Capital Campaigns #3: Are You Ready For A Capital Campaign?? … A Quick Checklist

board-members-making-a-checklist-before-a-capital-campaign

Being “ready” for a Capital Campaign does not mean that the CEO and/or Board/Staff members have decided they want or need to raise a lot of money.

Being “ready” means that all the elements are in place to assure success if a capital campaign is implemented. An organization/board cannot risk committing to a capital campaign until it is (formally) determined that they are “ready.”

The process of determining readiness, what we call a “Planning Study” (see: The Planning Study … Almost Always The First Step, addresses a number of issues, including:
1. Board Support for the Project — Emotional, Intellectual and Financial:
Do all board members feel strongly about the project; do they agree that
this project is the best way to provide for a specific need in the community;
and, will they support the campaign financially to the best of their ability?
2. Community Support for the Project:
Do the vast majority of community leaders agree that this project is the
best way to provide for a specific need in the community?
3. Competition — Other Regional Campaigns/Projects pending or active that
may detract from your visibility/need and may have a stronger attraction
to your potential donors.
4. Availability of Capable and Willing Campaign Leaders who will set an
example – will they help identify other likely major donors, give
significantly and ask others to do the same?
5. Access to Individuals with Wealth – just having a list of wealthy people
is a waste of time … if you don’t have real access to them,
6. The perception, by the wealthy, that you will satisfy their needs
7. Community perception of the need for your service
8. Community perception of the quality of your service
9. Community perception of how well you manage your money
10. Policies to guide leadership through a campaign
11. Sufficient funding on-hand to pay the expenses of a campaign
12. Sufficient staff with an understanding of the development process … to
support a campaign. To plan for and conduct a capital campaign one
should have the requisite broad experience in development. That’s why
most organizations hire capital campaign counsel to assist … in one or
more aspects of planning, investigation, preparation and implementation.

A properly constructed Planning Study helps to identify potential campaign leadership and prospective major donors, and begins/extends the cultivation and “buy-in” processes necessary to a successful campaign.

(Watch for Part #4 of Capital Campaigns, next Tuesday, November 2nd.)

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we should be able to answer your questions.

After A Crisis

Wooden Building Blocks stacked to make a castle

Although crisis management continues after the crisis is over, its focus must shift

During a crisis, all focus is on the problem at hand. The problem that some encounter, though, is that they continue to dwell on the situation after it has ended, rather than strengthening themselves, shoring up holes, and moving on. In a recent interview for Black Enterprise Magazine, Dawn Angelique Roberts, managing partner of KD Communications Group, gave some advice on how to do just that:

“Have a plan for when the crisis is over,” says Roberts. “Talk about what you/the company is doing now, what positive things you’re working on and have planned for the future. [If applicable,] talk about what you’re going to do to fix the incident or situation after the fact. Don’t concentrate on what just happened.”

Remember, crisis management, if done right, can actually result in organizations or individuals coming out stronger than they were before they landed in hot water. By taking the opportunity to not only apologize, but show stakeholders how you are ensuring there will not be such a crisis again, you build trust and a start a rapport that will ultimately strengthen your reputation.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

Maintaining the Delicate Balance between Leadership and Management

Business management professionals having a roundtable meeting

This is a guest post from Dr. Greg Waddell.

Management and Leadership are two very different systems of human behavior. Both are essential to the success of an organization; yet, like the repulsing polarity of two magnets, they push against one another and, if not kept in balance, can end up ejecting one or the other causing great damage to the organization and its people. It is difficult, yet necessary, to maintain both strong leadership and strong management simultaneously.

People are naturally reluctant to step into change and the discomfort we experience when we find ourselves in the midst of ambiguity. Much of what we call “organization” is the struggle to reign in that ambiguity and bring things back to a state of equilibrium. Management is about developing systems and processes that enable us to take dominion over chaos. It is an attempt to create a semblance of order and constancy in an inherently complex situation. It’s about designing plans and systems for monitoring progress and controlling outcomes. It involves solving problems, giving reports, having meetings, and developing policies, all for the purpose of bringing things to a place of efficiency, where the ambiguity is dispelled and people can feel comfortable again.

The problem is that, in a rapidly-changing environment, equilibrium can be deadly. The external environment today is a bit like whitewater rafting. To survive, you have to constantly shift your weight from one side of the raft to the other, thrust your paddle first to the left and then to the right, or use it to push off a rapidly approaching rock. This is when you need leadership rather than management.

