling of the forest and that I'm probably not summarizing this very well, but that's the general feel of the process there. [00:14:44] Tommy Thomas: I guess you would say that some people come to you in the orchestra or the symphony with more talent than others. I realize it's a high bar to get there in the beginning. In the NBA, even the substitutes are pretty good. Yeah, I'm trying to get my head around the natural talent or the person that just seems to have been born with it. And you say most of it is hard work. [00:15:12] Sergey Bogza Natural. Yeah, natural talent is not enough. It is not enough. And what often happens when people just ride on natural talent eventually comes to an end. There is a cap to natural talent, regardless of how talented one is, difficult times will come. And in the world of art, you are working with masterworks masterpieces. Works of Mozart’s of this world. These were geniuses that have given us. [00:15:46] Sergey Bogza: And when you work with that type of level of artistry, no natural talent will suffice. Yes, it's great when you have that natural intuition for certain elements, but the building of the technique, the building of the process, putting concerts together, finding a way to communicate your art to the general audience, to the general public. That is work, and that is craftsmanship. Probably one of my favorite quotes of Johann Sebastian Bach, a man with a talent and a genius, but he described himself as a craftsman, someone who has learned the art of crafting counterpoint of writing 30 minutes of music a week to present at the church services where he worked. So, a combination of talent and craftsmanship is what makes one successful. +++++++++++++++ [00:16:53] Tommy Thomas: Aside from your mom, have you had mentors in your life? [00:16:58] Sergey Bogza: I don't have that one mentor that stayed in my life throughout many years. My life mentors came and went depending on the season of my career or of my musical training or my musical evolution. So, I've had mentors that came for a period, and they guided me through that process. Then there was another stage that came where somebody else would come up. Mentors would emerge from time to guide me in whatever stage of a musical development I was in. [00:17:33] Tommy Thomas: Now did they see you and come along besides you, or did you recognize that you probably needed some tutelage in that area? [00:17:44] Sergey Bogza: They emerged. There's that quote that says, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And so, for me, it was that a new phase of my career had entered and somehow God sent a mentor to appear, whether it was by way of a friendship or a meeting. I've always been blessed with people coming into my life at the right moment. And I don't know why it's happening like this or why it has happened or turned out that way. But I'm forever grateful for the variety of mentors that have been present in my life. [00:18:27] Tommy Thomas: So, I'm going to maybe use the metaphor that an orchestra or symphony is a team at some level. I'd like to go into an ambitious project. What's the most ambitious thing you and your symphony or orchestra have ever undertaken? And how did you get the team to come around you? [00:18:49] Sergey Bogza: I think probably the most ambitious project that I've ever done was my doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota. I don't know of anyone who's ever done a project like this. The majority of times when you're getting your Doctor of Musical Arts, you'll write a paper and then you would conduct a concert, a shorter concert. What I've decided to do is to do a transcription of Richard Strauss tone poem, Don Quixote, which was originally written for about a hundred musicians. And I wanted to distill it to about 16 to 17 musicians. So rewrite the entire piece that was written for a large orchestra, one of the great tone poems, distill it for 17 musicians, perform it in three different venues so I can get the acoustics feel for three different performances work with 17 talented musicians, hire a videographer, hire a photographer to capture this, and then based on all of that, rewrite the piece one more time. [00:20:00] Sergey Bogza: So that way I would have something that I could sell, present, or rent for other orchestras to use. So that way other organizations that don't have a hundred-piece orchestra could use a chamber version of it. And so, when you're young and you've never done anything like this before, it can be really tricky and it was a difficult project and maybe to answer the question of how did we get the orchestra or in this case, chamber orchestra to pull this project off. And the answer to that is, in this case, the leader, me, in this case, had to be 100 percent sold on the project and to provide leadership in all the areas of that project, whether it was musical, logistical, advertising leadership, novelty leadership. This was a novel project that we've done and probably in a span of three months of putting it all together. [00:21:14] Sergey Bogza: The amount of life lessons I've learned on how to be a leader in difficult situations. There were times where I wanted to call the university and say, I'm done with this project. I don't want to do this anymore. This is too difficult. But we followed through. We did the difficult stuff. There were opportunities to give up at every corner. But when it was all said and done, and then the dust settled, I really felt like I had a kind of a breaking moment, like I've entered a new level in my leadership skills and I was able to see, as I've described earlier, having a big picture. [00:22:06] Sergey Bogza: But then also knowing all the small nuances and details and how they play into the big picture presentation and that ability going between big picture, small details, big picture, small details, and having that fluidity. And never losing the big picture for whatever little, small problems that come across was what made that project so successful, not only to that, but then to also commit clear communication to everyone involved of how those details are contributing to our eventual success in this project. [00:22:49] Tommy Thomas: So, when you recruited your chamber members, were you recruiting peers in your mind? Were you recruiting maestros who might've been beyond you perhaps in their level? [00:23:03] Sergey Bogza: No, I was recruiting peers. It was a peer orchestra. I was working with people who are my age. Students at the University of Minnesota. So, this was working with the professional musicians who just had years and years of experience. We were all doing it for the first time. Like we were developing a prototype, so to speak, a company prototype. And so, we were all new to this. And even though we were all new, I was the leader. I have to guide people who are new to this. But also, I was new to this. So, it's okay, how do you navigate this? How do you keep the band together, so to speak, and not lose anyone, even though you are walking with a group in uncharted territory? How do you find a way to inspire them and to not lose focus to the very end of the finish line? [00:24:08] Tommy Thomas: But go to your having done this in a much different way, but having put together a doctoral dissertation and having to sell it to the committee. Did you have to sell this to the committee as something new or were they excited that you were going to break some new ground? [00:24:26] Sergey Bogza: Oh yeah, there was, I knew that this was something different. I did have to convince a lot of people of the validity or why this project is important. Because frankly what I didn't want to do as a musician or as a conductor is to spend hundreds and hundreds of hours in front of a computer screen typing up a dissertation or doing a research project. I wanted it to be a hands-on experience of working with musicians, writing this new arrangement, reserving a variety of venues, and advertising to get the public to come to these performances. It was a new project. And thankfully when it was all said and done, I had a product, I had a musical project that I was able to advertise and give it to other people. And a variety of orchestras have hired that arrangement. And so, I just feel so thankful for having gone through that because whereas had I gone the traditional route, my dissertation would be collecting dust at some libraries, bookshelves, forever forgotten, but I have a project, a dissertation that is in circulation that are people finding useful, that there's a market for it. [00:25:46] Sergey Bogza: And obviously it has worked out now. I didn't know it was going to work out. I thought it might be successful. It might completely fall through. And the committee would come back and say, redo the whole thing. We want to see a 30-page paper, but now to be a success. And it was a gamble. It was a risk-taking adventure and I'm glad it all worked out. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:26:08] Tommy Thomas: Next week, we continue the conversation with Sergey Bogza, where Sergey delves into the intricacies of assembling and leading an orchestra. He also shares his approach to understanding each member's skill set, making strategic decisions, and balancing the structured rigor of rehearsals with the freedom of a live performance. Anyone who might've thought, what can we learn about nonprofit leadership from a symphony director will not want to miss this episode. Links and Resources – What...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/31756573
info_outline
From Homelessness to Home Ownership - Karen Marsdale's Mission at Hannah's Hope
06/04/2024
From Homelessness to Home Ownership - Karen Marsdale's Mission at Hannah's Hope
[00:00:00] Karen Marsdale: I might be a little bit averse to risks, but because I learned so early on by being really naive and thinking that my husband and I could run a business that really needed a lot more cash flow and ready cash that we just didn't have. [00:00:13] Karen Marsdale: But because I failed and from that failure, we created success. And when I say success, we were able to get back on track and work hard and buy a house and send our kids to college. And, that early failure made me feel that if I could do that and come back from it, I'm not really afraid to fail. [00:00:38] Tommy Thomas: This week, we're resuming the conversation we started last week with Karen Marsdale, the co-director of Hannah's Hope in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Hannah’s Hope is dedicated to helping women with children who are facing homelessness in Berks County. The primary focus is on women, who despite their current situation, sheltered potential and determination to rebuild their lives. Karen will also explain how she and her co-director have split senior leadership duties to play to their individual strengths. While this sometimes leads to complications, it's working wonderfully at Hannah's Hope. Let's pick up where we left off last week. [00:01:25] Tommy Thomas: Give us a thumbnail sketch of Hannah's Hope and the trust that y'all have there in Berks County. [00:01:31] Karen Marsdale: Okay, so I'm just going to give a little bit of an educational piece here for about two minutes in the world of homelessness. And we see it of course now. It's front and center everywhere we go in terms of, media or, in seeing people on the street. There's a continuum of homelessness. [00:01:51] Karen Marsdale: And we teach people all the time that when you see one homeless person, there are people in the continuum that are chronically homeless. Those might be people who are addicted and they don't want to give up their addiction. They're going to be on the street. They're going to be in tent camps. [00:02:06] Karen Marsdale: They're not going to be moved into the next .They're not somebody who has had one thing happen. And now they have become homeless. Then you have people who are homeless because of an incident or something that's happened in their life and they need a certain amount of care. [00:02:23] Karen Marsdale: What we do at Hannah's is very focused on women with children who are in that place where they have abilities. And we have a very robust application process, three interviews. One of the interviews usually encompasses our trauma therapist, because she's getting from the where is this person in their mental health? [00:02:48] Karen Marsdale: How do we check their mental health? We look at where they've been in terms of, have they ever had a job? So women that come to us and I say this, and it might sound a bit on feeling, but we're looking for women who you would say would be the advanced placement or the A+ women who find themselves in a homeless situation who really have the ability, the grit. [00:03:12] Karen Marsdale: And again, when I say ability, it's not just the want to, but do they have the ability to learn skills that can help them to get a a job or go to classes that they can get training, some sort of basic training so that they can get a living wage job. So our goal is to take women for 12 to 18 months, teach them life skills. [00:03:35] Karen Marsdale: Business skills, all the skills that they need. It can be things like even how to clean, how to cook. Essentially they might not have some of these skills, but they have some of them and they've not learned all of them. But we want to get them to a place ultimately where they can live independently for the rest of their lives with their children without necessarily having a mate. And one of the biggest problems that we see, particularly with women with children, and this is why there's domestic violence and abuse, is the fact that they've never had the background, or they've never had the family environment where they've been loved, nurtured, and cared for. [00:04:24] Karen Marsdale: So they're always looking for love, as the saying goes, in all the wrong places. And it really, in the world of trauma, is called a trauma bond. So when people say, why does she keep going back to a domestic issue? It's because that's a bond she has, and to some degree, a woman feels comfortable there. [00:04:42] Karen Marsdale: And she very well could have seen her mother, her grandmother. It is now generational, probably three generations of homelessness. And when I say homelessness, it's, it could be, I'm living with an aunt. I'm living with somebody who acts as a relative in the Hispanic community, especially which we deal with a great deal of, there's always these extended family people who are not really relatives. [00:05:07] Karen Marsdale: So I'm living on my aunt's couch. I'm living with my cousin. That is homelessness. So they may have been living that way, all their lives with a parent. So we're very selective. If a woman has an addiction issue, we are not a facility to be able to help them with that. [00:05:28] Karen Marsdale: We try to guide them to the right places in our community, but we have a very narrow band of what we're looking for in Hannah's Hope, because we really want you to be a success, and we're looking for those who can be successful. So it's vetting. It's a vetting process. I like to say, and when I talk briefly about this, I'll say, three women in the past 12 months have bought their own homes. [00:05:52] Karen Marsdale: And these are women who would say, I never thought I could even own a car. Or even get a license. Our program is, like I said, it's very robust. They have to be in programming four nights a week, in other words, classes, budgeting, parenting, trauma therapy, Bible study, and spiritual growth. [00:06:16] Karen Marsdale: And then there's always things going on beyond that. They have responsibilities like cooking for the house. So that could be up to 18 to 20 people that they're cooking for a couple times a month. Taking turns, they have to clean, they have to clean the entire home, which is two levels. [00:06:32] Karen Marsdale: It's not easy. And then they have to go to work and then they have to be in class and their children are in classes. We feel that one of the problems in the whole shelter movement that has happened is sometimes it's been more about the women than the children. [00:06:50] Karen Marsdale: So children are just drug along and they're in as much trauma as the parent. So we help the children if they need extra services through school or through some of the resources in the community. We just had a little guy who came in who was nonverbal. He is now getting extra help. [00:07:07] Karen Marsdale: We found out he was actually tongue tied, literally. So he has to have the tongue snipped to be able to really speak. And he's doing fabulously. But I would say in most shelters, he would just be sitting in the room, maybe going to get daycare or whatever, but he wouldn't have a case manager, at his age. [00:07:27] Karen Marsdale: So we try to, because every child that comes to us is always below what they should be in terms of their age range. So they're navigating and learning at a much lower level than they should be. And that's just because they've been homeless and drugged from one couch to another for their lifetime. [00:07:46] Tommy Thomas: In your current work and probably back at the chamber you had some experience in developing the next generation of leaders. Give me, from your perspective, give me some keys to bringing this next generation along. [00:07:59] Karen Marsdale: That's a good question. And, again there's I think I, this was just intuitively who I was. [00:08:08] Karen Marsdale: I want to give opportunity to folks, and particularly in the work I've done, it's been primarily women, although I've had men who've worked under me. I want people to grow and to learn how to lead themselves, meaning I want to give them responsibility, according to what their skills are right now, and give them the opportunity to feel like they can make some of those decisions that they need to make to become a leader that I know they could be. [00:08:45] Karen Marsdale: And if I hired somebody that wasn't up to that kind of skill level, maybe they were great at doing another type of job. And I was always looking for those who probably didn't know within themselves that they had the ability to do much more than they thought they could. [00:09:02] Karen Marsdale: So I'm looking at what I always said. I don't want you to come to me with a problem. I want you to identify a problem and then come to me with a solution. And then you will then exercise on that. And that problem will be solved because you solved it. [00:09:22] Karen Marsdale: And then you could execute according to what you've uncovered and discovered. [00:09:28] Karen Marsdale: Even if somebody fails, a few times of doing this and they come back and say I thought that this was the answer. You say let's go back and relook at what went wrong in the process. And I just, I'm going to have to do this right. [00:09:40] Karen Marsdale: Currently with a situation that I just found out about this morning. And I'm thinking in my mind of how I'm going to go to this individual and say, you jumped the gun on this and this is the outcome. And I had to step in and take care of it. But how could we have, how could you have done it differently next time? [00:09:59] Karen Marsdale: And I always felt, and years later, people will say, to do it. You are such a mentor to me and I take that so that's such a compliment. I take that with a lot of humility because, you have an expectation as a leader from whomever you're reporting to. And so those behind you, you really have an expectation for them and if they don't deliver, it's on you, it's not on them. [00:10:23] Karen Marsdale: But I just think like that, that confidence that they have, that you have their back. You are loyal and especially, they've earned it, so you have to earn it, but it's that loyalty, it's that humility, it's leading from behind, making sure they have the opportunity. I've had women go on to do much more complicated things and in larger companies than I did. [00:10:49] Karen Marsdale: But they said, you were the one that gave me this feeling of confidence that I could do it. [00:10:56] Karen Marsdale: Does that make sense? [00:10:58] Tommy Thomas: It does. And it reminds me of an article I read on team building. And the writer said, identify your evangelist, those people in your obsession who love to work, work for them is not a job, but a source of excitement, reward them, give them a platform. [00:11:13] Tommy Thomas: So you would resonate with that? [00:11:16] Karen Marsdale: Absolutely. And you know what, is a leader born or do you make a leader? And I think it's a bit of both. But someone has to come with an innate desire that work is a passion and they don't watch the clock. And it's not that you ever take advantage of people, but you'll sense them. [00:11:38] Karen Marsdale: You'll sense who they are. You're evangelists. And then you work with them. There's nothing, there's no greater reward or feeling to see those evangelists do really well. [00:11:50] Tommy Thomas: Do you have a favorite interview question or an interview question that's really worked to help you get below the surface? [00:11:59] Karen Marsdale: When I get below the surface, I will ask somebody, why would you want to come to work here? [00:12:04] Karen Marsdale: Is there something about this place? When we get into ministry work, I think it's a little bit different because there is absolutely no denying that people have to come. Because this is a calling. It's not a job, but they also have to have the skills. If you're a case manager, you have to have those skills, but then you come because there's something here. [00:12:31] Karen Marsdale: And I've had people say that there is something here that is different from where I've worked in the secular world and at the chamber. I think, again, because we were so much part of the community and people knew us, saw us. Were involved with us, whether it be my company's involved and I bond and they people I'd love to work at the chamber and I think oftentimes they would think it's just, oh, you could just go to meetings and you meet with people and your network is let me tell you about the work that happens behind the screen. [00:13:03] Karen Marsdale: There again, I would ask somebody, why would you, why do you really want to come here to work. And that answer is very important. Very important. [00:13:14] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to employee turnover for a minute. What have you done over time to reduce or mitigate employee turnover? [00:13:23] Karen Marsdale: I'm going to say, and I feel very how can I say, I didn't have a lot of employee turnover, either at the chamber. [00:13:33] Karen Marsdale: We're now at Hannah's Hope and I've been at Hannah's for about five to six years in this position of first interim director and now co-director. And I think it's because I feel I have a pretty good ability to hire well. And when I've not, when I've had a, okay, we really have to have someone in this position. [00:13:54] Karen Marsdale: I've not found my evangelist. I have not found my A player, but I'm going to hire B. It typically, down the road, it's, we have to have a parting of the ways. And the turnover primarily, I will tell you in the chamber for me was because we were such a unique organization that people got so much exposure in the community, in the business, and even the nonprofit community that when someone came in and they started to develop and people would see who they were and what they were doing, people just picked them off. [00:14:34] Karen Marsdale: And I had more, there were more times that I'd have somebody come into my office, particularly women, close the door and start to cry and say, Karen, I got this great offer from, and I'm like, that is wonderful. That is great. That's what I want for you. Make sure they pay you what you're worth, so that I think and at Hannah's we've had very little turnover. [00:14:54] Karen Marsdale: I've had to say goodbye to one individual, but I gave this person a lot of, I wanted to coach and mentor, and she didn't want that. And we came to a place that just, it wasn't going to work. [00:15:08] Tommy Thomas: It's been said that we learn a lot when we fail. And if that's the case, why are most of us so afraid to fail? [00:15:16] Karen Marsdale: I think it's ego. I think it's fear. I think it's what will I ever do if I fail? And so that, therefore I think people don't take risks. And I might be a little bit averse to risks, but because I learned so early on by being really naive and thinking that, my husband and I could run a business that really needed a lot more cash flow and ready cash that we just didn't have. [00:15:40] Karen Marsdale: But because I failed and from that failure, we created success. And when I say success, we were able to get back on track and work hard and buy a house and send our kids to college. And, that early failure made me feel that if I could do that and come back from it, I'm not really afraid to fail. [00:16:04] Karen Marsdale: I really have really very little ego. The biggest challenge I will tell you, in my years of both in chamber work a little bit in corporate work, small business. And now in the world that I'm living in at Hannah's is my almost fear of failure. [00:16:23] Karen Marsdale: Because Hannah's Hope, about six and a half, seven years ago was not in a good place financially. We knew what we were doing in terms of what our mission was, but we relied too much and this is so non profit, this can be the case. [00:16:46] Karen Marsdale: Leaning on a few people financially and not worrying or not doing the work that you always have to do, which is knock on a thousand doors and ask a thousand people to help you do this work together, and so we weren't very well known. We didn't have a lot of income coming in on a routine basis, like monthly donors, etc. [00:17:06] Karen Marsdale: And we had to start from scratch with that, and, my name is behind it, and I know a lot of people, so I will not fail. We cannot fail at this. And it's a little bit challenging for me right now. I think I have a little bit of PTSD, and we're doing very well and we've got great outcomes. [00:17:27] Karen Marsdale: We'd like to have a hundred percent, but we're dealing with people and people in very critical places in life. So you're not going to, not every woman is going to want to stick with this program and become and they want independence, but they don't want to work hard enough for it. [00:17:42] Karen Marsdale: But fear of failure is, I think the thing that has, it has led some people to not have, not do the things that they really, that God has given them the gifts to do. Because they're just too comfortable. [00:18:01] Tommy Thomas: If you were writing a book on the burdens of leadership that only the CEO can bear, what would be some of the chapters in your book? [00:18:15] Karen Marsdale: I think the first would be and you've heard this, but it's lonely at the top or how, what does it mean when the buck stops with you? What does that really mean? Do you want that? Or, like a whole chapter on when things happen, it rolls downhill and you're going to have it. [00:18:40] Karen Marsdale: I think another, and I, my mother always said to me, and it's scriptural, like there's nothing new under the sun. So when you look at things, you need to understand that a leader is one who can, how can you find your evangelist? And then how do you know when to get out of the way and let them lead? [00:19:05] Karen Marsdale: I have seen more people because of ego and self importance. So this is really a lesson for a leader and a CEO. How do I make sure that I'm hiring people that could be smarter than me and be secure with that, be secure to hire better people than yourself. So those are a couple chapters that I would have. [00:19:33] Tommy Thomas: You have the current role of current director at Hannah's and I've seen that work before and and I've seen it not work. Sure. How are y'all doing it? [00:19:44] Karen Marsdale: We just incorporated this model as of January. And I will tell you really, again a young woman was, everyone's young to me. [00:19:53] Karen Marsdale: So she's in her forties. She's primed to want, this is a passion of hers. She's got a lot of skills that she probably didn't even realize she had. And so really what I'm doing, Tommy, is we've fallen into this where she works. She works really in the clinical, I might say, like managing the case manager. [00:20:15] Karen Marsdale: And again, we're small. The org chart isn't very deep. So I try to find myself being her mentor. And she'll make a decision or she'll make a suggestion or, and she'll be, and it'll be more in the clinical sort of the mom's suggestion, like how are we managing this individual? [00:20:36] Karen Marsdale: And every day, because we're so deep with these families in every aspect of their lives, that things will come up that we have to discuss and make a decision on but I will let Mary, even if we disagree slightly, I'll let her make that decision. And I'm trying to stay in the world of development, making connections. [00:20:59] Karen Marsdale: Doing what I naturally did at the chamber. I just did all of that, but staying away from her area of having made decisions about them. When I say clinical, that's talking about case management and what the area that is not my wheelhouse. Some of it you become to know, you come to know pieces because it's just logical and intuitive with an application but we work very well together because ultimately, and this is where I think...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/31589342
info_outline
From Ballet to Boardrooms - The Inspiring Story of Karen Marsdale
05/28/2024
From Ballet to Boardrooms - The Inspiring Story of Karen Marsdale
[00:00:00] Karen Marsdale: I wanted to be a ballet dancer and I was very serious and was in ballet lessons and modern dance lessons almost every day of the week by the time I was in junior high. I went to dance camp in the summer, went to the University of Connecticut for a summer with the Martha Graham School of Dance. And then after my senior year of high school, I spent six years in New York doing a program with the Joffrey School of Ballet. My ultimate dream was to go to Juilliard. I did not make the cut. And I think that should have been a little bit of a signal because it's like dance is professional sports one in, how many million really become the prima ballerina at the New York city ballet. +++++++++++++++ [00:01:45] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Karen Marsdale, a longtime contributor to the economic vibrancy of Berks County, Pennsylvania. Karen spent almost 27 years in senior leadership roles with the Reading Chamber of Commerce and Industry before joining Hannah's Hope as co-executive director. She took her BA in fashion merchandising and business management from Stevens College and serves on the boards of several nonprofits in and around Berks County. Karen, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:02:16] Karen Marsdale: Thank you, Tommy. It's a pleasure to be here. [00:02:20] Tommy Thomas: I'm a huge fan of all that a well-led Chamber of Commerce can do over the years I've observed, what good things happen when the Chamber takes a role in promoting economics and also when they take a role in incorporating the non-profit sector into the life of a community because I think that's important. When I learned of your background, I just jumped at the chance to have somebody who's done that and then migrated over into the role with Hannah's Hope. Again, thank you for joining us. Now before we dig too deep into your multi-pronged career, let's go back towards the beginning. Take me into your childhood and what two or three things do you remember that maybe has contributed to you being the person you are today? [00:03:06] Karen Marsdale: I'm an only child. And so that in the era that I was born and raised, that was a bit unique because big families were more the norm then than they are now. I think one of the things that kind of charted my course was I was always around adults primarily. Now we did live near relatives, so I had cousins and aunts and uncles, you spend most of your time with your family, meaning your parents. And so, I think that being an only child did not only, particularly for my mother, have the, maybe the opportunity, sometimes it didn't feel so opportunistic to have someone who was just looking at you as the in, the child that they're raising and nurturing. [00:03:52] Karen Marsdale: So sometimes I might've felt a little bit overwhelmed, but when you're an only child, I've read books on birth order etc. And one thing that I learned from that was an only child is like a firstborn times three. When you're an only child it is like being a firstborn times three. You tend to be alpha; you tend to be a leader. [00:04:09] Karen Marsdale: So, you tend to be alpha, you tend to be a leader. And I'm not saying these things to say, this is who I am. It's just this is often what happens. My mother was a bit sensitive. And so I was sensitive. I know I got my feelings hurt a lot. And mother was not exactly grin and bear it. It was oh, you poor thing. So, I think, and that was a lot about her background. And it's just so interesting. And now today, especially, my work at hand as you see how much background in childhood impacts the life and the trajectory of an individual. I do remember one time I broke my arm, and my father was rough and tumble and praise many was a welder and, oh, you're fine, you'll be fine. And my mother then took me to the hospital. I got it casted up and I almost waited all day for my father to come home, jump in the driveway and say, see, I told you. It’s funny little things that you remember when you're in elementary school. Those are some of the things I remember. [00:05:17] Tommy Thomas: What'd you want to be when you grew up? Karen Marsdale: Oh, my word. This is something that when I tell people, they're like, really, if they've never known this, or we've never talked about it. I became interested in ballet in about fifth grade after about four years of taking classes and not liking them because I really, and this taught me a great lesson, which I'll talk about in a minute. I wanted to be a ballet dancer and I was very serious and was in ballet lessons and modern dance lessons almost every day of the week by the time I was in junior high. [00:05:48] Karen Marsdale: And I went to dance camp in the summer, went to the University of Connecticut for a summer with the Martha Graham School of Dance. And then, after my senior year of high school, I spent six years in New York doing a program with the Joffrey School of Ballet. My ultimate dream was to go to Juilliard. I did not make the cut. And I think that should have been a little bit of a signal because it's like dance is professional sports one in, how many million really become the prima ballerina at the New York city ballet. So, I did go to Stevens College. My first year, I was a dance major. They had a good program, went there and then changed my major, but all through those years of especially junior high into senior high. And then towards senior high, I was teaching some classes at the dance school that I went to, and I had an excellent teacher. Like sports, dance teaches discipline. You have to show up and work hard. [00:06:42] Karen Marsdale: She was a mentor. And I'll tell you what it taught me was number one, discipline. Because discipline and dance is as much discipline as it is, excuse me, in the sports world. You have to show up and work out. It taught me discipline. On a Saturday morning, if I didn't want to get up and go to a dance class at 8 or 9 o'clock, I still had to go. The other thing it taught me, because through dance, I also did, in our small community, we had community theater. I am totally tone deaf, so I can't sing. I couldn't be in, and when I was in musicals, and I did do some relatively, one in particular, I did a relatively important part in a musical. Community theater taught me stage presence. I can speak to a thousand people because I am not really speaking to a thousand people, I am looking at and speaking to a particular person on the front row. [00:07:25] Karen Marsdale: So, I had to learn lines. When it came to the, just to the music, I just would lip sync, but it taught me a bit of stage presence that still to this day is very useful because I've often said I can speak to a thousand people and not being really terribly nervous because you learned that you're not really speaking to a thousand people. You're looking at somebody in the front row. And so I can do that. And sometimes I think it's less intimidating for me to speak to that group of an audience when we're doing a what, through the chamber. And we had some events that had over a thousand people, and I could get up and speak. [00:08:09] Karen Marsdale: And it was probably easier than speaking to the board of directors, when I speak about something that was a bit challenging. So that, just folks don't realize the things that kiddos can gain from being in different types of activity. [00:08:27] Tommy Thomas: So, you graduated, you had maybe decided that the dance was not going to be totally your career. What happened then? [00:08:37] Karen Marsdale: You mean after high school? Rather after college, right? Yeah. Okay. So, after college this is really again, something that is, typically someone gets a job looking at their major, etc. But what my husband and I did, and I will tell you, I was married after my junior year of college. My husband had come back from Vietnam. We went back to where I was at Stevens College in Columbia, Missouri. He did a year at the University of Missouri to finish up his degree. And then we took a funny, rather interesting term because we went back to our hometown and maybe this was the best thing or the worst thing we did, but we bought a small business, and it was really in the area of, and again, your understanding, it's back in the seventies, it was a woman's boutique. We sold some small, but we also sold fashion. We saw fashions, we sold gift items, we sold accessories. And my background in fashion merchandising. We decided to do this. My parents wanted us to do it. I think only children who think about this, come back home. Don't go a thousand miles away for work. [00:09:43] Karen Marsdale: So, we were in our own business for about eight years. And my husband also took a sort of a crash course while we were there in our hometown in upholstery. So, he opened up his own business. Here's two 20 some year olds in their own businesses and they're not second-generation family businesses. So, it was a great experience. We were going to New York on buying trips. We were meeting with sales reps. We were hiring people. We only had a staff, mostly part time of about five people. And it was a great experience. I look back now and think, through my life it really made us the people that we are because it did not turn out particularly well. [00:10:27] Karen Marsdale: Maybe we were more naive than we thought. And after about eight years, we had to liquidate the business. We tried selling it. It was not a good time in our community. And so, we weren't able to sell the business. By this time we had two kids and a house and we had to liquidate everything to pay off our debt, and I'm very open to tell the story. Our first business failed. We had to liquidate everything to pay off our debt. We walked away with less than a thousand dollars. We moved to Reading, Pennsylvania and started over. [00:10:47] Karen Marsdale: We had to pay off all our debt. We walked away with under a thousand dollars. We moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, where I had some family and uncle and his family. And my husband had gotten a job prior to before we moved, and we started all over again. And we were still young enough to, it was a blow, and it was emotionally challenging, but we just picked ourselves up and said, you know what we've got is ourselves. And we both have skills that we can hone and give to someone. And one thing that it taught me, and this is why I think my career at the chamber was so rewarding and why I understood to some degree what it takes for a small business owner, because if you've never signed the front of the paycheck and had to make payroll, you don't know what it is. [00:11:42] Karen Marsdale: To really understand what business is all about, even the smallest of businesses. So that was a great life lesson. Amazing. And I just feel that everyone needs to take everything they do as part of a life lesson to move to wherever they go from there. [00:12:04] Tommy Thomas: So how did you get involved with the Chamber of Commerce? [00:12:07] Karen Marsdale: Okay. So that was a little bit down the road. When we first came here, I did a couple of jobs that were, I would say not temporary, but not what I would think would be my career. Again, it's that world of knowing people who know people and networking, which I just can't say enough for knowing people and networking and being a true person that cares about others and networking in that fashion. So, I had a very dear friend. She's still my best friend to this day, 40 years later, she was on the board of the chamber of commerce and a small business owner, had a couple of businesses. She is a very outspoken wonderful individual, with great high moral character. She went to our then CEO and my first CEO of the chamber and said there was an opening. There was not an opening. But she went to him and said, I have a friend and if you hire her, I'm going to guarantee she's going to make you look good. And I had an invitation to speak with the CEO. We had a great conversation, not really an interview. He said, you know what, Karen, I don't have anything right now. [00:13:19] Karen Marsdale: He said, but the next time there's an opening that you seem to be would fit, he said, I'm going to call you. And within, I think three weeks, he called me because the director of marketing gave her notice and was going someplace else. And he called me in, and he said, do you want the job? And I said, absolutely. I didn't even ask what the salary was. We negotiated that after I got the job, it