=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Have you heard about The Fundraising Series of ebooks?
They’re easy to read, to the point, and inexpensive ($1.99-$4.99)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Have a comment or a question about starting, evaluating
or expanding your fundraising program? AskHank
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= We’ve been posting these pieces for the last five years,
and we’re now at a point where, to keep this resource alive,
we need your questions/problems to engender further discussion.
Look forward to hearing from you. Comments & Questions
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If you’re reading this on-line, and would like to comment/expand on the above piece, or would just like to offer your thoughts on the subject of this posting, we encourage you to “Leave a Reply.” If you’re reading this as an email, and you want to comment on the above piece, email Comments to offer your thoughts. Your comments, with appropriate attribution, could be the basis of a new posting.
The holidays are a massive season for retailers, but did you realize many other organizations face added reputation risk from their own customers in the season as well? Time is short, folks feel frenzied, and that means patience is at a low. That irritated individual who just walked out the door because someone misspoke or they felt their wait was a minute too long is quite likely to pull out their smartphone and immediately post a scathing statement on review sites or social media, meaning you need to be on your toes.
For more compelling reasons why it pays to keep tabs on your reputation, check out this infographic from MovingTargets:
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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A recent email described changes to the structure/function of the different departments in an organization’s development office, noted that a development office should function on the basis of “what’s best for the donor,” and asked that I comment (approve/disapprove) of what was described. I responded….
I understand/accept that the structure/functioning of your organization’s development operation is not the best, but if you’re asking me to comment on that structure and how it functions, I can’t.
For the audits of nonprofit development operations that I’ve done, I’ve had to be there, make the observations and do the interviews, to be able to suggest what if anything was wrong and how to correct it.
I’d be a fool to suggest changes in an operation with which I’ve had no substantive relationship.
Regarding your reference to a development office functioning on the basis of “what’s best for the donor,” that’s not exactly the optimum perspective for a development operation.
Of course an ideal development operation must take the needs of its donors into consideration … and do what it can to satisfy those needs. I have always emphasized that development (the building and maintaining of relationships aspect of the process) is about the needs of the donor.
Not everything in a development operation is about “what’s best for the donor.” Some things have to be about what’s best for the development operation and the nonprofit that it serves.
Determining what’s best for the development operation requires serious research and (sometimes) trial-and-error. And, no one (in this case, meaning me) can make a judgment about such an operation without that live-on-site research….
And, btw, there is no one-system-fits-all development organization. What works for one nonprofit may-or-may-not work for another.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Have you heard about The Fundraising Series of ebooks?
They’re easy to read, to the point, and inexpensive ($1.99-$4.99)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Have a comment or a question about starting, evaluating
or expanding your fundraising program? AskHank
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= We’ve been posting these pieces for the last five years,
and we’re now at a point where, to keep this resource alive,
we need your questions/problems to engender further discussion.
Look forward to hearing from you. Comments & Questions
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
If you’re reading this on-line, and would like to comment/expand on the above piece, or would just like to offer your thoughts on the subject of this posting, we encourage you to “Leave a Reply.” If you’re reading this as an email, and you want to comment on the above piece, email Comments to offer your thoughts. Your comments, with appropriate attribution, could be the basis of a new posting.
At $200 million, the fine handed down by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is the largest civil penalty in that organization’s history. In a scathing statement, the NHTSA took Takata to task for failing to issue a timely recall and allegedly cherry picking test data to deceive regulators among other faults.
“For years, Takata has built and sold defective products, refused to acknowledge the defect, and failed to provide full information to NHTSA, its customers, or the public,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “The result of that delay and denial has harmed scores of consumers and caused the largest, most complex safety recall in history. Today’s actions represent aggressive use of NHTSA’s authority to clean up these problems and protect public safety.”
In the wake of this announcement Honda, Takata’s single largest client, dropped the manufacturer, stating that, “Honda expects its suppliers to act with integrity at all times and we are deeply troubled by this apparent behavior by one of our suppliers.”
The past couple years have seen hefty fines laid on several major auto-industry players as a result of what very much appears to be deliberate deception regarding everything from faulty parts to reporting on deaths and injuries. While the massive size of the organizations involved means paying out millions isn’t always as painful as those doling out the penalties may hope, lawmakers are beginning to agitate for those responsible to face time behind bars, a situation that has the industry panicking (and spending millions on lobbying to stop it from happening).
The time to sweep things under the rug is clearly coming to an end. If the auto industry wants to avoid seeing even higher fines and, eventually, executives jailed for their actions, a change must come.