Leadership is about change. It’s about helping the organization define its vision, one that can take advantage of opportunities and avoid oncoming threats. It’s about challenging people to grow and to unleash their yet untapped potential. It’s about inspiring people to step into uncharted territory. Leaders get nervous when things are running too smoothly; often introducing innovative ideas just to stir things up a bit. CEO, Renato Beninatto of Milengo, a translation and localization industry, uses the term “chief instigator” to describe his job. Whereas managers constantly try to adjust to change, leaders are in the business of producing change.

It’s important to understand that both are necessary for success. Unfortunately, some organizations I have been acquainted with continue to value management over leadership. In these situations, the leadership function can be mistakenly identified as subversive to the organization’s welfare. The call for unity is often a demand that those with innovative thoughts keep them to themselves. The status quo is confused with the sacred. If organizations are to stay afloat and thrive in today’s volatile environment, they must recognize that leadership is essential. In the Bible there is a saying about putting new wine into old wineskins and thus causing the wineskins to burst because they lack flexibility. The new wine must be put into new wineskins. Management tries to hold the wine in a manageable form. Leadership is the process of changing from the old, dried-out, leaky wineskins to the new, more resilient, more adjustable forms.

You can email Dr. Greg Waddell at DrGregWaddell@gmail.com, Also, see his website at www.SpiritOfOrganization.com

What Does a Healthy Board Look Like? (Nonprofit and For-Profit)

There has been an extensive amount of research and sharing of opinions about what makes for a highly effective Board. Asking what a healthy Board looks like is akin to asking what a healthy person looks like or how much a car costs. It all depends.

Yet for the sake of furthering your understanding of Boards, it might be useful to consider at least one description. One of the most useful, yet not overly constricting descriptions, is offered in the book The Executive Director’s Survival Guide (Mim Carlson and Margaret Donohoe, John Wiley and Sons, 2005, p. 95). With minor modifications, the authors’ descriptions are as applicable to for-profits as nonprofits. The authors assert that the attributes of an effective Board include:

  • Focus on, and passion for, the mission, and a commitment to setting and achieving vision. Board members realize that one of their most important jobs is to verify that their nonprofit is indeed meeting the community need that the nonprofit was formed to meet. (For a for-profit, the Board’s passion should be ensuring that the organization’s products and services are indeed meeting the needs and wants of customers — otherwise, sales will decrease.)
  • Clear responsibilities that refrain Board members from micro-managing. [Micro-managing is when members are so involved in the details of management that they 1) damage operations because staff are continually updating members with trivial information, and 2) do not sufficiently attend to strategic matters of top-level policies and plans.]
  • Desire of Board members to work together, listen to diverse views and build consensus.
  • Flexible structure that changes to fit the organization’s life cycle and priorities.
  • An understanding of, and ability to shape, the organization’s culture.
  • An interest in knowing the good, bad and uncertain about the organization, and commitment to resolving its issues.
  • Commitment to self-reflection and evaluation, with clear expectations and each member’s accountability to meet them.

Other authors mention overall features of a high-performing Board, for example, that it has:

  • Governance – Board members employing very effective practices to establish the organization’s purpose and priorities, and ensuring they are effectively and efficiently addressed for maximum benefit of stakeholders (clients, customers, investors, funders, collaborators, government agencies, etc.).
  • Diligence – All Board members consistently attending to their duties of care and loyalty, with full attention, participation and responsibilities in all deliberations, decisions and interactions with stakeholders.
  • Transparency – Board members always providing full disclosure and explanation of the organization’s governance and financial information to support stakeholders’ efforts to understand that information.
  • Accountability – Board members continually making their organization and themselves responsible to 1) conform to relevant laws, rules and regulations; and to 2) meet the expectations of stakeholders, and continually verifying with those stakeholders that their expectations are indeed being met.

(There is much more information about Boards in the Free Complete Toolkit for Boards.)

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.

10 Benefits of Managing Ethics in the Workplace

Benefits of managing ethics in the workplace

Many people are used to reading or hearing of the moral benefits of attention to business ethics. However, there are other types of benefits, as well. The following list describes various types of benefits from managing ethics in the workplace.

An image of showing business ethics.

