Termites Destroying Your Board?
Problem:
Non-Profit Boards are filled with well-meaning volunteer leaders, whose various reasons for joining are unfortunately, more competing and less collaborative than everyone may realize.
Far too many Boards fail to invest in the simple, yet proven and powerful strategies that the most successful and thriving Non-Profit Boards live by every day.
Therefore, meetings are dysfunctional, true consensus decisions are almost impossible to achieve, volunteerism and Board involvement declines and staying focused on the most important mission and results of the Non-Profit becomes exceedingly difficult and exhausting.
Good News:
It doesn’t have to be this way. There are simple, proven powerful strategies, when used effectively and consistently, which eradicate much of the dysfunction, build trust amongst the Board Leaders and enable Leaders to make better decisions, save time and achieve better results, with less stress and drama.
Question 1: Steven, as a change management consultant, and after 20 years of serving on Boards and helping Non-Profit Boards become more effective, what do you see as the overarching challenge when Board Leaders are struggling?
Fail to Live in Community with Authenticity, Transparency, Humility and Collaboration
Definition of Success for the Organization is Not Crystal Clear
The Board Leaders Do Not Adequately Understand the “Why” Behind Each Board Leader’s Reason for Joining and Staying Involved
Question 2: With the long list of challenges that any Board Leadership can struggle with, are there patterns or distinctions that stand out for you?
Most are People Issues—Communication and Interpersonal Relations, especially when the Board Chair or President lacks adequate leadership skills to address these people issues
Culturally, not just in the US, we suffer far too much Political Correctness and our cultural norm of avoiding conflict and difficult conversations makes it all the harder for people to wiggle their spinal cords and practice Managerial Courage
Organizationally, meetings are run poorly, authority and decision making is not clear, and standards in a variety of ways are simply lacking or non-existent
Question 3: What are some examples of a successful use of Standards in Board Leadership?
Definition of Success for Organization and Board Leadership
Behavior Standards are Clear and Consequences for Failing to Adhere to Them are Real and Crystal Clear—No Triangulation, Carry Your Weight, Humility, Managerial Courage, Failing Forward, Mission First
When Dealing with Me—Strengths; Behavioral Styles
Question 4: Thinking of the Cultural Challenges you mentioned earlier, what are some proven strategies that you have seen work within Board Leadership and what improvements are made because of them?
Mad, Glad, Sad/Stop, Start, Continue
If You Could Change Any One Thing Immediately About __________________, With No Limit on Resources, What Would You Change?
Understanding Behavioral Styles (DiSC, Platinum Rule, True Colors, Myers-Briggs, etc.)
Everyone understands what each other’s greatest needs are and what drives their thinking and thus their behaviors
Difficult Conversations are far more easily surfaced because everyone understands the importance of honoring others’ behavioral style
Question 5: What are some of your best strategies for Board Leaders running better meetings and making better decisions?
Understanding Strengths (Gallup and Strengthsscope)
Meetings—Discovery, Distribution and Decisions; AHA Sheet; 2 Commitments
Saying No—Standing up and “Saying No” to things that we don’t need to be doing right now, is oftentimes even more powerful than “Saying Yes” to doing the right things
Urgency—What happens if we do nothing and keep the status quo? What are the benefits or quick wins when we address this issue and no longer settle for status quo?
Finding, Harvesting and Celebrating Quick Wins Along with Establishing and Fully Understanding the URGENCY of the Need for Change is the Most Powerful First Step that Board Leadership Must Identify, Communicate and Keep Communicating
THE CHALLENGE?
Everyone is volunteering/investing their time, energy and contributions for the Mission of the organization. Building trust, getting everyone on the same page with crystal clear understanding, and living and leading based upon behavior standards, behavioral styles and strengths, takes work and serious commitment to the long-term success of Board Leadership. Sadly, far too often, Board Leaders quit mid-stream, after only implementing a few of these proven building blocks. Tragically, the cancer of “see I told you nothing would change” rears its ugly head far too often, resulting in Board Leader turnover, disengagement and festering dysfunction.
