Category: Organization Development

What NOT to do

Just as with businesses, it’s smart for prominent individuals to set up regular searches for mentions of their name on the web. While Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s got this part right, assigning communication director Sherriene Jones-Sontag to monitor negative commentary on social media, more than a few things were lacking in their latest crisis management effort.

The whole incident was kicked off by an 18-year-old Kansas high schooler’s joking tweet following a Youth in Government field trip to the state’s capitol, “Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.” The following quote, from a CNN article by Dean Obeidallah, explains the rest:

Jones-Sontag, finding this 73-character tweet by a high school student a threat to the good name of the governor, bolted into action. She contacted the Youth in Government organizers and expressed her outrage over the tweet. In turn, the event administrators, no doubt concerned that the governor’s director of communication had taken the time to contact them, informed Sullivan’s high school principal.

Sullivan soon found herself in her principal’s office being scolded for nearly an hour. Bottom line: The principal has mandated the student write a letter of apology to the governor that is due Monday.

Sullivan, who says she was making a political comment on Brownback’s conservative policies that she disagrees with, announced her refusal to apologize for criticizing the governor.

When negative commentary pops up, you’ve got to ask yourself, “is this even worth responding to?”

Yes, it’s important to acknowledge concerns and respond to complaints, but in this case the post was clearly a one-off that would reach a bare minimum of eyes.

By responding in the matter it did, Brownback’s office not only gave a ton of publicity to a disparaging comment that would have otherwise gone unnoticed, but also made the Governor look like a bully in the process.

Bad marks Brownback.

——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-

[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is a writer, publicist and SEO associate for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Nervous about Evaluation?

In many ways a program evaluation can be like a well-child doctor’s appointment. Observations are made, evidence collected and advice dispensed to the caregivers. Someone I know, despite being a devoted mother, dreaded well-child doctor’s appointments for her firstborn. The visits made her nervous. Let us pause to consider why check-ups made this new mother nervous. She did her very best with all the resources available to her; yet being a perfectionist, she worried about hearing of areas that needed improvement.

How to Get the Most Use out of Program Evaluations

The caregiver’s ability to let go of these negative emotions and be truly open to the practitioner’s advice can determine how useful that visit was. But so many times, it is easier to listen to our own feelings than it is to receive professional advice—advice that can be hard to swallow (no pun intended). And although that gut feeling can prove important in certain situations, there is great value in basing decisions on the objective, hard evidence that a program evaluation generates. Easier said than done! Despite your hard work and efforts, have you or your program’s “caregivers” ever felt somewhat apprehensive about the thought of a program evaluation? Here are some basic ways to address fear of evaluation.

How to Deal with Fears about Program Evaluation:

Focus on the Positive:

A breakthrough for the perfectionistic mother came from a friend’s advice. The friend told her to keep telling the pediatrician all the positive things that the mother had been doing to promote the child’s health.

When the topic of program evaluation was broached with some tension in a room full of facilitators, an experienced manager said something to the effect of, “Evaluations show us areas of improvement so we can provide the best service. Yet they also provide us opportunities to recognize you for your achievements!”

Shelve the Criticism:

An expert who taught a grant writing workshop for university staff once shared a secret with her participants. My subsequent experiences have also confirmed the truth behind this advice: Yes, listening to criticism about something that is very near and dear to your heart can be difficult. But tuck the criticism away in your drawer for a day or two. Then come back to it with a fresh mind.

Focus on the Remedy

It is easy to remain discouraged about a program that seems hopeless. But concentrate on small, concrete and practical steps you can take day by day to improve a program component in much need of some TLC (tender, loving care). Be a wise consumer—make these practical recommendations one of the deliverables expected of your evaluator.

Think Prevention!

Think of Program Evaluation as a “check-up” for your program. An evaluation can help identify not only problems with effectiveness of programs but also implementation-related issues that can ruin outcomes. Evaluations can identify these situations ahead of time and help prevent a worse and more complicated problem from brewing! A stitch in time indeed saves nine!