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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– See more at: https://staging.management.org/blogs/crisis-management/2015/11/11/a-dash-of-reputation-management-for-penzeys-spices/#sthash.vh3Ru0TI.dpuf
Take Back Control and Make Better Decisions Online
Have you ever stopped to consider how many hours you spend in front of a computer screen each day? Or how such prolonged computer interaction deeply influences us, especially in subconscious ways?
Most of us may be just too busy to be aware of the visual biases and behavioral patterns that influence us while we absorb and process information on a screen – hour after hour, after day, after week, and so on. The most sophisticated marketers strategically design their content and Calls To Action, and know exactly how to design a web page that leads us to make the decisions they want us to make.
Businesses can influence customers—for better or for worse—by something as simple as how their web or mobile sites are designed, where information is placed, the colors and white space used, and how products are described. Some companies that do this well, while others do it less so well (Amazon is one of the worst!)
Online vs. Offline Decisions
You may be surprised to learn that the choices, decisions and purchases you make online can be very different from the choices you would make offline. Those strategically planned online influences often lead us to make decisions that we might not make offline – even if they are ultimately expensive or harmful.
For instance:
You’re more likely to add bacon to a pizza order if you’re online.
You will probably get lower scores if you take the SAT on a computer.
You might buy an item located on a screen ‘hotspot’, even if better options are available.
You’ll probably overvalue a product you’re considering, if you shop using a touchscreen.
You Can Consciously Make Better Decisions Online
“I have devoted my career to studying the mistakes people make so that we might learn to avoid them.” In his latest game-changing book, Shlomo Benartzi, behavioral economist and UCLA professor, researched and recently published, The Smarter Screen: Surprising Ways to Influence and Improve Online Behavior
His mission is to help individuals make better decisions online.
Benartzi writes about the many ways our brains process information differently on a screen versus in real life, and the impact these differences can have on our buying habits, health, financial planning, and more.
Benefits of THE SMARTER SCREEN
“This book is about how we think on screens” Benartzi summarizes. It’s a book about behavioral solutions and practical tools that can improve our digital lives. Using stories and case studies, we learn how profoundly we are affected, and even further, how to anticipate the marketers’ and designers’ intent.
Benartzi offers specific tools for triggering behavioral attention on screens. We learn how webpage design can make us smarter. And think better – in order to empower our own actions and succumb less to the intended manipulation.
Can THE SMARTER SCREEN initiate meaningful, sustainable change?
Possible Scope of Change – a Billion People?
“… My hope is that we can use the scale of technology to bring more fixes to more people …. using the reach of the digital world to quickly contact vast numbers of people with minimal effort” offers Benartzi. “In fact, influencing behavior on screens can be so efficient and effective that I believe we have a chance to help a billion people think smarter and choose wiser. That’s right: billion. With a b.”
The end result is that we need to update our behavioral toolkit for the digital age. This book will give you the tools you need now, at least if you want to nudge people the right way on screens.
It’s Time Has Arrived
It’s high time that consumers, business workers and the public in general become aware of these powerful and largely manipulative influences in order to make decisions in our own best interest, whether individual or business.
It’s time to raise our awareness, our consciousness, and think more independently on-screen.
An Action Plan is very involved and detailed as it has to justify its proposal, strategy, and design. When you have to perform a task that involves a particular population, how do you communicate and create an action plan? The Technical Writer involved has to have meetings to gather information and as always, with any documentation, create an outline or a mapping depicting what items are associated to one another.
An example of an outline that would need to be created, is as follows:
The Acknowledgements
List the key players up front. List the directors, community, partners, consultants, etc., involved in developing the subject matter. Note down their involvement and participation in creating this plan.
The Table of Contents
Create a Table of Contents denoting the breakdown of the content. Include the location of the Executive Summary, Introduction; Overview, Goals, Benefits, Costs, Future Plans, etc. Include the following:
Figures – list the title and location of diagrams, graphs and charts showing trends, comparison of values, distribution, etc. Be sure to illustrate data points over time periods.
Tables – list the title and location of tables describing events and/or tables that clarify and compare items, facts, figures, etc.
Appendix – list any additional reports, references, or addendum to the action plan.
The Executive Summary
Create a short but concise explanation of the action plan. Include its purpose and note reasons why this report was created. Also include the goal as well as the budget needed to complete the project.
The Introduction
Within the introduction, provide:
Overview of the action plan – an outline giving a rundown of what will be done.
Reason behind the plan – the why and the goal.
The Overview
Create a summary and explain the plan for the population that will be affected. Describe what exists, what is needed, the strategy, and the future outcome.
Definitions – Define terms that need to be clarified, such as explaining the situation that caused the problem or any needed technical explanations.
Current environment – Note what currently exists. Justify the action required. How did this come about? What analysis was done? List all the various types of analysis completed. Next, note what the findings were, and also include any evidence that exists to justify your point.