was crazy. But so that was my introduction to the chamber world. [00:13:46] Tommy Thomas: At that time, I guess you had a staff when y'all were in the retail business, but yeah, think back to the first time you really had a group of people reporting to you, what kind of memories do you have of that? [00:14:00] Karen Marsdale: It was challenging because again, we, most of the women that worked for me, and they were women, obviously, it was a woman's boutique, as they would call it back then, were much older, they were my mother's age, some of them might have been a little bit older. But I think what made them respect me as this small business owner was the fact that I respected them and got to know them and cared about them and their families. And we were a team together doing this work. And they chose to be working where they were because they really enjoyed the atmosphere, the customer experience. And, I was a rookie, you're 23 and you're managing people who are 55 years old and you're just, I think one of the keys is you always have to respect those who are working for you while making it clear what the expectations are of the job. Servant leadership doesn’t mean you’re anybody’s lacky. It means you put that person first and find the greatness in them. [00:15:01] Karen Marsdale: But leading as I call it and, servant leadership, which doesn't mean that you're anybody's lacky, but it means that you put that person first and you find the greatness in them and help them. When that happens, I think I just did it at first, not knowing necessarily what I was doing. I was thrown into that. And my husband is also, he's an extremely intuitive person. He was the partner in the business. So, we did this as a team. And I think that was a good mix that we were both there working with and managing this small staff of people who really wanted us to succeed. It just, it was organic, I think. +++++++++++++++ [00:15:49] Tommy Thomas: What's the most ambitious project you and a team have ever undertaken and how did it work out? [00:15:57] Karen Marsdale: So, I will tell you, fast forward to the Chamber of Commerce. And one of the things that I loved about the Chamber is very entrepreneurial. Now that does not mean that I didn't have to work really hard. I should say entrepreneurs work. They never don't work. I think that's the thing that I loved about that and small business owners and people who were growing businesses, but I was in a position of leadership. I had earned it. I had proven myself, and I had some really great women in leadership in the community. [00:16:26] Karen Marsdale: And we just began to see that our women's programs at the chamber and most chambers will have some kind of women's programs, quote unquote. And they said, we're not really, we're just doing the same old thing and having a luncheon and, then people go away and, oh, that was great, but how does it help me in the workplace? So, we undertook to take, basically, a year to create an organization and this is how it was defined. It was an organization within another organization. And so, we created what we called Women to Women, and that was an organization within the chamber. [00:17:05] Karen Marsdale: We had our own programming, our own model. And it was really to help women in the workplace find their skills. And how could we help them move into leadership roles and again, from my background and from who I am as a person, this was never meant to be. And this is why I think it was so successful and why even men in the community said this is the greatest thing to really have a place where women can feel safe. They can build and develop skills and training because it was never women against men. These were not, we were not looking at men as chauvinists. Men and women can work together so well, and women at the table bring so much to the table. That was the essential foundation of what Women to Women was about. [00:18:01] Karen Marsdale: It was very hard work. I went out and got businesses to underwrite the work of what we were doing. We built our own membership within the membership of the Chamber, and it was a huge success. And I can remember we worked so hard. And that was not only getting the credibility of what we were doing, but pushing the sort of boundaries of we're going to do our own programming aside, along with the chamber that your chambers often do workshops, etc. But we really had some amazing successes. And we get a national speaker woman to come in. In the beginning of the fall of the year to kick off the whole year of training and development. And there were companies that joined the Chamber in order to be part of Women to Women. [00:18:53] Karen Marsdale: And to this day, it is the most successful program in their over 100 years. And it's going strong. And as a matter of fact, I'll just tell you a little aside. Last night, I was at a function, a gala for a nonprofit and sitting with a group of younger women, and the one woman said, I was just at lunch, and I overheard a group of women behind me, and they were talking about Women to Women. And she said, I wanted to lean over and say I know the founder. And again, Tommy, this is a big deal in a small market. So, I'm not talking about a national movement, but I had chambers around the country call and ask, how did you do this? I don't think I could ever get our board to do it. [00:19:36] Karen Marsdale: And I'd say, yeah, you know what? You have to keep working and working. I hate to say it, but it's true. Primarily made up of men. We'll embrace this. And see the value and say, this helps my company because I have women that I want to promote to leadership or their women in leadership. And there's all kinds of things we did mentor programs, lean in circles from Cheryl Sandberg from Facebook, who wrote this whole curriculum on, how do women navigate in the world of business. There were all kinds of things going on. And still are. And I will say one thing that a staff person I'm still in contact with, and she's done amazing things, moved from the chamber to other nonprofit work in development. And she said to me one day, this is really hard. And I said, yeah, Carolyn, this is very hard, but if it was easy, wouldn't everybody be doing it? That's just my mantra. ++++++++++++++++ [00:20:32] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned you had to go out and get your funding and I've noticed on the Hannah's Hope website, y'all have what seems to be a very robust corporate community of sponsors. What did you learn about fundraising during those early days? Everybody is in sales. Even if you are the receptionist in the dentist office, you are selling something. We must develop that mindset. [00:20:47] Karen Marsdale: Okay. The thing is, I'll just say this one thing, everybody is in sales. I don't care what you do. If you're picking up the phone at the dentist's office and you're saying hello and you're selling something. And so therefore, we all have to have that kind of mindset. I learned very quickly that you're going to get more no's than you are yeses, and you have to believe in what you're doing. So I took that to heart and I really don't give up on things. [00:21:19] Karen Marsdale: So again, if I know that this is good for people, I know this is good for your company to be a part of say Women to Women, or now Hannah's Hope...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/31479452
info_outline
Teamwork and Collaboration: Andrea Buczynski's Journey in Leadership
05/21/2024
Teamwork and Collaboration: Andrea Buczynski's Journey in Leadership
[00:00:00] Tommy Thomas: Today, we're continuing the conversation that we began last week with Andrea Buczynski - recently retired Global Vice President for Leadership Development and Human Resources at Cru. Her narrative is a testament to the power of purpose driven leadership. Throughout the podcast, Andrea emphasizes the value of teamwork in collaboration. Her story is particularly inspiring for those interested in how personal values and professional demands intersect in nonprofit leadership. Her journey illustrates how embracing change fosters a supportive team environment. And maintaining a clear focus on organizational and personal goals are crucial for effective leadership. Let's pick up where we left off last week. ++++++++++++++++++= [00:00:52] Tommy Thomas:: When I was talking to Dee Dee Wilson, she's going to be a guest here in probably three or four weeks, but she was talking about this and I'm sure y'all have a name for it, but this peer group of women that both of you and I guess up to 15 other people are a member of, a peer-to-peer kind of iron sharpens iron kind of thing. I'm guessing. Tell us about that and maybe how y'all got into that. What it's been like. [00:01:17] Andrea Buczynski: Yeah, the group is called Arête Executive Women of Influence. And it's a by invitation membership and we ascribe to a common set of values. We espouse Christian values as leaders and are committed to confidentiality. And so, what that does is it creates a common experience and a safe environment. And I'll tell you, there is nothing like being with a group of women who are high achieving, who are very ethical, strong character, competent and the kinds of, I would say both empathy, understanding, and wisdom that emerges, as we listen to each other and cheer one another on. [00:02:12] Andrea Buczynski: It's wonderful to have kind of a safe port where you can be honest about the stuff you're experiencing. Many of the women will have experienced something similar and bring their own experience to your journey. And so, I found it immensely helpful. [00:02:30] Tommy Thomas: Now, as I think Dee Dee said, you had people from the private sector as well as ministry and possibly government. I don't know. What is your mix? Without breaking any confidentiality. [00:02:41] Andrea Buczynski: We have a marketplace. It's a C suite largely, but it's academics. I have to think for a minute. We have entrepreneurs, marketplace, nonprofit ministry. Yeah. [00:02:59] Tommy Thomas: Was this something that's going on in other sectors and y'all modeled after somebody else or did somebody come up with this idea and said we need to do this. [00:03:11] Andrea Buczynski: The one who founded the organization is Diane Ogle. She'd be a good interview. She had done something like this some years back and while she was living here in Orlando as part of the Christian Chamber and she had a number of men approach her and say, I think you need to do something for women. And so, she had this idea. She shared it with a few people. And I think one of the first people she shared it with said, I think it's a great idea. Could I be in it? By the time I came, there were probably five or six women already in the group. I couldn't tell you any more than that part of it. [00:03:54] Andrea Buczynski: But what I've loved about it, Tommy, is the advice that fits the kind of role that you have. And so, in Cru, I don't want to use the word complaining, but let's say I was talking about being tired or I can't stop working, very common with high achieving anybody is where is that switch to turn off? In the evening, most people in and even on my team would say you need a vacation, or you need to take some time off and it'll be better. I had the vacation. I had the time off. That was not the point. I got to this group and at one of the very first meetings, a woman just looked at me, there was someone else sharing the same struggle, and I echoed, I said, you could be reading my journal. And she just looked at the two of us and she said, this is what got you where you are, this very quality. [00:04:51] Andrea Buczynski: And she said, you have to manage it because it's not going away. It's hardwired in you. And so how are you going to manage it? And we got into a whole discussion about what that might look like. And you can begin to see the difference in there's a recognition of the kinds of things that you're dealing with that makes it just more than collegial. It's kindred spirits. [00:05:16] Tommy Thomas: As I said earlier, you've had a long and storied career with Cru, and you've seen society change, you've seen culture change. Everybody's got an opinion on cell phones and social media. Give us some insight on the college campus today and then with the workforce, because you've got 22 and 24 and younger people in your workforce. Maybe not reporting to you, but in your department. [00:05:43] Andrea Buczynski: Yeah, it's really interesting to change the dynamic of the whole availability of information I think has had a big effect on organizational leadership. So, when I was coming up our leaders would send us articles to read or something like that to enrich your thinking. I loved it. I'm a learner at heart. And I thought, this is what leaders do. They help grow their people by exposing them to other ideas and then thinking through how this affects the ministry here at Cru. Somewhere, in the 90s, that began to change radically in that leaders were no longer the people who were dispensing information. [00:06:25] Andrea Buczynski: Information was widely available. I don't remember when Wikipedia came into things, but I do remember disposing of my mother's set of Collier encyclopedias, it was just like they're worthless now because it's not the latest edition and they stopped printing them at some point. So, with information being widely available no team member is dependent on their leader to help them find things. Everybody literally in conversation can just go, let me Google that and we'll figure out who wrote what the latest thought is or what that means. So, the effect on organizational leadership that I've seen is we used to train on how to do something. [00:07:13] Andrea Buczynski: And we still do. And then we began to lead in terms of what is it that we want to accomplish? What is the outcome? And that hasn't changed. But it's just what came first. Learn how to do this. And then I'll learn the big picture. Now the big picture and the how is readily available. The why is what people need to understand. So, when I look at that generational spread there's some people you could just tell them what to do and they will be automatically aligned to the organizational riverbanks that have been created. They understand them, but the new generation coming up, I think, does not have that background. [00:07:54] Andrea Buczynski: And you have to supply it. So, it's not just here's how you do what we do, or here's what we want to see happen, God willing. It's why would we do it this way and not that way? Because now you have a hundred possibilities available to you on Google or YouTube or TikTok. And so, I think organizational leaders have to be more mindful about ideation coming in from outside the organization that may not be lined up with the values or mission or vision of the organization. And it requires a little bit more let's say vigilance or a very good fluency in the why we do what we do and why we do it the way we do it. Do we answer more questions? We answer more why questions now than we did previously. Does that make sense? [00:08:47] Tommy Thomas: I'm trying to process that. So how does that play out in terms of delivering content across the three or four generations? You probably don't have too many people our age, but you might, and then you go back to the next two or three generations. What have y'all learned about, delivering, maybe content is not the word I'm looking for, but, delivering what is your message? [00:09:12] Andrea Buczynski: So there's some tension there. So, if I were talking about organizational communication, for example, across five generations, you always have to go, what is the topic? And why are we talking about it? And what's going to happen? Or and then how is it going to move forward? So, if you're introducing, say, organizational change, I think those are important things. People can live with a lot of ambiguity if they understand how you're moving forward. They don't have to have all the answers at once, right? [00:09:45] Andrea Buczynski: But if you're talking about training delivery then I'm looking at it going anybody under 35 is going to expect a mobile delivery. Can I get it on my phone, or can I get it on my iPad? People in my generation, I went to our help desk the other day and I said, I have to do an update on this software. When I look at this screen that comes up, I'm totally confused. So, can you walk me through it? Like I need somebody, now that might just be me. [00:10:19] Tommy Thomas: I have that problem weekly, it seems like with apps and software. [00:10:26] Andrea Buczynski: I am not a digital native so mobile delivery may not be the best thing for my generation, they might still like a high touch delivery and then the spectrum in between those two. So, we've tried a bunch of things like every organization, the webinar format works for some things, and not for others. The in-person training works for some things and not for others, but we were surprised during COVID that we were able to convert some things that we thought needed to be face-to-face into being able to be done online if needed. And so, I think now if you're in a training kind of role, you have a pretty hefty toolbox. And being selective of what to do, but the move toward mobile has been interesting for me to observe with some of the people on my team who are younger who are like we choose this learning management system because it has mobile capability versus this management system, which requires you to be on a laptop or something. +++++++++++++++ [00:11:36] Tommy Thomas: Let's go back to the restructuring for a minute, you talked about this big restructuring project that y'all went through and you had stepped up to more of an international leadership role. What was behind that? How did y'all come to the decision that you needed to eliminate, a strata of leadership and was that a global decision? [00:11:57] Andrea Buczynski: We had a numerical goal for the year 2020. And so, we were coming up around somewhere in around 2017-2018 people started asking what's coming after 2020. And at the same time, we were seeing some organizational complications of the way we were structured. So, it's not uncommon in a matrix organization to have the tensions built either strategy versus geography or, you name it. We had a variety of those things where we could see obstacles in the structure that we weren't able to overcome with any kind of behavioral initiative, right? As we began to look at it we were also in a presidential transition. [00:12:48] Andrea Buczynski: We started to work on it. And then held up a little bit because of the presidential transition and then reactivated when the new president was involved. But basically, during those years what happened was an organizational design task force was put in place. We did, we started with a kind of strategy review, what have we accomplished over the last number of years. Where are we strong? Where are we not? What problems are we seeing that need to be solved? That kind of thing. That went to an organizational design task force. They came out with some preliminary ideas, but one of the best things they did was a survey and we had I'd say over 3,000 responses. And so, you had a fair amount of data, and it was around this idea of what is going well, what is not, what needs to change, what do you see lacking, what needs more attention. [00:13:48] Andrea Buczynski: And so, we got that back and we realized, okay we need fresh direction. We need to reinvigorate people in some ways around the work that the Lord is calling us to do over this next time. And then I think it was a presidential decision to just go ahead with it. We had to go to the board because of the size of it. But the structure finally came back after two more iterations with two different groups of leaders. So, we had an onboarding thing for anybody coming into global leadership. We used that group to say, okay here's the results of these questions. [00:14:29] Andrea Buczynski: What do you think are the themes that are emerging from this data? We gave them the raw data and they came back with here are the things you need to pay attention to. We did the similar thing with a group of probably 40 to 50 international leaders more at the country level who came in for an emerging leader initiative and okay, these are the themes. How would you solve them? Okay. And listen to, I think five or six groups of presentations. So, we took all that under advisement, and came back with a structure. Our president defined strategic intent, whereas we need to go in the next 10 years and or in the next years, let's say. [00:15:17] Andrea Buczynski: And we determined a launch date and that was 14 months out from when I was charged with doing the people care task force. Eliminating the level enabled the key stakeholders, geography, strategy, and capacity to sit on the same team and work out our differences on that team, rather than in opposition to one another and blocking. So, it made for a much more collaborative leadership environment and, our muscle memory on the old system is having to be worked out of our system and gaining new habits and stuff like that. It's moving forward and at the same time you look at it and you go it has its own challenges like any structure does. [00:16:15] Tommy Thomas: And I'm going to draw a blank on his name but our friend, Dan, who with Cru is leading your multi organizational initiative on every campus. [00:16:23] Andrea Buczynski: Dan Allen. [00:16:24] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, Dan Allen. I keep up with Dan and some of the folks at InterVarsity and other groups. Tell me how that's going. I'm just such a huge fan of organizational collaboration of not having to always invent it here, wherever here is, have you observed that in any thoughts as sitting back at your desk and watching that work? [00:16:48] Andrea Buczynski: I just look at it and I’m struggling for the word because I think it's emerged from what used to be a competitive environment where we're a little bit more mission focused and a little less role focused, or individual organization focus like kingdom focus. How do we live out a kingdom perspective where we're not tunnel vision on our own organization, but we're looking at what God is doing and where are the opportunities for bigger synergies than what we're seeing right now. So, the initiative with Dan and Every Campus Partnership is just a huge example of that. [00:17:27] Andrea Buczynski: But there's also para church roundtables that exist in technology. In leader development in HR. I think in the finance side as well that has been going on for more than a decade. So that kind of shared environment. How are you dealing with this kind of thing helps us all grow. The other thing I'm involved with is Christian Leadership Alliance. But what I love about that is we have this community hubs on Christian Leadership Alliance, and I'm part of the People Care one, and it gets populated with questions, every other week, and people will weigh in do you, have you used this, can you tell me anything about it, or do you have this, or, can you share a form or a task list or something like that where people are helping one another. [00:18:25] Andrea Buczynski: I look at it and I go Steve Douglas, our late president used to say, we can give away what God has given to us because he will give us whatever we need. And so, we don't have to be super protective about it. It's going to benefit the kingdom. Then how do we look at it? I like that change. I feel like it's been a shift in the body of Christ over the last 10 or 20 years. It's been a good one. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:18:55] Tommy Thomas: Let's try to bring this thing to a close and I'll ask you, I framed this a lightning round. I'm not sure that they're always lightning round kind of questions, but let's hit a few of them. What do you understand about your life today that you didn't understand a year ago? [00:19:11] Andrea Buczynski: Maybe it's my age or the fact that I've experienced some losses, the fact that the past few years, every day is a gift. [00:19:20] Tommy Thomas: If you could go back and tell a younger version of yourself, one thing, what would it be? [00:19:28] Andrea Buczynski: Don't be intimidated. Everybody's figuring it out. Nobody knows what they're doing. [00:19:36] Tommy Thomas: If you're sitting beside a total stranger at a dinner party, how do you engage them in a meaningful conversation? [00:19:42] Andrea Buczynski: It would probably depend on the person and, how we know each other, but part of it if it's a total stranger, it would just be tell me a little bit about yourself and what is it you enjoy most about what you do and go from there. [00:19:58] Tommy Thomas: If you could meet any historical figure and ask them only one question, who would it be and what would the question be? [00:20:21] Andrea Buczynski: This is what's coming to mind right now. I would just say, I would want to ask Jesus, what was it like to sit at the table with the person that you knew would betray you, and that you knew would deny you? And wash their feet. What was that like? Yeah. I'm curious. [00:20:49] Tommy Thomas: Anything that as we wrap it up you think back over what we've covered and I always tell my guests, treat this as if you had the podium at a nonprofit gathering, and you had a group of budding nonprofit leaders. Anything you would share as a closing comment? [00:21:15] Andrea Buczynski: Yes. I'd say, your heart matters. What's going on in your relationship with the Lord, what's going on in your character, who you are is more important than what you do. If people know you love them, they will give you a lot of grace. And so, I just look at it and I go, what kind of person do I want to show up as today? And do your best if you're believer to represent the Lord and to come with every resource He's given you. And if not, to go, can you be the person whose life is integrous, lives with integrity, do what you say you will do, mean what you say what you mean, keep your promises. ++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:22:08] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is [email protected]. Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising. If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable. Links & Resources – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Connect Listen to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on: |
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/31388442
info_outline
From Chemistry to Cru – Andrea Buczynski’s Path to Purposeful Leadership
05/14/2024
From Chemistry to Cru – Andrea Buczynski’s Path to Purposeful Leadership
[00:00:00] Andrea Buczynski: I don't mind doing some thought work by myself. But there's nothing like getting in a room with people who want to go to the same place, and to be able to put ideas out there, bat them around. And then it might be the same group of people, but it also might be a different group of people that comes in and says here's what it's going to take to do it. It resonates with me with the body of Christ that we all have a part to play and God's created us uniquely and we need others to bring the best out of each other. We build each other up when we're in that process. And the team that's working well together will be more brilliant than any individual player. Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Andrea Buczynski. Andrea enjoyed a long and storied career with Cru. She took her undergraduate degree from Penn State. At Cru, she's known as a catalyst for transformation, seeking innovative solutions and addressing challenges and creating lasting impact. Her most recent leadership responsibility at Cru was Global Vice President for Leadership Development and Human Resources. Andrea, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:15] Andrea Buczynski: Thank you so much, Tommy. I'm glad to be here with you today. [00:01:18] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, people always want to know, how do we get these guests? And yours is a typical story. In my business, in the search business, anytime I'm looking for a CEO, at least one way to build the pool is to call a bunch of people, describe the job you've got and say, now if you were doing the search who would you get? And if you make eight or ten of those calls generally, you'll begin to see three- or four-people’s names rise to the top and you might think I need to talk to these people. In your case, about a year ago, year and a half ago, I was interviewing your colleagues Barry and Dee Dee Rush and Bob Tiede. At the end of that conversation I said, now y'all been through this. It wasn't quite like a root canal. Who would you recommend? And your name came out of Barry and Dee Dee immediately. [00:02:04] Tommy Thomas: So then earlier this year, I was talking to our mutual friend, DeeDee Wilson, from InterVarsity and she says, who else have you got in the queue? And I began to tell her, and she says, you need to talk to Andrea. I said, okay. And then a little bit later, I was talking to Judy Douglas and Judy says who else are you interviewing? And I told her, and she says, have you spoke to Andrea yet? And I said no but that's probably a sign. I'm excited about this. Before we dig too deep into your professional background, I always like to know a little bit about somebody's childhood and maybe a few of the things that brought them to where they are today. [00:02:40] Tommy Thomas: Do you have a couple of particular remembrances of childhood? [00:02:44] Andrea Buczynski: I grew up in Northeastern Pennsylvania in a small town that was full of families who had immigrated to the U.S. which included my grandparents. And we grew up in what I'd call a front porch community, where everybody sat on the front porch and knew one another, and all of my grade school teachers lived within about five blocks of our home. And so, there was this sense of you're part of a community. If you actually did something naughty, chances are your mom would know about it before you got home. Somebody would be on the way or able to correct you. We also lived just a couple doors down from the church we went to, which was a big influence in my life. I'm the oldest of six. And so, growing up, sharing was a common struggle and was what made the family experience rich as it was. [00:03:43] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like in your town? [00:03:47] Andrea Buczynski: By the time I got to high school, we had a consolidated district. You went from that class of maybe 30 or 60 to class of, let's say 270, something like that. Andrea Buczynski: It was just a different experience. What I enjoyed a lot was the kinds of activities that you got to do stuff together. Glee Club, Choir, Band, Marching Band, Color Guard, where you're having to actually work together to accomplish a result. When I look back on it, there was a lot that I really enjoyed. So, like any high school, if you've got your cliques, you've got all your athletic teams and stuff like that, that makes for kind of a rich experience. [00:04:37] Tommy Thomas: So back then, what did you want to be when you grew up? [00:04:41] Andrea Buczynski: I don't know that it emerged right away, but when I was a junior in high school, I had a really awesome chemistry teacher. And it was known to be a tough class. And so, I was prepared for the challenge of it, but I was fascinated by the fact that you could figure out what things were made of and what they could do. And he had a really good way of showing films about the practical applications of the chemical reactions we were studying. And so, I found myself really leaning toward being a research chemist. And that's what was my intention when I headed to Penn State. [00:05:26] Tommy Thomas: Did you follow through with that? [00:05:29] Andrea Buczynski: Not so much. Somewhere in my college years, the Lord got a hold of my heart in a big way. And as I considered what I was going to do I think by that time I was already active in ministry with Cru. And I was just loving helping people walk with the Lord and come to know him personally. I was also doing individual study with my supervisor that got my, what do you call that? With your college advisor and realize what life in a chem lab would be like. And as much as I enjoyed it, the big aha I had about myself, Tommy, was that I'm an all-in kind of person, so whatever I'm pursuing I want to get to that problem. [00:06:20] Andrea Buczynski: I want to get to the solution. So, I'd find myself thinking about the chemistry while I was actually talking to people about other things at night. And I thought, whatever I have to do, I'm not going to have any bandwidth to do something on the side. If I was thinking I'm going to come home from work and do ministry, I'm not wired that way, so I realized it would be all in on something. And then the Lord began to speak to me through the gospel of Luke, follow me. And there you have it. [00:06:55] Tommy Thomas: What's something that people are always surprised to find out about you? [00:07:01] Andrea Buczynski: That I was maybe a church organist for seven years through high school and played the organ at the church down the street for me. And then at another one across the river. And yeah, I'm both organ and piano, I have a piano here. And so sometimes people are surprised by that, like the music theme that kind of runs through my life. ++++++++++++++++ [00:07:30] Tommy Thomas: So, you joined the Cru staff and sooner or later you had people reporting to you. What do you remember about that first, we'll call it management experience? [00:07:45] Andrea Buczynski: I'd say the first memory is being a little bit overwhelmed at thinking about what I was actually responsible for. And one of the beautiful things that happened was I ended up working with a guy who as we were leading the team together, who had been a rookie the year before. And he just looked at me at our first meeting and he goes, look, I know what it feels like to be new because I'm only a year further along. And he goes, so there's plenty of grace for it for you coming into this role. And we'll just take it one thing at a time, but I'm. I'm not going to sit here and say the bar is high and all that jazz. He goes, I understand what you're going through. And so when you have a colleague like that who's a brother in the Lord, who's looking at you with empathy and a lot of grace, it makes for a relatively easy transition. [00:08:49] Tommy Thomas: Would you have called him a mentor or a peer leader? [00:08:53] Andrea Buczynski: I'd say, we were roughly the same age, so it's more of a peer but what he demonstrated, I think, was just the kind of empathy and understanding of what a new leader goes through and made it just an easy transition. The first time I actually led a team by myself, Tommy, was when I took this role as Global Vice President. And so up until then, every role I had been in was a shared leadership. A partner kind of role and in that case when I stepped in, I was like wow, there's a lot more to this, when you're carrying that load by yourself and what made that somewhat daunting, are we doing the right things? Are we making decisions in the right places? What was helpful in that situation was I had a couple of guys on my team, Barry was one of them who would look at what needs to be done. And let's go be super supportive and big cheerleaders along the way. [00:10:02] Tommy Thomas: If I could back when you came onto that job, so you've been in there about a year or so, and I could have been invited to a staff meeting and we dismissed you and I asked your staff, what was the most exciting thing about working for you? What do you think they would have said? [00:10:21] Andrea Buczynski: We're headed somewhere. [00:10:23] Tommy Thomas: And what would have been the most daunting thing about working for you or challenging? [00:10:31] Andrea Buczynski: You remember when I said I'm all in on stuff, so if I'm like mentally engrossed in a problem-solving kind of thing both these guys could tell at a glance whether I could really hear something that they wanted to bring to my attention that day. So, I think, is Andrea able to engage on this thing right now and I got that feedback from that and I was surprised. But I thought, it's true, it was one of the better pieces of feedback that I got. I can tell if you're ready to engage, or if you have something else on your mind, that's going to eclipse what I'm talking to you about. [00:11:12] Tommy Thomas: As you've come through Cru, how have you learned to identify what's a good leadership role for you? [00:11:20] Andrea Buczynski: If you're familiar with Cru, placement when I came on staff was not a negotiable thing. When you were assigned, it made you, A, flexible, and B, adapting to different leadership styles or leadership situations. But the ones I enjoy the most are the ones where there's a really committed team. And that idea that together we're going somewhere and there's more that we can accomplish together than we can accomplish individually. One of my assignments was at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, and you might recognize this name. Dick Bennett was the coach. He went on to coach at Madison, Wisconsin. But he was a strong believer. And when he talked about basketball, it was the pure, the whole team plays. There's not an individual star. And I love listening to him for that, just for that analogy, because I thought that is good teamwork. And I love that kind of situation where you're making the best out of each other's strengths and seeing who else you might need if the team itself was weak in it. [00:12:40] Andrea Buczynski: So, I like that. And I also like to have someone to report to who is both accessible and supportive, so if I have something I want it. Think about it, it's not going to take me a month to get a meeting. [00:12:54] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. At what point in your career did you begin to feel comfortable in your leadership skin? [00:13:03] Andrea Buczynski: I'd say the last five years. Okay. Later along the line than you might think. And at some of that, I think it's just because the scale of what you're looking at in global leadership development and HR in Cru is pretty extensive. And the number of stakeholders. And could feel off balance for a variety of reasons. Most of my experience on the ministry side was in the US so understanding the lay of the land on other continents and what the impact of decisions that we were considering would be in those places was not necessarily something I felt comfortable in until yeah, I would say maybe seven years ago, but in the last 10 for sure. [00:13:54] Tommy Thomas: Going back to your team. What's the most effective team building exercise that you found to use? [00:14:02] Andrea Buczynski: This might be pretty basic, but other than taking some time to hear one another's histories and life experiences, the process of team formation is one of the best team building things that I think you could do. And those would be simple things like how do we want to treat each other? What are norms? Developing team norms and then taking the team through some kind of strategic planning process. What is it that you know, from our current reality? Where do we want to head? So doing those processes are kind of work processes, but it's what enables a team to see the big picture of what needs to happen. They understand the rationale they're participating in the decision making around what are we going to do? And how are we going to do it? And who are we going to be to each other? [00:14:59] Andrea Buczynski: And then I would say from then, it's just the continuous improvement, let's evaluate how it went. It's always fun. We love assessments, try to find out a little more insight about who you are. And so, I won't discount those because they give insight. But when I think about what really helps a team gel, it is knowing that we're going to the same place, we've agreed on who's doing what, we know the processes we'll engage in, we know our obligations toward one another, those kinds of things make for a good team experience. [00:15:32] Tommy Thomas: What's the most ambitious project you've ever undertaken with your team? [00:15:42] Andrea Buczynski: That's a tough question because we've had some good ones along the way, but I will say the most recent restructure my team was responsible for designing a process to care for 680 staff whose jobs would be eliminated because we were taking a level of the organization out. So how would we care for those people in transition? What help would we provide in finding a new assignment? Because we didn't want to lose them. They were all great people. It's just that we were going into a different structure, and we needed to be able to evaluate the role that might be best for them. So, you can imagine if you have those folks, many of them serving overseas in international assignments, moving in a family, or the way something was going to be structured now isn't going to fit exactly what they were doing. So that one and thrown in with that was a global leadership conference to celebrate the past 10 years, all in one package. [00:16:52] Andrea Buczynski: So different parts of my team participated in that, but the people care part was a multinational task force. I think eight to 10 original participants grew into something around maybe 100 to 150, if you include the conference. [00:17:15] Tommy Thomas: Now, was this done face to face, or was this all through via zoom? This is probably a pandemic (ish) timeframe. [00:17:22] Andrea Buczynski: It was exactly. It was during the pandemic. And so, we did everything by zoom, even the Global Leadership Conference, three mornings, three hours each morning and working out a design that would somehow enable us to celebrate and to lament because all of us were in different situations and many people had lost family or friends. And then to anticipate what the Lord might want to do the next 10 years as we go forward. And it was an amazing time going, how do you do this in a relatively short amount of time? I think we had somewhere between 1,000 to 1,500 people participate online. Which was just an amazing thing. [00:18:09] Andrea Buczynski: I cried. I'm just watching people populate the chat high from this country, high from that country, coming in, in different languages. It gives me chills even thinking about it as I'm telling you about it, because it was such a work of God, how that, you know that team was different from the People Care Task Force. I had never led a conference planning team. And we got to a point where we had the design in place. And I didn't know what to do. And I got an email from one of my fellow VPs who said, there’s a woman on my team who led the biggest staff conference in a certain part of the world. And I'd like to make her available to you. [00:18:58] Andrea Buczynski: And I called her that afternoon. And said I'm stuck. Like we have the design, and it turns out her husband was on my team, but I didn't realize he had program director experience. He was reporting to someone else on my team. And the two of them got on zoom with me and they said, let us look at what you have, and we'll come back with recommendations tomorrow. And the next day they came back, and they said, here's what needs to happen. And it said, the composition of the meetings needs to change. It needs to go to the production team now. And they said, do you really want us to lead this? And I was like, yes, I'm happy to be in the meeting, but I have no bandwidth. [00:19:41] Andrea Buczynski: Like to set an agenda for another set of meetings. And that was about four weeks out from the conference. Maybe three. And Tommy, it went off without a hitch. It was a beautiful experience of the provision of God, people operating in their giftedness. And all of this was happening. We had people on the team from Singapore, from Paris, the U.S. A couple of other places that I can't think of right now. But it was, that same kind of multinational over distance. How can we do this? Let's figure it out kind of situation. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:20:25] Tommy Thomas: Thinking about the pandemic and hopefully we're through it for the most part, from a leadership lesson perspective, what do you think maybe you and your team learned that's worth taking forward? [00:20:41] Andrea Buczynski: That's a great question. There's probably a couple of things. One is, Zoom showed us we were pretty reliant on face-to-face meetings to get anything done. And it slowed any kind of corrective action. If you're dependent on face to face, it takes six months to a year to plan a multinational meeting of any size and to get people there, budgets and all of that. Suddenly, we went, oh my goodness, there's another way to do this. We had to use Skype, but it was difficult in some cases and the efficiency of zoom was amazing. So, it changed the way we thought about how to do things. It gave people some bandwidth. If you didn't have little kids at home, it wasn't so hard for singles, the isolation was challenging. [00:21:45] Andrea Buczynski: And when you think about it changed, it actually affected my view of remote work and for whom will it be a challenge and for whom will it make life easier? In some ways. So, when you have some discretion about, how to use your time, I've never been one for, let's say, punching an office clock, although I like having an office, but it's my point of view has been if people are doing the work, I'm not going to count the hours that they're spending doing it. So, that was never a problem with me, but certain conditions for remote work. You have to have a place where you can be undistracted, or work without interruption. You just, all of those funny videos about kids or pets, coming into the meeting. You can live with them, but it's not good for an ongoing situation. [00:22:41] Andrea Buczynski: The other thing I would say was it actually prepared us for the kind of structure that we have now because we're more highly dependent on tools like zoom and then shared like a shared Google drive. Like, all those things have changed the way we get work done and the pandemic was like proof positive of that. Could we do work in a sort of asynchronous way and be together when we need to be together and move things forward? And then I'd say the third part would be there's nothing that replaces face to face contact. [00:23:18] Andrea Buczynski: So, I had a big birthday during the first year of the...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/31287547