However, when Board Leaders embrace these strategies with humility and a spirit of servant leadership, and implement and practice them consistently, the changes, improvements and results are often transformational for the organization and everyone involved.
Keep Our Why’s, Definition of Success, Behavior Standards and the URGENCY of Change at the forefront of everything we do!
For our people, honor behavioral styles and strengths, remember “When Dealing with Me”
And in daily practice, maintain, Asking Better Questions (Stop, Start, Continue); Running Better Meetings; Allowing “Failing Forward”; and, Committing to Make Better Consensus Decisions and Owning Our Decisions
Steven Rowell is a Change Management Consultant, serial entrepreneur and executive coach who is obsessed with leadership effectiveness that drives business growth and profitability, leads organizational change and creates a company culture of legendary service.
Steven’s unique combination of leadership experiences with The Walt Disney World Co., Compass Group and building his own companies translates to powerful and practical consulting, training and speaking services for his clients just like you.
Steven’s HCAHPS Patient Satisfaction program is now in use by more than 1100 hospitals nationwide. For the past 25 years Steven has worked with contract management, hospitality and service management companies in facilities management, healthcare, home services, theme parks, casinos and resorts.
Key areas of expertise include leadership effectiveness, building effective teams, accountability, managerial courage, leading change, conflict resolution, strategic planning, personal effectiveness, and delivering legendary service. Steven has delivered more than 1100 keynote speeches since 1995, andhas facilitated more than 130 multi-day conferences for his Clients. Steven is the author of The Five Minute Secret (2017); Jumpstart Your Creativity (Sept 2013); Success from the Inside Out (2010-295,000 copies sold); Connections™ Orientation in Action for Real Results and Retention(Abundance Publishing, Fall 2007); and Clean Is Not Enough! : Revolutionizing Environmental Services (October 2004).
The Transcript
Nonprofit Chat with Stephen Rowell
Hugh Ballou: Greetings, everyone. We are doing a live recording as we do on Tuesday nights for the Nonprofit Chat. We have an energy-filled evening for you. We are going to talk until we’re done, which is usually an hour or less. But the man on this call tonight is Stephen Rowell. Russell Dennis is back with me as co-host, and we will interview Stephen. He and I have been acquainted through a mutual friend, and we have a lot of synergies in what we believe in and what we do and our experience. Stephen, tell us about this experience with Mickey Mouse and that part of your history, and take it forward and tell us what you do today.
Stephen Rowell: Sure, thank you so much for having me. First thing, I thought about the title for today’s talk to be “Mickey Mouse and the Boardroom” or “What would be different if Disney ran your board?” sort of like the book What if Disney Ran Your Hospital. Basically, I spent almost eight years at Walt Disney World in Orlando. I spent five years working in sales, at Disney University, the training division, human resources, and really fell in love with organizational development. I ended my career in the organizational development group, which ran Disney University and Disney Institute. I come from an operations background; I am a serial entrepreneur. But what is really exciting about tonight is- My father was an assistant dean of a very nice university in Texas, and my mother was a schoolteacher, believe it or not. They were so civically minded my whole life. I grew up as the norm with the notion that Mom and Dad were always gone in the evenings at board meetings and volunteering and whatnot. I think that is where it all started for me.
When I left Disney, I had a few more entrepreneurial successes and worked in corporate life. Over the last 20 years, my wife and I have been drawn to organizations in South Africa, three of them specifically. They all do different things. One is sustainable support for an entire village. The others are helping orphans in South Africa. I really come tonight with not only a spirit for nonprofits, but also as a change management consultant, what I am also doing is not only serving on boards myself and participating in what we would call trainwreck meetings and seeing some of the most dysfunctional groups, but I have also been privileged, both in terms of small nonprofits and huge big-name organizations, to see what works, and that is what I am excited to share. It’s not about me, but what I have seen that really works around the country.