1. Attention to business ethics has substantially improved society.

A matter of decades ago, children in our country worked 16-hour days. Workers’ limbs were torn off and disabled workers were condemned to poverty and often to starvation. Trusts controlled some markets to the extent that prices were fixed and small businesses choked out. Price fixing crippled normal market forces. Employees were terminated based on personalities. Influence was applied through intimidation and harassment. Then society reacted and demanded that businesses place high value on fairness and equal rights. Anti-trust laws were instituted. Government agencies were established. Unions were organized. Laws and regulations were established.

2. Ethics programs help maintain a moral course in turbulent times.

Attention to business ethics is critical during times of fundamental change — times much like those faced now by businesses, both nonprofit or for-profit. During times of change, there is often no clear moral compass to guide leaders through complex conflicts about what is right or wrong. Continuing attention to ethics in the workplace sensitizes leaders and staff to how they want to act — consistently.

3. Ethics programs cultivate strong teamwork and productivity.

Ethics programs align employee behaviors with those top priority ethical values preferred by leaders of the organization. Usually, an organization finds surprising disparity between its preferred values and the values actually reflected by behaviors in the workplace. Ongoing attention and dialogue regarding values in the workplace builds openness, integrity and community — critical ingredients of strong teams in the workplace. Employees feel strong alignment between their values and those of the organization. They react with strong motivation and performance.

4. Ethics programs support employee growth and meaning.

Attention to ethics in the workplace helps employees face reality, both good and bad — in the organization and themselves. Employees feel full confidence they can admit and deal with whatever comes their way. Bennett, in his article “Unethical Behavior, Stress Appear Linked” (Wall Street Journal, April 11, 1991, p. B1), explained that a consulting company tested a range of executives and managers. Their most striking finding: the more emotionally healthy executives, as measured on a battery of tests, the more likely they were to score high on ethics tests.

5. Ethics programs are an insurance policy — they help ensure that policies are legal.

There is an increasing number of lawsuits in regard to personnel matters and to effects of an organization’s services or products on stakeholders. As mentioned earlier in this document, ethical principles are often state-of-the-art legal matters. These principles are often applied to current, major ethical issues to become legislation. Attention to ethics ensures highly ethical policies and procedures in the workplace. It’s far better to incur the cost of mechanisms to ensure ethical practices now than to incur costs of litigation later. A major intent of well-designed personnel policies is to ensure ethical treatment of employees, e.g., in matters of hiring, evaluating, disciplining, firing, etc. Drake and Drake (California Management Review, V16, pp. 107-123) note that “an employer can be subject to suit for breach of contract for failure to comply with any promise it made, so the gap between stated corporate culture and actual practice has significant legal, as well as ethical implications.”

An image of a man and a woman holding puzzle  and a woman sits while working with her laptop.

6. Ethics programs help avoid criminal acts “of omission” and can lower fines.

Ethics programs tend to detect ethical issues and violations early on so they can be reported or addressed. In some cases, when an organization is aware of an actual or potential violation and does not report it to the appropriate authorities, this can be considered a criminal act, e.g., in business dealings with certain government agencies, such as the Defense Department. The recent Federal Sentencing Guidelines specify major penalties for various types of major ethics violations. However, the guidelines potentially lowers fines if an organization has clearly made an effort to operate ethically.

7. Ethics programs help manage values associated with quality management, strategic planning and diversity management — this benefit needs far more attention.

Ethics programs identify preferred values and ensuring organizational behaviors are aligned with those values. This effort includes recording the values, developing policies and procedures to align behaviors with preferred values, and then training all personnel about the policies and procedures. This overall effort is very useful for several other programs in the workplace that require behaviors to be aligned with values, including quality management, strategic planning and diversity management. Total Quality Management includes high priority on certain operating values, e.g., trust among stakeholders, performance, reliability, measurement, and feedback. Eastman and Polaroid use ethics tools in their quality programs to ensure integrity in their relationships with stakeholders. Ethics management techniques are highly useful for managing strategic values, e.g., expand marketshare, reduce costs, etc. McDonnell Douglas integrates their ethics programs into their strategic planning process. Ethics management programs are also useful in managing diversity. Diversity is much more than the color of people’s skin — it’s acknowledging different values and perspectives. Diversity programs require recognizing and applying diverse values and perspectives — these activities are the basis of a sound ethics management program.

