Category: Organization Development

The culture in each organization is different and dependent on so many factors. But it is the culture that shapes the internal operations of your organizations. Culture can make or break your organization.

Recently, while working on a white paper about how to shape your organization’s culture, I realized how extremely important culture is to every non-profit achieving their goals and planned outcomes. That white paper will be available shortly through our online store, so watch for it. The reasons why culture is so important are:

• Overview of entire organization – The culture of an organization is decided by the personalities, policies and procedures of an organization.
• Internal balance – For an organization to be successful, its culture must have internal balance. That means that the policies, procedures and people involved do not lean too much one way or another, but complement what the goals of the organization are.
• Defines relationships – An organization’s culture includes how they (the staff) work with clients, other community groups, agencies and funders.
• Impacts communication – Each organization, depending on its culture, creates its own jargon that is unique to their organization. This means that the way the organization communicates internally and externally is impacted by its culture.

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

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By Ingrid Zacharias, Managing Director, Envisioning the Future International, Email: izacharias@envisioningthefutureintl.ca Website: http://envisioningthefutureintl.ca/

Crisis management doesn’t stop when the fires die down

When the immediate threat of a crisis passes, it’s seductively comforting to breathe a huge sigh of relief and return to business as usual. However, the fallout and subsequent consequences are likely just beginning.

Trust will need to be repaired and confidence restored. Uninformed second-guessing will surely challenge your decisions and actions. Recovery is as critical as early response when the smoke begins to clear.

Be sure to reach out to all your publics to ensure that no lingering doubts remain or misinformation goes uncorrected.

How you conduct yourself and the actions of your company during this recovery period will long be remembered by the people whose opinions and trust you value most.

This quote, from the MCS Healthcare Public Relations series, “25 Years, 25 Lessons” discusses the work that must take place after the initial phases of crises have passed. Even after righting whatever the initial issue may have been, it is critical that the process continue, or a backslide of stakeholder opinion may extend the crisis indefinitely. The most successful crisis management campaigns go beyond the problem and into the future, not only assuring people that the root of the issue has been eliminated, but also that the individual or organization has learned from any mistakes and is actually stronger as a result.

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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.]

My family and I spent the weekend at an indoor water park. It ended up being a great weekend that everyone enjoyed. However, it was not without tears and frustration for my youngest son when he was advised on the last day of our stay that in order to go down a certain slide, he had to sit up straight and hold on the handles on the front of the raft. Now my son is definitely not the type to cry when he doesn’t get his way. In fact, he is the rule follower in the family and gets upset when others break the rules. The problem with this situation was that he had been going down that same slide without having to sit up straight the entire day before. When we explained this to the lifeguard on duty, she responded that she had to follow the rules and that failing to go down the slide in the proper way could result in injury. There was a similar situation at our local pool in the summer when midway through the summer, a lifeguard said that he wasn’t tall enough to go down a slide he had going down for two months already. Apparently, there was an inspection during which it was found that the measuring stick was mislabeled and he actually didn’t meet the height requirement. Luckily, he passed the swim test and the summer was saved, but not without some tears.

The problem in both situations come down to rule following. There were lifeguards who bent the rules and lifeguards who followed the rules. Unfortunately, the rule followers got stuck with the tears and apologies, while the rule benders got smiles. The same situation happens so often in the workplace. As an HR professional, you know the scenario. One manager lets their employees wear jeans to work even though the handbook states that they are prohibited. The manager may see it as a perk and thank you to his employees or he may just like jeans himself. Either way, it makes the manager who follows the rules the bad guy. They (or the HR pro) get the tears and complaining and statements about fairness. Further it sets the stage for larger issues. Not following rules consistently can be an attorney’s greatest advantage in his suit against you.

If you make the rules, follow them. If they are strict or don’t make sense, change them. If you don’t love them but can’t change them, follow them anyway.

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For more resources, See the Human Resources library.

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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.

Google nails its latest crisis management effort

Although Google has been at the center of several controversies, the notoriously tight-lipped search behemoth has the advantage of being a public favorite, which means that it has already banked a good amount of reputation “credit” that can be renewed when the need for crisis management arises. Furthering that credit is the lengths Google goes to in order to nurture and maintain the dialogue between company and consumer, demonstrated in the wake of a disturbing cyber-stalking case that brought a loophole in its search algorithms to light. This particular loophole actually resulted in some businesses purposely seeking out negative responses from customers in order to improve search engine positioning; not what Google had intended, to say the least. Immediately after catching wind of the case, Google leapt into action, redesigning its search algorithms to eliminate results generated by this shady method and publishing a post on its official blog which included this quote:

We can’t say for sure that no one will ever find a loophole in our ranking algorithms in the future. We know that people will keep trying: attempts to game Google’s ranking, like the ones mentioned in the article, go on 24 hours a day, every single day. That’s why we cannot reveal the details of our solution—the underlying signals, data sources, and how we combined them to improve our rankings—beyond what we’ve already said. We can say with reasonable confidence that being bad to customers is bad for business on Google. And we will continue to work hard towards a better search.