Hugh: Russell and I are what we call in the SynerVision Leadership Foundation, which is a 501(c)3, WayFinders. We are coming full circle from the consultant answer-man to the WayFinder, who is a partner who asks questions to empower and enable people. Part of our methodology is running power-packed meetings. As a conductor, you never saw a conductor use an agenda for a rehearsal. We do away with words like “agenda” and focus on deliverables. You and I are going to have some lively conversation. We have moved away from the consultant model. I went through a phase where I decided a consultant would be an insultant, and then I moved to resultant. But really, in my persona, it’s about the integration of strategy and performance.
You spent some really good years with Disney. Was that in California or Florida?
Stephen: It was in Florida, and then I ended up in the Northeast.
Hugh: Uh huh. And you’re in Pennsylvania now?
Stephen: Yes. I was going to come here for three years, do grad school, and leave. Now I have been married 15 years. I have a 13-year-old boy and a Goldendoodle and a Corgi, and the rest is history, as they say.
Hugh: Life goes zoom. Anything else you want to say about yourself before we get into some of the hard content? I have interrupted you there.
Stephen: No. I am just excited to be here and answer questions and serve in any way I can.
Hugh: I took your title verbatim: “Termites Destroying Your Board? How to Exterminate Board Dysfunction Once and for All.” We are talking about getting more done in less time. You are singing my song so to speak. Bigger impact and lasting results.
You said you have participated in nonprofit boards for quite a while. Part of the expertise Russ and I have is working with boards and helping them build a culture of high performance. What is your experience? Do you work externally with boards, or have you just sat on boards as a boardperson?
Stephen: I have sat on boards, and then as a consultant, I helped a couple of the nonprofits in South Africa, which are both 501(c)3s and American-based as well as South African-based. I helped them from the ground up get crystal clear about their mission, what they were going to focus on, and what they were not going to focus on. That brings up one of the key points for me, which is so often I see people struggle with saying no, and they wonder why their board is sitting there with 17 items on their strategic plan. I was trying to help those two organizations benefit from the beginning. I am excited to share that one of those organizations is now 14 years old and has 25 homes for orphans in South Africa, which is exciting.
Hugh: That is very exciting. You said in passing the term “change management consultant.” What does that mean?
Stephen: For us, change management consulting is coming alongside senior leaders, organizations, nonprofits, CEOS, C-suite groups, and helping them in a few different ways. One is: What are the best practices to get adoption and people to embrace the change, not be afraid of it, push through their fear, but really how to implement change that is not so painful through the first year of the introduction, and what also sticks and lasts and what really makes it work. We focus on three different parts. There is the larger organization, there is the group component, and there is the individual and the leadership piece. What I would say is where we spend most of our time with nonprofit boards is acknowledging the cultural norms and realities of what they are dealing with. I am talking about what the cultural norm is as it relates to leaders and what they are bringing into their room—call it bias or cultural norm—and then there is organizationally what the organization wants to do, and then there is the people stuff. We really work on the triangle of the organization, the group, and the leader. We try as best we can to get people to start from a place of humility, which is we don’t know what we don’t know. We really try to start from a very humble place.
Hugh: The triangle is the organization, the people, and I forgot the other one.
Stephen: The culture.
Hugh: The culture.
Stephen: I will give you an example. What South African colleges and universities consider a graduate degree skilled proficient educator or teacher would barely be equal to an undergraduate American professional in education.
Hugh: Oh my goodness.
Stephen: There is a great example going globally. South Africans will talk about the challenges they have and why their teachers are struggling. When you bring Americans or Europeans over to help, they are aghast and saying, “Wait. You’re talking about basic issues like Teacher 101.” What we have learned on the global stage, and why we really struggle with the humility piece, is what we have experienced on the African continent—and we are about 15 years through this journey—and not to offend anybody, is this notion of white, American, faith-based organizations landing in Africa and saying, “We have the solution.” Friends of ours have spent the past 11 years starting their own nonprofit organizations in Africa. They have discovered the notion of let’s show up as first-world human beings and ask, “What do you need?” instead of saying, “We have all the solutions.” The organizations in sub-Saharan Africa that are European- or American-based that have done that have found far greater success and far less challenge upfront.
Hugh: That is so spot-on with our SynerVision philosophy. What do you think, Russ?
