I work with nonprofit Executive Directors on two things nobody hands you a playbook for: making the strategy actually move, and leaving without breaking what you built. Twenty years in the sector, including time as an ED. One piece a month, from the work.
The words I hate most came out of my mouth
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Hello Reader, Then the words I hate most came right out of my mouth: "We've always done it that way..." I paused, and finished with, "and I'm glad you're reexamining it and taking a fresh look." That's one of the most expensive sentences in the nonprofit sector. Most organizations have one. It's a practice nobody questions because nobody remembers who decided it. It sounds like loyalty. More often it's fatigue, or a team stretched too thin to take it on. Sometimes it's the weight of a decision made years ago that no one feels free to revisit. Often someone did know why. Maybe it was a funder requirement or a lesson learned the hard way. Then that person left, the reason went with them, and the practice stayed. That's what happens when a leader walks out the door without a structure for passing on what they know. The "what" survives and the "why" doesn't. A few years later, the people still doing it can't explain it. The people who want to change it can't tell whether that's safe. I've been writing about this in a new two-part series on my blog:
If you're an ED, try this before the week is out. Pick one practice in your organization that you know the history of, and write down in two or three sentences why it exists. Whoever comes after you can then question it honestly instead of guessing. And if you're sitting with a practice that no longer makes sense, you have permission to ask: if we were starting fresh, would we still do it this way? What's one in your organization that deserves a fresh look? Hit reply and tell me. Talk soon, Heather P.S. Know someone who would find this helpful? Please forward it their way. |
Heather Hooper Consulting, LLC
I work with nonprofit Executive Directors on two things nobody hands you a playbook for: making the strategy actually move, and leaving without breaking what you built. Twenty years in the sector, including time as an ED. One piece a month, from the work.
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