Approach – State how the conclusion or plan was derived. Get estimates. Note what was checked, such as how did you know what was needed and what was needed to be investigated? Note also what prerequisites, requirements, conditions, and obligations are needed before any action can take place.
Future – State what the future holds. What will happen in the future from this new action? What can affect this change – increased traffic, population, decreasing prices?
Next month, the Goals segment of the action plan will be presented. It is not easy to create an ‘Action Plan’. It is very extensive and a lot of work has to go into its creation.
Hope this beginning section has been most helpful. And, as with any documentation, be precise and exact.
If you have previously created an action plan, please add to this content. Thank you.
Everyone makes mistakes, and although the public is quick to punish they’re also quick to forgive if you truly show you understand your error and are working to correct it. An email we received from the spice purveyors at Penzeys showed a great understanding of this fact, an example we wanted to share with you:
This has been a breakthrough year for us, but along the way there have been a few glitches. At times the things I’ve done have crashed our website, overwhelmed our ability to get mail orders out the door or, with the Curry/Cocoa weekend, caused far more people to visit our stores than we thought possible. I really am sorry. We really don’t want anyone to have a bad experience.So to try and make it up to you, here’s a free half cup jar of your choice. To make sure I don’t overwhelm everyone here, once again we’ve made this “with $10 spending” and excluded Vanilla & Saffron items and Extracts. Still, if you are coming in to pick up a few things for Thanksgiving I’m hoping this will help.Simply bring the coupon below to one of our stores. Or visit us online at Penzeys.com
Spend a minimum of $10, select the coupon item you’d like to receive by entering the SKU number into the coupon code field, followed by the letter C. Example: 12345C. It’s easy.
And even if you missed all the glitches, please feel free to use this coupon. Our growth seems to be accelerating, so just in case another glitch arrives we’ll have you covered 🙂
Demonstrating you know what went wrong, making amends that are equal to the difficulty your issues placed on stakeholders, and communicating it all in a clear and upfront manner. Sometimes, it really is that simple.
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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– See more at: https://staging.management.org/blogs/crisis-management/2015/10/30/zendaya-modeliste-and-a-lesson-in-reputation-management/#sthash.szASmeNx.dpuf
A participant in a listserve observed that ”the realm of ‘planning’ is (often) made infinitely more complicated because different words are used to mean the same thing and the same words are used to mean different things.”
Indeed, there is great diversity in the use of terms like “visioning,” “mission” and “strategic planning.” So I go back to my basic training in development — 40+ years ago — to address the issue at hand.
Early on, it was explained that the term “campaign” came from the military, as do the terms/concepts of “strategy” and “tactics.”
Where “strategy” and “strategic” (as in planning) have come to common usage in business and development, “tactics” has yet to gain wide- (if any) usage.
Strategy is/was defined as “planning and directing large-scale military operations … of maneuvering forces into the most advantageous position prior to actual engagement with the enemy.” The common usage in the for-profit and non-profit communities is a derivative of that definition.
The military definition of “tactics” refers to arranging/maneuvering with reference to short-term objectives or immediate needs … and adapting to circumstances.
Strategy is a focus on the long view, and tactics looks at how to apply the strategies in the short term.
Leadership is responsible for formulation of strategy (strategic plans), using whatever resources needed for that process — including staff, in many (but not necessarily all) cases.
Staff then takes their “marching orders” from the strategic plan, and defines how they will make it work in the day-to-day reality. Where staff is not responsible for the strategy (Strategic Plan), they are responsible for the developing the tactics that translate the “concept” into “reality.”
Quoting another listserve participant: “My opinion regarding strategies and goals for a strategic plan is that they go out no more than 3-5 years. And I view tactical or operational plans (I actually call them “Action Plans”) as 1 year in length … at the most”
Part of the confusion is the use the term “strategic planning” to refer to both, long-range and short-term. I just thought that a different term could help clear the air.
I would add … that those who do not do Tactical Planning or “Action Planning” (no matter what they call it) are unlikely to achieve their strategic goals.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Want to learn more about The Basic Concepts of Fundraising? The Fundraising Series of ebooks?
are easy to read, to the point, and inexpensive ($1.99-$4.99)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= We’ve been posting these pieces for the last five years,
and we’re now at a point where, to keep this “blog” alive,
we need your questions/problems to engender further discussion.