How to be Wise about Program Evaluation

Our fearlessness about program evaluations must be tempered with a dose of wise caution:

• Educate yourself on program evaluation as much as possible so that you can be a wise consumer or implementer of evaluations.
• If you are not conducting a DIY (Do It Yourself) evaluation, get to know your evaluator and his/her qualifications; check references. Professional ethics play a critical part in all the functions that an evaluator carries out.

As you already know, experience begets wisdom. And yet, although our individual experiences can make us wise, individuals still have blind spots. There is a great degree of wisdom in our collective experiences:

• Partner with peers or associates to conduct program evaluations.
• Program Evaluations may present new challenges, depending on the specific situation. But there may be ways to deal with this on a case by case basis, in an ethical yet responsible manner. Be prepared to consult with others who are trained and experienced in program evaluation.

Did you find this post helpful? Do you have any concerns about program evaluation?

——————

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

________________________________________________________

Priya Small has extensive experience in collaborative evaluation planning, instrument design, data collection, grant writing and facilitation. Contact her at priyasusansmall@gmail.com. Visit her website at http://www.priyasmall.wordpress.com. See her profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/priyasmall/

Say you’re sorry like you mean it

It’s common to make mistakes. What’s far less common is an organization that knows how give a serious and genuine apology. Thankfully for these clueless companies, tech-based business consultant Anne Weiskopf published her “Six Keys to an Apology in Crisis Management” in a SpinSucks article:

1. Address the issue quickly.
   • “Silence is not an option in social media” – C.C. Chapman
2. Even if it is not directly your fault, apologize for it anyway.
   • “No, you no longer control your brand and yes, you’re still 100% responsible for its success” – Duane Primozich
3. Intent matters; people are more likely to forgive an honest mistake.
   • Apologize, don’t justify.
4. Identify the steps that are being (or will be) taken to fix the problem.
5. Pick the right medium for you to be most effective. A well written apology trumps a badly delivered video message.
6. Continuously monitor all social and non-social channels so you can continue to address the issue further if needed.

Step number one is, as it should be, the most important part of the entire apology. While insisting you’ll do things differently may buy some time, the fall will be all the worse later if you don’t actually fix the root of the problem.

——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-

[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is a writer, publicist and SEO associate for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

How a dose of negativity can help your organization

The natural reaction for most people when they start seeing negative sentiment about their organization arise is panic. Do I respond? Do I duck and hide? And most of all…how bad is this going to hurt?

Truth is, the more devoted your stakeholders are, the more flak you will take when you mess up, or at least are perceived to. In a PRDaily article, marketing expert and Georgetown U professor Rohit Bhargava shared his thoughts about how haters can help your business:

1. Haters expose vulnerability. No business is perfect and haters sometimes have valid points. It requires an open mind to focus on the heart of a complaint and ignore the emotionally charged aspects. Doing so will hone in on the things you really need to fix and make your business stronger.

2. Haters can be converted. There are many types of haters who may cross your path. The most frequent type isn’t the one who will passionately hate your business forever, but rather someone who has had a negative experience of some kind. If you can find a way to fix that experience and make it right, that same person can be transformed into your biggest advocate.

3. Haters bring attention. Although I don’t believe “any publicity is good publicity,” the fact is that when you have people actively talking about how bad or pathetic your business is, it can add visibility. If you can find the right ways to counter the negativity, that attention can actually become a good thing.

4. Haters publicize frequently asked questions. If you have a FAQ page on your website, you will realize the power that answering frequently asked questions can have for giving potential customers an idea not just of what you do … but also what you don’t do.

 

 

 

 

5. Haters validate social media efforts. If you have been actively using social media, the goodwill that you may have built up with your fans and friends comes in handy when haters appear. The people you have invested time in building relationships with will often stick up for your brand and fight on your side.