info_outline
Intentional Living and Giving: A Deep Dive with Larry O’Nan
05/08/2024
Intentional Living and Giving: A Deep Dive with Larry O’Nan
Tommy Thomas: Today we continue our dialogue with Larry O’Nan that we began last week. Before delving into that conversation, I'd like to share some reflections that have emerged after revisiting our episode a few times. As the one handling post-production duties for this podcast, I typically listen during the edit for technical nuances and formatting concerns, rather than immersing myself in the content. However, I get a second chance to absorb the discussions when I tune in via my podcast app. This usually occurs on Saturday mornings during my long bicycle rides. Alongside other favorite podcasts like Alan Alda’s Clear and Vivid, previous Tennessee governor's Phil Bredesen and Bill Haslam's You Might Be Right, Tia Brown’s One Question Leadership Podcast, Far East Broadcasting Company’s weekly update and other enriching podcasts. During one such ride last week as Larry recounted the early days of Fund Development with Cru, my mind traveled back to 1974 to those nascent beginnings. As a young 23-year-old joining the Crusade staff, my prior fundraising experience had been limited to helping a friend with a critical medical procedure. While this endeavor proved fruitful, it primarily relied on contributions from close acquaintances. Under Larry's guidance, alongside a small team of field reps, I unwittingly became a part of Campus Crusade’s foundational efforts in Fund Development. Back then, not only were we tasked with raising our own personal support, but we were instrumental in pioneering the organization's approach to securing substantial funding for specific projects. My tenure with Larry proved to be a master class in various aspects of life and fundraising. From time management strategies to maximizing air travel budgets. And even cultivating relationships with affluent donors predominantly in their senior years. Those lessons were invaluable. Little did we know that we would be trailblazers in Campus Crusade’s fundraising efforts, contributing to the trajectory of Larry's enduring career. Looking back, I'm deeply grateful for those formative years and the profound insights into both fundraising in life that Larry had parted to me. Let's pick up where we left off last week. [00:02:40] Tommy Thomas: Take me into your new book, Intentional Living and Giving. What was the genesis of that? [00:02:48] Larry O'Nan: The genesis came back from this study when I was assigned the job of writing to come up with Stewardship Theology. I did another book in the mid 80s called Giving Yourself Away, and in many respects, this is a revision of that, although it's a totally different package, but it was still basically all the same core theology. And a few years ago, I was in Ireland for an event, And some people in Britain were saying there's nothing that's really distinctive that we know about this, simple to understand about what stewardship's about, because there's a lot of misconceptions out there. And there's a lot of traditions that would get in their way. [00:03:30] Larry O'Nan: In Great Britain, years ago there was a guy there that started orphanages. And he had about 300 kids in the orphanages in Bristol. And as he was working with these kids, he was a great marketer, but he was known for praying things in. So, he'd go into his closet and pray. And then people decided that his style of raising funds was the way they would adapt. So, they would say we're not going to ask for money. We're going to go pray for it. What they don't tell you is the story of how well he was at marketing where the kids were living. And everybody knew where he was located, and he was out all the time talking about the kids in need. [00:04:13] Larry O'Nan: So, you'll find that story. And there are some people who say we should never ask for anything. God is the one that provides. We're not going to go that route. So, there's a lot of skewed ideas of what this all means. The book itself, Intentional Living and Giving, is a recap of everything. So, the first nine chapters are the Theology of Stewardship, and then the latter nine chapters are how do you practically apply this in your life. So, we unpack what God's role for man was and what we do, how we respond, how we act, what we should be doing. And then the latter part is here's some very practical things that will help you be successful. And out of the whole book, there's one chapter because everybody expects a book on stewardship to be about money. [00:05:01] Larry O'Nan: I dedicated one chapter to talk about what money is and how it works and what tithing is and some of those things. But that's one chapter out of 17 chapters. And I really say this is one thing you can give, but there's a hundred other things you can give as well. What are you doing in stewardship? Not what are you doing with your money? And so the book itself is, what I discovered, there's people out there, Tommy, I remember a lady about a decade ago, she was probably in her 60s, maybe 65, and she had tears in her eyes. The context was she'd been married to a pastor, and they'd gone through a divorce, so that was a mess up. [00:05:40] Larry O'Nan: They had been in ministry for years and years. She raised a family of a couple of kids. And her tears in her eyes was I never have figured out my purpose in life. Why did God put me here in the first place? And I thought for 65, you just missed some of the great joy because he was very clear giving you assignments and work. You just didn't know what day you were a steward. So, she really was fulfilling a stewardship, and everybody knew about it, but she was miserable because it wasn't articulated to her that you are doing what God called you to do. I think of that lady every once in a while, and I think, boy, if more people understood how they could be a steward and practically implement stewardship in their life, they could go from confusion and fear to thriving and abundant contentment. [00:06:30] Larry O'Nan: And that's what I'm really trying to help people get is I'm trying to help you free yourself up from the confusion and the fear that you probably are living with to wonder if you're doing what God led you to do. Why am I here in the first place? What's all about a life that says I'm thriving? I have an abundance. Nothing about money there, just the abundance of life, and I can be content. So, the book is really unpacking that for the average Christian. I wrote it as much for the international side as I did the American side, but it's a universal challenge that's out there, and that's why the book is you know, on its way out the door. I'm just trying to help people get free so they can thrive. That's what it's all about. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:07:15] Tommy Thomas: Early in your career, and then you took a break from it, and I think now you're back at it, but tell our listeners a little bit about your Andy Ant series. [00:07:24] Larry O'Nan: I'm a dad. I have two daughters. My oldest daughter was three years of age, and the other one was just coming along. She's about three years younger. One night, Carrie, I read her stories every night when I was home, and I would put her to bed after reading her a kid story. And one night she said, Daddy, I don't want you to read me a story. And I did. I thought this is weird. She says, I want you to tell me a story. [00:07:53] Larry O'Nan: And so I laid down her book that I was going to read to her, and I laid there in bed for a minute, and I said, once upon a time, there was an ant, because I was remembering the book of Proverbs, it said, watch the ant, learn of his ways, my definition is, though he's tiny, he's mighty in many ways, we can learn a lot from ants, how they store, how they work. The diligence, the way they work together in cooperation. I've got a 300-page book on ants, believe it or not. I didn't write it, but the guy did his doctoral thesis on ants. And I thought that's an interesting one. But anyway, I started telling my daughter stories and they were really just stories about her and the life she lived about this little character. [00:08:34] Larry O'Nan: And I named him Andy. And she liked Andy Ant. So many nights it would be tell me an Andy Ant story. Now, the Andy Ant stories that are out today, my brother is the author of all the books. We did collaborate on the concept, but he's an attorney in Denver. And I said if you will work on the storylines the way you see him, I'll try to work on the marketing and getting the stories out there and their books for three- to 10-year-old kids. They are the day in the life of a little boy that I didn't create. My brother is basically Joseph Tyler Johnson, the main character. But I, in my world of Andy Ant, it was what Carrie was doing outside and how the ants interrupted her life. And then Jessica came along, and the same thing happened. So, the environment there was learning from the ants and learning principles of daily living in a fun way without being religious. [00:09:32] Larry O'Nan: I wasn't trying to make him memorize verses at that time of day. What did I learn? Andy would play baseball because Carrie had a baseball bat and she played out in the backyard and tried to hit the ball. Andy started hitting the balls in the grass. So, it was crazy. It made no sense. And if for 10 years, Andy existed between Jessica and Carrie and myself, the life came when my brother got involved and created it. We eventually got a former Disney artist who had worked for 21 years for Walt Disney personally, and he did all of the illustrations. So, if you see the Andy Ant work today, there's eight books in the series. [00:10:13] Larry O'Nan: It looks like what you would call Disney evergreen art because it was created by one of the Disney evergreen artists, and he did that. He spent two years of his life working with us on the entire series. He's no longer living, but that's the story of how we got the stories going. So that is out there for kids that really, there's a stewardship element to it because I have trouble giving up on Andy because I'm a steward of Andy. So, I got to take care of this crazy ant. Because that's a responsibility that God gave me. But it's incidental to the other story of really helping people thrive. I'm much more motivated to help you and other people that you might know or other adults. God's really got a purpose. I want you to thrive and do all that God led you to do. [00:11:07] Larry O'Nan: And if I'm doing that and you're doing that, we're going to get along fine. Life will be better for both of us. Yeah. ++++++++++++++++ [00:11:13] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned you just returned from Spain. Are there cultural differences in the way a Latin population would see stewardship or an Eastern European population or does it transcend? [00:11:29] Larry O'Nan: It transcends. I started working with the guy that created this environment that I was a part of. It was the guy that I've mentored for 40 years. And I started training him. He picked up on it. There's another guy in Switzerland that has taken it even further. One of them got into helping missionaries raise their own personal support called Ministry Partner Development. And this conference was centered around helping missionaries do that. Now, I probably met less than a half a dozen Americans there. Everybody else was European. There were 20 countries involved. I met four people from Ukraine. There were people from the Baltic states, across France, Spain, everywhere else. [00:12:13] Larry O'Nan: Some of them were with organizations that you would recognize, but they were the European expression. So Young Life and Navigators and Operation Mobilization and Youth of the Mission were all there. So was Agape Europe, which is the Cru expression of Campus Crusade. But I'd say two thirds of the organizations, I couldn't even figure out how to pronounce their names. They were unique organizations to the culture. Some of them were humanitarian, camping, evangelism, church planting, church growth. And they were all equipped with how they could raise financial support as missionaries within their culture with nobody ever leaving their culture to raise the funding that they need because they're raising money in Spain, in France, in Germany, in Switzerland, in the Netherlands, in Great Britain, in Ukraine, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Poland. [00:13:10] Larry O'Nan: They're racing the same kind of a thing that you and I would have done, in the seventies with Cru is being done over and over again. And it's not a Cru thing. It's their own unique thing. Everybody that was at that conference was volunteering their time to help others. It was not sponsored by an organization. It was sponsored by a network. And they came together to help, and they keep on training people how to do it. And they're helping the nationals be successful in it. Spain's a unique country. Years ago, when I first went there, probably 40 years ago, I was told over and over again, you can never raise money in the country of Spain. [00:13:53] Larry O'Nan: It's impossible because we don't have the money here. And this guy that was telling me that over and over was making sure that we weren't going to mess up his plan. The Lord took him home. He’s probably been gone about five or six years. The generation that came after him learned about what we're talking about in terms of fund development and just said we do not want to be dependent on money from outside of Europe. [00:14:20] Larry O'Nan: We don't want to be dependent on money outside of Spain. And so, this ministry is 100 percent funded now by Spanish funds, and comes in through the Spanish structure. They rarely get any money outside of Spain and rarely any from the United States. That doesn't mean that we don't encourage that when it's available. But it's very unhealthy when an organization becomes codependent on somebody else just to make them work. And the entire European structure is trying to say we do not need funding from the West, i.e. the United States. I say if people want to be generous and help you, accept it. [00:15:01] Larry O'Nan: But to say that we cannot survive as an organization because we don't have funding from the U.S. They think it is wrong and they need to be responsible. The principle is that every place in the world, God's landed his people and he's got money everywhere. And it's all his. So, let's go find it and let's work with the partners that are there. And if you look at any part of scripture, in fact, the principles that we teach on stewardship came out of the Middle East. They didn't come out of America. These are all biblical principles that came out of a period of time of the Old and New Testament. So, it works as well there. It takes some time, and it takes, I find that sometimes leadership of their organizations is the number one liability to doing it right because they're assigning somebody else to go raise it, but they don't want to go through the pain or the refocus of their attention to do it right. [00:15:58] Larry O'Nan: When I was over in Spain last week, I was saying, get you copies of Intentional Living and Giving, get the dialogue going with your leadership and your board. Because if they're with you, you can thrive as an organization. If they're not with you in this philosophy or theology you're going to be having struggles all the time because they're going to want money faster than the development process will get it to them. Even there, and the book will work there, and it's all in English right now, that's the way the books start typically, if an English person writes it. But I would anticipate in the next two or three years, we'll be in half a dozen languages that will be relevant to the mainstream. You can have about eight languages in the world and be into the marketplace, any place in the world. [00:16:44] Larry O'Nan: Yeah, there's 2000 languages, but those are heart languages. And the economy works in about eight languages. The world economy is there. That's where we're at. And these people, yes, the entire conference in Spain was English. But when they read scripture, they would read it in five languages because somebody in that room knew one of those five languages. So, that's what it was. And it was the generation Z and maybe millennials that were leading the conference. I never spoke once. I just spent a lot of time interacting with the participants there. And I didn't need to speak because they were doing a better job at doing that than I could ever have done. And it is universal. It can work any place. Some of the largest funding for Christian enterprises currently happens in Asia, not in the United States. +++++++++++++++++ [00:17:37] Tommy Thomas: Let's try to bring this thing to a close. I want to ask you. I don't know that I like the word lightning round because you might want to take longer to answer than a lightning round might incur, but so I'll start with, if you could give a younger version of yourself, a piece of advice, what would it be? [00:17:56] Larry O'Nan: Don't be afraid to fail, work a plan or develop a plan and work the plan. Don't give up. [00:18:06] Tommy Thomas: If you could get a do over in life, what would it be? [00:18:13] Larry O'Nan: If I could do a do over? I probably would have gained understanding of stewardship earlier. I totally tripped over it. I think my life would have been a lot more fulfilled if I'd just known it a couple of decades earlier. [00:18:31] Tommy Thomas: How have you changed in the last five years? [00:18:36] Larry O'Nan: You got to go backoalmost 10 years on my change. My wife died 10 years ago, and about nine years into that, I said, Okay, I'm very much alive and well and healthy. And I said, instead of retiring, I'm going to reboot and keep on going. That's been the radical changes to my fault. I take on more than I should. But if you have got a responsible bone in your body, you'll probably do that. And yeah, I think that people that quit on anything lose life. I see people retired, but I also see 40-year-olds that quit on a marriage or quit on their kids or quit on something else. I just think stick with it. That I was going to write a book some years back. I may still do something someday with it called The Curve. [00:19:33] Larry O'Nan: Because the only time you really grow is when you're in a crisis situation. And the book, The Curve, was about how you navigate the curves of life. And it's in the curve when you think it's the worst that you're probably going to grow the most. So, embrace the curve and realize that what comes out of the backside of it is going to make you a better person. [00:19:55] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice anybody ever gave you? [00:20:00] Larry O'Nan: You have the freedom to fail. I don't think I ever would have done what I did in my years that God gave me here so far if I did not embrace that and just go for it over and over again. I write it down every once in a while when I'm up against the wall. Larry, you have the freedom to fail. Go try it. [00:20:26] Tommy Thomas: It's been a wonderful conversation, Larry. Thank you. It's good to catch up and we shouldn't wait this long to do it again. [00:20:34] Larry O'Nan: I should come out and someday we have to go out and see what's in your part of the world together. I have fond memories of working with you, Tommy. Fond memories. [00:20:42] Tommy Thomas: You're welcome on the Gulf Coast anytime you can catch an airplane ride down this way. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:20:47] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast. If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is [email protected]. Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/31183397
info_outline
Transforming Fundraising: Understanding Stewardship in Nonprofit Fund Development
05/01/2024
Transforming Fundraising: Understanding Stewardship in Nonprofit Fund Development
[00:00:00] Larry O'Nan: We could have failed miserably, Tommy, but that was okay. I learned a long time ago, and even in the book that I've written, I did a foreword about the freedom to fail. And I was afraid to step out and do things, and I had a guy that I was working with, and he said, Larry, freedom to fail is what you've got. [00:00:19] Larry O'Nan: No one's ever done it before. Go ahead and step into it. All you can do is go back and do it again. If it doesn't work, then try something else. And freedom to fail never became a barrier to me. If this is not the way to do it, we'll figure it out later and tweak it and do it again. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:34] Tommy Thomas: My guest today is Larry O'Nan, and Larry is a graduate of the University of Colorado. He and his wife, Pat, served on the staff of Cru, previously known as Campus Crusade for Christ, for 18 years. And during this time, Larry dedicated 13 years to developing and overseeing the accelerated growth of many fund development initiatives, resulting in more than 150 million raised for evangelism and development programs worldwide. I first met Larry in July of 1973. I had joined the staff of Campus Crusade and had been assigned to report to Larry. It's an immense pleasure to get to interview my first boss. Larry, Welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:20] Larry O'Nan: Tommy, it's so good to be with you. Thanks a lot for inviting me to dialogue with you a little bit today about all kinds of things. We've got a long history. [00:01:28] Tommy Thomas: We could go in a lot of directions. We could do a whole podcast on reminiscing about memories, but there was one that stuck in my mind. And I don't know if you remember or not. It was the summer of ‘74 and Larry and I had traveled to Korea to attend this big conference, Expo 74, with a million and a half of our good friends. And after the conference, we traveled around Southeast Asia, but the leg of the trip that I remember was with the Philippines. And it was so hot, and it was so humid, I was raised in the south and I thought I knew what heat and humidity was, but they put a whole new definition on it over there. I remember we shared a bedroom that had two single beds and one oscillating fan. I can remember lying in my bed and that fan would hit me and then it would go away and it'd go over, swing over to Larry's side of the room, and hit him. And it'd go back and forth. And I thought, a lot of significant learning took place on that trip, but the heat and the humidity and that oscillating fan stick out in my memory, Larry. [00:02:34] Larry O'Nan: Oh, my goodness. And I was in the Philippines about two years ago. I chair a board of a nonprofit in the Philippines called Little Feet and Friends, and I was sharing a room with a Filipino pastor that was with me. And I was laying there thinking at least the last time I was here, it wasn't oscillating. I was actually in the only air-conditioned room on that entire compound. [00:03:00] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, they get used to that heat over there. It's amazing. It is amazing. Before we dig too deep into your career and the books you've written and that kind of thing, I want to go back to your maybe to your childhood a little bit. Growing up in Colorado, what are two or three things that you remember most about your childhood? [00:03:18] Larry O'Nan: My father was a pastor in Western Colorado at the time. And Tommy, the things that stuck with my head the most was learning to do something from nothing. Dad was encouraging. I had a horse that was 36 inches tall, a Grand Canyon pony horse. And I learned to make money with that little rascal. He about killed me on a race, but I decided that I could take him to the richer part of my town. And for a quarter, I could get a kid to ride on the back of the horse and I could make more money in three hours as a 10- or 12-year-old than I could if I was doing anything else. So, learning to do something from nothing, taking an idea and creating something from it. And believe it or not, over and over again in my life, I've seen that same pattern kick into gear many times. Because too many times I was told to go do it, but there's no plan. [00:04:09] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like in Western Colorado? [00:04:13] Larry O'Nan: Western Colorado is a unique area in that we were the major town between Denver and Salt Lake. And it was a rural community, but it was also a cosmopolitan mixing area. It was the largest city, and it was there that I got involved in theater a great deal. I knew I was going to become famous in the theater world for five years. Even into my junior year in college, I knew that's where I was aiming. I began not only liking the acting, but I really got into the directing and the back of the scene, what goes on behind to make a show work. Again, it was taking something from almost nothing and creating in six weeks, a full production of South Pacific or you name the shows that we did. We did a lot of major shows. [00:04:59] Larry O'Nan: And over again, when I was in high school, I started seeing that there was a need for some people to come in and do the backside of the curtain to make the front of the curtain actually work. And so I've enjoyed the backside of the curtain all my life and standing back in the back of a room, watching it happen when it goes off. So that was my high school days. From there, I went to university. And majored in theater up to my junior year in college when I decided I wanted to get out of that field and ended up with a double major in English education and was supposed to become a drama coach and a debate coach and an English teacher. And I never went that way. I went into full time ministry. [00:05:43] Tommy Thomas: What are people always surprised to find out about you? [00:05:47] Larry O'Nan: Oh, my goodness. What were they surprised to find out about me? Probably that I think it was a surprise to even me too, is that when I would make a commitment to do something, I later discovered I have a high degree of responsibility in my whole system, but I cannot give up on things. When I say I'm going to do something, I do it, and that's probably surprised me as much as it did them. But it would also bother me when things happen when people would not follow through. Because to me, everybody should have that same value. I discover people are different, but in defining what my strengths were, I really discovered one of those was maximizing the occasion, but the other one was a driving force to be responsible, to get it done. Even today. I've got to say no, because if I say yes, I'm caught with a responsibility to carry through and do something. [00:06:41] Tommy Thomas: What do you remember about the first time you had people reporting to you as a manager? [00:06:48] Larry O'Nan: When I was in my second year at the University of Pennsylvania, working with Campus Crusade in the Ivy League area, I was assigned a responsibility to have a music group come through the area. And they gave me 30 days of time with that group. And I decided if I was going to have them for 30 days and they were going to charge me by the day, I was going to get my money out of them. And I about killed the group because I started organizing people on every campus in five states to get ready for this group to come to town. And we did, I think 32 concerts in 30 days. They never told me not to do it. They just told me to schedule the group and I overscheduled them. But I had good teams on all these campuses, both Ivy League and state campuses and Christian colleges that were in that area. [00:07:38] Larry O'Nan: And I learned from that experience that people will do what you tell them to do if you lay out a clear plan and help them get there. So, to me, it's not about me getting the credit, it's about the people that I recruit to do the job where they own it. And then I can sit back and help them be successful at it. For years, that's the way I functioned. Now, later, I got into developing more people when I got into early fund development. There was only two of us who started off with a huge project that no one had any clue what to do about. But within 13 years, I had about 100 people and seven departments working for me. [00:08:18] Larry O'Nan: And again, it was more of a facilitator role and an encourager role that I saw my leadership to be not a one that went ahead and get it done. So even when I started writing books and doing other things, I developed teams that were working on those things and they had as much ownership on the project that I did, and they felt that ownership, I think, and it carried the whole program. So, to say I was really leading. Yeah, I was influenced, but I was more by encouraging them to go get the job done and help us get it done together. So that happened. +++++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:08:54] Tommy Thomas: So, you were on the campus staff. How did you get over into fundraising? [00:09:02] Larry O'Nan: I almost tripped over that one. I did two years at the University of Pennsylvania. Then that music group came through. It was called the New Folk at the time. And when I killed them in 30 days, they asked me that summer, if I would move out of the campus ministry and had started advancing that Eastern United States group that had, I think, 30 states under its wing. And I started doing the advanced work and setting up all of their concerts for the next couple of years. And that led me into music. Eventually, after a number of years there, I put seven groups together for the Ministry of Crew and both Asia and Africa and Europe, and then a number of groups here in the United States. [00:09:44] Larry O'Nan: I found myself in 1972 out of a job, and I was asked by the then Senior Vice President of the organization if I would help him with a project and I took a brand-new staff guy into that room to say, what is the project? And he went to his hotel bathroom. He was headquartered in an old facility that had hotel rooms that were converted to offices. He pulled back the shower curtain. There were 28 boxes of pledge cards. Representing almost 2 million in pledges made by 80,000 students in Dallas, Texas earlier that summer. It had been 90 days since those boxes had been touched. No one had a clue what was in them and the only responsibilities, could you take these boxes and see if you can convert them into commitments from the people that made these pledges. [00:10:36] Larry O'Nan: So, 90 days later, those 28 boxes started saying, this is what you call fund development. And I had no clue. No one was, there was no roadmap. There was nobody advising us. We just had to make it successful. And that got me into fund development. And little did I know that those 28 boxes would lead to a career that included 30 years of consulting with Christian nonprofits after that. It was a journey that I never expected, but it was using all my skill package. So, the way I did that job all those years was just leveraging my strengths and staying away from my weaknesses. [00:11:18] Tommy Thomas: So, I guess I didn't think about this back then. So, you were a year into this when I came along. [00:11:25] Larry O'Nan: I probably was about a year into it. I think Tommy, you and I were heavily involved in the I Found It campaign, the Here's Life America campaign that was going on. That was one of those jobs I was assigned. This is before you got there, but it was basically we need to raise 12 to 15 million in the next two years. How are you going to do it? And again, there was no plan. There was no advice. There was nobody telling us what to do. I was working casually with a consulting firm out of New York, shared with them the challenge that was before me, and he helped me formulate a plan. And we raised about 12 million in 18 months. But it was going from zero. [00:12:09] Larry O'Nan: And I think you came into play through that process. And we recruited representatives to work across the United States. I think I had about 15 or 18 field reps. And we were training cities how to raise the money to accomplish their city objectives. So again, it was taking something from nothing, creating an idea, formulating a plan, and then working the plan. And that pattern is, I've done that over and over again over my years. So, you and I started when there was nobody telling us what to do. And those days it was a wing and a prayer and Tommy go get on an airplane and go do X. And if we had an hour or two or a day before, we would figure out what to do the next day and we'd go do it. [00:12:58] Larry O'Nan: We could have failed miserably, Tommy, but that was okay. I learned a long time ago, and even in the book that I've written, I did a foreword about the freedom to fail. And I was afraid to step out and do things, and I had a guy that I was working with, and he said, Larry, freedom to fail is what you've got. No one's ever done it before. Go ahead and step into it. All you can do is go back and do it again. If it doesn't work, then try something else. And freedom to fail never became a barrier to me. It became “if this is not the way to do it, we'll figure it out later and tweak it and do it again”. So that's how it started. [00:13:35] Larry O'Nan: And I ended up spending 13 years doing the ministry of Cru, and then I consulted with them for another 10 - 12 years beyond that. As one of my clients when I was doing the fund development, because at that time, I was specializing in major partner development, and we were doing a lot of other initiatives, and I worked with them. Just this last week, I was in Spain and repeated some of the same stuff that we did 45 years ago in Spain again, except not in the context of Cru now. But if what Cru gave birth to is a network of nonprofit Christian organizations, and in this case in Europe. They were jokingly calling me the great grandfather of this activity that I was attending, because I was there and the guys that I trained and equipped and mentored were there, and then the leadership that they had developed through their work were there, and we had about 150 people at that conference. From 20 countries, sitting in about 15 organizations. It's fun to watch it work because you can stand in the back of the room and say, my goodness, this really did work. [00:14:47] Tommy Thomas: Go back to failure for a minute. Why do you think most of us are afraid to fail? [00:14:54] Larry O'Nan: I think there's an expectation that failure is bad to begin with. So, we hear the word failure, and we don't want to fail. But when you realize that if you don't have the freedom to fail, you may not take the risks that will take to get the job done. I've seen people have never reached their maximum potential because they're stumbling about what would happen if it didn't work? And I had the same feeling when I first started these things, and nobody was there to walk beside me. And then when I realized that if you don't do it one way, you just roll up your sleeves and go try another way. Now, I believe that if you learn a pattern and then mess up too much on it, that needs to be corrected. [00:15:40] Larry O'Nan: But generally, I think most people are afraid to fail. In fact, my concern is that I watched the Z generation. I've got a 23-year-old grandson, and there's a lot of these kids that are really afraid to step out and be bold and do something. They're almost frozen because they could get whiplash and could really take them down. And their self-esteem, they don't want to fail. So, they won't do anything. They will end up taking no less of a job. They will not take the risks. And that's the sad part. I feel like we got to help people endorse failure. I looked at the Old Testament. Moses had a huge potential failure when he picked up two million people in Egypt to go across the desert and it took him 40 years to get there. [00:16:25] Larry O'Nan: But he figured out how to navigate that particular venue with all the problems they had. But I think God gives us the freedom to fail. I don't think God is up there with a big stick saying, I'm going to give you a lower grade because it didn't work out right. I think that the key to good leadership is giving people the freedom to fail. I just think a lot of young adults coming up today are almost frozen and maybe the expectation on them is not fair as well. [00:16:56] Tommy Thomas: So yeah, failure is tied into risk. What's the biggest risk you've ever taken? [00:17:05] Larry O'Nan: Probably stepping into some arenas where I knew the potential of it not succeeding was really great, but we had to do it anyway. I was involved with a dream of Dr. Bill Bright to see a billion dollars raised for the Great Commission and the amount of funding and the way we were going to go about doing it was petrifying. But if you didn't step out and test some of those ideas out, you never would have known they worked. At that time the only organizations in the U.S. that achieved a billion dollars of income of any kind was probably Harvard and Stanford. And we were in an evangelical nonprofit culture. And the idea of raising money that had never ever been raised before was just a big gulp. And it was a huge risk because the reputation hangs on the risk. Now, I was not the upfront guy. I was doing much more of the logistics. And making it happen, but it takes those kinds of people behind the scenes. You can have a good guy on the platform, but if he doesn't know what he's doing, it's going to crumble pretty fast. ++++++++++++++++ [00:18:22] Tommy Thomas: What have you learned about resilience over the years? [00:18:27] Larry O'Nan: Keep at it. I think there's a tendency to if it doesn't work you get out of here. In fact, a few weeks ago, somebody said the frustration that I have with the young generation is that in fact, this was a tax guy. He said for most adults, they come in and they have a W2 form, or they have maybe two jobs, maybe three, if they're really getting entrepreneurial. He said the young generation is coming in with 10 or 12 W2 forms because they kept quitting and going to something else. He said they don't know where they're going because they don't stay long enough to figure out even what they're good at. And I think that is a reflection on our culture. But I'm still committed to trying to help people look at the longer term. [00:19:14] Larry O'Nan: My grandson just graduated from Biola University, and I said to him a few weeks ago, I said, now, the key thing is to stay at this job for 8, 10 weeks because his tendency is if this doesn't work, there's probably something over here that could work. Now he's not one to jump fast, but much of the culture jumps fast. So, to be on the job for two weeks and quit because you don't like the hours, you don't learn very much that way. Tommy, when you and I were doing what we were doing together, we were sticking through it for two or three years at a time, slugging up against all kinds of risks and all kinds of barriers. And I think we had some good times, but we did not know where we were going. God seemed to be getting us there. [00:20:01] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, I'm thinking back. I don't ever remember thinking about quitting. It was hard at times. But we did have good times along the way. We had things to celebrate and for the most part we got there. I think we were a pretty good fundraising group, that group of 15 that you had together. And then the tour we took when I managed that music group, the Crossroads, when we brought them in from Asia and I think back. I don't think that I've thought about quitting, I don't have any kids or grandkids, so I'm probably not as tied to these next generations as a lot of my guests are. So I'm always interested in what you're seeing out there and in that context. [00:20:43] Larry O'Nan: We were doing that Tommy back in those days and I...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/31072548
