April 2010 – Management Library

April 30, 2010January 26, 2022

Thought Leaders Then and Now – Raymond Rubicam – Marketing Hall of Fame

The Marketing Hall of Fame gives us deliciously interesting insight to Thought Leaders who shaped our Marketing and Advertising industries. Do their core philosophies transfer to Web 2.0 marketing and social media marketing?

In the case of Raymond Rubicam, Founder of Young & Rubicam, YES!

He forever changed the ad world with his beliefs and practices:

HE NURTURED THE CREATIVE TALENTS OF THE COPYRIGHTER – a basic tenet of Web 2.0 marketing. The web is a glorious instant publisher for all creatives!
HE KNEW THE CONSUMER – another foundation of Web 2.0 marketing and social media marketing. The consumers’ needs and wants are finally being heard!

“Marketing” Creativity – The Cornerstone of Success

Raymond Rubicam and John Orr Young founded Young & Rubicam with $5,000 and the belief that an advertisement should “mirror the reader.” While Raymond Rubicam’s emphasis on creativity was innovative in itself, his philosophy and copywriting approach revolutionized the industry.

He believed that in effective marketing, knowledge and understanding of the customer was a critical component of effective advertising.

David Ogilvy credited Rubicam with assembling “the best team of copywriters and art directors in the history of advertising,” whose advertisements “were read by more people than any other agency’s.”

The agency quickly became the world’s third largest, representing many of America’s leading companies, such as Gulf Oil, General Electric, Johnson and Johnson, Fortune, Life and others. They EARNED these accounts through their creativity and because they knew their consumers.

Pioneers in Consumer Research

Rubicam constantly stressed the necessity for ideas founded on facts. His idea was to “know more than your competitors do about the market, and put that knowledge into the hands of writers and artists with imagination and broad human sympathies.” Rubicam set out to put his beliefs into practice.

Rubicam hired Dr. George H. Gallup, then a Northwestern University professor, to lead the agency’s research department in 1932 and pioneered in new methods of research on people’s preferences, prejudices, their reading and radio listening practices.

– Marketing Hall of Fame

Click on the following link for more Insights into Rubicam.

Social Media Marketing’s Core Principles include:

Know your target audience
Listen. And based on what you learn about them, engage in meaningful two-way conversation

Rubicam couldn’t be more right-on today. For more basic social media marketing principles, see this eye-opening PowerPoint by iBrand Masters.

Which marketing powerhouse Thought Leaders still influence us today?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman: With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business coach, business planning consultant and social media marketing consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media marketing consulting firm, Lisa Chapman assists clients in establishing and enhancing their online brand, attracting their target market, engaging in meaningful social media conversations, and converting online traffic into revenues. Email Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

April 30, 2010August 14, 2022

Whose Capacity Should We Be Building Anyway?

Woman in checkered shirt teaching colleague using a macbook

In another sterling example of checking brains at the nonprofit boardroom door, I recently learned of a charity that is financially on the ropes.

Poor decisionmaking, weak leadership, the struggling economy, and ho-hum programming have this cultural entity (with a multi-million facility) on the verge of collapse.

No one is currently at the helm, and the board is hunting for a new chief executive. After a bumpy search, the choice is down to one of two candidates.

Candidate A has fundraising experience, but has never managed people, never served as the senior executive of any organization, and has never worked with an agency within the cultural sector. But the person is bright, likeable and local.

Candidate B is a seasoned E.D. with a track record of performing turnarounds at charities with a similar mission. This person, however, would be relocating from half-way across the country, and has an aggressive personality tinged with a helping of arrogance.

The search committee sums up their choice this way: Candidate A has a lot of potential and, we believe, could grow into the job. Candidate B could definitely do the job.

Slam dunk choice, no? After all, the charity is at the verge of shutdown.

But since Candidate B is not as “nice” as Candidate A, this group is seriously considering banking on “building the capacity” of Candidate A as a chief executive.

Am I missing something here? If this were a multi-million dollar company with stockholders, would this board even CONSIDER making the same choice?