Just as we commonly say about crisis situations, strong organizations can actually turn negative attention into positive. Of course, all of this goes out the window if you aren’t actively moving to fix the problems that are bringing the hate in the first place. The overall reason that negative attention can be beneficial is that it gives you a way to demonstrate how much you care about your stakeholders. If you can’t convince them of that, you’re in trouble.

——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-

[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is a writer, publicist and SEO associate for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Is Your Program “Stuck” Due to Inadequate Funding? Consider Program Evaluation

Recently our car would not start. You guessed it– it was the battery. A mechanically-inclined friend made a casual comment about the worth of car batteries, which can provide insight into maximizing funding for your programs. The friend said something to the effect of, “Batteries have all that potential energy stored up in them. They have all that energy to get your car going. But once you get your car started, you technically don’t really need that battery anymore. You could drive around for hours without a battery.” He does not recommend practicing this, however. But the point was made. There is an incredible amount of energy hidden in a car battery just waiting to be converted. And I never appreciated that powerhouse of energy until we got stuck. Is your program “stuck” due to inadequate funding?

Evaluating a program may be the tool you need to unlock the hidden potential “stored up” in your program. What is the first thought that comes to mind when you think of evaluation? A thick, dusty binder full of barely comprehensible information that no one ever uses? The good news is that evaluation standards have changed. One of the benchmarks that characterizes a good evaluation is utility. A successful evaluation is useful, practical and down-to-earth.

How Program Evaluation Can Help

It is a grim reality that funding opportunities have dwindled in the present economic climate. In their book “The Only Grant-writing Book You’ll Ever Need,” grant writing experts Ellen Karsh and Arlen Sue Fox note, however, that funding opportunities still exist but the competition is more intense. Applicants must prove that they are “high-functioning organizations” capable of effectively producing the outcomes that funders expect. Program evaluations help to move your organization towards that goal. Or if you are already high-functioning, a program evaluation can help prove your capabilities.

Here are 4 ways that evaluations can help you do so: 1) Evaluations monitor that activities are conducted as planned 2) Evaluations establish program logic- that is, how activities work together to produce desired outcomes. 3) Evaluations identify effective and healthy program components– those that are able to produce the desired outcomes. 4) Evaluations reveal ways to heal ailing components. Putting one or more of these evaluation functions to good use helps demonstrate that your program is organized and effective in producing specified outcomes.

Even if you decide not to focus on grant applications, the useful evidence that program evaluations yield can help you win the support of private donors. Evaluation data can help set your organization apart and get the attention of donors. It can help convince them that your program will give them the most for their money.

Evaluations can help you tap into your program’s hidden potential by generating practical information that can powerfully launch your program onward.

What has your experience been? What do you like/dislike/loathe about program evaluations? What concerns do you have about them?

——————

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

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Priya Small has extensive experience in collaborative evaluation planning, instrument design, data collection, grant writing and facilitation. Contact her at priyasusansmall@gmail.com. Visit her website at http://www.priyasmall.wordpress.com. See her profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/priyasmall/

Would you be ready to respond?

Google Plus Pages for businesses and brands are barely a week old, and already the neophyte social network appears to have its first identity crisis: Someone has created a Google Plus Page for Bank of America trashing the nation’s largest bank with a series of mocking photos, images and other posts, according to Reuters social media editor Anthony DeRosa on Twitter Monday night.

Indeed, visiting the page at the time of this posting reveals a series of messages obviously meant to satirize the bank’s overall business practices.

 

 

“Starting tomorrow, all Occupy Wall Street protestors with Bank of America accounts around the country will have their assets seized as part of BofA’s new Counter-Financial-Terrorism policy,” reads a post on November 8, “You will sit down and shut up, or we will foreclose on you.”

This quote, from a Talking Points Memo article by Carl Franzen, describes the first Google Plus “brandjacking,” which began just after businesses got the go-ahead to create their own pages on the service. While it seemed fairly apparent that the page was a fake, it still hit the company where it hurts, portraying Bank of America leadership and practices in an extremely negative light. Although thousands viewed the page, and several active Twitter discussions popped up regarding the situation, it still took over a week for BofA to contact Google in order to have the offending page removed.

