Nonprofit Leadership, Innovation, and Change

Focus On Your Priorities and Stick to Them

Back in March I wrote about the importance of priorities and shared with you what my priorities were as an example. It's commonly stated, "Easier said than done" which was true when my priorities were tested in July.

With the sudden announcement of my parents deciding to move to Alaska, I was faced with two difficult situations.

The first was when they asked me to house sit for them for three weeks while they made their first trip to Alaska to move furniture, vehicles, and other stuff. This meant I would spend an extra 90 minutes every day in the car, and would reduce the amount of time I could dedicate to creative thinking and writing (which I do at my home office, away from phones and email).

The second was when they asked me to help them with a nine day trip to move their second and final load of stuff from California to Alaska.

I'm a little ashamed to say my first response to these requests was, "no."

I'm a busy dude, with a full-time position at a high profile nonprofit, leading my program A Day of Hope, writing for a blog, and not to mention a leadership class that I facilitate at our local church twice a month.

I feel like the juggler who has too many tennis balls. The last thing I need is another ball to juggle, what I need is another skilled juggler. And these two requests were more balls to juggle, big ones!

After taking some time to think and reflect, I realized I had to make the decision based on priorities. Family is my second highest priority. When you focus on making decisions based on your priorities, and not emotions, making decisions becomes much easier and easier to stand by at later dates.

As a leader make sure you take time to think and reflect on what your priorities are. It took me over three months before I could layout my priorities in a written form that I could use and apply to my life.

Make sure you have your priorities written down and review them regulary. If I didn't have them written down in front of me, I'm positive I would have made the incorrect decision for the above scenarios.

Sometimes We Miss - It Happened to Me!

Back in January I wrote a post titled, Sometimes We Miss. I initially got the idea from watching my two turtles eat every night when feeding them. When I put food in their tank they would literally miss when going to bite their food. They would have to snap at the food and miss four or five times before they would actually get it inside their mouth.

As I started to think I realized that turtles aren’t the only ones who miss when they go after something they want. As leaders we have times when we go for goals, offer a job to someone, and apply for a grant that we want. However, sometimes we miss; we don’t achieve our goals, the person we want to work for us turns us down, and our well crafted grant proposal is denied.

Well, today I missed. As you know I’m working very hard on our Maximum Impact event and a strong element to that event was a sponsorship from the local Visitor’s Bureau of Turlock. Maximum Impact is a great event that will add value to the people who live in Turlock, and bring other leaders from neighboring towns to attend; this brings money to gas stations, coffee houses, and restaurants. After dedicating half of my Saturday to put together a strong proposal for the Visitor’s Bureau to sponsor the event, today I was told that we would not be receiving a sponsorship.

Please don’t think that I’m not asking for sympathy, comfort, or support for you—I’m a big boy and I can handle rejection. I want to make a point that as leaders sometimes we miss. I worked extremely hard on that proposal by giving an explanation of the event, explained how it matched up with the Visitor Bureau’s mission statement, attached a clean simple budget so they would see where the money was going, and I even offered to give them a couple of free tickets to attend the event.

Sometimes as leaders we give our best effort, and we still miss.

Will I try again next year?—You bet!

Risky Goals for 2008

With so much talk around this time of year about goals for 2008, I realized that goals are risky.  It’s risky to set large goals and tell them to friend, post them on your website, or share them with co-workers.

So much can happen when you set goals.  You can work hard, achieve your goals and be seen as a successful hero by many people; or you can work hard and fail miserably which I’ve done many times.  In 2005 it was risky when I set our goal for A Day of Hope to deliver 30 baskets of food and turkeys to 30 families for Thanksgiving.  I had never done a similar project before and had no clue how to do it, but we exceeded our goal and delivered 48 baskets. 

The second year we got a little riskier and set our goal to deliver 150 baskets of food and turkeys to 150 families.  I remember making presentations to groups and having people raise their hand and ask, “Your goal is to deliver 150 baskets and you only delivered 48 last year.  That’s a pretty big increase isn’t it?”  What they were saying is that they didn’t think we could do it.  We took a big risk by setting a goal so high.  After it was all said and done we had delivered 211 baskets of food and turkeys to 211 families for Thanksgiving, exceeding our goal by 61 baskets. 

This year for 2007 we continued to be risky with setting our goals.  We set our goal to deliver 750 baskets of food and turkeys to 750 families.  We spent more time in meetings, asked more people for money, gave more presentations, had more fundraisers, and used more thought and effort than we had the two previous years combined.  As you probably know this year we didn’t reach our goal and delivered 146 baskets of food and turkeys to 146 families for Thanksgiving. 

It’s risky to set goals for a leader because he is the one who has to answer the tough questions, carry the load, burden the responsibility, and is blamed when goals aren't met. 

These are the risks you have to take for the people you want to serve.  I have always been willing to take the risk of setting high goals in an effort to give more families a Thanksgiving feast. 

I would rather set a goal too high, not reach it and serve one more family a Thanksgiving dinner, than set a goal too low, reach it and not serve that extra family a Thanksgiving dinner.