Russell Dennis: I think that’s marvelous and that is my philosophy when I go into work. I ask a lot of questions. Something I picked up as an IRS agent is that it’s like Colombo. You ask questions like a second grader until it gets clear. The more you can get people to talk about themselves, they often give themselves their own answer because they talk it through. My whole gig is to pull the genius out of people that is already there.
Stephen: Russ, you had a great conversation with my consulting partner Dennis who has dedicated his life to being the drama-free guy. He really focuses a lot of his time on how to ask better questions.
Hugh: That is the secret of the coaching of what we do as WayFinders. You mentioned books. Stephen is prolific and has written a lot of books. He has written The Five-Minute Secret: How to Connect with Anyone Anywhere at Any Time. You have Success from the Inside Out. Clean is Not Enough. You’re a good title guy. You have co-authored a book called Jumpstart Your Creativity. Some people are boring with titles, but you got it down. You know how to do an interesting title.
I am excited about the synergy. By the way, I named our company SynerVision, which is the synergy of the common vision. There is so much resonance of what you are talking about in what we stand for.
Let’s talk about boards. As this change management consultant—I think I heard you say you have had experience with nonprofits for 20 years—I know you helped them be effective at what they are trying to do. What do you see as the overarching challenge when board members and nonprofit leaders are struggling?
Stephen: To start off with the big umbrella, it’s just the synthesis of my life journey, this doesn’t mean anything I am about to say is right or wrong, but from a change management perspective and having had two teachers as parents, with a father as a Socratic teacher who asked me questions constantly, from that lens, what I would say is it starts with this: Boards that struggle, no matter how big or small or complex or simple that is, tend to fail in what I call the overarching idea of living community. What I mean by that is within that notion of living in a mission-based, volunteer world to make a bigger impact, the notion of authentic genuine, open communication, having the trust and the managerial courage to deal with tough issues, failing forward, a lot of that safety and trust is absent in the boards that struggle with community. I know you all know this, as you are experts far better than me in how to help boards with the vast experience you have all had, but I think you would agree. You have one meeting with a board, and halfway through or a third of the way through the meeting, you have a sense of what the culture is as it relates to community.
One of the most powerful examples, and I am sharing this simply hoping that someone will think about themselves. As you are listening to this, think about who you are and how you show up. But I will share this. There is an organization I have worked with that is 20 years old and just recently a big, big name has joined the organization. Because of the absence of the tools that I am going to talk about tonight, or the effective managerial courage and leadership to drive it, guess what has happened in the last year and a half? The organization has made massive strategic shifts, not because the group wanted to with consensus, but because the billion-dollar family wanted to do it. They have now expanded. As an example, using operational financials, 50% of their entire annual fund is now deployed in new strategies. Why? Because it happens to be near where the homes and the properties are that are owned by the billion-dollar family. All of a sudden, you have this massive dysfunction of one family comes in, and because they are billionaires and so powerful, the cultural norms of avoiding difficult conflicts and conversations. So what has happened is as big-hearted and well-meaning as this family is, it has become dysfunctional, and now you are seeing donations go down. They just did an Indiegogo campaign that was not as successful as the past ones. You have seen volunteerism go down, as rated by the number of days people are volunteering with the organization on a routine basis go down. And they have lost three people who were members of the board, drumroll, who were involved with the board for ten years and have exited in the last four months.
One of my passions is helping the original founder of the nonprofit and the chairman/president be skilled enough so that when the train is coming down the track, they can at least have better skills than most. When they see that train coming, they can assess and determine if that train is going to run us over or pick us up and take us somewhere really special. I think that’s the secret.
Hugh: I’ll let Russ weigh in here a minute, but in my 31 years of experience, I see very few boards, if any, function up to the expectations of the leader or even to their own expectations. You take really good people who are successful in their lives and put them on a nonprofit board, and you duct tape their mouth and tie their hands, so to speak. The system itself does not promote all the good stuff that you just articulated. The culture is so key. I’d like you to comment on a couple of the methodologies we use at SynerVision. We have people weigh in on the board covenant. What is it they promise to each other? It’s interesting what people come up with. It’s their commitment to each other as peer-to-peer accountability. Too often, the leader feels they have to hold everybody accountable, whether it’s the board chair or the executive director. They think it all revolves around them making things happen. But really, if the culture creates the standards, they are going to enforce them.