info_outline
Carl LaBarbera - Policy Governance for Nonprofit Boards
04/23/2024
Carl LaBarbera - Policy Governance for Nonprofit Boards
[00:00:00] Carl LaBarbera: I met a guy, Dick Berry, who was a professional in the Policy Governance arena. And once I took his class, I was convinced that this was what I needed to do board work. And the reason for that is because primarily my own work in aerospace industry, knowing that systems and procedures are essential to do any kind of job that's going to be effective. [00:00:26] Carl LaBarbera: And when Policy Governance was presented that's the kind of system that I was seeing. And so, a complete, scientific system with procedures and thinking about all the elements of governance was something I needed. [00:00:42] Tommy Thomas: My guest today is Carl LaBarbera. I met Carl several years ago at his home in Southern California. He was gracious to give me a couple of hours that afternoon, and we've maintained some loose contact with each other since then. One of the areas of expertise he has is that of Policy Governance, and I've known that, from the afternoon I met him, so as I was thinking about more guests we could have in the area of board service, Carl was one of the ones I wanted to have, so thank you, Carl, for joining us this afternoon. [00:01:14] Carl LaBarbera: Thank you, Tommy. It's my pleasure to be here and look forward to our conversation. [00:01:19] Tommy Thomas: Before we dig too deep into Policy Governance, how did you get interested in or involved in nonprofit board service? [00:01:29] Carl LaBarbera: That goes back 40 years. So, it's interesting. I don't know how far back you want me to go. [00:01:37] Carl LaBarbera: I can go back to my childhood because my dad had a company in inner city LA which is a very difficult area. [00:01:48] Tommy Thomas: Back then, especially, [00:01:49] Carl LaBarbera: When I was a very young child, I was 11 years old when the Watts Riots occurred. And my mother and I were driving into the business in South LA. [00:01:59] Carl LaBarbera: And the Watts Riots were underway. And my mom swears that a black woman flagged off attackers. She was in front of us, and we were able to drive into the business, but we had no idea. The news was not like it is today. We literally drove into it. So that obviously left a big impression on me as a kid. [00:02:22] Carl LaBarbera: And I've had a heart for the inner city ever since. And we continued, actually, my brother and I took over the business that my dad had started and in 1957 after the war and in continued in that Watts area, but then we were bought out by the freeway and moved just slightly south of there in an area in Linwood, which is still South LA [00:02:48] Carl LaBarbera: So that connection of having a business in that community and actually knowing the neighbors in that community, in the Watts community, which was primarily African American gave me that heart. And then I was listening to Focus on The Family. I would wake up in the morning, six o'clock in the morning, with Focus on The Family on the radio. [00:03:09] Carl LaBarbera: And Dr. Dobson was talking with Keith Phillips, who is the founder of World Impact, and talking about Watts. And I thought to myself, wow, that's literally across the street. And so, I made a journey to introduce myself to World Impact. At the time it was a Canadian director who was leading that Watts ministry. [00:03:33] Carl LaBarbera: And we got to become good friends in our company partnered with World Impact to help the missionaries in the Watts community and help them in any way we can to support them in their ministry. [00:03:45] Tommy Thomas: Wow. That goes back a long way. [00:03:49] Carl LaBarbera: We're talking 1990s. Yeah. At the time I met him, it was late eighties or early nineties. [00:03:55] Tommy Thomas: Did you have any kind of mentorship relative to board service? Did you have a model or a role model? [00:04:03] Carl LaBarbera: I think, my interest in board work really began with our own company. That was the work that I love to do, having a 30,000-foot perspective, being able to work at that high level, conceptual level seeing all the pieces in an organization the teamwork necessary to make an organization successful. [00:04:25] Carl LaBarbera: I got a hunger for that level of leadership in our own company, but where I was introduced to Policy Governance was at the Christian Management Association. So, I was a member of the association, which was called the Christian Management Association. Now it's called Christian Leadership Alliance. [00:04:44] Carl LaBarbera: And I met a guy, Dick Berry, who was a professional in the Policy Governance arena. And once I took his class, I was convinced that this was what I needed to do board work. And the reason for that is because primarily my own work in the aerospace industry, knowing that systems and procedures are essential to do any kind of job that's going to be effective. [00:05:11] Carl LaBarbera: And when Policy Governance was presented that's the kind of system that I was seeing. And so, a complete, scientific system with procedures and thinking about all the elements of governance was something I needed. And then of course, serving with a friend from church who was an urban ministry leader when he started his nonprofit Urban Youth Workers Institute and asked me to join his board and chair his board, John Carver. [00:05:44] Carl LaBarbera: It was like, what do I use to run a board? Because there's really nothing other than best practice information as to how you actually chair and run a board, how you lead a board. And so that's why policy governance just rung a bell for me, and I knew it was something I had to learn and be very good at. ++++++++++++++++++++ [00:06:05] Tommy Thomas: Get up at 50,000, 100,000 feet and look down. What's the primary purpose of the nonprofit board? One role of the Board is dealing with the risk factor. Mitigating or at least evaluate risk to determine what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. [00:06:12] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, there is one, one primary purpose with two parts actually. And I can just simplify that to say get the mission done and stay out of trouble. So, there's two elements. And what we say, what we call mission, and we call ENDS is what benefit for what people at what worth. [00:06:33] Carl LaBarbera: So those three elements make up the mission or the ENDS. And then there's the risk factor. So, a board is there to mitigate risk or at least evaluate risk and to determine what's acceptable and what's not acceptable but that's the keeping the organization out of trouble part, right? [00:06:51] Carl LaBarbera: So, get the mission done, stay out of trouble. That's their primary purpose. And, but let me add that all that's done on behalf of someone. Especially in nonprofits, in a corporation, right? You are beholden to the shareholders. A board works on behalf of the shareholders. There are no shareholders in the nonprofit world, but what Carver was smart enough to know is that we're, the board is beholden to some, they don't own the organization, the CEO, the staff, they don't own the organization, who owns the organization? [00:07:25] Carl LaBarbera: In the church, we say Jesus owns it. Of course, he owns it all, but Jesus owns the organization, which is cool because he left us a whole book of values that we know that we are beholden to, that we need to comply with. But secondarily, there are owners or what we call care holders or stakeholders on the organization. [00:07:49] Carl LaBarbera: I could talk about the global church as owning a nonprofit. So, we need to be aware of the values of the global church. We could talk about those that the organization impacts. Not the beneficiaries so much, but the communities that would have an interest in the organization. So, when we determine who the owners are, the moral owners, we call them, who is interested in seeing this organization succeed, who is interested in the benefits that this nonprofit will bring. [00:08:24] Carl LaBarbera: And those are the people that we are beholden to, not in a democratic way, not like we're looking for them to give us majority rule direction, but in a way like a doctor or a lawyer would work in the best interest of their ownership. So, the client comes to the doctor. Obviously, the client knows something about their ailment, but the doctor knows more, they're an informed agent. [00:08:50] Carl LaBarbera: Or Robert Greenleaf would say a trustee. So, a trustee, their job is to follow the direction of the trust that is given to them. And that trust is the trust that the ownership holds. And so, the board is to determine what are those values and determine what is in the best interest of those stakeholders. [00:09:12] Carl LaBarbera: That derives a whole set of policies, which then give direction to the organization. The role of the Board Chair is that of Chief Governance Officer – making sure that the Board accomplishes what is says it is going to do. [00:09:21] Tommy Thomas: Under this model, what's the primary role of the Board Chair? [00:09:25] Carl LaBarbera: The Board Chair is called the C.G.O. So Chief Governing Officer. So, the Chief Governing Officer, the primary role really is to assure that the board accomplishes what it says it's going to do. In a sense, the chairman is a manager of the board itself to assure that whatever they said they were going to do, because they have a role, they have a job description, and to assure that they get that job done. But I'd also say that the chair is the interface or maybe the primary interface with the CEO. It's very important that chairman has a really solid relationship with the CEO, that there's a clear understanding that there's complete communication on both sides in order for that chairman to do his job well. [00:10:16] Tommy Thomas: Give me some words and phrases that maybe would describe the skillset that this chair needs to do his or her job well. [00:10:25] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, that really starts with character. Especially in a Christian organization, but any nonprofit really, but it's the character. So that's essential. I think essential elements are wisdom over a lot of experience, preferably humility is very important. I think a humble leader, a servant leader. So, I love Robert Greenleaf and all his writing on servant leadership, and I'm deeply indebted to Robert Greenleaf and his description of what a servant leader does. So that chairman really needs to be that servant leader like Jesus commanded. If you want to be a leader in the kingdom, you have to be the least of all. So that chairman serves the board, and they serve the CEO and they serve the organization. [00:11:13] Tommy Thomas: I know this would vary, but just from your experience, how often does the chair meet with the CEO to maintain this relationship and this esprit de corps? [00:11:25] Carl LaBarbera: World Impact is a good example. And Alvin Sanders, the CEO, and I have a standing meeting once a week on a Monday morning. And we try to communicate with one another on a regular basis just to have that regular flow of communication, what's going on in your world. What's going on from my perspective. And, of course, planning together what the agenda is going to be for the year and for the next meeting. All those things are critical and talking through what issues are important for the CEO to comply with the board policy manual. The board has created, in helping that process. A lot of times I need to help educate the CEO in the process of Policy Governance. Because there are not a lot of Policy Governance experts out there. And yeah, you don't see that a lot. So, part of it is educating as well. [00:12:19] Tommy Thomas: When you get a new board member what's the best way to onboard this person? [00:12:25] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah. The first thing we do is provide the documents that we've created. So, it's really important for a new board member to understand the process, certainly. So, what is this process called Policy Governance? It's very different from what most people experience. I think I know beyond several boards that many board members want to show up and display their wisdom and their good decision-making skills. And that's really not, that's not what the board is all about. We want that, certainly, but the board needs to understand the process. The beauty of Policy Governance is that all of the things that need to be known are in a policy, a board policy manual, and that manual is less than 30 pages, and it covers all four aspects of what we would call the policy circle regarding CEO role the board role, the chairman role the interaction between the board and the CEO what the mission is and what the limitations are, the things that we can't do as an organization, even if they worked, things illegal or unbiblical. A good Board Policy Manual provides invaluable information for new Board members. This manual is usually less than 30 pages. So that board policy manual really provides invaluable information to anyone coming on board gives them all the information they need. They're not going to get it all in the first read through, but all the information is there, and they can study that. And the other thing we do is, obviously we want them to know what the bylaws are and what the expectations are in terms of meetings, etc. So, it's really just a quick update getting board members up to date on where we've been, where we're going, and how we operate. [00:14:14] Tommy Thomas: Let me ask you to get you to respond to this quote about a board service. Somebody said, “You need a director on a board who will be a pleasant irritant, someone who will force people to think a little differently. That's what a good board does.” [00:14:29] Carl LaBarbera: I love that because one of the things I strive for is called healthy, I call it healthy conflict. There's probably a better word than conflict, healthy discussion, which means we really want honest feedback from all our board members. So having that, and we definitely have those. A good irritant is someone who really is just thinking through. They're thinking from their perspective, and they're offering their perspective, and we need to hear it. Even if it's opposed to the direction that, we think we need to go, we need to know who was it that talked about Ruth Haley Barton. She talked about working together, finding God's will together. And you really need in teams, and I think it's any team, but including a board team, you need to know what the no people are saying. If someone's really objecting to where we're going, it's pertinent on us to determine what God is saying to that person. Why are they adamantly opposed? And if we don't take the time to figure that out, then we're neglecting our duty. As a board, so not again, obviously, you don't always achieve consensus, but I've been in situations on boards where we have worked it through taking some time and ultimately say there are two people that maybe don't agree, but they relent and say, we will submit to the wisdom of the board. And of course, one of the principles of Policy Governance is that we speak with one voice. After all the discussion and we finally get to the end of the day and we vote and some have to acknowledge that we don't agree, but we are going to speak with one voice when we're done with our work. So that's critical. ++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:16:23] Tommy Thomas: Your thoughts on bringing younger people in their thirties and forties onto a nonprofit board? [00:16:30] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, I would love to see that. And I would love to see young people have that interest. My experience has been that young people aren't the younger generation, millennials, maybe is my experience aren't as interested in what they might consider business-like work. So, say in a church setting, right? Or even in a Christian ministry setting, this is a business job in which I really have a problem with that because I'm a firm believer that God owns it all that he works through business and churches and our ministry happens in all realms of life, right? But that kind of perspective is, yeah, I don't want to be involved in that kind of business process, but every time I've seen young people engage in the process, it is so helpful. So, I would be a big fan. Where do we find them? I have seen them in the governance organization governed for impact, which I'm a fellow with, and we have seen their young people take a real interest in governance. And when they do, then it's highly valuable. We need their perspective, right? This is where the world's going. [00:17:49] Tommy Thomas: For sure. [00:17:51] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah. We need millennial perspective. We need Z perspective. Yeah, I value that. I wish we could get more of it. [00:17:59] Tommy Thomas: I run into this a lot in my work and has to do with the past CEO being a member of the board when, when you bring a new CEO on, your thoughts just from so many years of experience that you've had any observations there. It can be very difficult when a retiring CEO, especially a founder wants to remain as an emeritus Board Member. That can restrict the ability of the new CEO to make mistakes and/or go in a different direction if that’s what the organization needs. [00:18:14] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, that's tough. I've seen that in churches. I've seen it, I've seen it in other nonprofits. It's just, it's very difficult because when a CEO, who's especially a founder, CEO or a founding pastor and wants to be an emeritus board member or emeritus leader, even that really restricts the ability of that new CEO to be free to make mistakes and go in a different direction to bring their unique skill set because each leader has a unique skill set and they should be allowed to use that. And so I just, I see it often doesn't work out very well. And you hear the phrase that you don't want to be the next guy. You want to be the guy after the next guy. Because oftentimes that first guy is still hanging around and influencing where it's going. And that could be debilitating. [00:19:06] Tommy Thomas: This is probably in your Policy Governance manual but tell us about CEO evaluation. [00:19:13] Carl LaBarbera: That's an ongoing process. So, it is not a once-a-year process, although we do a summarized once-a-year process, but in the board policy manual the policies pertain particularly to the CEO or the executive director or the lead pastor. Those things that are called the Ends. So those are what benefits for what people at what worth. And then there are the executive limitations. And there are quite a few of those limitations, as I said before, that are not allowed, even if they work, because they're illegal or biblical or other reasons. And so, we constantly have a calendar of monitoring. So there's a very specific process of monitoring those limitations, how that CEO is complying with the limitations, and how they're complying with the accomplishment of the mission or the end. And so that's done, I think the Ends probably are mostly done on a biannual basis, but the executive limitations as I said, on a calendar, they're done every meeting. We're evaluating some aspects of that CEO's performance. [00:20:30] Tommy Thomas: So, under Policy Governance, do you use closed session or executive session a lot? Or is that not a part of the M.O. [00:20:40] Carl LaBarbera: Yeah, no, not a lot at all. These are, there's nothing that is considered, not transparent unless there's something to do with, specific HR issues or something where it would be a problem legally, but otherwise now I believe in transparency. I believe this, everything we do at the board level should be transparent. I know as I chaired or on the executive committee at our church, everything we do there should be transparent to our membership. But it's, we do have, I...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/30951828
info_outline
Bob Lonac - Reflections on Authenticity and the Stewardship of Life and Leadership
04/10/2024
Bob Lonac - Reflections on Authenticity and the Stewardship of Life and Leadership
[00:00:00] Bob Lonac: And the authenticity part — I believe everybody wants to run into people that have that freedom. When you don't have anything to hide — I think that's what authenticity is. It's you are you. And being you, when you start discovering it and relaxing, it is a lot easier than always thinking, what do you think? +++++++++++++ [00:00:29] Tommy Thomas: My guest today is Bob Lonac. For people that have been regular listeners, you will remember Bob was the guest on our first episode, and I was so grateful that Bob would agree to be a guest on a podcast that never had occurred yet. And so, thank you, Bob. We're 126 episodes in now, so we've got more listeners and I trust I've gotten a little bit better in my interviewing skills. Bob had a successful career. 30+ years with Young Life. And then he was on the ground level with the International Justice Mission and finished his career with Crista Ministries in the greater Seattle area. [00:01:09] Tommy Thomas: So, Bob, welcome again to Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:13] Bob Lonac: Great to be here, Tommy. So, what you're doing, man. Thanks for all you've done for me. [00:01:19] Tommy Thomas: I read your newsletter this week. Maybe go back and just refresh our listeners. You retired from Crista, and you started consulting and this newsletter is a way for you to share what you're thinking about. [00:01:36] Bob Lonac: Yeah, newsletters may be an old word right now in today's world, but I always read newsletters on different things, finance whatever. And I thought, I am the kind of guy that's always thinking about stuff. And I think one of the things I do that over time people have told me is like put ideas into a way to communicate and help people grow, including myself. Because I'm always thinking about how can I be better and what can I do? So, I just threw out the idea of hey, you want to sign up? So, if you do want to sign up for what I do have, I've got several hundred subscribers. It's free. So you just go to boblonac.com and you can sign up there. [00:02:20] Tommy Thomas: I read the one this week and it had to do with giftedness and stewardship of your gifts, giftedness and honoring God with the way he created us and somehow that just that resonated with me, so I immediately got on the phone and called Bob and I said, let's do a podcast. Let's discuss this. Bob, I remember back from our first conversation. You know, you mentioned, probably midway in your career with Young Life, or maybe late there, that you read the book, What Color is Your Parachute? by Dick Bowles. And was that your first introduction into giftedness or that kind of things? [00:02:55] Bob Lonac: Probably, I think in most ministries and a lot of businesses there are like tests you take. Who is this person? And what should you really do? And the parachute one was one of the first that I did read. And a guy gave it to me that was helping me through a transition. [00:03:18] Bob Lonac: And I just got interested in that good question. Who am I? And it's really, I think a central question to those of us who want to be followers of Christ and, Jesus said, I've come, you might have life more abundantly and what does that mean? What is abundance? Does that mean getting rich? I don't think so, but what is it and how do you understand it and how can you have more of it? [00:03:49] Tommy Thomas: Years ago, probably 10-12 years ago now, Max Lucado, the pastor down in San Antonio was going through a, maybe struggle. That's probably not too strong of a word on figuring out what his best giftedness was. He was trying to be a pastor of a mega church, but his passion was really writing and speaking. And so, he came to our organization, and we took him through the assessment SIMAÓ and he reorganized his whole church staff. He got an Executive Pastor to run the thing and freed him up to do what he does best, and that's to speak and to write. So, I think there is an element of stewardship there, of honoring God. [00:04:30] Bob Lonac: No doubt about it. My mentor in life, theologically, was Earl Palmer, who used to speak a lot of Young Life things. Great speaker, one of the best, and just a wonderful person. And he took me through a class on the Book of Romans with a small group. And he said this is the central understanding of the Christian faith is, what's the gospel, chapter 1 through 8, what happened to Israel, 9 through 11. And then starting with chapter 12, therefore, present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God. [00:05:05] Bob Lonac: And in chapter 12, the Apostle Paul talks about what are you supposed to do? Who are you supposed to be? And he says, the first three verses, are present your body as a living sacrifice. But the third one says, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to. And don't think less of yourself than you ought to. Socrates started the whole thing way back in 400 BC, right? Know Thyself. And a lot of times people ask me, I'll say something on a subject or something that I'm talking about, and they say, how'd you know that? What'd you do? How'd you do that? I'd go, I don't know. I just did it. It just came out of me. [00:05:52] Bob Lonac: I think that's what happens when you're operating on your gifts and who you are. It's not hard. [00:05:59] Tommy Thomas: From your experience, and you've supervised countless people, what keeps people from going there? [00:06:06] Bob Lonac: It's exactly the same thing in chapter 12. The beginning of chapter 12 is “don't let the world squeeze you into its own mold, but let Christ renew you from within”. And boy, in today's world, it's so full of insecurities from people looking around and wanting to be. I don't even understand all the words out there. I got ghosted. I got whatever. And how can I be, how can I be popular and all that kind of stuff. And if you're not in your sweet spot being you. And I do think the Bible talks about this a lot then you're trying to fake it. [00:06:53] Tommy Thomas: You probably know Ross Hoskins with One Hope. Ross says surround yourself with people who know you better than you know yourself, and they will tell you the truth out of love. That's how we grow. Sounds like you've got a little bit of that going on in your mindset here. [00:07:10] Bob Lonac: I think I got a lot of that going on. I have been blessed with unbelievable jobs that I, God brought me here, but whatever. And people ask me how did that happen? As a COO at International Justice Mission, I was the president, CEO of Crista, a big organization. How'd you do it? I think the one thing I'm good at is choosing other people who know stuff more than I do. [00:07:36] Bob Lonac: So, leadership is not about, look at me, how good I am, I can do this, let me help you do it. Leadership is about making other people successful. And that's the biblical idea. Oh, think about Jesus in the long haul too. Like, why did he die for us? Make us like the kind of people we were created to be. +++++++++++++++++ [00:08:02] Tommy Thomas: At what point at Young Life, did you get comfortable in your leadership skin? Did you acknowledge that this is how God put me together? This is what he wants me to do. And that's who I'm going to be. [00:08:16] Bob Lonac: I want to say that I'm still in that process. I don't think we get to this deal where oh, okay. Now I got it. I do understand a lot more about myself. And I do want to very much be who God wants me to be and do what God wants me to do, but it's a lifelong process. We all are broken people. We all live in a world of sin, and it's a lifelong process that is chiseled away. I think the scripture says God is chiseling on me all the time to become the person he wants me to be. [00:08:58] Tommy Thomas: Here's a couple of quotes about authenticity. I’d like your response. There's great power in authenticity. Arthur Wiles said, Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. As St. Catherine of Siena put it, Be who God meant you to be and you'll set the world on fire. [00:09:17] Bob Lonac: In that newsletter, I said that Irenaeus in the year 300 said “the glory of God is man fully alive”. And, when you're being you and you are in connection with God, Christ, that doesn't mean things will go great. I'm facing some incredible personal challenges in my life right now. [00:09:39] Bob Lonac: I didn't get older and get better and everything got more wonderful all the time. It's up and down all the time. If it's not happening to you, the chiseling, it'll happen to you tomorrow. So, it's not easy. And the authenticity part is what everybody, I believe everybody wants to run into people that have that freedom. When you don't have anything to hide, I think that's what authenticity is. It's you are you. And being you actually, when you start discovering it and relaxing, it is a lot easier than always thinking, what do you think? Here's a classic one. One of my grandsons, he's in the eighth grade, he's out helping me work in the yard. And he comes over to me and grandma, I have a great relationship with my kids and great kids. He says, grandpa, I have a question for you. What is it? Hey, I can hardly wait till I get old like you. Okay. This guy can hardly wait till I get old. I said, why? He said, then I can say no to people. [00:10:59] Bob Lonac: And I go, oh, why do you think you can say no to people, grandpa. Yeah, I tried to do it nicely. Yeah, you shouldn't, but you should be able to say no to people too. Oh, I don't know. I got this opportunity to do this. I got this opportunity. These people want me to do this. You gotta be with this crowd. And he's really an intelligent kid doing great at school, but he’s like the world around him is trying to make him into something that he doesn't want to be. And that's, that was such an interesting little real-life story about that. [00:11:38] Tommy Thomas: In your newsletter you cited four ways to help people discover and affirm their identity. And I'm sure you probably use this in your consulting, and you probably used it when you had a staff, but can you go into that a little bit and let's unpack those a little bit. [00:11:55] Bob Lonac: You want to take them one by one for me? [00:11:58] Tommy Thomas: You started with affirming your identity. [00:12:01] Bob Lonac: Yeah, that’s you know, and there's a lot of ways to do that. You have the Enneagram; you have all kinds of tests and other things which are really helpful. I think really helpful. And I've done a lot of those things. So, I think our identity has a lot to do with what kind of person you are, but your identity also must center on who you are in Christ. What does Christ say about you and that freedom that comes from unconditional love in your relationship with him is. [00:12:41] Tommy Thomas: Your second point, you said what lights your fire? The power of story. [00:12:46] Bob Lonac: Yeah. What lights my fire is getting into relationships and talking to people one on one. I was picking my wife up from getting her hair styled. Two hours, right? So I talked to her hairstylist. Start talking to her who's starting a new hairstyle business where she's going to be the owner and I don't know, she's an easy person to talk to and I thought she's gonna say goodbye, I got another deal. We talked for about a half hour sitting there, the two of us and my wife and I walked away from that, and it was totally fun. I was talking to her about stuff. I knew in my consulting business thing. Oh, yeah. Oh, gee, never thought about that. Thank you. And they asked me questions and I thought that's me. [00:13:39] Bob Lonac: That's what I love to do. And in fact, that's where my whole life has gone right now. I do one on one conversations with people, and I don't mean that all in my consulting deal. That's really important. I love doing that, but my neighbors, my people I run into, it's just who I am and what I do. And when I do that, it's totally fun. [00:14:10] Tommy Thomas: When you know what lights your fire and you do it more often than not, I think that's part of this element of stewardship of who God puts you together to be. [00:14:19] Bob Lonac: Absolutely. Yeah. [00:14:21] Bob Lonac: I don't think I don't buy that he gave you the deal of, hey, I'm going to send you to be a missionary and it's going to be miserable, but you're serving me. [00:14:33] Tommy Thomas: Your third point was exploring your strengths. [00:14:37] Bob Lonac: Yeah, I had one as a leader. I had one very simple thing, do what you do well and find other people that do what you don't. It's so hard to shore up my weaknesses. And I think that's my experience with other people and it's miserable to try to do it, at least for me, whereas you're working to your strengths. That's the game. [00:14:57] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. Your fourth point, find people who really know you and love you and invite them into the process. [00:15:07] Bob Lonac: Speak the truth in love. I think this is, especially if you're a leader, I have a little small group of business owners who are Christians. It's really hard to get people, especially if you're the CEO or you own a small business, to tell you the truth. And it's hard to get anybody to tell you the truth or even tell you what they think, which may not be the truth. [00:15:35] Bob Lonac: But here's another point, Tommy, that I could talk all day about. I don't think mature Christians should be defensive about anything. Defensiveness is not a spiritual virtue because if you find your self-worth in your relationship with Christ and in whom he made you. You're going to be a hard guy to offend. [00:16:05] Tommy Thomas: What can you think back to when you got comfortable with that? When you realize that, yeah, I don't have to fight back. [00:16:14] Bob Lonac: Yeah, I think it's been a lifelong process. It still is. And one of my, I don't know if it's a gift or some things are like this. I don't know if they're a gift or a pain because I like to talk. And so, for me, like shutting up is a, what I'd say is a self-control virtue. Christ talks about, you don't have to say that, Bob, you're right. You know what you're saying, but you don't have to say that, shut up. [00:16:46] Bob Lonac: Now right there is a battle that I'll probably take to the grave, I think it's always an interchange, but it's centered and matured in, I know it is God's work in us. It's not performing. It's hard to do it under your own strength. So, to me, it's relinquishing everything to Jesus. Nevertheless, Lord, not my will be done, but Yours. [00:17:12] Tommy Thomas: And your last point in that section of the newsletter was to keep discovering who you are in Jesus and be you. [00:17:21] Bob Lonac: There's a point when, and I think it could be fairly early life when you think you discover what your talents are and what your spiritual gifts are. And I think those are two different things. Natural talents, I can't run fast. I was a fast catcher in baseball. I was stuck with that. I didn't have much to do. So, whatever your natural gifts are, you got them and the spiritual ones you learn and grow as you explain, find them and then learning how to connect those two ideas with the Word of God. And this is easier, I retired four years ago, so now my consulting business, I get to control how much I work. [00:18:03] Bob Lonac: And I'm just fascinated by the Bible. I've been teaching the Bible all my life, but I'm more fascinated than ever at what, what happens here, and what, did that really say that? And what does that mean? So that is, I would say my wonder and joy experience is, and then that's sometimes what I talk to other people. And a lot of times leadership is asking questions. People think leadership has to do with giving answers and questions, going, I, that's what I do. A little small group thing. I'd say, hey, I read this the other day. You guys, what do you think of this? What do you think that means? We talked about that idea of the abundant life two weeks ago in our group. What does that mean to you? Man, that thing, that's all I asked. The rest of them went at it forever. +++++++++++++ [00:18:53] Tommy Thomas: Interesting that I guess the private sector and maybe the secular organizations they've picked up on the strengths thing. I was reading an article in the Harvard Business Review. It says a lot of professional development programs focus on the negative, what you're doing badly and need to improve. But if you focus on the strength it provides a powerful way to grow. And then, the people at Case Western David Cooperrider and his Appreciative Inquiry expounds on what's working well and what's the potential there. [00:19:26] Tommy Thomas: I guess that's not to say you don't work on improving things, but you probably make a lot more headway if you start with what's going right. [00:19:34] Bob Lonac: Yeah, I certainly believe that, but I also think that people think there's a big difference between a nonprofit or a Christian organization and a for profit organization. And I don't think there's one bit of difference. I think leadership is leadership. Leadership is explained in the Bible. The Bible is the truth of God. And when you try to figure it out yourself, you’re probably going to go down a rat hole once in a while and try to simply understand what God's Word is and become that and count on the Lord's involvement in your life and spend your time thinking about those kinds of things. [00:20:24] Bob Lonac: What are you learning? Are you curious about your own relationship with God? I take guys on retreats once in a while, and the one of the questions we send them out is hey, how do you hear God? How do you hear God's word? How do you hear God's voice? I've had numerous people say, I've never heard God's voice. And I'm going, I'm not sure I've ever heard God's voice that if you talk out loud to me, no, I think there's a lot of ways to analyze how you can hear and listen to God and learn how to do that. And I'm talking to another grandson about the same thing. He thinks he wants to go into being a missionary overseas. [00:21:10] Bob Lonac: He's only a junior in high school. And I'm like let's talk about that. What do you want to do? You got to listen to God. And how does that happen? And watch for open doors, walk through the open doors, do this, do that. So it's again, this whole thing, I think Christians have wanted to put everything into a nice neat package and tell you what you shouldn't do. You shouldn't smoke, shouldn't drink, shouldn't do this. That was my era. And then here's what you should do. Here's this and here's what you don’t do.. It's never been like that. Every time I tried that kind of approach it didn't work. Especially if I faced my own feelings and thoughts and I love this idea that we can't run away from sins. We must run towards something better. We have to be captured by something we really want. Somebody told me recently, you are going to get what you want. Everybody gets what they want. Now you've got to start thinking about that one, right? The question is, what do you really want? And if you look at the average American out there, what they really want is a good job, great kid. [00:22:40] Bob Lonac: You could put a lot of nice things, put a lot of bad things, but the idea of a living, vital relationship with Christ. is not what they really want. They would like it, but the things you really want, you try and make happen. [00:23:02] Tommy Thomas: Let me ask you a closing question. You've got a lot of time to think now that you're retired. And as you say, you control your work schedule. What do you understand about yourself or life now that you probably didn't understand when you walked out of Crista? [00:23:20] Bob Lonac: Oh gosh, that's a good question. There's no doubt about it. Like a lot of people, I've been blessed with good health. I'm a high energy person....