You never know. . .

who you met.

While at a 6 AM Toastmasters meeting, I met a man just like the other 10+ new people that I meet everyday.  About four weeks later I saw him again at a BNI meeting and learned that he is a highly respected CPA in our city.  Then another four weeks later, I was in the doctor’s office flipping through the Chamber of Commerce newsletter when I saw a familiar face.  Turns out this man is the chairman for the Chamber of Commerce of the largest city in our county.

When I shook the two fingered hand of Ken Webb on the firs tee of the Alameda Commuters golf tournament, I never knew he would be the man to get me a full tuition and book golf scholarship to CSU, Stanislaus. 

When Dick & Maurice McDonald met their milk shake maker salesman, Ray Kroc they never knew he had the leadership ability to turn what was a dream of two hard working brothers, into the reality of being the largest fast food chain on the planet.

As Bill Stickland shook the hand and exchanged business cards with eBay creator Jeffrey Skoll, he had no idea who he was or what kind of impact he could/would have on Bill’s training centers that are now springing up around the country. 

The Power of Coaching

I've been a recipient of the Anthony Robbins Coaching program since February and I can honestly say its been one of the greatest commitments I've ever made in my life.  My coach is Mike Savage, who is amazing.  To know you have someone that's pulling for you 24/7 and is going to be there to hold you accountable is a great feeling.

I came across Stacie's coaching program about a month ago and I was glad to see that she's working hard to help those in the nonprofit world.   The Anthony Robbins coaching program is pretty pricey (I don't have to pay it anymore since I'm an alumni), so I wanted to direct you over to www.coachingtowardchange.com. 

It's great to see someone using her skills to make a difference in those who don't have the money to afford traditional coaching. 

Keep up the hard work!

We all make a difference

As I have started reading and listening to Mark Sanborn more and more the last couple of months, I have heard him say over and over, "Everyone makes a difference."  I came across this post by Jason Womack that drove it home for me. 

Nonprofit leaders who work in direct service full-time still have "those days" when they feel like what they do does not make a difference.

I agree with Mark when he says, "We all make a difference in the world."  The question is how large of a difference are you going to make?

How Much School is Enough?

Seth Rosen makes this great post about how many people are deciding not dive straight into the public service area after completing a four year degree, instead of going to get an MBA.  I've completed 3 years of schooling, don't have a BA, MBA, or a Ph.D but I really respect those who have completed that much school.  While in school I got the feeling that after you complete high school everyone says that it's not enough education, and that you need a four year degree.  Once you finished your four year BA degree, everyone says that to many people have BA's, and that you need to at least get a MBA to have a chance in the business world.  Then once you complete your MBA, you have already attended school for six years, why not go for another two so that you can have that little extra edge for the rest of your peers in the business world.

I decided that I was going to stop attending school because I felt that if I didn't get out when I did, I might never get out.  I felt it was time to focus on contributing and serving others in need full time.

Just my take on a simple issue.

Are You Willing to Face the Consequences?

During a coaching call about two months ago my coach Mike Savage asked me, “Are you willing to live with the consequences of your dreams?” It was a tough question, one that I wasn’t sure about answering yes or no. He asked me the question when I told him how much I would be paid as an AmeriCorps*VISTA member working out of the United Way in Modesto, CA. About three months prior to that call I had told him that I wanted to find a way to serve people in need full-time. Where I would have no outside business commitments, and could focus 110% of my time on serving and helping people.

I faced a true test when one dream started to conflict with another. I had set a goal to make it to Zig Ziglar’s (link) last ever Born to Win (link) seminar August 23-25 in Dallas, Texas. So back in April before I accepted the AmeriCorps*VISTA position I signed up for Born to Win, purchased a plane ticket, and reserved a hotel room. Two weeks before the seminar I realized that due to me not hitting my pay bonuses at my last job, and that my new job only paying 1/3 of what I was making, I would be financially unable to go to Zig’s seminar.

To be honest, I never have second guessed my decision for the opportunity to work full-time with not-for-profit organizations. I’ve realized that I’m willing to sacrifice not just a paycheck, but many of the other luxuries that come along with the money. Such as air conditioning, eating at nice restaurants, and going to the movie theatre just to mention a few.

What really matters is that it makes the joy and fulfillment of making a positive difference so much sweeter. Knowing that we have had to give up things, to gain others is what makes us value the “others.” Having to go through the hardships to make it through the tough times is what tests us to make sure that we’re truly committed.

Putting things in perspective

I was talking with my new roommate over a glass of water (my preferred drink is hot tea) the other night when he said, “Christopher we really like you as a roommate, you’re always so ‘chill.’” I started to realize that after a long day of work, I’m a pretty relaxed dude while at home. That’s when I looked at my roommate and said, “Well when you’re dealing with homeless people, abused women, and hungry children all day it kind of put things in perspective.” I’ve never really thought of it that way before, but I believe that it’s true. Compared to a person that is homeless, abused, or hungry what problems do we really have? Is it really that big of a deal if your internet connection isn’t super fast, if your steak is a little over cooked, or if your air conditioning isn’t working?