By having an established positive Web presence, Google is able to distribute messages like this quickly and with ease. There is no need for costly press releases or opportunities for reporters to distort the message being delivered, because stakeholders know they can look to Google’s own blog for answers. You don’t need to be a mammoth organization to do this very same thing, all it takes is a dedication to open communication and a free blog page, so what are you waiting for?

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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.]

Just like a big box of chocolates on Christmas day, any kind of Business Improvement Success is meant for sharing.

Sharing successes has numerous benefits in any business. These include raising “the awareness for change” across the business, closing knowledge gaps as well as inspiring others to take interest and use the same methods tools & techniques.

In sharing business related successes, I always find 4 key pieces of information are of most benefit to my recipients. These 4 elements allow my intended audience to relate to and understand all the important steps that eventually paved way for the good results

I call this the SOAR Model for sharing Business Improvement Success, an acronym representing the 4 pieces of information which are: SITUATION, OPPORTUNITY, ACTION & RESULTS

SITUATION

SITUATION is the “Before” scenario, providing a background to the success story so the audience can relate to what prompted the events to take place. Always describe the situation before any work was started and explain why it was necessary to take action. This could take the form of a “problem statement”. Photos, if applicable are a great way to illustrate the before scenario.

OPPORTUNITY

Describe how the Improvement Opportunity was presented, prioritised and agreed by the team and any supporting evidence such as data collected (e.g. Pareto charts). It’s also good to describe which other ideas were proposed and eventually discarded and the rationale behind your thought process including all the supporting data.

ACTION

Spell out exactly what actions were carried out by whom and when. Make this compelling and interesting. Also include details on how the team had to deal with any setbacks and obstacles. This is the section to convince the doubters that everything is possible.

RESULTS

This is the part you tell the whole world your fantastic results evidenced by the data recorded and showing the exciting trends and charts and how you surpassed the agreed Improvement Objectives. Its bragging time!

SOAR like an eagle.

How do you share success?

We have read with interest the response from Immigration Solicitors Luton

They have recently teamed up with uk spouse visa experts

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For more resources, see our Library topic Quality Management.
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It often isn’t hard to find candidates for non-profit board seats. However, how do you know that they are the right candidate for the job? It’s important to prescreen your candidates to make sure you are getting ones that understand the role of a board member and understand how to work efficiently and effectively as a board member.

There are ways that you can use to screen candidates to ensure they are the right person to sit on your non-profit’s board of directors. They are:

• Put out a call for resumes – Always ask to see the resumes of your potential board members. You need to know their experience and what they bring to the table. Also if someone is unwilling to provide a resume, then they probably aren’t good board material.
• Interview candidates – Candidates for your board should be interviewed to get a feel for how they will fit into the existing Board of Director’s culture. Your nominating committee should handle this task and perform it in a very professional manner. Provide candidates with board scenarios and see how they handle the situation. This is a take on behavioural interviewing.
• Survey potential board members – By surveying them, you can ask more questions like who their contacts are and how they envision themselves contributing to the organization as a member of the board. You can also ask questions about what skill sets they bring to the table that may be beneficial to the organization in areas such as professional development and fundraising.
• Request references – In the case of board of directors is the only time that it would be smart to request both professional and personal references. By doing this, you get a feel for who this person is on both a professional level and on a personal level, which will help you in identifying how the candidate will blend with the existing personalities on your board.
• Don’t be afraid to turn people away – By turning away candidates that don’t fulfill the criteria that you have developed for this particular board member, you are ensuring that you get only the best candidates accepted onto the board. The more screening you do, the more success you will have at creating a successful board and the more people will want to be a part of it.

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

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By Ingrid Zacharias, Managing Director, Envisioning the Future International, Email: izacharias@envisioningthefutureintl.ca Website: http://envisioningthefutureintl.ca/

Crisis management continues after the problems are over

It seems counter-intuitive to some, but crises can present amazing opportunities to grow and learn. In a post on his Harvard Business Review blog, expert business consultant Ron Ashkenas explains the shift that occurs during crises, and gives some excellent advice on how to stretch it as far as possible:

People jump to respond to floods and snowstorms, urgent customer problems, financial challenges, or competitive moves. Levels of collaboration and creativity rise; a sense of urgency pervades the workplace; and everyone pitches in to resolve the problem or achieve the goal. But when the crisis passes, things revert to normal. The crisis becomes a part of the company’s folklore rather than a step towards lasting performance.