8. Ethics programs promote a strong public image.

Attention to ethics is also strong public relations — admittedly, managing ethics should not be done primarily for reasons of public relations. But, frankly, the fact that an organization regularly gives attention to its ethics can portray a strong positive to the public. People see those organizations as valuing people more than profit, as striving to operate with the utmost of integrity and honor. Aligning behavior with values is critical to effective marketing and public relations programs. Consider how Johnson and Johnson handled the Tylenol crisis versus how Exxon handled the oil spill in Alaska. Bob Dunn, President and CEO of San Francisco-based Business for Social Responsibility, puts it best: “Ethical values, consistently applied, are the cornerstones in building a commercially successful and socially responsible business.”

9. Overall benefits of ethics programs:

Donaldson and Davis, in “Business Ethics? Yes, But What Can it Do for the Bottom Line?” (Management Decision, V28, N6, 1990) explain that managing ethical values in the workplace legitimizes managerial actions, strengthens the coherence and balance of the organization’s culture, improves trust in relationships between individuals and groups, supports greater consistency in standards and qualities of products, and cultivates greater sensitivity to the impact of the enterprise’s values and messages.

10. Last – and most — formal attention to ethics in the workplace is the right thing to do.

What do you think?

(There is much more about ethics and social responsibility in that topic in the Free Management Library.)

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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.

Envision Your Highest Dreams

White mug on a wooden desk with the inscription "have a dream"

Many people move through life without stopping to think about where they are going. And as we learned in Alice in Wonderland, ‘if you don’t know where you’re going any road will take you there.’ With a clear vision of what your highest dreams are you can start to put the pieces of your life together to build it . It may take years for that vision to be realized. The important piece is that you have a vision. You can always update or refine your vision as new life experiences unfold.

Everyone can experience the magnificent expression of who they are by answering their soul’s deeper calling. A quote attributed to Martin Buber “where you heart’s deepest yearning and the world’s deepest hunger meet is sacred ground.” In order to get clear on what you can envision for your life you have to step beyond where you are now. Suspend for some period of time “what is” in your life and open your horizons to what can be.

What is your greatest expression of your heart’s desire?

Spend some time every week focusing on this question. You may want to do some journaling around this question. Other ways to open up to your heart’s desire include movement or repetitive exercise such as jogging, swimming, or dancing. Guided imagery or visualizations are good techniques to still the mind and call forth the deeper wisdom within you. Meditation or breath work are also good methods of clearing away the chatter and letting the deeper truths of your life emerge. Sometimes just listening to really inspiring or beautiful music will move you to a sensation or insight that opens the door for greater clarity. There are almost infinite ways that you can open yourself to allow the deeper stirrings to come to the surface. The main point is structuring some time in your week and life to pay attention to the messages from within.

Let us know what bubbles up for you this week.

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

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Linda is an author, speaker, coach, and consultant. Go to her website www.lindajferguson.com to read more about her work, view video clips of her talks, and find out more about her book “Path for Greatness: Spirituality at Work” available on Amazon.

Ask HR- Reference in the Resume

A-resume-with-a-chart-on-a-paper

I was recently asked my opinion of using a referral pane on a resume. You can view a sample of the resume by clicking here Reference Resume Sample

My opinion is that this is too difficult for a recruiter to scan. If you resume makes into the hands of recruiter or hiring manager once the Applicant Tracking System scans and ranks it, it only has a few seconds to sell your qualifications to get moved to yes or event the maybe pile. When I scan a resume, I need to know what did you do, where did you do it, and how can you help my company achieve its goals in 30 seconds or less. During the scanning process, I am not interested in who you got to say great things about you.

Another resume that doesn’t lend itself to quick scanning is the one will all the cool designs and bold colors. Unless I am hiring a graphic artist, I don’t need funky fonts, colors or shapes. I need a resume that concisely tells how you match our needs. It is as simple as that. (And if I were hiring a graphic artist, I would expect to see a portfolio in a format such as Acrobat or other software that you would be expected to use on the job.)

Another question I frequently get is about the cover letter. Should I bother to send one? The answer is yes. While some recruiters may never look at it, my guess is someone in the hiring process will. However, if you are going to send one, use the T-format.

Listed Job Requirement Your matched skill/experience
Knowledge of ADDIE Used ADDIE method to design corporate leadership training program that resulted in a 100% performance improvement in two departments.

