Do, Delegate, Discard: Make Time for New Resolutions

“I resolve to do more (fill in the blank)…… in the coming year.”

Congratulations! But what are going to do less of?

A simple and powerful tool for any manager, Do, Delegate, Discard is especially helpful to Executive Directors who are the lynchpin between the Board of Directors and the staff. It makes you focus on making the most of your time, and helps you make best use of the talent around you.

First, write down everything you are responsible for. Everything. That includes bringing in office snacks, managing the $5000 library fund donor and organizing the annual gala. Making thank you calls to major donors, reviewing the copier contract, meeting board members for coffee and writing the copy for the eight page monthly newsletter. Writing the development and communications plan, keeping the FAQs up-to-date, hiring, evaluating and firing staff and developing the employee handbook. Whatever it is, write it down.

Now, make three columns next to the list: Do, Delegate, Discard.

For each item on the list, decide if it’s something ONLY YOU CAN DO, something you can DELEGATE TO SOMEONE ELSE, or something that doesn’t have to be done, i.e., DISCARD.

Caution! Even if you think that only you can do it right, that doesn’t mean that only you can do it. This is where perfectionists stumble. Consider – an Executive Director earning $80,000 a year (plus benefits), and ostensibly working 40 hours per week (ha), is earning $48/hour. Does it really make sense for you to be the author of every article for the newsletter or to maintain the FAQs? Or should you be focusing on staff development, major donors and board interactions? If you honestly believe that only you can do the job, then mark the DO column. These items should be where your organization will derive the greatest benefit from your time.

Control freaks stumble when they contemplate handing off to a subordinate.  Delegating is scary, but successful delegation ultimately pays off. Staff get the chance to shine and the satisfaction of being responsible for jobs well done. So into the DELEGATE column put reviewing the copier contract, keeping FAQs up-to-date, managing and writing the newsletter, reviewing lower level staff, drafting new handbook pages. It may mean time to train your staff, but developing your staff is ultimately what will make you – and your organization – even more productive.

Superwomen and Supermen stumble on DISCARD. There is a subconscious fear that you will be thought less of if you don’t do every. single. thing. But DISCARD may be the most powerful action you can take. It forces you to stop and think about why a job is done at all.  Maybe the 8 page monthly newsletter should drop to 4 pages, or bimonthly, or not even exist. What purpose does it serve; would something else serve that purpose even better? Should stewarding the library fund donor be woven into the general donor stewardship program? Are all the board reports needed? Can you move to consent agendas? Should you drop the gala that nets $20,000 but has hidden labor costs of $50,000?

Deceptively simple, Do, Delegate, Discard is a powerful tool for managing your time, and empowering your staff. It’s a great way to begin the new year, and make room for all those NEW resolutions.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy? Bah!

In 1988, Bobby McFerrin released a song that drove me absolutely nuts. “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Just ask my husband. I cringed whenever I heard it. The whole idea that you should never worry, and that just being told to be happy would work was just crazy to me.sculpture

Frankly, I still feel that way. No, I don’t cringe when I hear the song, but the philosophy that we should never worry just doesn’t work for me.

Stress isn’t your enemy! Stress can be good! It’s how we grow!

Stressing about stress is your enemy.  Stressing without release is your enemy. But stress isn’t bad in and of itself. In fact, in orthopedics, there’s something called Wolf’s Law – bone that is subjected to some stress, grows stronger in the area of stress. The same thing with muscles. That’s why we’re told to do cardiovascular exercise – so our heart muscle grows stronger.

It follows through into our work lives. If we’re constantly working in our comfort zones, then we don’t grow. But working outside of our comfort zones is stressful.

So what?

You didn’t learn to ride a bike by not taking terrifying first peddles and falling down a few times.

When it comes to our nonprofit work, we have to face the fact that working outside our comfort zone is the only way we’ll grow beyond what we’re already doing.  It may be stressful, but as long as we periodically take some time off to relax and look at what we’ve done, then the stress is good.