Look at the situation from this perspective – if it took that long, then it’s likely nobody at BofA even knew about the page for a WEEK.

Where was the social media monitoring?? Where was the brand protection??

This is the reality of business as we become more and more enmeshed with the digital world. Your reputation is at the very core of your organization’s success, and protecting it means staying aware 24/7.

There is no excuse.

——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-

[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is a writer, publicist and SEO associate for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

If you answered no, you’re fooling yourself.

Even those in the most benign of industries are bound to encounter situations where their reputation is in danger. Let your reputation get hurt and you’ll soon see the bottom line follow. One of the best ways to prevent this is by doing regular vulnerability audits, a multi-disciplinary risk assessment meant to determine both current and potential areas of weakness and strength, and to identify potential solutions.

Ragan’s Matt Wilson recently interviewed Jonathan Bernstein about why you need to conduct a vulnerability audit, now, and why some organizations still won’t. A quote:

Most companies simply don’t conduct vulnerability assessments, because they’re often regarded as unnecessary expenses.

But Bernstein compares them to an inspection from a fire marshal: necessary and thorough. They should look at every aspect of the company. “There is a dearth of crisis management fire inspection going on,” he says.

Most crisis plans are based on response rather than known vulnerabilities, Bernstein says. And that’s a big problem, because what if the company, in the middle of a major crisis, discovers its phone system can’t handle a flood of calls or its website can’t handle thousands of visits all at once?

“All the plans in the world won’t stand up if you don’t have the infrastructure for them,” he says.

Much like athletes run through countless drills to build muscle memory, your organization must practice crisis scenarios on a regular basis to stay in shape to react properly. To discover what type of crises you’re most likely to encounter, you have to have the courage to ask the question, “Where am I vulnerable?”

——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-

[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is a writer, publicist and SEO associate for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Preparation Pays

Are you ready for a crisis? You may think you’ve got your bases covered, but unless you’re running regular crisis simulations and training sessions, I’d be willing to bet that there are serious gaps in your planning. This weakness is a common one, as Jonathan Bernstein pointed out in a recent interview for Entrepreneur magazine:

The failure to plan tops Bernstein’s hit parade of crisis management mistakes. A close second? The failure to provide backup for critical suppliers, key personnel, computer systems (off-site, please) and pretty much any piece of your business that you can’t live without. He proffers this food services scenario: “If all the lettuce from a particular area is deemed to be suspect, and that’s where you get all your lettuce, what are you going to be putting on your burgers this week if you don’t have a backup supplier?”

With some slight imagination it’s not hard to change this situation to fit nearly any business. Rely on your website to do business? What happens when your provider’s servers go down? Do you have any key admin personnel without whom everything goes to heck? Got a backup for her or him?

Establishing secondary providers and other forms of backup are just a small part of a complete crisis plan. Take a look around your business and identify your weak spots, there may be more than you think!

——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-

[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is a writer, publicist and SEO associate for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Jonathan Bernstein was interviewed this morning by host Bo Bounds on the “Out of Bounds” ESPN radio talk show out of football-crazy Jackson, Mississippi. A solid 15 minutes of commentary on what is shaping up to be not only the worst scandal in college sports history, but also a classic case of wrong-way crisis management.

Thanks to the “Out of Bounds” team for making Bernstein Re Penn State Scandal .mp3 file immediately available to us.

——————————-
For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
——————————-

[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is a writer, publicist and SEO associate for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

One sign that the social enterprise field is maturing is the emergence of guides and directories. And one sign that the field has a ways to go is a lack of consistency in how to define social enterprise (if they define it at all) or what information they present about each listing. But now there are enough directories in circulation to create a, well, directory of directories, all in one place. This is that place:

Continue reading “Directory of Social Enterprise Directories”