And If you really feel it is necessary to add those recommendations, add another column to your T.

Listed Job Requirement Your matched skill/experience Recommendation
Knowledge of ADDIE Used ADDIE method to design corporate leadership training program that resulted in a 100% performance improvement in two departments. “program provided me the skills needed to help my team reach their goals”
Listed Job Requirement Your matched skill/experience Result
Knowledge of ADDIE Used ADDIE method to design corporate leadership training program. 100% performance improvement in multiple departments.

But if you want to standout even more, use the other column to show your results. That is what I really want to talk about.

What do you think? Your comments are welcomed and encouraged.

For more resources, See the Human Resources library.

Sheri Mazurek is a training and human resource professional with over 16 years of management experience, and is skilled in all areas of employee management and human resource functions, with a specialty in learning and development. She is available to help you with your Human Resources and Training needs on a contract basis. For more information send an email to smazurek0615@gmail.com or visit www.sherimazurek.com. Follow me on twitter @Sherimaz.

Capital Campaigns – Part #2: What They’re Not

businesswoman-convincing-donors-on-the-benefits-of-investing-their-money-

• A capital campaign is not a “fundraiser.” It is as far beyond a dinner event as building a motorcycle is beyond building a skateboard.

• A capital campaign is not for the faint of heart. In conducting a capital campaign, an organization puts its credibility and its future on the line.

It is one of, if not THE most important and risky things a nonprofit organization will ever do !! Should a campaign fail — as many do (because of poor planning, lack of long-term preparation, inadequate fundraising skill and/or insufficient campaign experience), an organization’s credibility and future fundraising prospects can be harmed, irreparably.

• A Capital Campaign is not (for the most part) about the needs of the NPO. It’s mostly about the needs of the potential donors. The question is, in essence, “What will the donor get by gifting/committing a large sum of money to support a specific project?

• A Capital Campaign is not for Public Awareness … until you’re ready to announce the campaign. And you don’t announce a campaign until (at least) 60% of the goal has been reached – 80% is better, 100% is best. (More on this, later). You don’t even discuss the possibility of a campaign outside of the organization’s leadership.

In the context of public awareness, a capital campaign should be pretty much completed before there is any groundbreaking or other visual sign that there is or will be a need to raise money. Beginning the project that the campaign will fund, before the campaign begins, (strongly) suggests that the organization already has most-or-all of the needed funding.

• Capital campaigns cannot be an excuse to raise a lot of money – there must be a goal that relates to specific URGENT needs.

• A capital campaign is not an effort that should be taken on by the inexperienced, even after reading my entire series of postings on the subject.

Capital campaigns are a synthesis of everything else we do in development; but, because much of it takes place in a relatively short timeframe, and because so much more is at risk, the skills and experience required to design and implement these efforts must be at a level much higher than those needed for ongoing fundraising.

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Have a comment or a question about starting or expanding your basic fundraising program, your major gifts fundraising program or a capital campaign? Email me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll likely be able to answer your questions.

Chevron Gets Pranked

Helicopter on top of a chevron gasoline station

The latest trend in attacks presents new crisis management challenges

You’ve probably already heard of the fake Chevron PR campaign, an elaborate and temporarily effective attack by activists. For those that missed it, the elaborate prank, whose aim was to draw attention to questionable environmental practices, involved not only a fake website, but an entire series of false documents, including press releases featuring made up quotes from Chevron officials, and even a spoofed Ad Age Web page reporting on the story. This type of attack is becoming more and more common, and is likely to continue growing in popularity as more are successful. Here is one expert’s view of the future, from an AdAge.com article about the incident:

“It’s an increasingly troubling issue,” said Gene Grabowski, senior VP, Levick Strategic Communications. “We live in a time when some of the most trusted names in news are satire shows like ‘The Daily Show,’ ‘The Onion’ and ‘The Colbert Report.’ We live in an era where satire is now the news source for people. And recently Mr. Colbert testified before congress, so increasingly consumers don’t know the difference between satire, comedy and news, so it’s only natural that individuals and organizations who want to take advantage of that would launch mock PR campaigns.”

Mr. Grabowski said companies will have an uphill battle trying to combat these pranks. “It’s like a thumb trap, the more the company tries to defend itself, the more it becomes part of the story and that makes it more interesting. The company being attacked can’t effectively fight back itself and that’s why these tactics are so effective.”

