Are you an Executive Director of a nonprofit agency? Do you have a succession plan? If you’re like many you don’t. Why don’t more nonprofits have succession plans?...
Wicked, persistent challenges beyond the control of any single leader or institution plague our communities.
If you have ever needed to work with—and through—others to accomplish an important goal, then you know how important leadership skills are to your success.
The unemployment rate rose from 6.5 to 6.7 percent for the Month of November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics—the economy shed 533,000 jobs in one short month. That’s up 2% from the same time last year.
I’ve spent the majority of my career in IT, directing large project teams and organizations by building and supporting business systems. There was a lot of satisfaction for me during that part of my career, working with smart people to create systems that allowed our business to achieve aggressive goals. I look back fondly on what was accomplished by my teams and what I learned. One thing I learned very clearly, and was beautifully articulated by a previous boss, is:
I will never forget my first performance evaluation. My boss, Jack, reviewed my first year on the job, highlighting some of my early successes. He then proceeded with a litany of my shortcomings, failures and areas that needed improvement. Several of the examples he cited were over six months old. At the conclusion of the conversation, I said, “I really appreciate the feedback, but wouldn’t it have made more sense to have made me aware of these as you observed them so I could have fixed them by now?” I don’t remember Jack’s response, but I can tell you that he did not change his approach to performance management.
June 22, 1985 the general manager of personnel at LTV Steel laid me off. My birthday was eight days away; my wife was three months pregnant. It was late on a Friday afternoon. I was devastated....
Lisa Gaynier, Director of Preparing Culturally Competent Leaders for 21st Century Organizations at Cleveland State University sent me this: "According to Mary Rowe of MIT, Micro-Affirmations are “tiny acts of opening doors of opportunity, gestures of inclusion and caring, graceful acts of listening.”
"You'll never succeed in this business." That's what my boss told me in 1988. He didn't just say it, he memorialized his opinion in a two page letter-just to drive his point home! He identified everyone of my known shortcomings and added a few I'd been unaware of.
Dise & Company opened its doors twenty-five years ago on January 2, 1991. The decision to leave AIM Executive to start my own company was tough. It'd been fun starting AIM's Consulting Services Division from scratch with my colleague, Ken Sachs. We'd overcome many startup challenges together.