The other piece we go into is what we call guiding principles. I don’t know this, but experiencing Disney from the outside, it’s really clear that their principles for employees is very clear, how they make decisions. We are the guest. They are always going to help us. Ask somebody sweeping the streets a question, and they can take you there and answer that question. Southwest Airlines is the hospitality company. Companies like that have a very clear set of guiding principles so they know how they are supposed to function. I don’t find either, the covenant or the operating guide of how we are going to function as a team or how we are going to make decisions as a team with your guiding principles.
Stephen: Bingo. That last one, how we are going to make decisions and the authority and all that, is gigantic. That is where the failure comes because of the absence of all of this. What I would share with you very quickly is this. The Disney version of that is safety, courtesy, show, and efficiency. It’s in that order. Van Nam was a consultant that worked with Walt Disney in the 1950’s to figure all of this out before Disneyland opened in 1955 in California. The concept was that safety is first because without safety, you don’t have anything if it’s going to be a theme park. Safety, courtesy, show, we’re all a part of the magic. And the last one is efficiency.
You have to get 1,800 guests an hour through the attraction of the Haunted Mansion. Let’s say we had 19 guests in the last hour that were in wheelchairs, so we had to slow down that conveyor belt because the Haunted Mansion is loaded with a conveyor belt. All of a sudden, you look at the numbers in the control center and you see you are not going to make your 1,800 count. The fourth value is efficiency, not the first. So here is the secret. To your point, hourly cast members were raised- I used to teach perditions, the first three days of orientation at Disney University. What I would teach is you can never go out of order: safety, courtesy, show, and efficiency. So you could never be rude to guests or hold back people that needed assistance to enter that attraction because you are going to get your number. That hierarchy of thinking is exactly what you are talking about.
Sixteen-year-old kids who sit at home and never say anything to Mom and Dad at the dinner table, all of a sudden, if that same kid is now at Disneyworld and he understands safety, courtesy, show, and efficiency, then we sell happiness is what we train all the new hires to understand. Backstage, we sell happiness. The way we do that is we create magic. The standard, which is the covenant, as an example using the covenant language, one of the standards is consistently seek out guest contact. Those words were all very definitive and intentional. Consistently (not just when you want to) seek out (don’t just let the guest walk over you, you seek them out, make eye contact) guest contact.
To wrap all of that up, what I would share with you—and this has carried over into my consulting and my own life as a parent and husband—I have thought about what are those standards I want to live by and behaviors I want to commit to. Here is how powerful this is. You have this 16-year-old who sits at home and never looks up from their phone, but you put them in the culture at Disneyworld, and what happens? They see a father in the Magic Kingdom walking with an Epcot Center guidebook, and the same kid walks up and goes, “Oh hi, are you headed over to Epcot Center later this evening to see Illuminations, the fireworks show?” They say, “Yes, how did you know?” Well, that’s the secret, the magic. This guest doesn’t realize that this kid has been taught that if you are in the Magic Kingdom in front of the castle and you see a father or mother with an Epcot Center guidebook, that is an opportunity for magic. So what the kid says is, “Would you like to know the secret best place to go inside the world showcase to see the fireworks?” “Sure, that’d be great.”
What happens then to wrap all of that up—I still get goosebumps telling you this—you can take the person out of Disney, but you can’t take the Disney out of the person—but what I would share with you is absolutely part of the secret of Disney is safety, courtesy, show, and efficiency, we sell happiness, we create magic, and then there is the standard of consistently seek out guest contact. Here is the big one. We also then teach the why to the cast member to understand why you’re doing this. Do you know what magic is? The last piece for me on this on the Disney benchmark is then showing them ways they can make magic. So you see a family walking through the park with a camera. You will see teenage cast members run up to that family and say, “Sir, can I take that picture for you so you can be in it?” Well, why is that such a treasured thing to do working at Disneyworld? Because, when you are a new hire, we would tell story after story that the Christmas card is going to be the picture of the family, and in the old days, this will date me, but it used to be that American families spent 36 rolls of film in one trip at Disneyworld.