These types of attacks present a serious crisis management concern, as even when consumers recognize that they are fake, they are usually presented in such a slick and entertaining manner that they are shared among peers, and, with the vast majority of that sharing happening online, they have a dangerous propensity for going viral.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

Appreciation for Appreciative Leadership

Silhouette of people following their leader on a hill

Bias for Appreciative Leadership

This blog entry – consistent with my entry from October 7 — is a commentary on Whitney, Trosten-Bloom, and Rader’s book Appreciative Leadership: Focus on What Works to Drive Winning Performance and Build a Thriving Organization. I want to be transparent about my biases related to this current series of blog entries on Appreciative Leadership (AL). I am a big advocate and believer in Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and have been using it in my work with organizations for many years. I have also been trained in AI by Amanda, Diana, David Cooperrider, and numerous other AI thought and practice leaders. Now while my wholehearted faith in the principles of AI might predispose me to an automatically favorable response to AL, having a strong familiarity with AI should also equip me to proffer an informed, honest, and critical analysis of the author’s integration of AI into a leadership model. I hope that this balance of bias and knowledge will make for some worthwhile and helpful commentary.

In a nutshell, I am really pleased with AL as a leadership model. My opinion is that AL, and the Five Core Strategies in particular, provide a wonderful framework that consultants can use in leadership development, executive coaching, succession planning, organizations change, and a myriad of other areas. My initial reaction to reading the AL book was to assess how consistent the model was with the core principles of AI itself. Once satisfied that there was indeed a high level of alignment, my second response — not unlike that of Shona Garner in her response to my original blog on AL – was to assess how clear, tangible, and applicable the core elements of AL might be to leaders and this consultants, like myself, that work with leaders. In my estimation, the AL model of leadership put forth by Amanda and her co-authors provides a coherent and accessible initial framework that is nicely grounded in theory, examples (aka stories), and competencies (i.e. knowledge, skills, abilities, and qualities). I would like to provide a quick overview of some of the KSAQs that are explicit (or that I am interpreting as KSAQs) in the Five Core Strategies as outlined by Amanda in her October 13 blog entry.

Strategy 1: Inquiry

  • Emphasizes “asking” over “telling”
  • Employs purposefully positive and value-based questions
  • Invites people to share thoughts, feelings, stories of success and ideas for the future
  • Cultivates environments in which people feel both empowered to make decisions and take risks, and encouraged to learn, experiment, and innovate

Strategy 2: Illumination

  • Actively seeks to discover the unique skills, abilities strengths and positive potential of every person and situation
  • Looks and listens for what works, when individuals and groups are operating at their best
  • Share stories of success and disseminates best practices
  • Anticipates and at seeks to fulfill people’s need for recognition and celebration
  • Aligns strengths by providing opportunities for people to do more of what they do well
  • Finds opportunities to facilitate collaboration with others whose strengths are complementary

Strategy 3: Inclusion

  • Acknowledges and addresses people’s need for belonging and creativity
  • Brings diverse groups of people “to the table” for crucial decisions and planning
  • Engages people in a manner that fosters safety and encourages equal voice
  • Accommodates conversational differences
  • Enables people to contribute in ways that are both comfortable and empowering

Strategy 4: Inspiration

  • Acts in ways that are energetically positive
  • Uses elevated language and broadly shares uplifting stories
  • Puts forth visions of what’s possible or “hopeful visions”
  • Provides the resources and paths for attaining the “hopeful visions

Strategy 5: Integrity

  • Demonstrates honesty, transparency, authenticity, and moral or ethical conduct
  • Employs holistic approaches to support the authentic expression of human potential, and to foster the design of life-affirming products, services and organization
  • Makes conscious choices to serve the whole (i.e., whole person, whole organization, whole world), and encourage or empowers others to do the same
  • Encourages and expects others know they are expected to give their best for the greater good

Conclusion

I hope is okay with Amanda that I have attempted to create a bullet-pointed delineation of the Five Core Strategies. It is my default setting at this point in my career to try and simplify and functionalize any leadership approach. I am sure that this is an inadequate attempt to achieve this goal and would be interested of Amanda, or others, think that I am capturing some of the key KSAQs of AL.

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Steve Wolinski provides leadership development, organizational change and talent management services to numerous public, private and non-profit organizations. Website, Email.