Look forward to hearing from you. Comments & Questions
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Have a question about starting, evaluating or expanding
your fundraising program? AskHank
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
New additions to the Bernstein Crisis Management Resource Library
We love to remember those who helped us learn by sharing our own knowledge with the community. Recently, we decided to start giving away the formerly $10 PDF version of Jonathan Bernstein’s media training manual, Keeping the Wolves at Bay. Now, from Bernstein Crisis Management’s Home Page, you can choose to download the media training manual or any of these three free valuable resources:
Crisis Communications Preparedness Checklist – a self-examination by which any organization can determine its readiness to communicate effectively during a crisis.
Public Affairs Preparedness Checklist – a self-examination by which any organization can determine its readiness to community with key influencers, community leaders, elected officials, etc.
“30 Lessons from 30 Years of Crisis Management” – de facto, a Best Practices in Crisis Management primer for any organization.
We appreciate you reading, and of course feedback is welcomed!
When you are faced with the most important and strategic decision of your life, where can you go for wisdom? Can you find insight in a book of history? Facing a world in crisis, John F. Kennedy did just that.
Generally, we learn skills by trying something, failing, and trying again until we get it right. That’s a conundrum for strategic decision-makers, because the opportunity to make strategic decisions comes around rarely, and failure at the strategic level can be devastating. The realm of Strategy, more than any other discipline, must be learned by watching and learning from the decisions of others.
In 1962, President Kennedy was confronted with the greatest decision of his era. Intelligence-gathering aircraft over Cuba confirmed the presence of missiles there that meant Cuba would soon have capability for launching a nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland.
The situation was unprecedented. Moreover, just a year before, Kennedy’s team of advisers had failed to provide him with sound advice, leaving him to blunder into the “Bay of Pigs” disaster, widely seen as one of the most significant strategic failures in American history.
Kennedy turned to his interest in history for wisdom. As it happened, JFK had recently read Barbara Tuchman’s Pulitzer Prize winning book on the antecedents and beginning of World War I called The Guns of August.
A particularly compelling passage in Tuchman’s book describes how the critical moment arrived for Kaiser Wilhelm as he was to give the go-ahead for Germany’s well-planned attack on France through the neutral country of Belgium. In the middle of a sleepless night, the Kaiser had a change of heart… second thoughts.. cold feet. After all, pulling the trigger on what was called the “Schlieffen Plan” would mean an attack on a neutral country protected by long-respected treaties and alliances. The world would abhor this action. It would also set into motion, in domino fashion, a series of promises that most of the European countries had made to one or more of its allies that each would go to war to protect the other. An inflexible, almost automatic set of responses would follow, plunging Europe into war.
“I have changed my mind!” the Kaiser told his generals, suggesting that they stick to a one-front war with Russia. But it was too late. The Kaiser’s illusion of control burst as he realized he was at this point just a character in a carefully scripted play.
Moved by the story of a world plunged into unwanted conflict, Kennedy told his brother Robert “I am not going to follow a course which will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time [called] ‘The Missiles of October’. If anyone is around to write after this, they are going to understand that we made every effort to find peace and every effort to give our adversary room to move.” [Ironically, just such a book was eventually published, called The Missiles of October.]
Kennedy said he wanted to “send a copy of that book to every Navy officer.”. JFK made his aides read The Guns of August and had copies distributed to every US military base in the world.
In the end, Kennedy’s brother Robert, then the American Attorney General, found a way around the dilemma. In private conversations with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, he promised that the U.S. missiles would be out of Turkey in four or five months. He also said that he would deny ever making such a promise — when the deal happened, all that was announced to the world was that the soviet missiles would be withdrawn from Cuba in return for assurances that the US would not invade Cuba. Five months later the missiles were withdrawn.
The solution is noted by historians as a creative solution to an apparently intractable problem. Where the European leaders of 1914 followed a rigid plan of action leading to horrific consequence, the Kennedy team found a back door solution that met the needs of both sides and avoided an unwanted conflict.
And so it is that knowledge of history can imbue us with wisdom useful for making present-day strategic decisions.
The ancient Greek historian Thucydides saw time as a circle. He believed that his history of the Peloponnesian Wars would arm future decision-makers to do better when comparable choices came around again on time’s enduring track.
In their wonderful and seminal book Thinking In Time, the eminent historians Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest May assure us that “Vicarious experience acquired from the past, even the remote past, gives such guidance to the present that history becomes more than its own reward. Knowledge conveys wisdom; ignorance courts trouble.”
For wisdom relating to your strategic decisions at hand, look to the wisdom of the ages for help.
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and 
. He has extensive experience applying behavioral economic insights to the real world, having increased the savings rates of millions of Americans through his work with Richard Thaler on Save More Tomorrow, and has advised many government agencies and businesses.
Kennedy said he wanted to “send a copy of that book to every Navy officer.”. JFK made his aides read The Guns of August and had copies distributed to every US military base in the world.