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/30763278
info_outline
Alberto Huerta: Marketing - The Art of Creating Genuine Consumer Value
03/26/2024
Alberto Huerta: Marketing - The Art of Creating Genuine Consumer Value
[00:00:00] Alberto Huerta: If I were to get a do over in life, I would have more consistently put family above my professional life. I would say a disproportionate commitment to my professional growth ended up not being the best choice when it came to prioritizing family. I think on a day-to-day basis, we can also suffer from long days or lots of travel and my do over would really center around being able to still strive for excellence, strive for impact, but to more consistently be able to do that both in my marriage and with my kids and in my community, as well as professionally. ++++++++++++++ [00:00:42] Alberto Huerta: Our guest today is Alberto Huerta. Alberto has brought his expertise in brand strategy and management, marketing and fundraising strategy, product development and innovation, and donor insights and analytics to such organizations as Visa, Kraft, Procter Gamble, Compassion International, and World Vision. [00:01:03] Tommy Thomas: He's skilled in turnaround, startups, and global enterprise operations. Alberto, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:01:11] Alberto Huerta: Thank you so much, Tommy. It's a pleasure to be with you today. [00:01:14] Tommy Thomas: Before we go too deep into your professional experience, I always like to explore someone's childhood. So take me back to your childhood. What do you remember as being formative? [00:01:28] Alberto Huerta: Certainly, the people in my life. Tommy, I had a mom who was always there for me. Unconditional love for sure. My dad modeled honesty and hard work and respect for others. An amazing brother who modeled kindness and generosity. And I have to highlight my grandma who modeled Jesus for me. And it took me a while, but she certainly planted some seeds that sprouted later in my faith walk. Besides just the great people in my life, English was always a part of my life growing up in Mexico. My mom loved the U.S. She traveled to the U.S. when she was really young. [00:02:04] Alberto Huerta: And instilled that in our family. I developed a taste for other cultures and languages living outside of the U.S. and in Europe and then back to Mexico where I chose to study industrial engineering. I never really practiced it, but it ended up being a really great school and a really great skill set for what I ended up doing. [00:02:26] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like in Mexico? [00:02:29] Alberto Huerta: High school in Mexico … I was in Colorado Springs for a couple of years with my uncles. They were kind enough to receive me and my brother for 9th and 10th grade. So when I got back to Mexico, it'd been about seven years. I'd been away in Europe with my mom. And then, as I said, with my uncles in Colorado, and so getting back to Mexico to finish high school was, a really different experience. It was almost a reverse cultural shock getting back and getting acquainted with Mexico again. I had the fortune of being in an upper middle class family where I had access to really great schooling, which led to the opportunity to go to the Monterey Institute of Technology to be able to study there. So really grateful for the opportunities my parents opened. [00:03:17] Tommy Thomas: What's something that people are always surprised to know about you? [00:03:24] Alberto Huerta: Oh boy! That I have only spent 15 years of my life in Mexico. I'm 52 this year which means that I've been around a lot of places, both in Europe and Canada, where my two daughters were born and then a variety of different places in the U.S. where different opportunities both with P&G and Kraft and Visa. So, I would say the amount of exposure to different cultures and different cities. I just love languages. I love different cultures. I've really gravitated to global roles over the years because I really appreciate and enjoy the company of people from other countries and the friendships that I've been able to develop. So that's a big part of what has shaped me. And I credit my mom for that. [00:04:05] Tommy Thomas: So, you spent the first 15 years of your career with P&G. What went into your decision to go with P&G? [00:04:12] Alberto Huerta: The friend that introduced me to Brenda, my wife of 27 years, was the same friend who said to me one day, last semester of industrial engineering school, he said Procter & Gamble is on campus. It's really hard to get in. We ought to go try. And so, we did and that was my introduction P&G and brand management. This whole idea of, at a very early stage in your career, being given a business to run and managing it from a brand and marketing viewpoint. So, the process itself, Tommy, was extraordinary and had multiple steps in it. The highlight for me was a three-day weekend in a hotel where they cooped us up, all 40 candidates of us, and just put us through the ringer. [00:05:02] Alberto Huerta: Late nights being evaluated on our leadership skills. I made it somehow and was able to enter the P&G family. I am so grateful for my years there. The leadership that they teach. And enable you to practice the mastery, the collaboration across various functions and up and down the management chain. I am really grateful for my time with P&G, which actually started in Mexico, but then continued in the Czech Republic. That in and of itself is a long story. And then Canada, and then all roads lead to Cincinnati when you're at P&G. And so, I did my last year's working on fabric care, or more simply said, detergents. [00:05:46] Tommy Thomas: Thinking back to your first management job when you actually had somebody reporting to you, what do you remember about that? [00:05:55] Alberto Huerta: I'm still in touch with the three, four people that were with me in my first assignment. That was brand manager for Folgers up in Canada. And it was just such an honor to be able to recognize that I had the opportunity, even if just for a year or two or three an opportunity to shape the career of people with such talents and energy and deeply complex personal lives. So, for me to look for that opportunity to develop and play a valuable role in people's development has always been super, super motivating for me. [00:06:31] Tommy Thomas: So, let's fast forward to today and if I had the privilege to come out to Compassion or World Vision and you let me talk to your direct reports, what would they say would be the most challenging aspect of working with Alberto? And then what would they say would be the most rewarding part of working for you? [00:06:49] Alberto Huerta: The most challenging part, I would say my favorite movie is Rocky. And aside from my lack of true film knowledge, you could say, Rocky is relentless, and he doesn't give up easily. And sometimes that can be tiring because there's always a higher bar. There's always the next goal. Taking no for an answer but working together to find ways to get around it. I think in a sense, I think that can be tiring. And I am very driven. [00:07:21] Alberto Huerta: I am very high energy. So, one of the things that I've learned is to think about the way I was taught. What gear do you enter a conversation with? If you're always in 4th gear, 5th gear, 6th gear that can be unnecessary sometimes and that generally is my default. So, what does it look like to enter a conversation in first gear or second gear? And really being able to connect and engage in a variety of ways based on the situation and the person. [00:07:50] Alberto Huerta: Now about what might be exciting or fun for people to work with me, it's always the strength and the other side is the opportunity, isn't it? And for me it's exciting to see how people respond to the energy I can bring towards what is possible. What are we building over time? What are we building over time together? That is meaningful. So, you can imagine that coming into Christian nonprofits has been particularly motivating because it takes it from something that can be very exciting and what you're doing with a package good or in financial services, but to be able to have that same kind of energy and transformational dream for us to work towards and against, I think is something that is motivating. [00:08:33] Alberto Huerta: Based on the feedback that I receive in helping people find their particular way of contributing towards the greater transformation that we're aiming for as a team. And so, I think that's probably what services to the top. When I think about the feedback I've received over the years. ++++++++++++++++ [00:08:51] Tommy Thomas: Tell me a little bit about the mentors in your life. Who has been the most influential mentor? [00:08:57] Alberto Huerta: I'll give you a person as well, a regular human being, but I do value the teaching of the Bible around praying continuously and being able to be sensitive to the Spirit is something that I strive for every day in this very conversation, what am I, why am I saying, what is helpful, what is not helpful, what is imbued with the direction and love of Jesus. He's my moment-to-moment mentor. And I love him for that. I would say the second would be my brother. He knows me through and through, the highs and the lows. And what I appreciate about him the most is his listening and his ability to demonstrate unconditional love to tell me what I need to hear, whether it's easy to hear or not. And so, I appreciate him for that. I think he would be my longest-term mentor, I would say. [00:09:46] Tommy Thomas: In 2015, you left what was probably a financially lucrative job with Visa to go to work with Compassion. Tell us about that move. [00:09:58] Alberto Huerta: It's a move that really had its beginnings in 2010, five years earlier. I realized in my faith walk, for me, it was not going to make sense to think about retiring in a for profit job. And so, I began conversations with Christian nonprofits that would value mass marketing skills, mass brand building skills. And that led me to start a conversation with organizations like World Vision, like Compassion and it was not an easy decision, but it was one that I felt really great about the point in time where this decision became most pressing was when I was working at Visa, and at the same time, my wife and I were co pastoring a small Hispanic congregation and I sensed a need a calling to integrate more of my lifestyle and be able to work for an organization that was in and of itself dedicated to advancing the purposes of Jesus. And so ultimately that's what made that decision, although a big one, a very natural and easy one for me when the day came. [00:11:13] Tommy Thomas: What's the most significant difference you've observed between the private sector and the nonprofit sector? [00:11:24] Alberto Huerta: Oh, there's a lot of similarities, but there's certainly some differences. Probably at the heart of it, when I think about differences, I truly value the focus on a mission that is so clear and so compelling and really goes above any financial metrics. Now, I know that's also true of some for-profit organizations. In fact, probably some of the ones that are most profitable and most successful over time are ones that do see beyond just the financial. But that is obviously much more common, I would say, and much more natural for a nonprofit to be able to value their mission to value the impact that they're making, and it truly changes how one contributes to it because it's not enough to be a marketer. [00:12:12] Alberto Huerta: It's not enough to be a fundraiser. It's about truly understanding the impact that is being made. How is that impact made? What are the actions that drive that impact? How effective are we making that impact? I think that is so crucial in being a successful and an effective marketer within a nonprofit. Being able to build a very strong bond and tight relationship with the programmatic leaders. So that would be one that I would highlight, Tommy, and that leads to the importance of end-to-end solutioning with programs which I've enjoyed a whole lot. It's one thing to solve for a supporter or a donor. [00:12:52] Alberto Huerta: It's another in the much more complex model that the nonprofits have where there's more stakeholders in play to be able to solve for the whole and to be able to really value and understand the needs, not only of the end beneficiaries in the case of Compassion and World Vision would be the children in the communities around them, but also the various stakeholders, both near and far from the beneficiaries. And I found that particularly interesting and motivating. [00:13:22] Tommy Thomas: What was your greatest adjustment in coming from Visa to Compassion? [00:13:30] Alberto Huerta: Oh boy! A common understanding is that for a believer's first move into a Christian nonprofit, whether you like it or not you just imagine that you're stepping into heaven, right? A little piece of heaven. It's all believers. We're all following the same God. We're all following the same biblical principles. It must be heaven there. You might not say that overtly, but you expect it, and you have a very high bar and imagination and then slowly, but surely you realize, hey, there's people like me in this organization. So, there's a bit of a high. As you first step into an organization like this, and then there's a realization that we're all a work in progress as individuals, as couples, as families, and as organizations as churches. So that's definitely one of the key important realizations walking into Compassion. More broadly I would say it is true both of Compassion and World Vision that these are longstanding, mature organizations working within mature sectors, certainly from a product or fundraising perspective. [00:14:39] Alberto Huerta: And what I particularly relish was, the intrapreneurship that that I was able to push into the opportunity to identify ways that the organization could change and grow and being able to help the organization embrace change from within, which, in my view, is particularly meaningful because it then leverages the strengths of the organization and it's able to operate and grow in a way that is relevant. And it continues to stay fresh and both for the supporters as well as for the beneficiaries. [00:15:13] Tommy Thomas: In terms of a leadership role, how do you assess what's right for you? [00:15:22] Alberto Huerta: And the way I'm understanding your question, Tommy, is how do I assess what's right as I think about leadership roles that I'm evaluating for myself? Is that the essence of your question? [00:15:31] Tommy Thomas: What makes a good fit for Alberto? I want to work for an inspirational leader – a true visionary. [00:15:35] Alberto Huerta: I have several criteria. There's one that I added. Or I would say I moved up the list in recent weeks is working for an inspirational leader, a true visionary. [00:15:49] Alberto Huerta: I think that's something that's particularly motivating for me right now. I feel if the energy and the big idea is coming from the very top that can really spell tremendous progress and success and accomplishment. So that's one that's really important for me. [00:16:05] Alberto Huerta: The other one I would say it's certainly culture. A culture of understanding what the mission is and being able to be focused on accomplishing the mission. Being able to for there to be a sense within the organization that we can pour ourselves into the mission and the organization will take care of us as individuals. [00:16:26] Alberto Huerta: That's a little bit idealistic potentially, but I saw that even at P&G and certainly at Compassionate and World Vision. So, I value culture and that selflessness to pour oneself into the mission as another key criteria. And if I were to pick a third one, I would say learning a learning organization, one that does not rest on their laurels. [00:16:48] Alberto Huerta: One that is continuously finding ways to experiment. It can be so tempting to be hand to mouth, like in the performance engine, just producing, and it can suck the life out of experimentation and innovation and just even being able to bring one's full skillset into the job. I want to work for a learning organization - one that doesn’t sit on its laurels. [00:17:08] Alberto Huerta: So that'll be a third one, but it's great question, Tommy. And I think it’s a learning journey, isn't it? What is the best fit for us? Depending on the season as well. +++++++++++++++ [00:17:17] Tommy Thomas: At what point in your career did you get comfortable in your leadership skin? Did you accept the fact that God had given you certain leadership abilities and it was your responsibility to steward those? [00:17:34] Alberto Huerta: Wow, that's a great question. I gravitated to leadership because I'm driven. I tend to be more of a futurist. So I see where we might be headed. I like to see the big picture and integrate the various pieces as far as getting comfortable with it. I think that came fairly naturally. I think over time. And it doesn't happen immediately, does it? Just realizing that the biggest job of a leader is, in fact, developing leaders. And it wasn't until the jobs started to get large enough that I just had no choice. As an example, my last job at Compassion comes to mind where I had anywhere between eight and 10 direct reports leading particular marketing disciplines. [00:18:21] Alberto Huerta: It became so natural for me to be able to really focus on developing leaders because there was no way that I could be investing myself into that many different disciplines but rather really investing myself in my team, investing myself in my leaders and being able to carve a path for the whole. So, I would say that the various roles invite new levels of leadership for each of us. And that's certainly been an exciting part of the journey for me. [00:18:50] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to change and innovation for a minute. I read a recent Harvard Business Review Survey that said 37 percent of companies had energy for change but lacked focus. 20 percent were skeptical of change because of past failures. 24 percent were stuck because of a lack of energy and direction, and 19 percent were struggling to change. If anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we're planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow. (Phillip Crosby) [00:19:15] Tommy Thomas: Phillip Crosby said, if anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we're planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow. Talk a little bit about how you've led organizations through change and what that's looked like. Organizational change is easy when there is no choice – not so much so when the need for change is not obvious. [00:19:34] Alberto Huerta: When change is unavoidable it's so much easier, isn't it? I remember working on the P&G laundry portfolio. There was an economic crisis at the time. There were 2 or 3 competitors, both on the private label side, as well as value detergents that were eating our lunch in certain channels. And so, change was inevitable at that point. And so, it became really clear. The energy was there. The expectation was there. We created awesome solutions. It was still really hard to create the right solution to fit the bill. But the need for change, I think, was felt. And that led to P&G really embracing the full scope potential of Tide as a mega brand playing across various categories and subcategories, but also and mostly the importance of the detergent laundry portfolio for P&G and being able to develop the various brands to be able to compete effectively in the marketplace. [00:20:35] Alberto Huerta: However, when change is not obvious I think it is that much more rewarding when we can make it happen, but also that much harder because our organization will resist change that doesn't feel...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/30546238
info_outline
Stewart Severino – Harnessing Innovation in the Nonprofit Sector
03/19/2024
Stewart Severino – Harnessing Innovation in the Nonprofit Sector
[00:00:00] Stewart Severino: The leader that sits at the helm is going to have to be really intentional about how they look for that specific talent and they need to structure their departments or their organizations in that manner, in order to really stretch those dollars. [00:00:13] Stewart Severino: You have to be a strong financial steward nowadays. There's no reason not to be right with the talent that we have out there, so my suggestion to leadership is to stop building empires and start building communities. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:25] Tommy Thomas: Our guest today is Stewart Severino, the Head of Innovation for The Navigators. [00:00:34] Tommy Thomas: As of recent, one of the podcasts I've added to my feed is Purpose and Profit Podcast hosted by Dave Raley and Carly Berner. Stewart was a recent guest of theirs and listening to that podcast convinced me that I wanted Stewart to share with our audience. So I want to give a big shout out to Dave and Carly for the work they're doing with Purpose and Profit Podcast. [00:00:55] Tommy Thomas: So, Stewart, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:00:58] Stewart Severino: Hey Tommy, nice to be here. Thank you. [00:01:00] Tommy Thomas: So, I have to confess that earlier in my career, maybe 20 years ago, 30 years ago, if you'd asked me about innovation and The Navigators, I'm not sure I would have put those two in the same sentence. But after knowing and working with Doug Nuenke, their most recent former President, it makes total sense now that The Navigators would have somebody at a senior level paying attention to innovation. [00:01:26] Stewart Severino: That caught my attention too. That was not more than 18 months ago. So, we're in the same boat. [00:01:32] Tommy Thomas: We're going to talk a lot about innovation in the nonprofit sector and maybe if it's appropriate, maybe you can share with us some of the exciting things that The Navigators are doing in this area. But before we go there, I want to go back to your childhood and your upbringing, and maybe learn a little bit about, maybe how that got you to where you are today. [00:01:53] Stewart Severino: Yeah, you know, that's an immigrant story. My mom came to the US in the early 70s and she worked in a factory and raised us kids alone. You don't know any different right, you grew up with friends who were in similar situations inner city in New Jersey, I grew up in Newark. You know, high school was a good time. There was decent formation there because of, you know, some male coaches. That's always important. Even though you don't have a male figure at home, hopefully, you have some male influences in your life. So that helped to shape me early on as a male. And then, moving out of high school, college began in 1994. I went to a Jesuit university, for a little bit, but dropped out because of the dot com boom in New York City. So that was probably the best decision I made at that time. You know, kids are talking about that today, right? Oh, do we really need college? [00:02:46] Stewart Severino: We can just get a certification. And that's kind of what was going on back then. We had to make it up as we went along because we were building it as we were building strategies. So it was an exciting time. And then, I would return later on to academia and complete my degree, my master's at Dallas Theological Seminary. [00:03:04] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like? Did you play athletics or, in the band or any of that, anything like that? [00:03:10] Stewart Severino: Yeah. Wrestled, loved wrestling. The discipline of wrestling, the grit, that kind of physical and perseverance set the pace for what would be my adulthood. [00:03:25] Tommy Thomas: When you started college in the beginning, were you on a technology track or you in general studies? What was that like studying at the Jesuit university? [00:03:33] Stewart Severino: Yeah, that's a good question. I went in as a biology major. I always enjoyed biology and I thought, oh, maybe I'll get into med school or, I don't know, something along the healthcare track. But, yeah, that went away pretty quick. [00:03:48] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned mentoring a little bit and male figures in your life. Who's been the most influential mentor to you so far? [00:03:55] Stewart Severino: Oh boy, you know, that didn't come till much later, maybe till around the age of when I was going back to church. Not that I ever really went, met my wife and she introduced herself as a Christian to me, and I didn't really recognize that. Growing up in the Northeast, you either know Catholic or you know Jew, and to hear Christian is a little different. So, going into this church, the senior pastor there really took attention to me and spent week after week with me even before I was a believer. And so I got to give that to him, you know, a really busy man having a relationship as a primary responsibility in his life, to his people. It just spoke volumes. [00:04:38] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice he ever gave you? [00:04:42] Stewart Severino: He says you're never going to know everything and be okay with that. [00:04:48] Tommy Thomas: Good words. Good words. I have a hunch that a lot of people might be like me and not necessarily put innovation and nonprofit sector in the same sentence. Am I right about that? And if so, why? [00:05:05] Stewart Severino: That's a good topic to bring up because I think leadership is being forced to bring it up. Now you can't escape innovation. You can't escape AI. I think the phrase innovation is so broad and it has so many different meanings that it needs some real form. It needs some real function, some real definition by leadership. And yes it's not at the top of their list but it is being forced to the top of their list because they need to figure out how to do more with very little, especially in a nonprofit space, especially in donor-supported organizations. [00:05:42] Tommy Thomas: I was talking to Matt Randerson. You may know him, over at Barna, and we're planning an upcoming podcast on generational influences of the nonprofit sector. So maybe go there for a minute. Have you noticed relative to innovation any differences with the generations in terms of maybe creativity? [00:06:03] Stewart Severino: You know, you have to start looking at who am I hiring, right? Typically, my generation, Gen X, or even older, we tend to build empires versus building community. We come in and we want to staff up, right? We want an assistant. We want project managers that you can't function like that anymore. I still see it happening. It really bothers me what we need to start looking for in our younger generation are those who have hybrid capabilities. Are you a project manager? Do you have tech capabilities at a minimum? I think this younger generation will have that. And already does have that. I think the leader that sits at the helm is going to have to be really intentional about how they look for that specific talent and they need to structure their departments or their organizations in that manner, in order to really stretch those dollars. [00:06:57] Stewart Severino: You have to be a strong financial steward nowadays. And there's no reason not to be right with the talent that we have out there. There's no reason we don't have to be, so my suggestion to leadership is to stop building empires and start building communities. +++++++++++++++++ [00:07:13] Tommy Thomas: What about risk-taking from the different generations? [00:07:17] Stewart Severino: I see more risk-taking in a younger generation. Mainly because they've been hearing a narrative of failing fast. You know, and that comes with the lean startup methods and other innovative practices. So, there's more room for risk-taking with the younger generation. I think for me, for Gen X or even the boomers, you have your entrepreneurs. You have those risk-takers. I think they are few and far between. But those of us that are in place of leadership, we're going to the risk tolerance in moving forward with something that could be seen as risky to the rest of the organization. So, it really depends. It depends on the initiative. It depends on the talent you're using. It depends on if you have a method. [00:08:08] Stewart Severino: Do you have a process that is repeatable, that is predictable? You can take a risk, but we're not asking you to roll the die. We're asking you to come in, do something different, but do it within a framework. We're not here to just shoot from the hip or throw things on the wall to see if they stick. [00:08:29] Tommy Thomas: On your LinkedIn profile, in addition to innovation and nonprofit impact, you have the words scaling and sustainability. [00:08:37] Stewart Severino: Yeah, it's one thing to launch successful projects and pilots. It's another thing to get them to scale. And because now you're talking throughout the organization, you're talking about resources. And so, scaling is probably at the top of your list of success. For example, Navigators. We have this age-old issue, not just Navigators, but all of Christianity. We have this age-old issue of scaling discipleship. You can't possibly disciple more than one to three people, have a relationship, you know, beyond that. And so scaling discipleship, in this example, has always been an issue. [00:09:20] Stewart Severino: So how do we solve for that? Back in a day in the 40s, Billy Graham went to Dawson Trotman, who's the founder of the Navigators. And he said, Dawson, I need your help. We're bringing 5,000-6,000 people per month to faith, but there's no follow-up. They're just coming to the churches, professing their faith and then what? There's no follow-up, right? It's like you getting a subscription and then no follow-up subscription, right? There's no accountability there from the company side. On this side, it would be how do you touch so many people consistently? How do you develop relationships? [00:09:51] Stewart Severino: And so scaling discipleship on that level is huge. And I'm so excited to be part of that. [00:09:59] Tommy Thomas: Does that tie in with sustainability? [00:10:03] Stewart Severino: So, the sustainability is how can you affect a business unit in a way that they continue to function the way they're supposed to, but also contribute to the whole, can I serve you? How do I come to you in a department and say, hey, what are your needs? How can I serve you? And through that, we explore efficiencies, and optimization, so you can do your job better, more efficiently, and at a reduced cost while you're contributing back to the organization as a whole. That's sustainability. [00:10:37] Stewart Severino: So, if I to go to a ministry and say, hey, how can I help you at the college level? Oh, well, I can't touch all of these students that are coming to me. I can only touch a small percentage of these folks. What do I do with the rest? Oh, let me help you with that. Right now, you're more efficient with your time. You have more time for your family. You have more time for ministry. And then those people that you couldn't touch before, they're being touched through other processes, through other automations, through other efficiencies. That's sustainability. We're now affecting two realms. And that one realm that you couldn't touch before is now contributing back to the whole. That's sustainability. [00:11:22] Tommy Thomas: What are some mistakes that you've observed, in the nonprofit sector as people attempt to innovate? [00:11:29] Stewart Severino: Repeatedly. And I think this is something that requires indoctrination and it's kind of what I do, right? You have to go around and campaign yourself. This is a person-to-person initiative. It's going around shaking hands, kissing babies, being personable, and saying, here is what innovation looks like in a discipline dispelling their previous conceptions or misconceptions of innovation isn't all that difficult because when you expose them to a disciplined innovation, it really changes the way they view their world. [00:12:04] Stewart Severino: Typically, they view innovation like, well, I have this issue or we have these goals. Let's brainstorm. How many times have you heard that? Hey, join me for coffee and let's go brainstorm. No brainstorming comes later on in the process. In the beginning, it's understanding. Do we as a team, as an organization have a consensus on what the needs of the audience are? When you define that need and you have a consensus on it, that becomes your true north. That is your compass. You don't deviate from it. You don't pollute it with technology or a process or good ideas that comes later. Let's stay to the bare minimum. What is your need? [00:12:47] Tommy Thomas: This is gonna take us back a little bit and some of this stuff may not even be in play these days, I remember the last time I spoke at the outcomes conference at Christian Leadership I used this illustration from the 1980s, the U. S. Army came up with this acronym, VUCA, Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. later on, the Center for Creative Leadership had to come up with their term, RUPT, Rapid, Unpredictable, Paradoxical, and Tangled. Another writer coined the term BANI, Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear, and Incomprehensible. And then the people over at Oxford, not to be outdone, they said it was Turbulent, Uncertain, Novel and Ambiguous. Now all of these are addressing external changes. Let's go there a little bit with external changes, and how you've seen them impact the nonprofit sector. [00:13:44] Tommy Thomas: Have they either contributed or hurt innovation? [00:13:51] Stewart Severino: External. So, you know, it's interesting you bring up VUCA. I was trained, I used to work for a consultancy where these guys, were the first top gun pilots there in the first class. And so, they were very efficient when it came to process and organization. So, we've worked in the space and you may have heard this on the previous called high-reliability organizations. H. R. O. S. And so, the job of these is to minimize or reduce risk in an environment. So external risks on an organization. So how do we do that? How does an aircraft carrier run at such precision? When you have a team of young adults rotating every so often, it's the process, right? [00:14:39] Stewart Severino: It's the discipline of the process that keeps people safe. It keeps people from dying. Think about commercial airliners, think about hospitals, think about oil rigs, right? Think about the military. And so, there's such high precision, not because they're awesome, but because they have a type process. And so, for the nonprofit space, what can you do within your organization? You've got to take your time, which each with each department and analyze, hey, show me your process for X, Y, Z, whatever their tasks are. And when you take a deep dive into their process, you'll quickly understand. They most likely don't have a process. They probably have a bullet list of items. [00:15:20] Stewart Severino: Hey, we do this, then we do that. If this happens, then that happens. And that's okay. That's a great starting point. But until you fully fleshed out the ifs and thens, and the now what's in the work process of that particular department, you won't be able to fully understand what's going on. The possible risks that are going to come from the outside or even from within the inside, within the organization. So really taking your time and fleshing out your work process and throwing that word out there, because that's a real thing, work, process, get to it, use it, incorporate it. It'll protect you from not just everyday mistakes. Let's say marketing doesn't have a work process for their marketing automation campaigns. [00:16:02] Stewart Severino: We see this a lot when they send emails that you've opted out of already. It's probably because they're not checking against what's called a suppression list on the backend. You're supposed to be suppressed from that. There's no process that checks for that, right? it's a silly little example, but I think it works for this model for what I'm trying to say. So, risk from outside of the organization is just as real as risk from within the organization. And the only way to solve for that is by taking a deep look into the process of each department. ++++++++++++++++++++ [00:16:32] Tommy Thomas: We've all seen the TV show Shark Tank. And I've been asking this question a lot lately. If you were a judge on a nonprofit version of Shark Tank where the nonprofits were asking you for early-stage funding. What questions would you need solid answers to before you made that investment? [00:16:56] Stewart Severino: For a nonprofit, it's a little different. But first I would say, have you identified the market? Right. Basic question, but I think again, many entrepreneurs, I think many nonprofits jump to solutions, assumed solutions, assumed technologies. But my first question would be, have you identified your market? And so, you identify your market again by identifying a need. So, I'll give you an example. If I can identify a market by demographics, that's typically how most organizations run, especially marketing leaders. They'll say, give me the demographic data. I don't know, uh, affluent married couples in their thirties and forties. [00:17:40] Stewart Severino: Okay. Let's say this nonprofit focuses on providing marriage resources. All right. If the need of the couple is to have better conflict resolution and better listening skills, well that's a need, and that need transcends the affluent and the poor. So now we've identified a real market, not just affluent, because the poor, or the underprivileged will still consume those resources. And if you're offering free resources, that's only going to make your dashboard of success look even better because you're bringing in a larger audience. Sure. They may not convert in terms of dollars later on to how you would expect the athlete, but you're going to have a much bigger audience. [00:18:26] Stewart Severino: And with a bigger audience, you have a bigger platform. So, you know, my first look is “Have you truly identified a market” and “Do you even know how to recognize a market”? [00:18:36] Tommy Thomas: If you are creating a dashboard for nonprofit organizations' overall health what would be some of the dials on your dashboard? [00:18:47] Stewart Severino: Uh, well, one indication, this is going to sound cheesy. Um, the way to indicate health and organization is to have a healthy organization. So typically, we don't have HR-related things on our dashboard, right? We don't have the qualitative information. And I typically stay away from the squishy stuff, right? I like hard numbers. I like my return on investments. I like my lifetime value in customers. I think we have to start looking at the squishy stuff, like, uh, something similar to an NPS score, not a promoter score. We see companies use this all the time to have their customers judge their brand. [00:19:30] Stewart Severino: And typically, an NPS score looks like, how likely are you to refer this service to your friend? Scale of one to five, something as simple like that, right? We have CSAT scores, which are customer satisfaction scores. They function the same way. They are qualitative, not quantitative. So, for me on my dashboard, I would love to always have the pulse of the organization's health, because a healthy organization breeds a healthy organization. [00:20:01] Tommy Thomas: I always get people to respond to some quotes, usually they're doing it within the context of, their area of expertise. So, let's go there for a little bit then. Here's one from Steve Jobs. Marketing is about values. It's a complicated and noisy world, and we're not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So, we have to be really clear...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/30421308
info_outline
Trina and Kevin Fullard - Life and Leadership Lessons Learned from the Coaches in our Lives
03/13/2024
Trina and Kevin Fullard - Life and Leadership Lessons Learned from the Coaches in our Lives
[00:00:03] Trina Fullard: I never intended to go to college to play basketball. It was not a plan for me. Academics was my focus. The day that the coach from college came to watch me play, I didn't even know she was there because he never told me until the game was over. And he said, I want you to meet someone, and that's when he introduced me to Vicki Staten, who was my college coach. And I just asked him, I said, why didn't you tell me that somebody was going to be here watching me play, he said, because I didn't want you to be worried about what's around the corner, I wanted you to stay in the moment. -- [00:00:41] Tommy Thomas: Our guests tonight are Trina and Kevin Fullard. Kevin took his B.A. in Psychology from Washington Jefferson College. He took his Master's of Science in Rehabilitation Counseling from West Virginia University. [00:00:56] Tommy Thomas: He's the founder and principal at Unique Consulting and Professional Services, and we'll get him to tell us a little bit about that as we get in. Trina also took her B.A. in psychology from Washington and Jefferson. She took her Master's of Arts in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Maryland. [00:01:14] Tommy Thomas: Trina is the CEO, and President-elect at Charlotte Rescue Mission, but on June the 1st, they're going to remove the elect piece of that title, and she will become the President and CEO of Charlotte Rescue Mission. In full disclosure, I must say that I met Trina, our firm, JobFitMatters Executive Search, did the CEO search there. [00:01:39] Tommy Thomas: And as a part of our process we like to interview as many board members and staff members as we can to learn about the organization. And Trina was in my group of people to interview. As we got into the conversation, I just felt like I was talking to somebody that I had known forever and I just could see leadership written all over this lady. [00:02:00] Tommy Thomas: During the conversation, she shared a little bit about her basketball career and that her husband also played football. And I thought, now this would be a good podcast to get the two of y'all on together. So Trina and Kevin, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:02:16] Trina Fullard: Thank you. Thank you, Tommy. [00:02:19] Tommy Thomas: We've had a little sub-theme going here about the coaches in my life. We're going to talk a little bit about life and leadership lessons that people who've done well and intercollegiate athletics have learned from the coaches in their life. And this could go back to the coaches in grammar school on through college. [00:02:36] Tommy Thomas: If you haven't heard one of these kind of conversations before, that's our format. Before I dive too deep into that, maybe each of you tell me a little bit about your childhood and somewhere along the way, tell me how you met each other. [00:02:55] Trina Fullard: Okay. I'll start. I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and, essentially learned as a young child how to be a strong independent young woman. I'm the oldest of two siblings. I have a younger sister who I grew up in the home with, and so I was always a caretaker and looking out for her. [00:03:17] Trina Fullard: I had a really strong will to be the best at everything wanted to be. A straight-A student, wanted to excel in whatever I was doing and continued that along the way, all the way up through high school, and then my first experience, probably where I had a coach was probably cheerleading in Little League Mighty Might says, you would mighty might football players needed the little cheerleaders. Being a mighty mite cheerleader was my first experience at being part of a team and having to work with other folks for us to be good at something. [00:03:46] Trina Fullard: To root them on, but that was my first experience at being a part of a team and having to work with other folks for us to be good at something. So I'll let Kev talk a little bit about his childhood before we talk about how we met. [00:04:03] Kevin Fullard: I also grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh, but I was closer to the inner city. [00:04:10] Kevin Fullard: Okay. So my experience was a little different. Because with the inner city of Pittsburgh, education originally wasn't the main focus. We had a lot of focus on sports because I knew there was a bigger place outside of that area. And just trying to figure out the path to be able to excel, to get out. So education became a piece of the puzzle as well as the athletics to be able to move forward and really just try to do better in life and be able to use that to go back and help the people that show them this is a pattern and a path to be able to exceed. Education and athletics showed me that there was a bigger place outside of the inner city and I could go there. [00:05:06] Tommy Thomas: Wow. And how did y'all get together? [00:05:09] Trina Fullard: We like to tell the story that there was a bet that I didn't know about. And Kevin is a year ahead of me. He graduated a year ahead. And when I got to Washington and Jefferson as a freshman, he was a sophomore. And there were not many black students on the campus of Washington and Jefferson at the time, about 1200 students and there were about 17 of us. [00:05:36] Trina Fullard: Oh, my, right? And Kevin inquired from some friends of his about, who's that young girl? I think with the incoming freshman class. [00:05:50] Kevin Fullard: Because I played football. We were there during the summer before the freshman students came in. So as the freshman class came in, we would look out of the window and see, oh that person over there. [00:06:06] Kevin Fullard: She looks cute. And we would try to find their names and pictures in the little freshman book to say, I need to get a little more information on her. [00:06:15] Trina Fullard: My book, my picture wasn't in the book, Tommy. I didn't send it in. And I'm not quite sure why. I think maybe our senior pictures weren't ready at the time. [00:06:26] Trina Fullard: So he had to ask around a little bit and what I learned later after we started dating was that one of the upper-class girls had said to him, even though you're asking about her, she's out of your league. She won't date you and they bet him that he couldn't get me to go out with him. [00:06:51] Trina Fullard: And so our first date during my freshman year was during the winter basketball season. He was at home on break from his football. The football season had ended. We had just ended it. So he called me and he asked me, what was I doing? And I said, oh, I just finished practice. [00:07:09] Trina Fullard: And he lived about 40 minutes from the college. He drove all the way back to the college. Knocked on my door, I opened the door, not realizing I had just spoken to him on the phone and I knew he was at home and I'm like, what are you doing here? And he said, put on a sweatshirt. We're going to go for a ride and I'm like, I just finished practice. [00:07:36] Trina Fullard: I'm not in the mood for going out anywhere and he was not going to take no for an answer. So we jump in the car and he takes me to an outdoor ice skating rink. Now I really think he's crazy because I'm like, it's the middle of basketball season. I've never been ice skating before. And you think I'm going to get on some ice skates so I can fall? [00:08:01] Kevin Fullard: This was the opportunity for me to see if she was really an athlete. Ha. Oh me. [00:08:09] Trina Fullard: So I think we sat in the car for about 20 minutes. Yes. Uhhuh. And he promised that he would not let me fall. And we got out, we had a great time and I probably fell more than she did. Yeah. But then, after that, it was a really good time for us to bond as two people, two young college students. [00:08:33] Trina Fullard: Trying to navigate through an experience that really turned out, I think, pretty well. 32 years going and we're still going strong. [00:08:44] Tommy Thomas: I think that's pretty good. I think that's real good. Yeah. So both of you then were on your respective athletic teams there. [00:08:52] Tommy Thomas: Were you both on a scholarship or did they have scholarships back then for your division or how did that go? [00:08:59] Kevin Fullard: For our division, we didn't have full scholarships, so they gave us partial scholarships. I think we both had some athletic scholarships, but also education scholarship monies that they were able to give us. [00:09:17] Kevin Fullard: And so that was the avenue we took to be able to pay for our time at W&J. [00:09:27] Trina Fullard: They were very creative because we needed academic money, then there also was a little bit of need-based as well. I'm a first generation college student, but Kevin's older brother was the first generation college student and he went to W&J and Kevin essentially followed him and he played football as well. [00:09:50] Trina Fullard: So his brother had started the path for college for his family. -- [00:09:55] Tommy Thomas: What do you remember about about your first coach at athletics? [00:10:00] Kevin Fullard: My first coach was during little league baseball. And I think he really just taught a lot about understanding the game of baseball and trying to figure out how to work together as a team. [00:10:17] Kevin Fullard: Because growing up, I had the friends in the neighborhood that we would play with and those were friends, but I realized becoming a part of a team was slightly different because now I'm working with and relying on people that really aren't my friends, but we have to work together in order to achieve a common goal. [00:10:42] Kevin Fullard: So that was a great job that the coach did to get us to understand how to build a bond together and understand which or what each person was responsible for so that we could work together. [00:11:00] Trina Fullard: So my first athletic coach was in high school. I started playing basketball only because a friend of mine wanted someone to be on the team that was a friend of hers. [00:11:12] Trina Fullard: I think I learned how athletic I was and how skilled I was at picking things up quickly and then being able to excel at them from my coach in high school. And then I also learned from him that I could learn how not to anticipate. Just be in the moment. [00:11:43] Trina Fullard: And enjoy the moment and don't get all, as we would say, get all crossed up around what's around the corner. And I say that because I never intended to go to college to play basketball. It was not a plan for me. Academics was my focus. The day that the coach from college came to watch me play, I didn't even know she was there because he never told me until the game was over. My high school basketball coach taught me not to anticipate, but to live in the moment. [00:12:12] Trina Fullard: And he said, I want you to meet someone, and that's when he introduced me to Vicki Staten, who was my college coach. And I just asked him, I said, why didn't you tell me that somebody was going to be here watching me play, he said, because I didn't want you to be worried about what's around the corner, I wanted you to stay in the moment. [00:12:33] Tommy Thomas: Good life lesson. [00:12:35] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. What coach has, do you think, got the most out of you? [00:12:43] Kevin Fullard: I think from my perspective, the coach that I had as my defensive back coach in college definitely got the most out of me. And I think part of it was because I was becoming of age where I understood there is more to the game than just the game. My college defensive back coach taught me that there is a lot more to football than the game of football. He taught life lessons that extended far beyond football. [00:13:05] Kevin Fullard: And he really focused a lot on how playing football would relate to outside of the game. How the skills we're learning in football would transition into life experiences and life lessons. And that was a very important thing to learn at that time. So he's definitely the one that got the most out of me as an athlete, but I think myself as a person as well. [00:13:42] Trina Fullard: I would agree. My college coach pulled a lot from me. And as I said earlier, I started playing the game of basketball in high school and she believed in me enough to bring me onto a team knowing that there was a lot more growth that she could pour into and and then being a leader she pressed me into that leadership role into in my sophomore and junior year of setting an example. [00:14:13] Trina Fullard: And even on the bus, studying on the bus for younger athletes that came to see that, yeah, we're on the bus and we're going to, we have a four-hour ride to the game, but it's not about just sitting around and having a great time. There's still time to focus at some point. She would take me on her recruiting trips to talk to other players about what the experience was like at Washington and Jefferson, being on the basketball team and a part of the team and spending time riding in a car with her, listening to her talk about life and what life was going to be like after college. [00:14:50] Trina Fullard: She gave me a book when I graduated and said, do what you love and the money will follow. That book was instrumental for me to realize after undergrad that I had to go on to grad school and continue to education. [00:15:08] Tommy Thomas: So I think you've probably answered this question, but I was going to say at what point did you realize that your coach was trying to teach you more than basketball? [00:15:17] Tommy Thomas: And it sounds like it sounded like that was a reasonably early-on experience in your college athletic experience. [00:15:25] Trina Fullard: I think for me, Washington and Jefferson College and being so ingrained in the athletic space there we both also worked in the athletic office, so we were connected to all of the coaches and would support all of the teams, and so I think we both benefited from interacting with the coaches and life lessons sitting in the office, talking with them in the athletic office as they were just talking about, their families and hearing them talk about things that they were dealing with, we got that as a byproduct for the entire time that we were there. I know we worked in the athletic office for all four years. [00:16:17] Kevin Fullard: And I think for me, it may not have come until my sophomore year. And the big lesson that really stood out for me, and I use it a lot from a counseling perspective. Now I tell a lot of people, especially if I'm working with young kids I try to tell them egos are overrated. [00:16:40] Kevin Fullard: This is one of the big lessons that I try to work with young people on because as a freshman coming in, I felt I was a great athlete coming out of high school, but I wasn't a good teammate coming out of high school because I thought with from an ego perspective, I can do it all. Whatever the team needs, just rely on me. [00:17:06] Kevin Fullard: I'll get it done. And it took the coach through the freshman year to make me realize - No, we all have to be a team. And that came with, I think a lot more maturity. [00:17:24] Tommy Thomas: No matter how hard and dedicated you are to something failure is always an option. What did you learn from team sports about failure that's helped you in life? [00:17:37] Kevin Fullard: I think that the big lesson that I've learned with failure, and this goes back to, I think my little league experience playing baseball. I used to be a pitcher in little league and our team made it to the championship game. My grandmother was very influential in my life and I pitched what I thought was a great game until the last inning and I threw a pitch and gave up a home run. [00:18:11] Kevin Fullard: So we lost the game in the championship game two to one and I came home and I was crying and crying. Laid across my grandmother's lap and as a grandmother would do, she said, what happened in the game? And I explained to her, we lost. I gave up a home run in the last inning and I felt like I cost us the game. [00:18:37] Kevin Fullard: And my grandmother said to me, did you do your best? And I went in to explain to her I threw my best pitch. My best pitch was a curveball. I threw it. I thought it was perfect and he hit it out of the stadium. And my grandmother said, you threw your best pitch. That's all I've ever asked of you. Give it your best. [00:19:03] Kevin Fullard: And let the outcome be the outcome. Just hearing her say she was proud. I carry that through life. [00:19:14] Trina Fullard: Yeah. Failure for me resonates from one high school basketball game where we were playing this team that was considered to be like the powerhouse and at the end of the first half of the game, we had only scored 5 points and this is high school. [00:19:45] Trina Fullard: And I remember, I think it was something like 60 to five or something, and they didn't have a mercy rule back then. And so we went in the locker room and, the whole team, we're just like, we can't believe this, this is just ridiculous. And our coach said to us, listen, this is not about winning and losing. [00:20:09] Trina Fullard: It's about your effort. You may not score 20 points. But you, the team in here, you all have to set a goal and as a team together and you work together, you hold your head up and you go out there and you do the best you can. We just felt so defeated. [00:20:32] Trina Fullard: It took us a minute, we thought about what he said. And we set a goal, we said, we're going to go out there and we're going to score at least 10. So we're going to end up with at least 15. And we lost that game 103 to 35, but we had met our goal. And so the lesson for us at that time was together, even if we don't conquer, we're never going to give up and we're not going to hang our heads. [00:21:05] Trina Fullard: Because again, as Kevin said, we did the best we could. We were clearly outmatched, but we didn't stop playing. We didn't just pack up our little bag and just go home. -- [00:21:18] Tommy Thomas: It's often said that we learn the most when we fail in something, if that's the case, why are we so afraid to fail? [00:21:30] Kevin Fullard: I think people become afraid to fail, not necessarily because of what's in them, but I think they're afraid of the judgment that comes along with failure. And, I try to get people to understand we can't compete or do anything in life with fear and worry about how people will judge us. I think people become afraid to fail, not necessarily because of what's in them, but I think they're afraid of the judgment that comes along with failure. [00:22:01] Trina Fullard: Yeah, I think the same thing, even if I look at the failures in my life what was I worried about, what was what the story would be, if you will. And so that's where I think a lot of times looking inside and saying, okay. What do I want to come out of this? [00:22:26] Trina Fullard: What lesson can I learn? That's what I've always come back to is, okay, it didn't go the way I wanted. Okay, Lord, what's the lesson in it for me so that I continue to move forward? [00:22:42] Tommy Thomas: I've got two things on the legendary coach, Dean Smith from Chapel Hill. And one of his quotes was, what do you do with the mistake? Recognize it, learn from it, admit it, and forget it. [00:22:56] Kevin Fullard: There you go. Exactly. I would agree a hundred percent. [00:23:03] Trina Fullard: Don't forget the learn from it part though. [00:23:05] Tommy Thomas: In his book, it's how you play the game. The 12 leadership lessons of Dean Smith. David Chadwick, a local pastor there in Charlotte who played on one of coach Smith's final four teams writes the concept of team may be coach Smith's greatest contribution to basketball leadership and society. Both of you work with a lot of teams. How has the concept of a team impacted your life?...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/30346093