If you want to work explore how a coach or mentor can help you or your staff embrace the stress – and work with it instead of against it – let me know! I’m happy to talk about it and see if there are ways that you can put stress to work for you.

Machiavelli was Right

Niccolo Machiavelli was right, when he said. There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

machiavelliWow. He sure nailed it on the head. If you’ve ever come into an organization and tried to change its course, you know just how right he was. Change is hard, change is risky, and change is resisted.

And even when people claim to be willing to change, almost to a person, they will tell you that their peers will resist it.

In February, Julia Kirby wrote an analysis of the downfall of a change agent. As I read her blog on Harvard Business Review, most of her analysis boils down to arrogance. Coming in as a white knight that will rescue a situation, creating an ‘us’ vs ‘them’ mentality, presuming that everyone agrees that change is necessary – any one of these will create resentment in an organization. Doing all of them is sure to make change even harder.

An organization is made of people who have invested time and their lives in building something good. To be told that it has to change implies that they have wasted their time, or that what they have built is not good.

Instead, engaging every level in the organization in making the already good even better creates a team more willing to work on change. And change is important, to keep up with society, and to ensure that you’re delivering your mission in the best way possible.

It’s not a panacea – change IS hard – but a willing attitude goes a long way toward making those difficult transitions easier to take. Instead of imposing change, inspire the team to aspire to greatness. Change will follow.

I’m sorry.

My husband and I talk about this a lot, as we watch the daily news. People are always trying to wiggle out of responsibility for the mistakes they’ve made, the people they’ve injured, the messes that others have to clean up.

Whatever happened to “I’m Sorry?”  Whatever happened to “It’s my fault?”   Whatever happened to “I made a mistake, I will fix it?”

scuplture of people with bent headsThis post from Sarah Andrus says it clearly and concisely. When we make a mistake, we must own it and make reparations. Her post talks about individuals, but it’s equally true of organizations. “My Bad…” or How to Handle Mistakes With Grace

This is where a culture of ethics and accountability can make all the difference. If your organization has a culture in which individuals – both board and staff – are known to take responsibility for mistakes and are not unduly punished for them, then each person can feel more comfortable owning his or her mistakes.  Honesty and integrity become the hallmarks for which you are known. The receptionist can feel proud of working for you, the donor can be proud of supporting you, your community will offer up new board members.

Think about it.  If all the time and energy spent in evading responsibility were instead spent in fixing the problem and taking steps so it doesn’t happen again, then the entire organization moves forward that much faster.

Where would you rather work – where energy is spent covering it up, or where energy is spent making it right?  

 

 

I’m not saying please, I’m not being reasonable, I’m making the decision

Ever read or hear a statement that just begs to be quoted? When it happens to me, I may not know when I’ll use it, but it’s just so appropriate to something that I have to write it down. I may be watching TV or a movie with my husband, or reading a novel. It may be in a nonfiction book or a random sentence in a magazine.

This time, it was a line in an early episode of the FOX drama, Bones. Dr. Walker, head of the fictitious Jeffersonian Institute, was finally fed up. He had already explained, many times, the priorities of a case to his extremely intelligent and all-too-eager-to-argue staff.  He had other constituents to serve; he knew what had to be done, and he had to ensure their completion.

“I’m not saying please, I’m not being reasonable, I’m making the decision,” he declared, and walked out of the room.

Harsh. However, in a situation when someone has to stop the wheels from spinning, the executive makes that decision. Definitely, concretely, and in no uncertain terms. There may be fallout, but the job of the executive is to make the hard decisions and anticipate and mitigate any negative effects.

It’s not fun to be the dictator, but as Dr. Walker (or the show’s writers) illustrated, it is sometimes part of the job.

What hard decisions have you had to make on behalf of your organization? What might have happened if you hadn’t stepped up and taken charge?