Sometimes, real capacity-building is nothing more than engaging the full capacity of our brains … the ones we checked at the boardroom door.

Farewell, and fare well till next week …

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For more resources, see our Library topic Nonprofit Capacity Building.

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April 29, 2010April 29, 2022

“The Annual Fund Is Obsolete”

After thirty years in the non-profit sector, I often find myself questioning, not what we do, but how we label what we do — and how those labels often limit us. The best example of that concept, I believe, is the label “Annual Fund.”

It seems as if, for as long as there have been formal development programs, there have been “Annual Funds.” Each year, goals are set, development staff gears up for another year of activity, constituents get letters and/or phone calls asking for a gift, development staff worries about making/exceeding their goals and they look forward to the end of the fiscal year, when they can put it all to bed and take a deep breath….

While going through this process, however, we are sending the wrong message, not only to our constituents, but also to ourselves. The message is that we should only ask for one gift per donor per year, and that the donor should only give once each year !

Somehow that seems contrary to what fundraising is all about.

By focusing on the (single) annual gift, we and our constituents lose sight of why the giving is important — what and who it supports. People become focused on the process, not on the reason for the process.

Let’s name the process (of raising money on a fiscal year basis) in honor of a founding member of our organization, after the organization itself, or what the funds support, but no more “Annual Fund.”

Let’s not allow what we call an activity to limit what we can accomplish via that activity. And let’s not stifle the creativity that takes us beyond mere process.

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Have a question about starting or expanding your fundraising? Email me at AskDCA@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counselling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll work to answer your question.

April 29, 2010August 14, 2022

The Value of Spirituality in the Workplace

Research shows the impact spirit in the workplace can have for individuals and organizations. Here are five key outcomes that everyone can benefit from:

Boosts morale. Engaging in practices that support spirit in the workplace can uplift the spirits of everyone involved.
Influences satisfaction. Since spirit in the workplace encourages each individual to bring their whole self to both work and home, it increases the satisfaction level in both areas.
Strengthens commitment. Being aligned with an organization that fosters the essence of who you are enables you to feel and display a tremendous sense of loyalty.
Increases productivity. When you feel a greater sense of connection to your work, you are more motivated to produce good work. Which in turn increases the overall productivity of an organization.
Improves the bottom line. According to a nation-wide study on spirituality in the workplace, organizations which integrate another bottom-line into its practices – like spirituality – actually increase the financial bottom-line. These organizations believe that spirituality could ultimately be the greatest competitive advantage.

For example, Southwest Airlines is often described in terms that would identify it as a spirit-driven organization. This was the only airline to be profitable after the September 11th tragedy that had an incredible financial impact on the airline industry and continues to remain profitable. They have a triple bottom line – People, Performance & Planet. “It takes a lot of dedication, perseverance, and hard work to do the right thing for our Customers, Employees, and Planet. We began operations in 1971 with a revolutionary idea that everyone should be able to afford to fly instead of drive and to enjoy the Safety, comfort, and convenience of air travel. For the past 38 years, we have devoted ourselves to meeting that goal. ”

Since 1987, when the Department of Transportation began tracking Customer Satisfaction statistics, Southwest has consistently led the entire airline industry with the lowest ratio of complaints per passengers boarded. Many airlines have tried to copy Southwest’s business model, and the Culture of Southwest is admired and emulated by corporations and organizations in all walks of life.

According to their Southwest Cares Report: Doing the Right Thing, “To better understand why we at Southwest try to do the right thing, it is important to understand how we do business and how we integrate our Core Values into everything we do. It is the Southwest Culture that sets us apart.

The 35,000+ Employees of Southwest Airlines are the heart and soul of our Company. Doing the right thing for these Employees includes providing them with a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. As we “Live the Southwest Way,” our Employees are recognized through several Employee recognition programs for the hard work and caring Spirit they show to each other and our Customers. Not only do we work hard with what we call a Warrior Spirit, we work smart.” Part of living the Southwest way is also by having a servant’s heart and a fun LUVing attitude.

