Numerical scoring on performance evaluations -- distilling a person’s professional journey and daily fluctuations into a backward-looking score indicating alignment with your expectations -- was always problematic. The for-profit sector already experimented with losing numerical rating some years ago, and from what I am seeing in the field, the pendulum is swinging in the nonprofit sector now too, with more organizations losing the scoring and going to narrative evaluations t

Is “next week” Friday or Monday? Not long ago I worked with a client for whom a variance in internal assumptions about the answer to that question led to thousands of dollars of expense, a decrease in trust with an external partner awaiting a key deliverable, and a lot of internal frustration. While the particulars in this situation were unique, I often meet with clients who avoid being prescriptive with their team, which is wonderful… if indeed the situation allows for f

Managers who care about creating a welcoming environment and seeing their team members as full people sometimes struggle with the employee who opts out of informal connection. They have a vague sense that the employee isn’t a great fit for the organization, but when pressed for details the manager can only name “issues” like: They rarely post weekend photos on the Slack water cooler channel. They asked if the team axe throwing night was mandatory and then declined when it was

I was meeting with an executive director when she mentioned being utterly stressed out by this tech initiative she was spearheading. She was starting from scratch -- not her area of experience or expertise or insight. And as a bonus – she had a total aversion to the whole thing, with no interest in learning about that area other than the immediate need to find a solution for her team. Why was she leading it? “Because there is no one else to do it.” Except there was. The no

It can feel much better to be a generous ruler than a good leader. Your PTO policy is stingy but in a moment of an employee’s crisis you save the day by bestowing extra unaccounted leave. Your manual requires employees to be in the office 8-5, but a hard-working employee mentions having a terrible commute so you let them scoot out at 4:30 with a wink. You are a hero! All of this feels good. It’s on you – you did something nice and employees might express gratitude in the mom

He said it out loud, but wasn’t the first to think it. One of my clients admitted, “I don’t see the point in investing in training her if she is just going to use that training to leave us & get a new job.” Professional development might provide your team with more opportunities that allow them to leave, but here are 5 reasons it’s still worth doing: 1) The field is changing and your community is changing. There is certainly still something for your staff to learn tha

I work with a lot of helpful people, and I find what is intended as helpfulness in new executive directors can often look a whole lot like doing someone else’s job – sometimes a staff member’s, but surprisingly often, a board member’s. One ED I worked with would even sub in for board committee chairs that missed meetings and create detailed scripts for her board president who often flew into board meetings late and completely unaware of the matters up for consideration. But

Missteps happen. Misunderstandings happen. Plain old mistakes happen – big and small. Sometimes when I suggest a client acknowledge a mess up that impacted a member of their team, the suggestion is initially dismissed with something along the lines of, “I met with them about something else, and they seem fine.” I get it. Sometimes we just want to move forward, but in leadership if you don’t acknowledge the error and potential harm, you miss an incredible opportunity to make

If you don’t know it, own it. Ask others who know more. Normalize not knowing. With many nonprofit leaders these days being new to leadership or new to the sector, I have seen a lot of really great, fresh perspectives. I have also seen an inclination to mask uncertainty with swagger. Not knowing does not mean you don’t belong in the room or in leadership, because we never “make it”. A leader’s job isn’t to know everything but rather to be willing to seek out good informat

Collaboration is amazing — unless it isn’t. Unless it's not really a give and take and build, but a hash and rehash without clarity on who contributed what and no guidance for when the process ends. We’ve all created something wonderful and then been given guidance that made it that much better. Or worked on a team, each providing a unique contribution to make something great. And we’ve all made collaboration muck -- been given an assignment only to see the product complet