…You can capture the spirit and energy of a crisis and use it not only to achieve the immediate goal, but also to build new patterns of achievement over time. If you and your team have recently experienced a surge of performance due to a crisis, special deadline, or extraordinary challenge, consider taking the following steps:

1) Organize a post-crisis learning clinic. Include the key people w ho were involved — from your team, other parts of your organization, and even outside parties. Take stock of what you learned: What was done differently? What new patterns or innovations were sparked by the crisis? And most importantly, what new ways of working — individually or collectively — should be continued?

2) Identify a critical initiative that you want to accelerate. Carve out a stretch goal that will demonstrate progress in 100 days or less — and then consciously apply one or more of the new patterns to it. Use the next 100 days as a real-time experiment to build the new innovations into your team’s muscle memory, while also generating additional learning from the 100-day challenge.

Every time you face a challenge it is an opportunity to improve, but the vast majority of organizations are sorely lacking in this type of thinking. By taking the steps that Ashkenas recommends, you can take advantage of of the energy and creativity that is born during a crisis to strengthen yourself against the next.

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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.]

1.New Programs and Initiatives
The Quality Improvement Projects program (Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma, Continuous Improvement, TPM etc) must not impose a completely new initiative on your business. Where possible use existing tools, terms and systems, especially where these are associated with good business results. It may be necessary to adapt the new program as necessary. If people feel the program is a process they are already familiar with, it avoids the “here we go with yet another extra-hot chilli flavour of the month” mentality.

2.A Solid Framework
A good “improvement mindset” or framework for a sustainable system must already exist within the business, where as many people as possible understand and are committed to continuing the process. As a minimum, the new system should encourage more idea generation, collection and selection, team formation and formal approaches to problem solving, recognition and communication and lastly tracking. Try to gain commitment from everyone in the business about the basic framework right at the start and ensure there is a common and agreed understanding about the big picture of how the Quality Management initiative will be applied.

3.Give Credit
In most businesses, Quality Improvement initiatives are not really brand new out of the box thinking, as many people have already been exposed to and worked on Quality Improvement concepts for a long time, and with some successes. It’ s important to acknowledge past achievements and recognise the champions who made it happen by assigning them significant roles for the new wave. If however, the approach has been fire fighting, you may want to build a different team and approach the initiative more proactively. If past projects were not successful then it’s important to show how the new initiative differs from the previous and why it stands a better chance for success.

4. Encourage Ideas
Ideas should come from anyone and no ideas should be turned away. Make everyone aware of the criteria for setting priorities and what the targets are for the Quality Improvement initiative. Assign responsibilities or sponsors who should stimulate the generation of ideas in their areas of influence. There should always be a surplus of ideas waiting for implementation. Any ideas that are rejected or put on hold should be fed back to the originator, explaining the rationale for the decision.

5.Individual or Pilot Project selection
Depending on your approach, it may be necessary to start off the program on a small scale or as a “Pilot”. If this is the case, the criteria for selecting the first projects should be based on a project whose results directly benefit and impact many people in the business, and where such results are visible within a couple of months. It’s worth selecting a purpose made “A Team” to spearhead the Pilot. This “Hit Squad” should comprise people who are ready to talk about what is going on to all their colleagues and people who want to see improvement happen.

6.Involve and Work through people
Avoid being prescriptive with each step of your approach, rather opting to use a facilitated approach to get support and buy in from the teams involved. Always be open to a team using a different approach though still aligned to the overall objectives. Forcing things down people’s throats doesn’t really work well. Good facilitation should allow for a team to reach a pre-conceived conclusion on their own accord. On the same vein, allow the teams to decide what tasks and actions are to be done and offer to help rather than allocate tasks directly to the different people.

7. Keep Everyone Informed of Progress and Results.
The success of a good Quality Improvement program depends on good feedback and communication surrounding progress. Reports on Progress can take many forms, as long as relevant and timely information is communicated. It’s also important to publicly celebrate any success coming out of the program. Lastly, where new records have been set and old Improvement Targets “smashed”, set new targets and make them known.

8. What Gets Measured Gets Managed.

Put in place a good monitoring system to track the number of ideas generated over time, the level participation of people at any one time and cumulatively during the process, the rate of implementation and the Return on Investment or benefits. Tracking and showing a direct correlation between efforts and benefits is the best way to sustain a Quality Program. Use agreed targets and KPI’s as your “dipstick” check. I recently posted an article on Why Your Business Should Care about KPI’s on my blog that you can refer to for more details on KPI’s.

9. Stakeholder Sponsorship
When it comes to supporting and sponsoring Quality Programs, Time Investment is worth more than its weight in gold in my opinion, especially if this “time” is offered by Top Management. A visibly committed top management always sends the right message throughout the organisation and demonstrates “walking the talk”. Sometimes it takes no more effort than attending and supporting a Project team session, meeting or gathering on a regular basis. A senior manager being seen with sleeves rolled up on the Gemba or shopfloor, frontline office is the best form of propaganda.