How have you seen the value of spirituality in the workplace play out for you individually or in your organization?

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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April 28, 2010February 18, 2022

Here’s Why Advisory Boards Are Often Useless

An Advisory Board (or Advisory Council or Advisory Committee) is a collection of people formed to advise members of a governing Board of Directors. The Advisory Board does not have formal authority. It cannot issue directives that must be followed as is the case with a governing Board.

There seems to be an increasing number of Advisory Boards. Far too often, an Advisory Board starts out slow and then stalls out completely, or very rarely meets and ultimately is not taken seriously at all.

An Advisory Board can be a tremendous complement to the effectiveness of the governing Board of Directors as it works to address a complex consideration or to undertake very specialized project. Those are the best reasons to form an Advisory Board.

However, sometimes Advisory Boards are used to try maintain formal and visible relationships with people who have particular strong status, for example, people whose terms have expired on the governing Board, leaders in the community, or people having highly respected skills. Those are usually not good reasons to form an Advisory Board – or at least, they’re not good reasons to expect much from an Advisory Board.

The influence that Advisory Board members have in their recommendations to the governing Board depends on the charter, or formal description of the Advisory Board. The most useful Advisory Boards are organized almost as carefully as committees on governing Boards. For example, for Advisory Board “ABC”:

ABC meets on at least a quarterly basis. Meetings are scheduled by the ABC Chair who also develops agendas for the meetings.
ABC provides written recommendations to the governing Board regarding operations and coordination of product DEF.
ABC is comprised of 9 members, each representing a major geographic area of constituents of Product DEF.
Membership of the ABC is selected on an annual basis by the governing Board.
ABC members serve a one-year term, which can be renewed two times.
ABC is facilitated by a Chair who is appointed by the governing Board. The ABC Chair serves a one-year term and is a member of the governing Board.
ABC recommendations are formed by a vote of the majority of the members of ABC.
Highlights of, and recommendations from, all ABC meetings will be documented in meeting minutes and provided to the Board Chair of the governing Board within 2 calendar weeks of the ABC meeting.
Operations of ABC are evaluated annually by a Committee comprised of 3 members of ABC and 2 members of the governing Board.

(The terms of the charter might even be itemized in a set of bylaws for the Advisory Board.)

It’s often best to have a member of the governing Board on the Advisory Board to ensure that the governing Board is always aware of the activities of the Advisory Board. That practice also ensures that Advisory Board members feel some legitimacy in their roles – that they feel that they’re taken seriously by the governing Board.

An Advisory Board is as useful as you expect it to be. If you formally charter the Advisory Board, then its members are more likely to realize that you take the Advisory Board very seriously. If you “park” people on the Board just to somehow keep a relationship with them and then expect that Board to somehow be useful, you’ll likely end up instead with a collection of people who just feel “parked.”

What do you think?

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.

April 28, 2010February 18, 2022

What’s the Real Purpose of Word-Smithing Mission Statements?

A businessman looking up at a corporate building

It’s common that a client will want to start strategic planning with “updating the mission statement.” After all, that’s what a lot of experts suggest. Mission statements get a lot of attention from writers and consultants. Many of them assert that the statements should be highly inspirational and easy-to-read. They give examples of mission statements that roll off the tongue.

However, far too often, what usually occurs is a word-smithing session. “Should our mission include ‘transformational’ or ‘transcendental’?” “Are we ‘serving our customers’ or ‘collaborating with our customers’?”

Those session starts out with great energy and exhilaration, and planners greatly appreciate the facilitator’s guidance and presence in the planning. However, all that soon dissipates as planners become increasingly frustrated with not knowing which words to include. Soon they begin to wonder if the word-smithing really is providing any value to the process. They suspect there are more important matters to decide.

And that’s how much of the planners’ precious time is spent.

I assert that it’s often best first to answer – even to validate answers to – certain questions. The answers to those questions make it much easier to know what should be in the mission statement, and it makes the mission statement a true compass for the organization’s strategies, plans and practices.