info_outline
Larry Lincoln – Reflections from a Seasoned Public Relations and Communications Professional
02/27/2024
Larry Lincoln – Reflections from a Seasoned Public Relations and Communications Professional
[00:00:00] Larry Lincoln: And I had some good mentors along the way. My very first supervisor in the military, his name was Charles Benton. I'll never forget him. He told me, he said, look - there are keys to success. You want to be professional. You don't have to know everything, but if you don't know it, be willing to find out and always be available, turn situations into not a no, but try to find win situations for people. [00:00:24] Larry Lincoln: And those are the things that have always stuck with me. +++++++++++++++++++++= Tommy Thomas: My guest today is Larry Lincoln. Larry and I have been friends for, I don't know, 15-20 years. Larry, do you recall our first meeting? [00:00:35] Larry Lincoln: Yeah, I think it was back when I was still in Colorado Springs at one of the ministries there. So yeah, it's been about that length of time. [00:00:44] Tommy Thomas: And I remember when we had dinner, you and I, and your wife, and like my friend Bo Patton, the football player at Vanderbilt told me when he met me and my wife, he said, Tommy, you out kicked your coverage. And so, I'm going to say having had dinner with Dixie, you definitely out kicked your coverage in that merger. [00:01:03] Larry Lincoln: Amen, brother. So true. So true. [00:01:06] Tommy Thomas: Larry's been into the Communications and Public Relations field I guess his entire adult life. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to get him on the call. We'd say we've known each other a long time. I've watched his career. He is currently working with Compassion International. He’ll tell us a little bit about his work there, but Larry, take me back to your early days. What two or three experiences do you remember from childhood that made you into the man you are today? [00:01:32] Larry Lincoln: Wow. Yeah, my childhood was a little atypical, Tommy, not the standard one. As a kid my parents weren't together. They split up when I was a young age, and they did one thing other than having us, but what they decided is they knew that things weren't going to work, and they wanted the kids, there were three of us at the time, to be in more stable homes. I was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and my folks sent me up to live with grandparents in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, a little town outside of Pittsburgh. And growing up there, man, it was so special because my grandmother was a God-fearing woman. We called her Mother Mary, but she was the one who just embraced me. [00:02:14] Larry Lincoln: I'll never forget as a three-year-old, I remember sitting on the floor learning to read with blocks. She was just so invested in my life. And so, growing up together in that home and having her just pour into me was something I'll never forget. She was just a godsend. She was ahead of her time. She was very into trying to shape and mold me into being a godly man. She always used to tell me, I'd ask her as a young kid, Mother Mary, what do you want me to be? And she said, son, love the Lord and be a good man. And that was all that she ever asked of me. So, remembering growing up in that home, growing up in our neighborhood, the church was called St. John's United Holy Church. And she made sure that as a youngster, I was in that church and that was like an extended family for me, they were so close and so nurturing and loving and then finally entering the military. I think the military was easy compared to growing up in Mother Mary's house. [00:03:10] Larry Lincoln: The military that esprit de corps, that structure, that being a part of something bigger than yourself, that really appealed to me. So those are a few experiences, I believe, shaped who I am today. [00:03:24] Tommy Thomas: How'd you get from high school to the military? Was there a big decision mark there? [00:03:29] Larry Lincoln: No what it was I went off to college following high school for a brief period of time, about a year, but my grandmother was ill during my college, my high school time. And so, I finished school and was taking care of her. And I wanted to stay nearby. I was a baseball player for a time, and I really wanted to play baseball in college. I had a brother at that time who was in the Air Force over in Hawaii and he was doing well, but I couldn't leave her. So, I decided to stay close to home and take care of her and go to a local college there, West Minister College, in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. [00:04:05] Larry Lincoln: But then she passed. And then, as a youngster with all that stuff going on, and then of course, college getting expensive and stuff, I said, I wanted to take a break. And my brother was doing well in the military. And I said, oh, let me give that a try. So that's how I got into the military. [00:04:21] Tommy Thomas: Is that how you got into public relations and communications in the military? [00:04:25] Larry Lincoln: Yes, absolutely. I spent 22 years total in the Air Force and for the lion's share at that time, I was in public affairs, which was public affairs is the military version of public relations, I went to journalism school, and learned to write. I went all the way up through the ranks and held every job in communications, in media relations, community relations, planning, crisis communication, all that great stuff. And so, they give you a well-rounded education. That's how I got my start and I've been doing it ever since. [00:04:56] Tommy Thomas: So, what do you remember about the first time you had to manage people? [00:05:00] Larry Lincoln: Wow. I'll tell you in the Air Force, one thing about it is they send you, they give you a lot of training. So, you go to leadership school and all these things. I went to all those. They give you the theory of what you should do as a leader and how you should lead people. But when you step into that role for the first time, and sometimes some of the people around the same age as you. And you're being called to have responsibility and lead. It was terrifying at first because, wow, can I do this? But then at the same time, knowing that they had prepared you well, they trained you well, it was a matter of just stepping into that role with confidence and learning along the way. [00:05:40] Larry Lincoln: And I had some good mentors along the way. My very first supervisor in the military, his name was Charles Benton. I'll never forget him. He told me, he said, look - there are keys to success. He said, you want to be professional. He said, you don't have to know everything, but if you don't know it, be willing to find out and always be available, turn situations into not a no, but try to find win situations for people. And those are the things that's always stuck with me. [00:06:08] Tommy Thomas: Of course, I know a lot of the stuff you did in the military might be classified, but are there any crisis management stories you could tell that that turned out well? [00:06:18] Larry Lincoln: Do we have time? Tell me, one of the things is, yeah, I've been involved in enumerable crisis situations in the military and out of the military, and I think that they provided a tremendous platform for understanding what happens and how to respond. I learned early on that you are either in a crisis, getting ready to go into one, or you’re coming out of one. So, planning and preparation are key! [00:06:31] Larry Lincoln: Things like that. I've been involved in everything from plane crashes, the bombings, the Khobar Tower bombings, the Payne Stewart plane crash. A lot of different crisis situations, natural disasters, hurricanes, and things don't just happen. One of the things that I learned in that situation is that you're either in a crisis, you're getting ready to go into one, or you're coming out of one. [00:06:54] Larry Lincoln: And so, preparation and planning becomes really key. [00:06:57] Tommy Thomas: I remember the Payne Stewart crash and, knew a little bit about his family. What do you remember about that? [00:07:05] Larry Lincoln: I remember it was a national media situation where, if you recall, that plane was just drifting out there, and it was all over the television. It was a very tense situation, and we didn't have a lot of answers because, at that point in time, we had to wait for some things to happen. But I remember just being captivated just like the rest of the world with that situation and being intimately involved in responding. I was at NORAD Space Command there in Colorado Springs at the time, and NORAD had those jets that were actually tracking and tracking that and were sent up to intercept that and let it play out. So, it was a really interesting situation. It was heartbreaking, but that's the level of crisis and things that we became used to in the military career. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:07:51] Tommy Thomas: Let’s go to the nonprofit sector. Because you've spent some time with some good organizations in the nonprofit world. How does a nonprofit preparedness compare with the military level of preparedness for emergencies or crisis? [00:08:04] Larry Lincoln: Generally speaking, I think that the federal government and the military, of course, it's very institutionalized and sometimes in the nonprofit community we don't know what we don't know. And many times, organizations get caught flat-footed, but I think there's a lesson to be learned there that, like I said, if you go back to what I said earlier, that cycle, you're preparing to enter a crisis. You're in a crisis or you're coming out of one. If you look at that, and that as a constant, it allows you to look at situations that you can prepare for. [00:08:35] Larry Lincoln: You can think about your vulnerabilities, and that's one of the things senior communications folks have a role, especially in PR being able to look out and forecast for an organization, what the environment looks like, what some of the risks and threats. I think we all have the ability to do that. [00:08:52] Larry Lincoln: It's just the consciousness and the intentionality of being able to plan. Nobody likes to be in that situation, but I think during those times when we're not, we should use those as opportunities to really look and get a good sense of our environment that we're operating in threats, risks, et cetera. [00:09:13] Tommy Thomas: In an ideal world, what's the role of the Chief Communications Officer? The Chief Communications Officer serves as a trusted advisor to the CEO in addition to serving as a brand ambassador and guardian of the organization’s reputation. [00:09:18] Larry Lincoln: The Chief Communications Officer serves as a trusted advisor. They're responsible for key functions, such as advising your CEO, upper leadership on communication, engagement, goals, strategies, and issues. Coaching for top executives, strategic communication, engagement, planning, serving as a brand ambassador and guardian of organizational reputation. A lot of times I'd like to say that the individual who holds that role is also the conscience of an organization. They also foster visibility, and understanding of the operational objectives. One of the things that I think is really key to anyone in a communication role is understanding the business, and that's chief communication officer needs to understand the business, how it works, and the objectives in order to effectively communicate to external and internal audiences. [00:10:07] Larry Lincoln: And so bottom line, you'll want to serve to ensure organizational messaging, consistency to all of an organization’s audiences, and that can be an umbrella function that covers things like corporate communications, media, relations, issues, crisis, reputation, and reputational, internal communications, things like that. [00:10:28] Tommy Thomas: What do you mean by the conscience of the organization? [00:10:32] Larry Lincoln: Many times, communicators, if you're really looking out at the landscape and understand your stakeholders, your publics, the people that you're working with. I like to take an attitude of if I'm a community serving in the senior communication function, and a lot of time operational decisions are made, I like to point out to senior leaders, you think about having an empty chair in that boardroom where you are and consider that empty chair being occupied by some of your stakeholders, be it the public, be it a donor. Be it an advocate. How would they feel? How would they react to what decision you're making? And many times, organizations think about how they operate, but they don't think about pulling the curtain back and having other people who are not in the organization understand how they operate. [00:11:21] Larry Lincoln: They take it for granted sometimes. So, if you use that approach and think about that empty chair and put a key audience there, how would they react? That's being a conscience and really thinking through the decisions and the postures that we're going to take because ultimately at the end of the line, those are the people that we're impacting. So that's what I mean by being a conscience and I think I'm a firm believer that organizations pretty much communicate how they operate. It just happens naturally. So, if you don't really think about those things, you're going to communicate in a vacuum and then try to play catch up to help key audiences understand what you really mean, what your heart is. [00:12:00] Tommy Thomas: Here again, in an ideal world, should the Chief Communications Officer sit on the cabinet, be on the same level as a CFO, Chief Information, or Chief Marketing Officer? [00:12:10] Larry Lincoln: Absolutely. It's vitally important that the Chief Communication Officer have that same type of relationship, a very close relationship at the top of the business, such as the CFO, the Chief Marketing Officer, and I'll tell you why. The CCO has to ensure continuously open and timely communications channels. There are a lot of things that impact an organization these days. A 24/7 news cycle that requires immediate response. The importance of reputational management and organizational branding. The need for alignment and integration of messaging throughout the organization. You talked earlier about crisis situations, the need for proactive and immediate crisis communication response. There are a lot of studies out there about chief communication officers. But there's one that talks about organizations with CCOs reporting directly to the CEO has the greatest alignment between corporate objectives, communications, and all activities. [00:13:10] Larry Lincoln: That involves engaging key stakeholders. Yeah, it's vitally important to have that direct peer relationship with some of those other C-Suite executives. [00:13:20] Tommy Thomas: You've done the communications piece and you've been Director of Public Relations. In broad terms, what's the difference between those two functions? I'll give you the definition of what PR is. It's the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the public on whom its success or failure depends. [00:13:27] Larry Lincoln: In broad terms, there's a lot of overlap, and think about the Chief Communications function, corporate communications, things like that as the umbrella. Typically, in the world that we live in now, public relations and I'll give you the definition of what PR is. It's the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the public on whom its success or failure depends. In our current framework of things, typically PR folks deal mostly with media engagement, and things like that. But they also reach beyond that to work with publics and organizations, publics and develop and maintain those key relationships. [00:14:08] Larry Lincoln: Think of the Chief Communications Officer who is developing the strategy. About how an organization communicates with all of its stakeholders and the PR function as executing that strategy for some specific audiences. [00:14:21] Tommy Thomas: Okay. I guess when you started, we didn't have a 24-hour news cycle or if we did, it was young. How have you seen that impact communications, in general, and the effectiveness of corporate communications? [00:14:40] Larry Lincoln: It's definitely a challenge because there are a couple of challenges related to that. You're right in the past we did not have that 24/7, but with the proliferation of social media, it becomes an even greater challenge because now you have unvetted unfiltered experts on social media. One of the challenges of social media is that you now have unvetted, unfiltered experts who, on occasion, are sowing disinformation or misinformation. That presents a challenge to the audience. [00:14:57] Larry Lincoln: Who rightfully in some cases maybe get it wrong, but in other cases are sowing disinformation or misinformation and so that becomes a challenge for our audiences because they're consuming this and some of them are very selective on what they consume. So, we have to really understand our audiences in many cases. We develop personas of different folks that we want to reach and understand where they get their information so we can tailor communications to get to them in a timely fashion. It's a huge challenge now because way back when we had three major networks, and they were respected. The news was then broadcast in a certain way, and now today with the proliferation of mass media, and social media, it's a huge challenge. [00:15:42] Larry Lincoln: And it makes us be able to want to be able to respond much more rapidly and be prepared. And that's why preparation and understanding audiences become so much more important. [00:15:53] Tommy Thomas: What is the biggest trouble a CEO can get into using social media? What are the downsides, maybe? [00:16:00] Larry Lincoln: Not understanding social media. And I think social media is a ripple. It should not be seen as something to avoid. Not at all. And there are some CEOs who just, I've heard of some who just refuse to engage in that. And they have to think of that as another key communication channel. They, just like you'd use media, just like you use internal, you have to plan for it. And so not having a plan, not understanding who the audience is, not really mapping out and being clear what you want to say and what you want them to do. Ultimately, everything that we do with communication, we want to move people. I tell people we want to move them along a continuum of awareness. Understanding acceptance and then commitment, and that's especially true in the nonprofit realm. You want to make people aware of what you do and why you make a difference in this cluttered world with all these different agencies that are doing many the same thing. And competing for the same audiences. why are we different? What's unique about us? Maybe we need to help you understand more about what we do and why it matters to you. Then you move them along that continuum to understand how it impacts them. What's in it for them? And then get them to accept and then commit once you can get them to that stage, then you can move them along and you can get them to do pretty much anything. But social media, I think you have to look at it as another channel that needs attention. It needs constant feeding of the beast, so to speak. You can't go dark. You can't start it and then just go dark and let weeks go by. You have to continue to talk. And it's like having a conversation at a dinner party. [00:17:36] Larry Lincoln: How many people would talk to you if you had something boring to say or nothing really meaty to say, and you just stop talking? They'd find somebody else to talk to. So, it's just another channel that needs to be harvested, invested in really intentionally worked with. +++++++++++++++= [00:17:54] Tommy Thomas: Oh, what kind of counsel are you giving young people today who think...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/30113318
info_outline
The Shark Tank Meets The Millionaire
02/20/2024
The Shark Tank Meets The Millionaire
[00:00:00] Tommy Thomas: Our guests today are Burt Rosen and Liz Galloway. Burt's the former CEO of the Knox Area Rescue Ministries, or KARM as it's known in the area. [00:00:09] Tommy Thomas: And Liz is the Senior Director of Food Services. Burt was a guest, gosh, back in year one at Thanksgiving, I think, probably around episode 10 or 15. I have used this Shark Tank question a lot in my questions of people. And a few episodes back, we highlighted some of the responses and he called back and said, we actually did a Shark Tank thing at KARM. [00:00:35] Tommy Thomas: And I thought now that it would be great to have something that was real-time on the podcast. Burt and Liz, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. [00:00:44] Burt Rosen: Thank you, Tommy. Good to be here. [00:00:46] Liz Galloway: Thank you. [00:00:47] Tommy Thomas: So Burt or Liz, I'm going to turn it over to y'all, but how did this thing get started? [00:00:53] Burt Rosen: Let me take the lead there Tommy, and then Liz will chime in where it makes sense. So let me take a step back. Before coming to KARM, I spent 17 years with Prison Fellowship Ministries. And when I joined KARM, I brought with me this desire to always want to innovate. [00:01:14] Burt Rosen: Always looking for new ideas. And one of the things I learned, not so much from prison fellowship, but from my time in the nonprofit arena in general, particularly in ministries, which is yes, it's a nonprofit, but it seems to be a little bit of a different animal was that there was a reluctance to spend money on innovation. [00:01:34] Burt Rosen: And a reluctance to spend money on employee training and development. Those always seem to be the things that would go to the back seat. And so, in my early years at KARM, we had more than our share of financial challenges digging out of a hole that the ministry had managed to get itself into. And so, once we got there, fast forward a few years later, we found ourselves in a wonderful position. [00:02:01] Burt Rosen: God had blessed the work immensely. And so we were now in a position of not only being in the black and staying in the black but having a few extra dollars to look at how we best spend to advance the ministry. And so our board chair, Dan Hurst, you referenced in fact, he and I did that podcast call way back when. [00:02:23] Burt Rosen: We talked about wouldn't it be great to use some of this money to further enhance ministry opportunities. And that's all Dan needed to say. And now I'll admit that I did a ready-fire aim here. I didn't go back and talk to the senior team and say, hey, wouldn't this be a great idea? I was just off and running. [00:02:44] Burt Rosen: And so, I remembered that first, I was a Shark Tank fan. Always have been for as long as I've been watching it. I also remembered those days as a kid when I watched the TV show The Millionaire and, I forget his name, the actor. He would come on and he'd say, my name is Michael Anthony. [00:03:00] Burt Rosen: I represent the late John Beresford Tipton and he goes through his spiel of giving away a million dollars. And I thought, wouldn't it be great if we could marry The Millionaire and Shark Tank and put out to our staff an opportunity to come up with KARM’s next million-dollar idea? And we set aside the funds to be able to fund whatever ideas might come up. [00:03:28] Burt Rosen: And we'll come to that a little bit later on. But with that, we sent that video out to employees and invited them to participate in something that would go across the ministry because I knew that people like Liz had these great dreams, these great ideas of things they'd love to see happen, but often didn't get the opportunity. [00:03:50] Burt Rosen: This Shark Tank idea provided that opportunity. And so we put it out and Liz, you can certainly respond because you were on the receiving end of that, that first initial invitation. And then I'll pick it back up Tommy after Liz shares a little bit about what it was like to be on her end during that time. [00:04:10] Liz Galloway: Yeah, thank you, Burt. You just go through your day-to-day routine when you get into work and you're checking emails and, I remember very clearly that day when, the email came up and it said, KARM's next big idea and it's from Burt, so we open it and we're like, okay what is the next big idea? [00:04:32] Liz Galloway: So we go through this email and we're reading and it's just, for starters, it's just amazing to have a leadership in place that allows you to dream big dreams outside of the box and got deeper into the email and realize this is real. This is something that Carl and Burt are giving us an opportunity to take our part, our department of the ministry, and take it to the next level. [00:05:01] Liz Galloway: It was the phrase. So, if you had a million dollars to take your corner of the ministry to the next level, what would you do? And, of course, my first instinct, my first thought was a food truck, right? We feed close to a thousand meals a day here on the corners of 418 North Broadway. [00:05:22] Liz Galloway: And what can we do to take our ministry into the streets and get into the communities where people might not know? What we offer at KARM and so that's what got the whole food truck idea started just reading that email and just thinking, oh, my gosh, either Burt has lost his mind or this is serious. [00:05:44] Liz Galloway: It was just a huge blessing to be able to dream that dream. And then as Burt said, through the process find it come to fruition. [00:05:54] Tommy Thomas: So, you'd been thinking about this food truck on your own? [00:05:58] Liz Galloway: I have been in the food service industry for a long time Tommy and, food trucks at that time were just becoming such a hot commodity. [00:06:09] Liz Galloway: They really were. And I love visiting food truck parks. I love seeing, the next big idea, what people are doing, what's fresh, and what's new. And then you think, okay I work for a nonprofit, right? I work in the ministry world. That's not what we do, right? [00:06:26] Liz Galloway: We're feeding those here at the ministry, those in need. And I won't say I put it on the back burner, it's one of those things that you think about, and it just wasn't a good fit for the time. And so, when that email came through, that was just my first, that knee-jerk reaction, that first, punching the guy, you're like, oh, my gosh, what a great idea. [00:06:49] Liz Galloway: And so, it was not only just a food truck when you think food truck, obviously, you think for profit, right? You have to make the money to turn the key. But then what are some other opportunities, right? The idea that Burt sent out was how can it further your corner of the ministry? [00:07:08] Liz Galloway: And how does that tie into the ministry for a nonprofit? And in doing some research through this process that we were allowed to do Shark Tank style. I came to find out that there are other ministries throughout the country that do a similar ministry, but not quite to the extent that I was going to take it. [00:07:31] Liz Galloway: For profit. Yes. Outreach opportunities as well as culinary training opportunities for our guests here at KARM. It was a truck with three different folds into it. [00:07:41] Burt Rosen: Tommy, with that it wasn't just lives. So, we put this out and you don't really know what kind of a response you're going to get. [00:07:50] Burt Rosen: But the response that you just heard from Liz was very similar to the response from other employees as well. Oh, yeah. We're setting aside, money for the next million-dollar idea, the next big idea. And so, it took just a little bit of internal selling. To get this done. And once we put it out there, the ideas that came from other employees, including Liz, were just amazing. [00:08:18] Burt Rosen: And so in this process, Liz had a very limited time. So we put this all out in October as the year was ending, and they had to be ready. So we had to do our homework and whittle 42 ideas down to the top six and that was very difficult. So we recruited a handful of board members, all whom were very astute and successful business people in their own right. [00:08:43] Burt Rosen: They were going to be the judges. And so each person, including Liz gave a brief summary of their idea. Not the how, but the what. Here's the idea in a nutshell. Those board members saw the ideas depersonalized. They were randomly numbered so that the board members would look through them. And so, if you could imagine this funneling effect of getting from 42 ideas down to the top six. [00:09:13] Burt Rosen: Now, what happened was. Every time each person had a two week. I'm sorry. We gave them two weeks to get it on paper and get it in. So we wanted to create this sense of urgency, things moving quickly and not let it fall behind as things can often do. Then we found the next thing that created some buzz. As soon as someone submitted an idea. [00:09:35] Burt Rosen: They got a nice little thank you with a 50 Amazon gift card just for participating. And for those who decided to collaborate with someone else, because we set no rules. Those who decided to buddy up with another employee got an extra 50 gift card. So, here's your reward just for submitting an idea and being a partner in the ministry. [00:09:59] Burt Rosen: And now you've collaborated. So that was the next thing that we wanted to do. And Liz would have been the recipient of one of those Amazon gift cards. And Liz, perhaps you can talk a little bit about what was going on and then what you were hearing for other employees who were on the receiving end of those as well. [00:10:18] Liz Galloway: It definitely caused a buzz throughout the ministry. Like Burt said, there were so many incredible ideas that were submitted over this time, and, as the field started to get shaved down a little bit. It's in each step of the process. We were given a new challenge, right? [00:10:42] Liz Galloway: We had to budget our idea, right? We had to do a budget for our idea. We had to do letters of intent. For our idea. We're starting a new, a new business, a new venture. And we had to go through each one of those steps as a process throughout this whole time. And it was really fun. [00:11:04] Liz Galloway: It was fun. It was nerve-wracking as well, but it was a lot of fun to hear the buzz around the ministry and, who's doing what, and just our smaller groups just getting together and collaborating with each other. And it just really became a good feel around the ministry with the competition that we had going on, but we were all cheering for one another for sure. [00:11:27] Burt Rosen: Yeah, it was so awesome to see that. And a couple of byproducts from all of this. One, each person, including Liz, was assigned a mentor. Now, the people in the ministry who were submitting ideas had different levels of experience. Some have never done a grant in their life, and have never done any fundraising in their life. [00:11:47] Burt Rosen: And so, each of them was paired up with an internal mentor that they could choose to use at their discretion. So, we were getting some training in the process. We were getting cross-pollination of ideas in the process. And then, as that process made its way forward, the finalists were then told, okay, you're going to have until March 12th. [00:12:11] Burt Rosen: This would have been March 12th of 2000 and 21. You've got to do the feasibility study. But we also said, okay, set aside an escrow account for each of those people. So each individual was told you will have $3500 to spend at your discretion. So long as it's not illegal, immoral, or fattening, you could spend it any way you wanted to. [00:12:34] Burt Rosen: You're going to have to account for the funds, but there are no restrictions. You need to travel somewhere? Go travel. Do what you had to do. And one of the reasons that we're talking with Liz is because she was so innovative. She was so creative. And I can remember sitting in the judge's room, because now we're at presentation day, Tommy. [00:12:56] Burt Rosen: Our entire boardroom, which you have been in, went from its usual setting as a boardroom. We converted the entire thing to a shark tank stage and so if you've seen the show, I'm sure you have the person walking in down the hallways with the music in the background. They stand on their little X on the spot and they say good evening sharks. That's exactly what was happening here. Our panel of judges was set aside just like the Sharks are and there was enough stage space for each person to come in and present their idea. [00:13:32] Burt Rosen: And so as we got through, they all did amazing work. And it was one of those things where you'd say, this could go in any direction. These ideas are so great, but I would have to say, even though I loved all the ideas, Liz took my heart away and I'll let her tell you what she did, how they got to where they were, and what she actually did the day of the presentation. [00:13:58] Liz Galloway: Oh my gosh. The nerves and the excitement and everything through the whole process. And it went over several months. And so there were highs and there were lows and there was all the anxious moments. And, finally, the day came to present, Shark Tank style ,and you're just like, okay, here it goes. [00:14:21] Liz Galloway: It's all or nothing. Jump in with both feet. It is what it is here. Here's the day. So I had actually, through all of my research and development and everything, I'm like, how do you present a food truck idea? I don't have a food truck. [00:14:35] Liz Galloway: I don't have a truck. Am I going to go in with a presentation or, I need something tangible to get their taste buds going. And so I found what you would call a child's size play food truck made out of cardboard. And so part of the spending that I did was to get this model food truck with our logos on the side with everything. It was the vision for what I had for the food truck. And it was, oh, I don't know, Burt, it was probably two, three feet high by, maybe three or, three or four feet long. So it was a good-sized food truck. And I turned the food truck into a food cart, more or less, and entered the boardroom with my food truck, pushing it along. We had food to serve off of it for the sharks and then started into the presentation about the idea. And we had about 20-25 minutes to present our idea. [00:15:43] Liz Galloway: The whole time, you're just a bucket of nerves. I knew what I was presenting was something that could change the way food service was seen in the ministry and how it could help others in the community. And that was what my heart was really wrapped around and what I was so excited about presenting this food truck. It was a great feeling to be done once the presentation was over. Burt can tell you I'm not one that likes to get up in front of people and talk, but it was a great feeling to have it done. I was very excited about the next steps to come after. [00:16:20] Burt Rosen: With that, Tommy you're welcome. I think your listeners will only hear the audio of this. If we were to put up the pictures and the video, because we videoed every single presentation to continue our purpose for training and presentation skills. Liz comes in with Howard, one of her chefs. [00:16:42] Burt Rosen: They're walking in and you had to simultaneously push the truck and the food tray cart underneath. And then they're going around and placing a food sample in front of each of the six panels six judges on the panel and everybody's tasting. I would dare say she could have gone on to the real shark tank and probably sold this idea. It was that good. And when all was said and done, we got to a place where, what's the idea that's going to be implemented? And the food truck was great because it was not easy. But compared to some of the others, you could say this could be up and running pretty quickly. [00:17:26] Burt Rosen: And because we had set aside the funds for this and escrow we didn't have the budget limitations. We weren't going to find ourselves in a position where, gee, Liz has come up with this great idea. But guess what, Liz, we're a little short on funds. We're not going to be able to follow through with it. [00:17:42] Burt Rosen: The day that Liz was told let's go she was off and running. Liz, talk just a little bit about what happened from there and then maybe take us all the way to the day when you took a team of people to go bring the real food truck back to KARM as we all stood underneath the expressway waiting for it to actually pull in. [00:18:07] Liz Galloway: Just to backtrack, when I found out that I wasn't ultimately, I think Burt had shared with you earlier, Tommy, that ultimately I wasn't the top number one winner. And in that moment when they announced the winner and like we said this process went over several months. [00:18:28] Liz Galloway: Emotions were high, emotions were low, we were stressed, everything was all over the place. And, at that moment when they announced the winner and I wasn't the winner, I was crushed. I was deflated. And I don't even know, Burt, if I've shared this with you, but I was ready to leave the boardroom. [00:18:49] Liz Galloway: I wanted to go to my car and just cry, right? Just let it out. It's over with. It's done. And I remember we were leaving the boardroom and Burt tapped on my shoulder and he said, hey, Liz, you got a minute. And I'm like, I just wanted to say no, I need to get out of here. And I said, yeah, and he goes, I need you to stay back for just a minute. [00:19:11] Liz Galloway: And I'm like, okay. Meanwhile, the board is still, the board members, the sharks are still in the room. And so everyone else had left and, they just sat me down and just said, we just wanted to share with you what a great idea that you have come up with the food truck. [00:19:30] Liz Galloway: We don't see that it takes a million dollars and we feel like we're ready to go ahead and let you move forward with plans to see this come to life. In a matter of five minutes, I was at the bottom of the barrel and then I was on top of the barrel again with my emotions. And in the next few minutes, literally after leaving the boardroom, you hit the ground running, you get your strappy boots on, and you go you've been given this great opportunity. [00:19:58] Liz Galloway: So where do you start? And so, I had been talking to and researching with a company out of New Brunswick, New Jersey Vending Trucks Incorporated, and had chosen them to be our builder. And, because it sounded like a great idea to work with someone that's 700 miles away from you while you're building a food truck. [00:20:20] Liz Galloway: But they were rated highly and I had worked with them through the process and spoken to them and they were a great company to work with. So, during all of this Tommy, there was something else going on - the COVID pandemic - during this whole process of building this food truck. [00:20:38] Liz Galloway: So, a typical build on a food truck, three months. It took us almost 15 start to finish to get this project done. You can only imagine the string of calls that, this piece of equipment is not available. This piece of equipment is going to be an additional four months if you want that one. [00:20:59] Liz Galloway: So, it came with its challenges for sure. But we finally got the call that, hey, the truck is ready. Come get your keys. You're ready to roll. So there was a team of us that took off to New Jersey to pick up the truck and to get it back home. The day that we pulled onto their property, the truck was just sitting out front. [00:21:28] Liz Galloway: It was, you couldn't miss it. And my heart just sank. I was just, beside myself, like, oh, my gosh, I had not. I had seen pictures. I had seen the process. We've done many video calls throughout the process of...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/30022633
info_outline
Michael Marquardt & Bob Tiede – The Art of the Great Question
02/13/2024
Michael Marquardt & Bob Tiede – The Art of the Great Question