10. Fun & Relevant

A good way to keep your Quality Programs alive and a bit of a missed opportunity really, is the ability to tap into the use of modern technology and in particular the internet, Web 2.0 tools and smart phone applications. More and more people continue to use social networking platforms and smart phone applications as an extension and expression of who they are. There are huge benefits in using elements of these tools to support your initiative whilst keeping it relevant, fun and up to date. For example use Twitter to gather intelligence about what people are saying about your product or service quality, create Facebook pages for internal use, use YouTube to share and socialise results and of course use the hundreds of Free Productivity Improvement Applications available with most smart phone systems. What ever you do, have fun with your program.

How do you create a Buzz with your Quality Management Initiatives ?

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For more resources, see our Library topic Quality Management.
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How you communicate is just as important as what’s actually said

Many business execs think of written statements as powerful tools, tools that satisfy reporters and the public while quelling any questioning or doubt. The rest of the world…not so much. In an article for his website, Mr. Media Training, Brad Phillips composed a solid list of reasons why you should not use written statements as your primary communication method:

1. They Don’t Make You the “Go-To” Source: One of the most important things in the early hours of a crisis is to establish your company or organization as the primary source for information. If reporters believe they can get the relevant facts of the story directly from you in a timely and transparent manner, they will have less incentive to seek out alternative sources.

2. They Make You Look Guilty: A written statement too often looks like the Fifth Amendment – an obstruction guilty parties hide behind when they want to avoid saying something self-incriminating. Sources that communicate openly are usually treated better by reporters than those who refuse to talk or speak only through the written word.

3. Reporters Hate Them: Reporters want the opportunity to ask questions, clarify points, and pursue their own angles. Sources that don’t speak to reporters often suffer more hostile coverage.

These are three HUGE negatives that combine to make battling a crisis much harder than it would be had you simply spoken in person with reporters. Throwing a new wrench in this theory is the ongoing infatuation with social media. Are these new media platforms responsive and pervasive enough to act as a primary communication tools, or should they be relegated to the role of support? What do you think?

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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.]

I read an article today about and Executive Director of a non-profit in the District of Columbia, who is charged with embezzlement of $506,000. The man is accused of using the organization’s debit card to make withdrawals of cash while on personal cruise holidays and when out gambling. This blew me away.

In my many years in the non-profit world, one of the most important things we ever did was to ensure that we had transparency where the organization’s money was concerned, and to put safety measures in place to ensure the security of the organization’s financial resources.

So I’d like to share with you my readers, what kinds of safety measures your organization should have in place when it comes to the handling of your organizations financial resources. You should:

• Set up your bank account right – You bank account should not allow any cash withdrawals in any form from the bank. Any withdrawals should be made in the form of a cheque made out to the bookkeeper for petty cash. No organization should have a debit card for their bank account. The bank will issue you a debit card number, but you can turn down the physical card, and only keep the debit card number in your safe.
• Require two signatures on a cheque – Every cheque written by a non-profit should require two signatures. Whenever possible both signatures should come from board members who have been given signing authority. When not possible, then one of the signatures can be the Executive Director, but not if the cheque is issued to the Executive Director.
• Balance and review petty cash disbursements regularly – Your petty cash should be reviewed regularly by the signers of the cheque for petty cash and if that is not possible, then once the petty cash has been dispersed, then the receipts should be reviewed by the Executive Director before another petty cash cheque is written.
• Use a credit card for purchases – Sometimes, cheques are not accepted, if you are buying something from a retail store. In that case, the organization should have a credit card. All the receipts for purchases by credit cards should be turned in and balanced against the credit card statement when it comes in, to ensure all money is accounted for.
• Put someone you trust in charge of cash – When your organization holds events; try to create one place where people purchase their tickets from. Make sure that at least two people are working together on the cash handling, so they can monitor and vouch for each other. Have the people handling cash, count the cash they took in at the end of the event and turn it into your bookkeeper, along with any paper documentation of number of items sold and at how much.
• Have one drop centre for skimming cash – If you are having an event, have a prearranged location for money to be stored safely and securely when skimming becomes necessary due to a lot of cash transactions occurring. Limit who knows the details of this to only the people handling cash. The fewer people know, the more likely you are to keep your funds secure.
• Develop a policy against signing blank cheques – Some NGOs allow blank cheques to be signed in advance if they have difficulty getting their board members out to sign a cheque. But this is bad financial practices, and it would be far better to ensure that you have 4 signing authorities. Three should be board members and the fourth should be the Executive Director. In that way, you are far more likely to always have two signers available and the use of blank cheques becomes unnecessary.

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

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By Ingrid Zacharias, Managing Director, Envisioning the Future International, Website: http://envisioningthefutureintl.ca/