Planners should first address:

What needs and wants exist among our customers? How do we know?
What needs and wants do we want to address? How do we know?
What group(s) of customers do we want to serve? How do we know?
What makes us different than our competitors? How do we know?

Sure, answering those questions is not as energizing or as exhilarating as fantasizing words on a mission statement, but the questions are a lot more useful.

Planners might do the word-smithing in a couple of strategic planning cycles, but they’ll usually start to feel that it’s not really planning, rather it’s just a way to avoid the hard work of answering the hard questions.

Word-smithing the mission statement might lend the illusion that it is indeed the heart of planning — but it’s not.

What do you think?

Here’s many more resources about strategic planning.

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 763-971-8890
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.

April 28, 2010July 15, 2022

Onboarding – How Do You Welcome Your New Customers?

Usually I end my posts with a quote to provoke further exploration of these Customer-Centric concepts. Today I am starting with one because I believe your Customer Experience map should be considered your key strategy to elevate you above your competition. Onboarding is a critical element of this strategy.

“A strategy is, at its core, a guide to behavior. A good strategy drives actions that differentiate the company and produce financial success.” Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Authors of Make it Stick.

Getting customers is hard enough. Keeping them is the greatest challenge of all. A special Onboarding experience should be a key element of your overall Customer Experience strategy. Let’s talk specifically about how you welcome your new customers.

A special Onboarding experience takes advantage of Buyer’s euphoria. Making purchase decisions can be tough. There is a sense of relief when the decision is made. This is the time to seize the moment, as soon as the contract is signed or a new customer is registered. Shower your new relationships with love and attention. Reinforce to your new customer that they made the right decision to do business with your company.

Critical components of Onboarding:

Outreach: In general, your customers should feel appreciated. How do you currently say “Welcome, Thank-You-for-your-Business”? Email, cards in the mail or a phone message demonstrates how much you appreciate them.

Set Expectations: I also list this as a Customer Service Basic in a previous post. If your business entails some kind of implementation or project rollout, your welcome letter should include a general guideline of the process and timeline.

Introductions: Depending on your business, you should provide some key points of contact for your new customers. Ensure they have the 800# and the email address. Ensure the end users of your products/services know how to get in touch in the event of problems.

Getting Started: A quick start guide, product/service documentation and online training sessions are all modes of helping your new customers get started, while they are still excited about the new purchase.

Checking In: Do you have a process for ensuring you check-in with your new customers? Do you have a way to ensure your customers are using your new product or service? One of the top metrics I listed in an earlier post is Utilization. If there isn’t rampant use within the first 3 months your new relationship may be at risk.

Ask so they will tell: How are we doing? Finally, if you don’t ask you are not likely to know why this new relationship may be failing. A key element to your overall experience is that you keep asking.

Bringing on new customers and keeping them are your biggest challenges. Give your customers a reason to say “this is the start of a beautiful relationship.” Ultimately you are striving to build long term customer loyalty.

Share what is unique about your Onboarding process.

April 28, 2010August 14, 2022

Be Careful About Proclaiming “Failed Management Movements”!

Last week, I got a call from a consultant who lamented the “failure of all those management movements.” As usual in these conversations, the caller went on to explain how his particular idea was what leaders and managers really needed.

That type of lament seems increasingly common in literature about the need for “transforming organizations” and “transforming society.” I think the lament is simplistic and even reckless.

There have been many major movements and models in management, e.g., scientific management, management by objectives, quality circles, Total Quality Management, Business Process Re-Engineering, One-Minute Managing, Self-Managed Teams … the list goes on.

I assert that many of these movements and models became integrated with the others and that many of them built on each other — they didn’t “fail” any more than a recent addition to a house was a “failure” because more additions were needed, or any more than therapy sessions were a “failure” because the person needed more therapy later on.

I sometimes wonder if the hyperbole from consultants and writers is as dangerous as the situations those people are trying to improve.

What do you think?