Tommy Thomas: [00:00:00] My guests today are Michael Marquardt and Bob Tiede. Michael is Professor Emeritus of Human and Organizational Learning at George Washington University, and the author of 27 books on the topics of leadership, global teams, and action learning. Bob Tiede is the CEO of leadingwithquestions.com, a blog followed by people in more than 190 countries. Tommy Thomas: He also serves on the U.S. leadership development team for Cru and is the author of five books, including Great Leaders Ask Questions. Some of our listeners will remember Bob from earlier episodes when we discussed leader development within Cru. Gentlemen, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership. Bob Tiede: Happy to be with you, Tommy. Tommy Thomas: Talking to the two of you today reminds me of an early experience with Nathan DiGesare, a musician and a videographer in Nashville. Nathan has recorded probably 200 videos for my company, so I've been in his house and his studio on countless occasions, but early in the relationship, we were doing some voiceovers at his house. We finished the work, and I noticed this Steinway Grand Piano sitting in the corner. So, I strolled over and sat down and did my best rendition of Bridge Over Troubled Water. And then I think I segued into Last Date by Floyd Kramer. Little did I know that Nathan had been trained at Indiana University and was a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music. And I'm not sure if I'd have known that if I'd have been so audacious to sit at his grand piano and play those songs. So, talking with you guys, yeah, I feel like here I am asking the questions and you two are the master of the great questions. So, this is going to be fun. Bob Tiede: We're looking forward to it. Tommy Thomas: How did the two of you get to know each other and begin collaborating? Michael Marquardt: Bob, I think you can tell that story. Bob Tiede: I will. In 2006, my wife loves to go to bookstores. She goes all over the bookstore. She knows when she's done, she'll find me still in the leadership section. And what I usually do is try to find two, or three books I've never seen before, find a chair, sit down, and peruse them to see if I'm going to buy one of them. In 2006, I found this book, the first edition of Leading with Questions by Dr. Michael Marquardt. Perusing only a few pages, I said, this one's going home and it was a page-turner. I had no idea. I love books. I eat books for breakfast. Probably every leadership book I've ever read there's been a morsel in there. I had no idea that this would change my leadership forever. Actually, set me on a new path. I was already on the U.S. leadership development team for Cru. I began to teach out of it. The response was just amazing. Fast forward, to 2012, I start a blog and I'm thinking when I start the blog, I don't want to do just another leadership blog. I want to because there are so many good ones, I'd be a small fish in a big ocean. So I asked the question, was there a niche of leadership I could blog on? And as soon as I had that question, it was like, Oh, it'd be something with this leading with questions. So I go to WordPress. I've never blogged before and WordPress guides you through. The first thing they ask is what do you want the blog to be called. In other words, let's search and see if the URL is available. On a lark and I smiled as I did it, I typed in the title of the book, leading with questions, thinking that certainly the author or publisher may have tied it up already, but it was available. And at the cheapest price, like 29 a year, so I grab it. I'm saying I had a little queasy feeling wondering this guy, this author, Dr. Michael Marquardt, how would he feel when he finds out there's a blog by the same title of his book? So, I decided I’d blog for several months, and get some content. Then I crafted, I thought a very diplomatic email to Dr. Michael Marquardt, sharing that his book had changed my leadership, thanking him for writing it, sharing that I'd start this blog, and might I have his permission to excerpt from his book, we'd include a link to Amazon for purchase, and I sent it off wondering. How will he respond? And within 24 hours, I had the most gracious response giving me carte blanche permission. Several years later, Dr. Marquardt was doing the second edition and wrote me, asking if I'd do an endorsement and if he could list leadingwithquestions.com as a recommended resource. It's yes! And probably a year after that, we were taking a group to D.C. I reached out to Dr. Michael Marquardt ahead of time, asking if he might be in town, and if would he be willing to speak. And if he would, I'd buy the second edition for everyone. And then I invited him, could he come an hour early to sign the books? And I did that rather selfishly because It would give me an hour with him and during that time I'm calling him Dr. Marquardt. He quickly says, Bob, it's Mike. Just call me Mike and I said, okay Mike, and we've been friends ever since and about two years ago Bob calls and says, Bob, it's time for a third edition. Would you be willing to co-author it with me? And I said, oh my goodness. Of course. But Mike, you have a PhD, and you teach at George Washington University. I have a Bachelor's and Mike said, but Bob, your blog has now been out there for 10 years. We need about 30 percent new content in a new edition. And you've already done the research. Summer of 2022, we worked together for about six weeks. Mike is brilliant. He knew what from the second edition he wanted to delete. There are 10 chapters in the book. I would share with him 10 times as much content as he would need. So, he would have a bunch of things he could pick and choose. But Mike did the heavy lifting. He knew what he wanted to delete. He knew where he wanted to add. And this has been such a gift for me to be the co-author and I'm so grateful to Mike for the opportunity. Tommy Thomas: Mike, what'd you think when you got that first email? Michael Marquardt: I was happy that that someone was interested in adding a blog to the whole history of getting people to use questions and so I was delighted with that, and we've had a great relationship for many years, and as Bob indicated, with all of his blogs with hundreds of people who are leaders around the world, and getting them to talk about what kind of questions they asked, I thought was just, would be just a tremendous addition to the third edition to have all these new people, and so I'm very pleased that the third edition is out. Bob's a co-author, and we have probably another 15 or 20 leaders with their questions that were not in the first two editions of the book. 7:10:00 Tommy Thomas: Mike, how did you discover this Art of the Great Question? Is there a story there? Michael Marquardt: There's a story. I became a professor at George Washington University. In 1994, I had worked globally as a consultant in areas of leadership and organizational change, and team building, and in 1994 I became a professor at George Washington University in their executive doctoral program, so we trained leaders from all over the world, and as a professor, a new professor, you are asked to identify what's the research area of interest for you in which you begin publishing and writing and work with doctoral students. And my interest was leadership. Great leaders. That was my focus. Who are the great leaders around the world? What makes them great leaders? And over the first several years as a professor, I wrote a number of books and articles on great leaders. And the one thing I discovered is that all great leaders ask great questions. And they became great leaders by asking great questions. Whether these were people I interviewed, hundreds of people all over the world in my various research efforts I go into an organization, a great organization that was considered one of the tops in its field. And I said, who are the leaders in this company? And they would identify, two or three individuals and what makes them such good leaders, whether they're hierarchical leaders, CEO, or people within the organization. And inevitably, it always came down to, they ask great questions. And so that kind of moved my area of research to more focus on the qualities of great leaders and particularly the questions they ask. And so over the past 15, almost close to 20 years that's been my area of keen interest and research. And I do a lot of work in a field called action learning and the primary, right. The element of action learning in a way it solves problems is using questions, but questions is the way that leadership is developed in a way of becoming great leaders. And so, I feel very fortunate that became my area of research as a professor and I met Bob Tiede along the way. Tommy Thomas: Litigators, journalists, and doctors are all taught to ask questions as part of their training. Why is it that business executives aren't taught that? I'll leave, I'll throw it to both of y’all. Michael Marquardt: Yeah. I think, lawyers are taught to ask questions, but they never ask a question that they already do not know the answer to. So they are open and great questions. Those are, they're always leading questions. A lawyer is taking a task if he ever asks a question for which he does not know the answer that's poor lawyer, lawyerly. Doctors are not trained to ask questions. They're very poor at asking questions. Although it's a very important part of their work to do a prognosis and to ask for information about the patient. But many of them are very uncomfortable in asking questions, or they ask the wrong questions, or in an ineffective way, or a discomforting way, etc. So, I agree that medical doctors could greatly benefit from getting a course and asking questions, but my wife happens to be a medical doctor, and I do not recall that she took any course on how to ask questions. I don't know of any physician or school that does that. But I think you bring up not only lawyers and doctors, but we realize now that every person in life has to ask questions. Every parent, the better questions parents ask, the better parents they are. The better questions social workers ask, the better social workers they are. The better questions that interviewers or newscasters. So all of life is your status in life your quality and being a leader in that profession is dependent upon the questions. And we know that the great newscaster Walter Cronkite in the past, they were great at asking questions, not only the words they used, but the comfort, but they all listened carefully too. And because great questions come from listening. Your premise is that doctors and lawyers are important for them to ask questions, but I think what Bob and I have discovered is that every person in every sector, and every profession will be better if they ask questions. Bob Tiede: Whenever I speak, and I'm privileged to speak many times and love it. But I always start my talk with a confession. I get up and say, I need to start with a confession. And my confession is that for most of my career, I was a benevolent dictator. Because I thought the job of a leader was to tell staff what to do. The job of a leader was to give direction. And I did not have that paradigm out of evil intent. It was just, that's what I thought the job of a leader was. I did say benevolent. I grew up in a home where I was taught to say please and thank you. So Tommy, if you'd been on my team, I don't think I ever would have said, Tommy, go do this. It'd been more like, Hey, Tommy, this week we're working on this. It'd really be great if you could please do this. And when you did it, I would have said, thank you, Tommy, at a staff meeting, Tommy, stand up. You all need to hear what Tommy did. It wasn't until I found that first edition of Mike's book, the first edition of leading with questions and reading that. And it is filled with stories just like the third edition of leaders, literally from around the globe. And they're using and as I read that first edition, I had only one question. Why hasn't anyone ever shared this paradigm with me before? It immediately made sense. I immediately saw that a leader who leads with questions would be so much more effective. When I'm speaking, another illustration I use is I have a picture of a big canoe with room for 15 participants and they all have oars. And I asked someone in the audience I said, you're the leader of this group. And as you can see, there are oars for everyone on your team. And you want to get that canoe across the lake as quickly as possible. How many would you like to have row with you? Of course, the answer is all of them. And I say, now, I know that's a silly question, but I'm going somewhere. And I go to the next slide, and there's a picture of the same team, but now they're gathered around a conference table, and there's an opportunity on the table. And I say, now, listen to this question carefully. If you're a leader like I used to be, who thinks your job is to figure out how to take advantage of the opportunity and then you'll tell them what to do? How many mental oars are in the water trying to figure out how to take advantage of the opportunity? The answer is one. Only yours. But a leader who leads with questions, who leans forward, perhaps, makes eye contact with the whole team and then says, hey gang, here's this opportunity. What do you all think we might do? Now, how many mental oars might be in the water? Maybe all of them. And I ask whoever I'm interacting with, what are the chances that you might hear an idea better than anything you were thinking? And they always say hi, yeah, it's not a guarantee, but hearing all those ideas, it's highly probable. And I say, imagine across the table, it's Sarah. And she shares a brilliant idea, and you're thinking, wow, that's so much better than anything I was thinking. And so you say, Sarah, love your idea. Sarah, would you be willing to lead our team in executing that? And then I say, now, how hard will Sarah work? A leader who leads with questions can be so much more effective. They're hearing more ideas and now they're empowering and involving their staff in the solution. It's hard. Whose idea is she executing? Her own. That's just some of the reasons that a leader who leads with questions can be so much more effective. They're hearing more ideas and now they're empowering and involving their staff in the solution. So when it comes to executing, they're executing something that they participated in creating, it works. 15:17 Tommy Thomas: Let's get up to a hundred thousand or so feet and ask the big question, what makes a great question? Michael Marquardt: There's no single right answer. I think a great question is usually not the very first question that's asked. A great question usually emerges if you're in reflection or interaction with other people. And you ask the best question you can at that point, and then there's conversation, dialogue, and based upon what you hear, you ask another question. Many of us go through life never experiencing a great question, but if we use the ability to really trust and care about what other people are thinking and saying, ask them questions, and build upon what they say and what you've heard. I think it's possible to quite normally or regularly have great questions in a problem-setting situation or environment. But great questions generally are those that stretch people. They get you outside the box. They get you looking at things from a different perspective. And that's why all the time, great questions emerge in a group with diverse thinkers. You have an engineer and a marketing person and a religious minister or whatever. Have a great question merged in that group than if they are all engineers or they're all marketing people. So, you can conditions environments in a group setting as well as within yourself that they can emerge. And so, we've all had great questions in our life and they've changed our lives, but they've been very infrequent because we don't get asked as many great questions as are available or should be asked in our lives. Bob, you may have some other thoughts. Bob Tiede: I agree with everything Mike has shared. Something that I've discovered is that some of the best questions are so simple and whenever I'm speaking again, I ask who here would like to learn to lead with questions in 30 seconds. Every hand goes up. And, of course, I say the reason I'm asking this is I sense from my audience is they'd like to learn to lead with questions, but so many times they imagine they'll have to get a master's degree in questionology. It's a nice idea, it'd be nice to be a brain surgeon, and make that kind of money. But, there are no courses for brain surgeons in 30 seconds. So, every hand goes up, I invite somebody from the audience to come up and when they come up, I say, I think I selected, John here because he has a photographic memory and whoever I brought up always shakes their head like I don't. And I say all you have to do is memorize my four favorite questions. And I've got a second hand on my watch and I say, here we go. My first favorite question is, what do you think? Second, what else? Third, what else? Fourth, what else? And I say, do you have them memorized? They always do. I say, share them with us. And they always successfully do it. And then I say, now, some of you look a little skeptical. Like you can't ask somebody, what do you think? What else? What else? What else? And I say not in that rapid fashion. But first of all, you're going to add a topic to what do you think? What do you think we ought to do about? There's going to be some topic. And when you ask, they're going to answer. Now I used to look at this like I asked a question, and they answered, that's complete. What I discovered is that people, when they're asked to give opinions and input, they instinctively roll out a safe answer. Their first answer, they're testing the waters. Now [00:19:00] they're doing this instinctively. But just to see how it's treated. So, Tommy, if I asked you, hey, what do you think about it? And you give me that first answer. I said Tommy, that's stupid. Everyone knows that you're sorry you answered. But when I say, wow, Tommy, that's good. Say more. What else? You relax and you'll give me more and then again, instead of moving on, when you pause, I'm likely to grab a pen and say, Tommy, I've got to take notes. This is pure gold. Please say more. What else? And what I've discovered is actually on the third and fourth question that I get to their gold nugget, their very best thought. And I realized we've all heard the story of the proverbial gold miner, the guy who mined for gold all his life, looking for the gold vein, never found it, finally quits. Somebody came along later and discovered the old miner was within six inches of the gold vein when he quit. Now, that's probably just a proverbial story, but I share, if you only ask people, what do you think? Get their first answer and move on. You're a bit like that gold miner. You got close, but it's what else is down there. And I'm not disagreeing with Mike at all. I'm saying another angle on asking a great question is the what else is where you hear more and discover that they've got some incredible things. You just had to help them dig a little to uncover some of those answers that you would not have gotten to if you only said, Hey, what do you think about. Get their first answer and then move on to just another technique to get their brilliance. Michael Marquardt: I teach people how to ask questions. I have an activity in which they work in pairs, and you ask seven questions. You're allowed seven questions. I give them the first question. What are you most proud of? And then based on your response, you get six more questions. And I tell the people the question. I said you...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/29897263
info_outline
David Gyerston - Board Governance Lessons Learned Through Being President of Three Universities
01/09/2024
David Gyerston - Board Governance Lessons Learned Through Being President of Three Universities
[00:00:00] David Gyerston: What motivates her or him to want to be the Chair of the Board? Some Board Chairs are shadow presidents. They really want to run the institution. And other Board Chairs are too disconnected. They want the title but they don't want to have to deal with anything on an ongoing basis. Call me if the place is on fire, but other than that, let's not have a relationship. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:21] Tommy Thomas: Today, we're continuing the conversation we began last week with Dr. David Gyerston. In addition to his many other accomplishments, David has been the president of three different universities, Regent University, Asbury University, and Taylor University. Each of these schools were in a different stage of the institutional life cycle when David arrived. These three experiences have honed his senior leadership skills. Additionally, when one is president of three different universities, one gets a lot of Board Governance experience. That's where our focus will be today. You mentioned earlier, the board, the CEO-Board Chair relationship. I'm going to segue over into board service because you've probably had as much experience in board service in the nonprofit sector as most of the guests that I've interviewed. And let's just ask a basic question. What is the function or the role of the Board Chair? The Board Chair serves as the linkage between the President and the Board of Trustees [00:01:23] David Gyerston: The Board Chair really serves as the linkage between the President and the Board of Trustees. And that relationship is probably one of the most important in terms of successful executive leadership and board governance. And right now, I have several clients where I'm coaching both the new president and the board chair together. In helping them think through and work through their relationships. It used to be that boards of trustees met a couple of times a year, and they heard a bunch of reports, and if everything was going well, they had a wonderful reunion time, and ate well, and then went home. Now Boardsmanship is 24/7. And much more is expected of board members and the challenges facing our nonprofit faith-based boards have never been greater. As a result, then the understanding of how the board works with the CEO and the senior leadership team and particularly how that relationship supports that between the board chair and the CEO has never been more important. So in my three university presidencies to this day, my board chairs are still my best friends. Because we became even though technically he represented my boss, we essentially walked this together and became - he was my sounding board to say, I think given the executive parameters that the Board has given me, I have the authority to do such and such, but I just want to bounce that off of you. Is this something that you think maybe the board should be informed about? Before I actually take the action, or do you think I should seek counsel from the board or a committee of the board before I take this action? Or do you think this is an action that the board itself, even though it hasn't defined that I must report back to them before making this decision? A lot of times this is stuff that, you build this railroad laying the track in front of the oncoming locomotive. You don't always know if you've got the right track laid out there. And so, I think that relationship of partners together, collaborators together. Too many CEOs see boards as something they have to overcome or manage and that's just the wrong attitude. Boards are there to collaborate with you as the CEO in achieving the mission and holding you accountable and empowering and supporting and enabling you for you to lead in the basic achievement of that mission. And so, I had weekly calls with my board chairs. I recommend that now that every board chair and president touch base at least for half an hour every week, just as an update. And it's more than just operational. It's also spiritual. In terms of mutual support. [00:04:23] Tommy Thomas: Give me some words and phrases that would describe the ideal board chair. I know it can be situational, but there are probably four or five that you just need, period. [00:04:33] David Gyerston: As I said earlier, motivation and character are everything for me. And while there are lots of competencies and capacities you need in a board chair, and I'll mention some of those in a moment, so much of it has to do with, who is the Board Chair? What motivates her or him to want to be the Chair of the Board? And are they motivated for the correct reason? Some Board Chairs are shadow Presidents. They really want to run the institution. Others are too disconnected. They want the title but none of the responsibilities. Some Board Chairs are shadow Presidents. They really want to run the institution. And other Board Chairs are too disconnected. They want the title, but they don't want to have to deal with anything on an ongoing basis. Call me if the place is on fire, but other than that, let's not have a relationship. So there's a relational component anchored to character and motivation that I think is so critical that I think the board chair needs to represent in character, in motivation, in spiritual commitment the highest ideals of the institution that the board basically is guiding and guarding so and then there are other competencies, of course, that are needed. I think effective communication skills. This person has got to be a transparent communicator and a clear communicator person who can manage conflict and crisis is really important. I'm seeing more and more faith-based boards in division now than they've ever been before. And it's often over social, cultural, and political issues more than missional or organizational issues. Masks, no masks, vaccine, no vaccines, Trump, no Trump. On and on the list goes. And good board chairs have to be very capable of managing the divisions and the increasing level of conflict that exists and even the best of faith-based boards. I think a person who can encourage the full involvement of every board member. Some Board members are overly involved, and a Board Chair must be able to reign them in with grace, but firmness. You have some board members that are overly involved, and a Board Chair needs to be able to reign them in with grace, but with firmness. There are other board members that are wallflowers. They're going to sit and say nothing. And you need the full council, the whole council of the whole counselors so that the board can effectively function. I think that the competency, particularly in institutional viability, I'm seeing more and more of the importance of board chairs knowing how to read a balance sheet and understand, but also in reading that balance sheet, understanding the core deliverables in higher education. Obviously, it's somebody who understands the very unique nature of colleges and universities. They're not corporations. One of the problems I find with successful corporate leaders who become Board Chairs is that they don't often see that the business of education is very different than the business of producing X number of widgets an hour at a specified cost. And so understanding the complexity of how higher education operates particularly and the industry, whether that's, a hospital board understanding the nature of hospitals, whether it's a nonprofit social service board, understanding the challenges that the clients are facing, those become competencies and then capacity is really critical. This is, I hinted at earlier, is not a few hours a year, and this is now multiple hours a month, and depending on the state of crisis, it could easily be 10 hours a week. And I'm working with a couple of boards right now whose executive committee is having to meet three to five hours on average a week because of the strategies and the tragedies that the institution is facing and the dangers the institution is facing. So those are just a checklist of things that, when I'm coaching a new board. As a matter of fact, one of the things I just went through, which was really interesting, is I was hired as a consultant to a board of trustees that wanted me to vet two or three of their board chair candidates and to look at the strengths and weaknesses of each and then help them select the best board member for this moment in the institution's history, because much like we said earlier about executive leadership, what are the big rocks that boy, this board has got to pay attention to right now or the rocks are going to fall on them if they don't move them. A good Board Chair must create an atmosphere where differing opinions can be heard. [00:09:08] Tommy Thomas: Respond to this quote, “You need a director on the board who will be a pleasant irritant. Someone who will force people to think a little differently. That's what a good board does.” [00:09:21] David Gyerston: Yeah, I think you always want to create, and this is the role of the Board Chair, a context where differing opinions can be respectfully heard. And that people can be encouraged to have differences of opinion. There are some personalities that enjoy thinking otherwise all the time. And they're always going to be the gadfly, and that's their sense of personal mission and on the boards where I have served and on, on the boards that have supervised me, there have been on occasion a board member or two who felt their primary mission was to stick a pin in every balloon, and so you've got to find a balance there. You want people with differing points of view, and that means that how you build a board in terms of its diversity - diversity in culture, diversity in racial identification, men and women, different professions, most good board practices now have board profiles, where they've identified the 20 most strategic skill sets in industry that they feel they need on the board to staff committees effectively, but also to bring those varying perspectives from their industries to what I think are important. I'm always hesitant to suggest that we recruit a board member whose primary mission is to be the gadfly. But I do think you create a context in which even if a board agrees 90% of the time and 95% of them agree 90% of the time the 5% feel free because again, they're there. I like Scott Rodin's idea that board members are stewards of the mission and they're there under divine appointment. And so if they've got a caution or a hesitation, I'll give you a quick illustration. I had a situation where one board member just felt that a decision was not correct, but he didn't want to be the gadfly. And so out of respect for the majority who thought it was, he did not share his opinion. Two years later, it turned out that the majority of opinion of the board cost that board over 20 million dollars of unnecessary expense, and the very thing that board member felt a twinge in his spirit about was the cause that resulted in that $20 million loss. And he is now kicking himself that he did not speak up sooner and raise the concern it wasn't that he felt he couldn't it was just he felt like he didn't want to be the bother, the guy throwing the wet blanket on what everybody else was so enthusiastic about and so creating a context where people genuinely are prayerfully trying to discern what's the right decision and then having a context where if they deeply feel and are motivated correctly for expressing what they deeply feel, not just to be heard because that's their role but really feel the prompting and the twinge of the spirit in our faith-based settings. The chair then and the president both are responsible for ensuring that all hearts are clear. I love that phrase. Are all hearts clear? And if they aren't, then let's stop before we make the decision and find out why your heart, Dave or Joan, isn't clear. And is it something that we need to delay decision on, something we need more information on, or is it just something that fundamentally it's a disagreement that doesn't really have at its heart the danger to the mission that we then move forward and say Dave, appreciate your position on this but as a majority, we think this is the right way to go and as a good board member in those situations, I would say all right, I support that because again, one of the basic principles is that you don't go out of a board meeting and not support the whole the decision of the board, even though you may have disagreed with it. And you always want to be able to have your heart clear that you've been heard. Even if you haven't been agreed with. [00:13:54] Tommy Thomas: You and I are old enough to remember Enron and for those that aren't, all they have to do is read the paper recently and see about the bank failures in Northern California. And although these organizations aren't nonprofits I'm sure there are lessons we can learn. One guy did some writing after Enron, and he said that the board was just guilty of not asking hard questions. Which they didn't. They didn't dig deep into the finances. How does a board ensure themselves that they've got people asking the questions, and people are comfortable asking the questions, which goes to your last few comments. [00:14:35] David Gyerston: Yeah I think, again, in terms of best practices, there are elements of information that every board should be looking at routinely. And so those get identified and then the administration is expected to provide those reports and that information honestly, fully, and transparently. I think that's really critical. The Board needs to know what information it needs in order to ensure that they're fulfilling their legal fiduciary and moral obligations to the people the organization serves. And so, the Board needs to know and figure out what information does it need in order to ensure that they're fulfilling their legal fiduciary. And moral obligations to the people the organization serves and then, the boards tend to ask how to questions more than why to questions, often there were looking at how are we doing? Is it efficient? The effective side of it often is not as much focused on in terms of probing and questioning, and it's back to, when an organization puts out a mission statement, that's a promise. And by the way, there's been a lot of litigation now by beneficiaries of the institution feeling that the promise was not delivered on. And again, as we said earlier, with faith-based and non-profits, it's hard to actually measure the effectiveness of the delivery of promises. But I think the board should be always asking with every decision, why are we doing this? And how are we sure that this is basically delivering on the promises we've made to our donors, our students, our clients our constituencies that are out there? And so, a lot of times it takes a great deal of energy. And the good news is that there are a lot of great organizations doing this very well. And the danger I find with a lot of nonprofits is they're very siloed. They think, nobody else is like us. The reality is 90% of other organizations are just like you and there's something you can learn from them in terms of getting out with best practices. And so again, one of the things I do in coaching new presidents and new board chairs is to connect them to some other presidents and board chairs that they could be a part of in terms of a list, sharing together from time to time, identify about 10 organizations similar to you get to know their CEO and their board chair and bounce ideas off of each other and see who else has wrestled with this and how they've wrestled with it. A lot of times you'll find out what you should not do, but I think, again, getting accurate information and knowing what information to ask for becomes one of the biggest challenges of being an effective board in these settings. ++++++++++++++++= [00:17:30] Tommy Thomas: One of your colleagues, Dr. Sandra Gray, whom I interviewed very early in my podcast, we were talking about risk management, and one of her thoughts was that probably nonprofit boards didn't pay enough attention to risk management. Any thoughts that you have there? [00:17:46] David Gyerston: Yeah I think that we sometimes, because of the spiritual nature of what we do we know God is in control and God historically has bailed us out in the past that we've not paid as much attention to what are the emerging threats and risks that the institution is facing in this day and age. And so much of the emerging risks right now have to do with personnel-related issues. And government delineations of personnel and the LGBTQ agendas, the Title IX agendas a lot of things like that are finding more and more, I think students and parents in higher education are more likely to litigate over disciplinary issues over other things that they view as a threat. Typically, most of us, most of our organizations are insured and good insurance companies will come in and do a risk mitigation assessment before they actually issue you a policy. Because if you've got a lot of broken sidewalks and railings that are ready to fall off of buildings obviously they're going to want those fixed. So we're used to risk management in those areas. But right now, it's missional risk management. What are the things that are likely going to cause us to not be able to continue to deliver on our mission? I'm working with one university that took a position a few years ago as it related to the broadening of Title IX to include sexual orientation as a protected category in that state, who said, if that is what is required of us, we'll close the institution and move to a different state. And I think risk mitigation has to move to that missional centric. What are the things that, if something changes, would make it very difficult and perhaps impossible for us to maintain integrity with our mission, to be Christ-centered, and biblically anchored in all that we do, and if we're required by the government, local, state, national, to compromise on those, at what point do we compromise? And we've got a lot of our Christian colleges and universities right now, Tommy, as you know well, that are right in the middle of that kind of decision-making. And they didn't in advance anticipate that they would ever get to the point where they could lose their 501c3 status. Because they didn't let people, faculty members switch gender or something like that. And I think risk management has to be more concentrated on missional risk as opposed to operational risk, which is where we've been in the past. [00:20:41] Tommy Thomas: I recently heard a nonprofit CEO say when they want you to stay is the best time to leave. When should a board or a CEO begin to address succession planning? The day the new CEO is hired is the time you put a succession plan in place. Because if you decide to do something two or three years into the CEO's tenure, that can be a real threat. [00:20:54] David Gyerston: I think the day the new CEO is hired is the time you put a succession plan in place. Because if you decide to do something two or three years into the CEO's tenure, that can be a real threat. What's the board trying to tell me? One of the areas that I work on is board policy manual reviews and assessments. And one of the things that I look at right up front has to do with whether there is a succession plan. And so that's done independent of the current leadership. And how is succession going to occur? In these kinds of situations, you have a planned succession, or you've got somebody who's going to retire in two years, or somebody who has decided they want to leave the CEO role and step into a different vocational calling at that point. There's a specific way you go about doing that, and other times there are unplanned succession realities where the CEO is incapacitated and they haven't had a plan in place to say, should...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/29280243
info_outline
David Gyerston - His High School Guidance Counselor Encouraged Him to Drop Out of School and Find a Job in the Gold Mines or Lumber Yards - The Rest is History
01/02/2024
David Gyerston - His High School Guidance Counselor Encouraged Him to Drop Out of School and Find a Job in the Gold Mines or Lumber Yards - The Rest is History
[00:00:00] David Gyerston: So much of this begins with the reality that these presidential roles are too big for any single person to manage. We're always looking for the next Moses or David. And the reality is, there is no Moses or David anymore that can possibly handle everything that needs to be done. So I've stopped thinking about finding presidents and started thinking about teams that can make up the office of the president, which is a different perspective. +++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:28] Tommy Thomas (2): Our guest today is Dr. David Gyerston. David completed bachelor's level studies in theology at Lauren Park College in Ontario, Canada. Took his BA in Philosophy and Religion and Psychology from Spring Arbor University. He has Masters level studies in College Student Personnel and Sociology from Michigan State. Masters level studies in Comparative Higher Education from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration and Management from Michigan State University. All of these degrees were completed by a man who never graduated high school. At least not the way most of us did. In fact, one of his high school guidance counselors told him that he wasn't smart enough to graduate and he should drop out and get a job in the gold mines or the lumberyards. From this inauspicious beginning, David went on to be the President of three different universities. He and I have been friends for at least 20 years, and it's an honor to have him as our guest today. [00:01:33] Tommy Thomas: Before we take it too deep of a dive into your professional career, take us back to your childhood. What two or three experiences do you remember as having shaped you best? [00:01:47] David Gyerston: Tommy, I am Canadian. I was born in Toronto, but I was raised in Timmins, which is about a hundred miles south of Hudson's Bay in a gold mining and lumbering community right on the Quebec border. And childhood was difficult. My dad was an alcoholic, and my mom had some really severe emotional and mental and physical problems. So, I ran away from home when I was 13. And a Free Methodist minister and his wife, who were pastoring a little congregation up there in the Great White North took me in off the streets. I lived with them for the next five years and had come to faith through their witness and ministry when I was about 14. But still had a lot of trouble. I never graduated high school, and don't have a high school diploma to this day. And one of the most profound experiences I had, other than my conversion experience, under Jim and Marion Tutelage, was my high school guidance counselor calling me in when I was 15 years old and telling me that, these were his words, David, you're just too stupid to be in school. You need to drop out and get a job in the gold mines or in the lumber yards, which were the two main industries in northern Canada at that time. And so I talked to Jim and Marion about it and they said, no, persist. The guidance counselor was correct. I flunked out in the 12th grade, never finished. But Jim and Marion felt strongly that God had a plan for my life. I didn't know what it would be, but the Free Methodist denomination had a Bible school and residential high school near Toronto, and Jim and Marion talked them into letting me in for one semester. So, I had to take some high school courses, and then started on the Bachelor of Theology degree, the three-year program, to begin preparing for pastoral ministry. And that's when I really came alive, not just spiritually, but also intellectually and academically. I really fell in love with the study of scripture and the disciplines of learning. And so those would have been a couple of major turning points for me that shaped me in my childhood. I had the privilege of leading my dad to the Lord at the Salvation Army drop-in center in Toronto. He was out on the streets. I'd been pastoring in the city for a couple of years and went down to help the Salvation Army at their Harbor Light Mission. One night when I was preaching, my dad came in off the street, and I didn't know he was there, he didn't know I was there, and when they had the altar service at the end, he came forward. And the captain and I led him to the Lord and the Salvation Army took him in. He was a cook, and so he cooked for their officer's training college there when I was in Toronto. And with the problem with alcohol, it's a recidivism situation. And he fell off the wagon two or three times, but I believe he made a genuine commitment to the Lord. And then later I also saw my mom come to faith as well. So I was able to be reconciled to both my parents even though they never reconciled together. I trust that they're reconciled now with Jesus in heaven. Those are a couple of major anchor points for me. [00:05:14] Tommy Thomas: With that kind of backdrop, walk us through your pilgrimage to the PhD. [00:05:20] David Gyerston: I went to Lorne Park College, which was the Free Methodist School. Completed two years of the Bachelor of Theology degree when the school went bankrupt and closed. Those of us in that program had the option of either transferring to Roberts Wesleyan College or Spring Arbor College, and I ended up going to Spring Arbor, with about a dozen others from Lorne Park, and while I was there, I came under the tutelage of Dr. David McKenna. He took an interest in me and began to suggest that perhaps my calling, because I wasn't sure about pastoral ministry, was Christian higher education. And then when he left and went to be president at Seattle Pacific University Dr. Elwood Voller came from Roberts, interestingly enough, as president, and he picked up that mantle, and so he got me into a master's degree program at Michigan State, where he had previously been Dean of Student Affairs there, earlier in his career, and I finished up. I did a Master's in Sociology, Social Work, and Counseling. Then felt I needed to go back to Canada because I owed some service and went back to pastor a church in Toronto and did a second Master's Degree in Comparative Higher Education at the University of Toronto. And so I was specializing in comparative higher education, comparing and contrasting the U. S. system of higher education with the Australian system of higher education. And again, not to get in the weeds, but the Australians were the first to really pioneer distance education. And so, they were doing a lot of education over ham radio in the Outback. It was really interesting to see how they began that distance-distributed education model that was later picked up in the U. S. systems. Then came back to Spring Arbor, working and teaching at the university, and pursued a Ph.D. at Michigan State, which was in administration and management, particularly focused on college and university administration and management. And then did a special cognate in the field of organizational communication theory and innovation theory. And then graduated with a Ph.D. in that area. [00:07:43] Tommy Thomas: So, I know you taught along the way, but think back to your first management job when you actually had people reporting to you. What do you remember about that? [00:07:52] David Gyerston: Woody Voller felt that I needed to get a lot of experience across the various administrative operations. And so, I was in student development, I was in admissions recruitment, and enrollment management. I was in fundraising in the area of writing grants and raising money, alumni relations, and church relations. In most of those, I only had a secretary reporting to me so my first really significant time of leadership came when I was invited to go to Virginia Beach to help start what was originally CBN University. I was one of the founding team members of Regent University and that grew then and we ended up with a significant number of faculty and staff. Later I was President and had those responsibilities and was invited then after that to become President at Asbury University and went there and led the institution for seven years and then was invited to Taylor University as President and led that institution for five years. And so that was the senior leadership journey went into semi-retirement, went back into teaching in the PhD programs and Doctor of Ministry or Doctor of Strategic Leadership Programs at Regent was in an endowed faculty chair. Then began my consulting and coaching work with the emerging Christian leaders during that time. I went out to California for a couple of years but one of my clients was struggling with an accreditation issue. So I took over the leadership of that institution to help them through that. And then we decided to retire back here in Kentucky. At Asbury, and with that known, the president at the seminary asked me to come back and be the founding dean of the Beeson School of Practical Theology. When I was here previously with David McKenna, I'd served with him as his vice president and was on the faculty at the seminary earlier on in my career before I went back to Virginia Beach, and that's too long a story to tell. But, essentially, we had gotten a $60 million grant from the Beeson family to start the Beeson Center and when Dr. Tennant at the seminary heard I was coming back, he wanted me to come back and revisit that and restructure it. So I was Associate Provost and Dean of the Beeson Center. And then the school, until just recently, when I finally, I never was going to fully retire, but I finally retired again from getting a paycheck and now I'm working, in the coaching and consulting and doing some teaching on the side. ++++++++++++++++++++ [00:10:36] Tommy Thomas: You've been a part of two maybe two quasi-startups. So I guess the Beeson Center was a startup, and CBN was pretty much a startup. When you think of a startup, in this case, a university or college, what are some things that are different than when you went to Ashbury and Taylor, where you had something that had been around a long time? [00:10:59] David Gyerston: Yeah, I sequentially, the startup was moving from Spring Arbor to Virginia Beach. Throughout my career, I've either been involved in start-ups, fix-ups, or ramp-ups and usually, it's three to five years in those various settings. And in my career path, essentially, I've either been involved in startups, fix-ups, or ramp-ups, have been essentially, and usually it's three to five years in those various settings. And in going to Regent, of course, it was ground zero and starting everything from scratch. There were three of us on the initial team, an academic leader, a librarian, and myself, for everything else. And of course, it's navigating all of the various governmental and accreditation hoops in order to even start a university, which took us a year, and then trying to decide where we would focus in terms of our curriculum. Initially, we felt we could have the greatest impact by focusing on graduate-level education at the master's level. Intentionally Christ-centered, we were looking for students who had a call in their life and needed a place to enhance their call. And so, we established what we thought were the six or seven major arenas where if we could find talented, deeply committed Christian men and women and train them well and put them into positions of influence, we perhaps could impact culture the quickest and the fastest. And so communications, and then education, and then business, and then counseling, then law. All became part of the original plan and within five years, we had all of those programs up and operating with a student body of around seven or eight hundred. Today, Regent has a student body of over ten thousand. It's 11,500 this past year both with an undergraduate and graduate program up through the Ph.D. [00:12:49] Tommy Thomas: So you've hired a lot of people and you've fired one or two probably. But when you're hiring at the cabinet level, what are you looking for? [00:12:57] David Gyerston: So much of this begins with the reality that these presidential roles are too big for any single person to manage. I've been doing a lot of work the last decade or more helping universities in transition, and particularly working with them as they try to figure out who they're going to need to lead them next. And particularly the last three to five years, the complexities have been so intense that it's become clear that there's no single person who can possibly do all that a president's office is responsible for. So I've stopped thinking about finding presidents and thinking about teams that can make up the office of the president, which is a different perspective. And so you begin with, obviously, the institutional needs. And there are some generalized needs that all institutions have, but there are some immediately pressing needs. When I am working with a Board on the on-boarding of a new president, one of the questions I am asking is “What are the essential big rocks that the President needs to move in the first 90-120 days on the job?” That are distinctive and unique to that institution. And so the president needs to be equipped to address those. Often when I'm onboarding new presidents, one of the things I'm working with the Board of Trustees on and the search committee on, are what are the essential big rocks the president needs to move in the first 90 to 120 days. Or there isn't going to be any institution left. And you've got to deal with the crises at hand. And that then determines, the nature of the president's ability to handle those. And in building a team now, in terms of the office of the president, the C-Suite that will support the President, you begin with what are the institutional needs, the most pressing needs at this moment, what are the skill sets needed to address those pressing needs. Do they exist in the president, or does the president need to bring around her or him, the team members that can bring the multiple different skill sets needed to address and resolve the Immediate crises and then the long-term needs of the institution? One of the things that we're finding, Tommy, is that the old model, which was the command and control, top-down, the person that went to the mountain and got the direction and came back and said, here's where we're going, that model isn't working anymore. In most institutions, let alone higher education institutions. And so in the faith-based community, of course, we're always looking for, the next Moses or David. And the reality is, there is no Moses or David anymore that can possibly handle everything that needs to be done. And so, one of the most important skill sets in a new executive leader is can that person understand their strengths and weaknesses, and do they have an orientation toward collaborative decision making and are they able to identify build and support a team then that can bring the various pieces to bear and that means a person that's not threatened by people smarter than them, and more equipped and talented than them. Usually in the C suite when I've been asked to help presidents identify direct reports, that's the strategy I follow. What are your needs? What are your skill sets, Mr. President, Mrs. President, meeting those needs? And what kind of team members do you need in order to complement and supplement yourself? And that collaborative model with a person who's very, and this is another dimension, very secure in their sense of calling to the position becomes really important, particularly for faith-based institutions. [00:16:32] Tommy Thomas: So, let's flip that over then, I know every now and then you've had to release somebody. How is that best done? [00:16:40] David Gyerston: I don't think there's any off-the-rack suit, and plan to do this. I think, obviously, it begins with a very honest, open and thorough assessment of where the individual is not performing effectively. Not everybody would agree with me on this. I tend to view a subordinate's dysfunction as my dysfunction. And it's my problem. What is it that I haven't done to ensure that this person is equipped, is empowered, enabled, and is supported to get the job done? It's the old biblical idea. Let's look at the spec - beam in my own eye here before I start looking at the spec in somebody else's. And then it's a process of being sure that we've thoroughly communicated to the employee, the dysfunctioning employee, what the expectations are a lot of times people are surprised when they're fired because they had no idea what the supervisor was expecting of them because the supervisor had not communicated effectively, and there is now a lot of legal realities around due process and paper trails. And that's helped us, I think, as leaders, to be more thorough in communicating and documenting areas that need improvement and usually, I like to start with here's where some dysfunctions need to be corrected. Let's work together to figure out how to correct them. Here are the objectives and the performance measurements we're going to use and then give three to five to six months if that's possible. Sometimes you've got to let somebody go very quickly. If it's a moral failure or a complete incompetence failure, you may have to act more quickly. But I want to be sure before I fired anyone, that I had thoroughly communicated my expectations, and had laid out a thorough plan for them to be successful. And then after feedback over several weeks, a couple of months, three months, if that still wasn't making them successful, then to work with them to find a respectable and honorable departure and wherever that was possible and we had the financial resources, we always wanted to give people, a landing pad so that they could be assisted in finding their next place of employment. If a person is just completely incompetent, so much of this is attitude, I think, in bringing up children, often it isn't the behavior that we want to discipline, it's the attitude behind the behavior that we want to focus on and so for me, I'm always looking for is, does this person have a teachable spirit? Is there a sense of humility? The other thing to take into account is, and I've failed here a couple of times badly, where I left a person in a position too long in terms of hoping that they would course correct and I did damage to their team and their team members were hurt, frustrated several of them in a couple of situations end up just quitting because they felt like nothing was going to change. And I realized then that I've got to find a balance between giving time for people to perform effectively and recognizing when it's time. I think if there's any mistake I've made in my career, it's that I've not fired fast enough. Because so much grace was given to me, I think I tend to allow that to color my approach to people. And sometimes there's too much grace when more deliberate immediate action is going to be needed. ++++++++++++++++++++= [00:20:33] Tommy Thomas: I’ll move over to team leadership for a minute. I want you to think of maybe your best team and then tell me about the most ambitious project you've ever undertaken and how you got the team to come behind you. [00:20:48] David Gyerston: Again, various opportunities present themselves at various times, some of those are unique opportunities that are positive in nature. We have the opportunity to receive a 50 million grant and we need to figure out how we're going to use that effectively. There are times when essentially, we're in crisis. And we've got to figure out collaboratively and in unity how we're going to deal with those crises. The one for me, which was most significant, is when I became the president of an institution, I won't name specifically, and walked into a very large building project that had failed miserably and they'd been trying to raise money for two or three years, it was a $25 or $30 million project, which in that institution's case was...