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For more resources, see the Library topics Consulting and Organizational Development.

April 28, 2010February 9, 2023

Should Nonprofit CEO Pay Be Based on Outcomes?

Last week, I did a workshop among nonprofit CEO Executive Directors. Some of them expressed great frustration at the exorbitant compensation of CEOs of very large, for-profit companies. They mentioned that many of the companies’ products were very poor quality anyway.

One participant offered a rather novel assertion that the pay of those CEOs should be based on how much customers actually benefited from the companies’ products and services. (She refined her assertion a bit by adding that compensation should also be based on performance of the stock and on some performance goals set by the Board.)

Another participant in the workshop ventured the question, “Then should a nonprofit Executive Director’s pay be based on how many of the outcomes were achieved by participants in the nonprofit’s programs?” (Remember that outcomes are the types of changes achieved by participants in programs, e.g., new knowledge, skills and abilities.)

That question produced a firestorm of indignation and assertions about how nonprofit organizations are very different than for-profits. I asked for a vote to get a sense for how many people believed that the E.D.’s salary should be based, at least in part, on outcomes. Only 2 out of 15 agreed. Then I asked for a vote of how many believed that a for-profit CEO’s salary should be based on some measure of customer benefits — 9 out of 15 agreed that should be the case for for-profit CEOs.

What do you think? Should a nonprofit E.D.’s salary be based somehow on outcomes from programs?

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For more resources, see our Library topic Nonprofit Capacity Building.

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April 28, 2010August 14, 2022

Leadership Development

Introduction to Leadership Development

What is meant by leadership development? In this blog entry leadership development will be discussed as processes for development of leadership capabilities within organizations. This particular submission will focus its overview of leadership development on current trends in the for-profit sector. The primary reason for limiting my entry to the business realm is due to the fact that it’s what I know best. Also, there will be plenty of opportunities to converse on how leadership development practices are employed in other domains, such as academia, government, and non-governmental organizations. And I invite others to share of their experience of this discipline in other contexts. I imagine my co-host Julia will likely have some thoughts on leadership development in the non-profit sector.

Leadership Development Design

The following suggestions are high level and extremely simplified for the sake of some blog brevity. The design of a leadership development processes is slightly more involved than what the following summary might suggest. To start, the design requires an in-depth analysis of the leadership qualities and capabilities an organization requires, now and in the future. These requirements include an understanding of the culture and the type of leaders that tend to thrive in that particular environment. It also involves developing clarity on desired business outcomes and the qualities that an organization anticipates will be required of its leaders to drive these outcomes. Once the desired qualities and capabilities (often classified into competencies) are confirmed, the appropriate leadership development systems and tools can be selected. The majority of leadership development programs include some, if not all, of the following components: mentoring, coaching, assessment, action learning, instruction, and the use of internal leaders as instructors. There also is notable effort being placed on the design of leadership development processes that are more interactive, integrated, globally oriented, and leverage social media technology. These components will be presented in detail in future installments. In the meantime, it would be fitting if anyone wanted to comment on or add to this list.

Keys to Success

In many ways, the key to the design of an effective leadership development process is to assure alignment with the organization’s culture, strategic direction, and the business initiatives considered most critical to future success. Some people might be put off by my not placing more emphasis on individual self-actualization, leadership ethics, and having a positive influence on the world at large. My hope, and intent, is that any development process shall in fact contribute to personal growth (if not transformation), ethical decision making, and a socially responsible outlook. But the best way to assure wide based support and the necessary resources to implement and maintain effective leadership development initiatives is to establish a clear cultural fit and correlation with business imperatives. To this end, there has been concerted effort in recent years to integrate leadership development to human capital systems and develop methods for measuring the impact of the processes on different levels of the business. Of course, the evaluation of impact remains a highly desired, challenging, and somewhat elusive goal for most organizations. The measurement of leadership practices on the bottom line (triple or otherwise) will definitely be discussed further in the near future on this site. But if anyone has any noteworthy perspectives in the topic, feel free to chime in now.