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/29279583
info_outline
David Tolley - His Musical Journey from The Tonight Show to Recording the Music for Disneyland Park in Paris to Tenured University Professor
12/26/2023
David Tolley - His Musical Journey from The Tonight Show to Recording the Music for Disneyland Park in Paris to Tenured University Professor
Tommy Thomas: Three years ago, I started a tradition on the podcast. I'm interviewing someone from the music industry for the episode being released the week of Christmas. My logic is that most people probably aren't doing much professional development this week. And rather than not have a release, I would default to something that is near and dear to my heart. I started taking piano lessons when I was seven. In high school, I played in a local garage band. In college, I sang folk music, and, in my twenties, I sang with a bluegrass group in Birmingham. In fact, one of the things on my bucket list is to play a set with the cover group, Jay and the Elders from Birmingham. So, Jim Blackman, if you're listening, I'm waiting on my invitation. Our guest this week is Dr. David Tolley, the Associate Professor and Director of The Music Industry Program at Delaware State University. David is a very talented composer, arranger, producer, and instructor. I believe you're going to love his story. [00:01:08] Tommy Thomas: Before we take too deep of a dive into your professional career, take us back into your childhood. What's your happiest memory? [00:01:17] David Tolley: Happiest memories of childhood. I'm one of eight kids. I'm number seven. And we were born, not really on a farm, but in Dublin, Ohio. [00:01:25] David Tolley: We had an apple orchard, chicken coop, and things like that, but it wasn't a full fledged farm. But we used to play Cowboys and Indians, hide and go seek. And playing with all my brothers and sisters probably was one of my favorite memories. [00:01:39] Tommy Thomas: What about the gifts your parents gave you? What's the greatest gift you remember? [00:01:44] David Tolley: Greatest gift or appearance? Probably the electric football game where you put the players on there and the game vibrates. Yeah. That was that. I had to think about that. I haven't thought about that in a long time yet. [00:01:56] Tommy Thomas:: Wow. We had one of those that was fun. [00:01:58] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. And what was high school like? [00:02:01] David Tolley: I went to Worthington High School, and it was great. I wasn't in the marching band or the choir because I was a pianist, and in junior year, Columbus started a brand-new performing arts school called Fort Hayes, and it was modeled after the one in New York and then one went down into Dallas. So it was experiential Columbus and it's still going, but went there my junior and senior year and half of the day to Worthington. So it was a lot of fun. I started composing for some theater things and other things. And I was valedictorian of the class when I graduated. But the only regret I have about that is I cut off my social life from my high school friends. Because I went down there at noontime and then was downtown Columbus. And you know how after high school, a lot of people, they have afterschool activities, and I was out of town. [00:02:56] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. I guess when you enrolled in Ohio State you knew you were into music by then. [00:03:01] David Tolley Yeah, I played sports, Tommy, and believe it or not, I used to play football and was quarterback and I played basketball and baseball, but I didn't grow to be huge, you know, like 6’ 2”, 6’ 3”. And so it started to hurt in middle school. So I got back into music heavy and I was just practicing all the time and I was lucky to get this pianist, Richard Telly Curtis, and he was head of the piano division at Ohio State and I got him in high school. I don't know how I got him. But he said he took me because I had a good smile. I don't know. I practiced all the time and that's performing arts school. They just kind of let me go and I would go down to the practice rooms and just practice all my whole time there. So I entered Ohio State and got a double bachelor's in piano performance and composition, and then got my master's in theory and composition before I moved out to Los Angeles. [00:03:55] Tommy Thomas: Had you started your PhD before you moved to Los Angeles? [00:03:58] David Tolley: Yeah, back then we were on the quarter system, so I had the first quarter and then I thought, wow, I'm only 21 or 22, I think. And I'm like, I'm doing my doctorate in music. I got into music to perform and to compose, mostly compose. So I thought, and I talked to my mom and I was playing at a church, Liberty Presbyterian Church, all through college and stuff. [00:04:22] David Tolley: They didn't want me to go and my mom of course didn't want me to go, but she actually gave me her blessing and packed up my rabbit and moved out to Los Angeles. [00:04:31] Tommy Thomas: Wow. Yeah, I can see Los Angeles. Back then, Nashville wasn't in the scene. I guess it would've been LA or New York probably your two options. What was the early days like in Los Angeles as a fledgling musician? [00:04:45] David Tolley: Yeah, it was scary. I tell these stories to my students because they have the itch in them, these young college kids, and I'm like, you know what, if it's really on your heart and you're passionate about it, you gotta try it now because you might be regretful later on. So I was scared to be honest, and because I only knew one person out there. I took every other thing I had in a VW Rabbit and I went to North Hollywood, and that was the year that they had Richard Ramirez, the Hillside strangler, and then all of the freeway shootings. I was like, what did I do? But after about a year, it settled in and I was fine. [00:05:25] Tommy Thomas: I'm going to probably not remember the details from how you told it years ago, but as I remember you told me that your brother came out to visit you one Christmas and y'all ended up at the Johnny Carson Show. Can you fill in the details there and tell our viewers a little bit about that? [00:05:42] David Tolley: Okay. So being one of eight kids, I was number seven, and my youngest brother was number eight. We pretty much grew up without a dad and so my mom thought, this is David's first Christmas away from home. And Christmas was a big thing, eight kids and the Christmas tree and gifts. So she was very wise and sent my youngest brother out to visit me. And for a week we went to the beach, we went to all these different things. The Hollywood Stars, Beverly Hills houses, went to where the Lakers played and everything. And then he had the idea to go, hey, can we go to The Tonight Show? I don't know how to do that. [00:06:20] David Tolley: It was like his last day. And so he called up and he said, all you have to do is show up in line in Burbank and wait outside. So, we did after we had gone to the beach all day, and then we walk inside and we got in barely. And we were about three quarters of the way back in the audience. And it was Johnny's last show before he went on Christmas break the next day. And it was a Friday night, I think it was December 19th, 1985. And Johnny comes out with no preparation during the monologue, he said, you know what, you're all in the Christmas spirit, and we have a dilemma tonight. We scheduled this beautiful nine-foot Steinway piano that we had imported in for the classical pianist, Ori Gutierrez, who won the Van Clyburn Award. And the only thing is, he nipped his fingers because he shut his hand in the car door accidentally. His career's not hurt. But he doesn't feel like playing. And so, we have a dilemma. I'll let you know after the commercial break what we're going to do. And so he comes back, he goes, you know what? We're going to try something we've never done before. Is there anyone in the audience that plays a piano? And so I didn't even know what was going on. My brother raises my hand and before I know it, I have a Nike T-shirt and jeans and flip flops, and I'm playing on a nine foot Steinway for 28 million people. [00:07:42] Tommy Thomas: Wow. I'm just thinking what was going through Carson's mind. My gosh what a mistake it could have been. [00:07:49] David Tolley: Yeah, he actually mentioned that. Actually you can see it on YouTube. He says, wow, this could have been a real bomb. And actually, he picked a woman to go first and she played silver bells and she was good. And but he said, just in case she lays a bomb, is there someone else? And that's when he picked me. [00:08:08] David Tolley: He was pretty amazed of the crowd's reaction. [00:08:12] David Tolley: He put his hands up the air like, I don't believe this, so it was fun. I didn't know Tommy; I didn't know I was playing for all these people. It was kind of like a dream. I went up there, I was smiling and, back in Ohio, for the church for years, and then I used to play a lot of parties, so I thought, oh, this is fun. I'll just start playing. I didn't know all those 28 million people were watching, so I was winking at the audience. I pretended I had tuxedo on. I was just goofing off. I was a little clowned, but I guess the audience really liked that. [00:08:45] Tommy Thomas: So everybody can Google I guess David Tally the Tonight Show and you can see the YouTube of this. So what did you play? How did you think about it, or did you just go up and just start playing? [00:08:58] David Tolley: I must've been on autopilot because I barely remember the show. I know it happened, but we only had a minute to think. And so I though, the Cats was real popular at the time, the musical, so I said, how about Memories from Cats? He goes, oh, that's great. And I went up and played. [00:09:17] David Tolley: After I got done, you can see on the video, the audience was just clapping and roaring. And I touched Johnny's hand, oh wow, that worked out. And so yeah, it was fun. Johnny was super nice to me. Both shows. I left and they got my name and number and stuff like that. And I went with my brother back to my little studio apartment in North Hollywood and he was like, he kept on hitting me in the arm going, did that really happen? Did that really happen? So, it was a great way to end the week with my younger brother and actually my dad's mom, Grace , who I partially dedicated Amazing Grace, my variation, and she had never seen me play the piano and she was 92 at the time. She lived to be 99. My whole family got to watch it. My grandmother that never saw me play got to see it. So it was neat. +++++++++++++= [00:10:12] Tommy Thomas: So, what did you play on your second appearance? [00:10:15] David Tolley: They called, they had lost my number somehow, so they put a search team out because Johnny came back and Grant Tinker was the CEO of NBC. And he called Johnny the next day. He says, boy, that was great planning that kid on the show. Johnny goes no. I didn't plan it. I just took a chance. He goes, what? So he said, we have to have him back. We have all these letters and phone calls. We gotta let them know. And so Johnny goes, yeah, that'd be great. So they actually called me and I was in North Hollywood. I answered the phone. I still remember, it was lunchtime. They said, hey we have so many letters and phone calls. We really have to have you back on the show so we can explain to the audience this is really what happened. I actually said no. I said, I'm a composer. I'd be too nervous. He said, yeah, but what you just played on there? I'm like, yeah, I didn't know was going on. [00:11:07] David Tolley: So they said, let me call you back after lunch. And I still remember, Tommy, I got my little can of Chicken Noodle soup, Campbells, and I cooked it and put it on my spoon. I could not even keep a noodle on my spoon. I was shaking. So, I had a week to think and I thought, you know what? This is a great opportunity to give glory to God, and do my theme and variations on amazing grace. I wrote it for the church when I left because they had a wide variety of people that some liked pop, some like gospel, some like straight hymnals, some like country, some like jazz. I thought, you know what, it's all music to me as a composer. It's just an attitude of the heart. And so, I did my theme and variations on Amazing Grace as a gift to them. And for my gram Grammy Grace. And so I played that and Johnny, at first they thought, oh, that might be too religious. And actually Johnny said no - let him play what he wants to play. And anyway, so that's what I played. [00:12:08] Tommy Thomas: Wow. And what was the immediate aftermath of that? Did you see any uptick in any opportunities to record or to write? [00:12:17] David Tolley: Yeah, I got to see the great side of Hollywood, and the bad side. Because I had like agents, managers, it was so confusing. From a little town, at the time it was a small town, a suburb of Columbus and I didn't know anything about the music business. I had what, three degrees and started my doctorate, but I didn't have one music business course. Nothing about contracts or intellectual property or anything. [00:12:40] David Tolley: I was very confused and the White House saw it and they said, we would like you to play at Easter time at the White House. I'm like, okay. And I was actually the MC for the Easter Fest. I actually showed up at the White House and they booked a hotel and brought me in. They said, you know what? We know you're playing and performing, but we'd like you to be the MC. And they handed me a script. I'm like, I wish you guys would've told me. But anyway, so a lot of things like that. I tried out for some movie parts. Madonna and Michael Jackson's manager had a record deal that they were working on, which didn't work because, like I said I saw the good and the bad and a lot of things like that. A lot of projects, some TV and film projects that I did. [00:13:28] Tommy Thomas: As I remember for a while, weren't you Mayor Bradley's pianist of record for a lot of his parties? [00:13:36] David Tolley: Oh wow. Yes. Wow. I haven't heard that name in a long time. Yeah I did. Even though I was out there as a composer, I still was a pianist, and I would still play on people's albums. A lot of rock bands that were signed that didn't have people or players. I was a studio musician that would come in and play and in between projects, if it was a cartoon or scoring an anime film or TV show. I did a lot of stuff for ABC, CNBC and CBS. But there are gaps. There are gaps in between projects, so I always kept up my playing. So, I was playing at the Bel Air Country Club for years, and I played, which when you're out in the public Mayor Bradley saw me and I played so many functions for him. And I played Muhammad Ali's birthday party and I'll never forget it. Muhammad came up and his Parkinson's had set in and he came up to the piano during his birthday, and he wrote me a poem. He was shaking and he was always one of my favorite athletes of all time. And then just a lot of parties and things because they're just people that happen to live out there. And since I'm out in the public I did a bunch of parties for Clint Eastwood and I remember one party in Malibu that I was sitting, it was just a cliff with nothing but glass, looking at the ocean. And I'm like, okay, I'm showing up for this birthday party. So out there and all of a sudden right next to me is Walter Mattau. Right behind me is Gregory Peck, Jack Lemon, Marlon Brando. I'm like, what's going on here? And it was a birthday party for their acting coach, Stella Adler. So it was a party, and I played Hello Dolly for Carol Channing to sing. And my mom would've been in heaven if she would've been there. So yeah, I had a lot of neat experiences like that. [00:15:29] Tommy Thomas: And then somewhere along the way you got connected with Disney. [00:15:33] David Tolley: And that actually wasn't a result of the Tonight Show. That was, I forget how many years later, five or six years later. Because all that hype and everything slowed down. My phone was off the hook. I was like, oh boy. Yeah, I didn't know what to do. And I probably made a lot of bad decisions. [00:15:54] David Tolley: But I finally settled down to be a composer and play in between. And Disney got ahold of one of my first CDs and they were doing a new park in Paris or Euro Disney. And they took the music from Frontier, Leanne? I forget the land shoot. This is terrible. Anyway, tomorrow land and, this is a brand-new park, and they wanted a brand new lands called Discovery Land. And so it had all these explorers and things like Jules Verne and thing themed rights. I was lucky that out of, I don't know, hundreds or thousands of composers that wanted to do the theme music for this land, I got the job. So I did a two hour soundtrack for piano and orchestra. And it still plays. It opened in 1992 and I still see my, it's not great royalties, but it's, yeah, I'm not going to turn them down. Every quarter I see royalties from my music that's playing 18 hours a day. [00:16:55] Tommy Thomas: So, looking back on the Southern California portion, what's your biggest takeaway? [00:17:03] David Tolley: That's a good question. Just, probably hang on to God, hang the thick and the thin though it wasn't always great times. There were sometimes it was very thin, and I bought a house in Woodland Hills, started having kids and those were great years and then there was some thin years. But God's grace was with me the whole time, and it's exciting. It's not for everybody. In fact, my younger brother moved out there, a lot of friends moved out there. They saw the hype, and within a year they moved out because it's like a concrete jungle. And you have to love the creativity. That’s what I liked about it. And it's not for everybody. +++++++++++++= [00:17:45] Tommy Thomas: What brought you back east and how did you decide it was time to finish that doctorate? [00:17:52] David Tolley: Good question. So basically, I told my mom when I started my doctorate and when I was making that decision to move out to LA, I'm like, I will finish this. I will finish. I wanted to be a brain surgeon, I ended up going into music. So, I said, Mom, I will be a doctor. And I still remember that conversation. So my wife, we had four kids and we were out in Los Angeles. We had a house, a pool, a studio, and she got cancer. And she was from Ohio too and she had a cancer called MOC Sarcoma, a soft tissue cancer. [00:18:26] David Tolley: So, it was an extremely hard decision because the kids had all their friends in middle school and stuff like that. We had a great setup. I was finally out there living, and doing what I love to do, but thought, it's pretty serious stage four cancer. So we moved back to be with her family, my family and the support. She fought it for a good three and a half years and then passed. [00:18:50] Tommy Thomas: How did you, as someone that's never had that kind of experience, how did you get through that? [00:18:56] David Tolley: Oh, it was all God. It really was God. And it's funny that, through most of life, at least for me, it's a pretty constant relationship. But in those very trying times, it's almost like you can hear him breathe. I mean it's very real and that's really what kept me going. Prayer, the church and support. [00:19:18] Tommy Thomas: You finished your doctorate; you became that doctor that you had promised your mom. [00:19:22] David Tolley: Right. [00:19:23] Tommy Thomas: So now you're on the faculty at Delaware State. Tell us about that. I guess you commute from Columbus to the campus periodically or regularly. [00:19:32] David Tolley: You'd think I was a nut, I probably was, but I moved back to LA, finished, and I thought, Mom, I'm not in an entertainment town anymore. I have to think of a living now. So, I finished my doctorate, and I started Ohio State Music Industry Program from textbook stuff and then real live street knowledge that I gained out there. [00:19:52] David Tolley: The only thing is they started it and everything and built the studios. Boom. And it came time to get the director of the music industry program and I already started the curriculum and everything....
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/29182463
info_outline
What if there was a Nonprofit Version of Shark Tank - Volume 1
12/19/2023
What if there was a Nonprofit Version of Shark Tank - Volume 1
[00:00:00] Tommy Thomas: For the past six months or so I've been asking our guests the question “If there was a nonprofit version of Shark Tank and you were on the panel of potential early-stage investors, what questions would you need to have answered before you’d make an investment?” Well, again, it's just a fun question to ask that has turned into some great information that I believe people who are thinking of starting a nonprofit would find useful. The first force you'll hear is Kristen McClave from Episode 81 - Her Leadership Journey from Johnson and Johnson to Cardone Industries and Beyond. [00:00:38] Christin McClave: Oh, that's a fun question. I think first of all I would really want to understand the leader's background. The team, the person, on Shark Tank, they usually have one other person standing with them. And the Sharks are very interested in where they came from, what their experiences are, how the two or the three of them got together, and the dynamic of them working together and what skills maybe one brings to the table, the other one, fills in the gaps. I'd like to really understand that and know, that there's some experience in them building an organization. I think the other piece to that is really the passion, the drive. What is the problem or the issue the founder or the co-founders are trying to solve and what's driving that? And is that passion or is that issue really going to still be driving them in five years or 10 years? Or is it more of a short-term thing? The other piece, and I think this probably comes from my experience on nonprofit boards that are probably larger than this would be, really understanding the percentage of the budget that would actually be going to the work, the problem solving, the issue resolution, and what percentage of the budget would really be going to administration and or SG&A or overhead, however you want to say it. That may not be important for everybody, all investors, but for me it's the piece that I enjoy digging into from a financial perspective and from an accountability perspective with nonprofits that I either work with or talk to and just understanding, are they managing that equation or that ratio. And also as they get larger, they will certainly have donors, investors, fundraising questions around that in particular. And I think the third thing is I'd like to know, who is mentoring them? How do they have support built around them? Maybe they're an early-stage company, they probably don't have a board yet. But I think in the nonprofit context, it's really important to know those things and to make sure there are people that they've built into their feedback process. Maybe it's just a monthly advisor call that they have with maybe an advisor or a few advisors who meet with them on a regular basis. Because the challenge with a nonprofit, is really thinking through your revenue source. If your revenue is not coming from a product or a service, it’s coming from the fundraising donation side of things. You've really got to build out some people in your network who can help you strategize about that and become really good at that. And I'll say just from personal experience, that's part of why I haven't taken on a leadership role in a nonprofit yet in my career because I feel like you have to feel called to the issue or the problem at hand. If you're going to be in a senior role of a not-for-profit organization, you've really got to have a drive and a passion for that cause. And, number two, you've got to really understand the revenue source is very different in the nonprofit space. And you really have to think about, okay, we're raising money for this cause rather than, hey, this product has this gross margin, it's a whole different mindset shift. And maybe someday I will, but for right now I'm in the for-profit space. But I love supporting and being a mentor and advisor in the nonprofit space and supporting them as much as I can. [00:04:37] Tommy Thomas: Next up is Caryn Ryan from Episode 84 - Her Leadership Journey from BP Amoco to World Vision to Missionwell. [00:04:49] Caryn Ryan: This is interesting, but really Tommy, I don't think it's any different for a for-profit than for a non-profit organization. So you're always asking do you have a good vision? And a really big and important question is, do you have the resources? And that's in terms of money but it's also in terms of the network of people to support you making steps towards your vision and making things happen. And then do you have the drive? Do you feel called for this? How do you demonstrate that? How do you demonstrate that you have the call and that you have the drive? Are you a persister? One thing that will happen for every new organization is just tons of obstacles and problems. They're nonstop. And so, you have to have that ability to persist and to say, look, I see this obstacle. Am I going to go over it, under it or around it? But for sure I'm going to go around it or get through this. And so, you need to have that kind of foundational trait characteristic. I think the difference really between a for-profit and non-profit is in where you get the money from. The Shark Tank for the for-profit might be from investors or a bank. Whereas the Shark Tank for a nonprofit might be from stakeholders, donors, grantors. So You have to make sure that the business plan reflects that. But you still have to have the money and you still have to have the people. And the sense of call might be different too. I think if you're working in a for-profit, you may have a vision around some new product or service. In the nonprofit world, your call may be even more deeply embedded. Especially if it's a religious calling. It may be something that's very right tied or connected to your faith. It doesn't matter how deeply connected it is to your faith. If you don't have the same things that a for-profit needs your chances of being successful fall. Now, God can always come in and intervene, if you're going to do your part in it, you need the same things that a for-profit does. [00:06:54] Tommy Thomas: Episode 100 was a milestone for the podcast. In the beginning I probably wondered if I would ever get that far. Here's Rich Stearns, the President Emeritus of World Vision US – An Inauspicious Leadership Journey Part Two. [00:07:11] Rich Stearns: The very first question that a Shark Tank guy would ask if you came with a new product is how is this product different from every other product that's already out in the market? In other words, nobody needs another cola drink, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, RC Cola. There's plenty of cola drinks out there. So, if your big idea is I'm going to do my own cola drink, the first question is why? So with a nonprofit, for example, I've seen young people that want to start up a new World Vision. I want to help the poor in Africa. And so, I'm going to start my own non-profit organization to help them. And my question is why would you do that? Because World Vision is a 3.2 billion organization helping the poor around the world. Compassion is one and a half billion dollars helping the poor around the world. Samaritan’s Purse is a billion-dollar organization. So what are you doing that they're not doing? Why would I give my money to you instead of an established, successful nonprofit that's doing that work? And, a good example of a positive answer to that would be the International Justice Mission. My friend, Gary Haugen, who started it about 27 years ago now, I think, but he looked around and he said, look, there's a lot of organizations that are feeding the hungry and bringing clean water to the poor and doing microfinance. I don't see any organizations that are helping the poor with their legal problems, protecting them from corrupt police departments and representing them in court when they're falsely accused of something or getting them out of bonded labor in India by using the court system. So Gary started International Justice Mission to focus on justice and legal issues. He could have called it “lawyers without borders” if he wanted to, because essentially, he hires a lot of attorneys that go around the world and they work through the legal systems to help people who are being oppressed in various ways. So, the first question to ask is, why would I give to your charity? What is unique about it? And why wouldn't you just partner up with somebody that's already doing this work? If there are nonprofits that are doing it, the next thing you look at is the leader's vision and motivation, right? If there's a powerful leader with a powerful vision and capabilities do you believe that they, just like you'd look at a startup CEO, do they have the right vision? That's the other thing. Because it takes a lot of elbow grease to start up a nonprofit. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:09:39] Tommy Thomas: From Episode 115 Terri Esau - His Journey from Being Known As The Jingle King Of Minneapolis to Philanthropeneur. [00:09:55] Terry Esau: First of all, whatever you're pitching, it has to solve a problem and there has to be a resource to help solve that problem. Like for us, it was like, here's the problem. Kids in America are unhealthy, they're obese, there's poverty, so they can't afford a bicycle. Can help solve some of their health issues, not just physical health issues, but mental health issues, right? I call my bike my carbon fiber therapist because, you're a cyclist. It's like I get on my bike, and I go for a ride. I could be having a bad day, but by the time I get done with my ride, all that stress has just been washed away. So I'm Shark Tank. I think you'd have to go, what's the problem? What's the solution? And then on top of that you have to go, what's your strategy to bring the solution to the problem? What are the logistics? What are the resources that you need? People who give money to causes, you really have to sell them on the fact that you are going to change the world in some small way. At least in the nonprofit world. In the for profit world, then you have to prove to them that you can make your money back on this investment. For us, we say, yeah, you're not making money back on us, but you should feel really good about what you're doing to change the lives of children. [00:11:38] Tommy Thomas: From Episode 88 - Lisa Trevino Cummins, Her Leadership Journey from Bank of America to Urban Strategies Part Two. [00:11:49] Lisa Cummins: I think the question I would ask is what is your employee turnover? And because I have found nonprofits come and go and employee turnover helps me understand what your commitment is, what your ability is to lead, what your consistency is with your values. Because if you're not consistent, employees won't stay long. Maybe you can explain them once or twice, but if you have an ongoing record of employees that are leaving, then there's a problem there. The other thing I would ask is a lot of nonprofits talk about partners. Let's say, describe the continuum of partnership with these organizations. When you say your partner is this because you dropped off a leaflet at their door. Sometimes that's okay. Depends on what the goal is or is this talking about someone who you know their name, right? You know their name and you know their story and so you're trying to get at it in a deeper way. Those kinds of things. Yeah, I think those are a couple of questions I would ask. I would also ask how well, and this is important, some people will say this is a political thing and it's not. How well does your organization reflect the communities you're serving? Because if it doesn't, that means there's probably a sense of a pejorative type of approach that is not going to be that is less what could be, and it'll result in less than results than what could be. Does that make sense? [00:13:33] Tommy Thomas: And last, but certainly not least, from Episode 109 John Somerville - His Leadership Journey from Marketing Executive with General Mills to Chief Financial Officer At The University Of Northwestern St. Paul. [00:13:49] John Sommerville: I think the first question is, what need do you believe exists that your ministry or organization will serve? And how is what you're doing, how will that serve that need? Because if there's a true need I think many things follow from that. And if you have something unique that will really help meet that need, then the organization needs to exist. So I think those are big questions. And the other thing that I often ask is, who else is doing this? What I find is that there are people who are pioneers who do something for the very first time, and we write books about those people, but often what we need is I found more often that the people that are innovators they're just being novel without actually being effective and so it's important to understand the need, be able to meet the need, and then also give examples of how that works. You may have a unique spin on it, but the core of it needs to be channeled into an area that others have been successful in the past. +++++++++++++++ [00:14:51] Tommy Thomas: Next week is Christmas. And in keeping with the tradition, I followed for the past two years, I've interviewed someone from the music industry. This year, our guest is David Tolley. David is an amazing music, composer and arranger, and a tenured professor at Delaware State University. Part of David’s story is that a big part of his career was launched from an inauspicious and some might say accidental appearance on the Johnny Carson Show. Join us next week to hear the rest of David's story. Links & Resources – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO Connect [email protected]
/episode/index/show/nextgennonprofit/id/29097453