Hugh: Oh my goodness.
Stephen: They would get home, and the average for most families is there would be three pictures of the entire family in the 36 rolls of film. To wrap all this up, what we do is teach that the holiday card is going to be that picture of the whole family at Disneyworld. The one that is huge today is when you go to a funeral, and Grandpa has passed away, the tradition in America at least is you go to the funeral and what do they have? Pictures up on an easel. At the time, we had 81,000 guest letters of people writing in saying, “Four months after we were at Disneyworld, my grandfather died. I want you to know the picture at the memorial service was the picture in front of Splash Mountain. I wanted to say thank you to the kid Skip who took that picture.” The magic was then to go back as a company and find Skip and say, “You made magic.”
Hugh: That’s lovely. What if we had that same mindset? We use the word “nonprofit” because we gotta make profit, and we start dumbing down to the lowest common denominator. But what if we were able to, and we settle for less than excellence, less than efficient, less than safety. What gift do you have to inspire board members? I think it’s up to the board members to step up and say I want to do better.
Stephen: Great question. One of the ways that I think you can really help these volunteer board members as well as leaders, whether it is a member of a committee or the chairman, is to make it personal. Here is what I mean. 1,100 hospitals have licensed my Patient Satisfaction Program, and one of the things that both Quint Stuter and the Stuter Group and myself really made famous in hospitals is behavior standards.
One of the things I would give you as an example is imagine your covenants. Go back to what you said, Hugh. Imagine if you had these covenants for these board members you were speaking to. We are talking about how to maintain excellence and inspire them to that. What if the standard was no triangulation? If the banker is upset with the CPA who is upset with the multi-millionaire retired business owner who is upset with the schoolteacher, and you have all the baggage and crap that goes with those labels in our society, no, no, no. It doesn’t matter who you are. The issue is no triangulation. What does that mean? If you have an issue with anybody, you go to them. You don’t run to me. Or the chairman says, “If you do have an issue, come to me and check in. That’s fine. I can help you navigate this.” That is where your WayFinding is so brilliant in terms of what you are teaching because you can help them navigate a constructive conversation. That is one.
Another is take 100% responsibility for everything you do and say. Take 100% responsibility. That is a success principle that Jack Canfield has really focused on.
Another one is keep your agreements.
Hugh: Oh my.
Stephen: What is really neat is if you think about language, so be humble at all times. Remember we don’t know what we don’t know, the humility piece. Managerial courage is caring enough about the other person to say something, to not cower away. Embracing failing forward. The big one that is always so cliché is mission first. What does that mean?
That is what I would do. If you don’t care about triangulation, then you won’t achieve excellence. If you don’t care about taking 100% responsibility… It could be as simple as the person in the role of secretary is supposed to have the notes at the meeting sent out by the next morning because we are all busy people. But everybody talks for years now that the secretary gets them out the Thursday after the week after the week after the meeting is over. Now what I have opened up, Hugh, is what do you do then when those types of behaviors fester, which is against the standard of excellence? That is where I think boards fail and struggle in the moments of difficulty and failure. But you have to start with the standards. You have to have the language. You have to start somewhere. You have to wiggle your spinal cord.
Hugh: Yeah, we are in the same place. A lot of it the leader lets happen. We think it’s going to go away. I have an e-book out on Amazon called Creating Healthy Teams. It’s all about this intervention piece of managing conflict.
Russ, in your work with the Indian reservation and some of the charities, what do you tag here in the brilliant stuff he is giving us tonight?
Russell: This is all really excellent stuff. He is preaching to the choir here. I know in my case, I have worked some insane hours. You get a few drivers that are dedicated, and they don’t take care of themselves. They burn out as a result. You have to have an open communication where you can have those tough conversations with the board or course-correct. When something is not going well with a project, folks don’t want to talk about it because they want to look “good” for the funding sources. It’s best that if you have some sort of problem, you have to be transparent and talk about it as quick as you can. Even if it’s just discomfort, you need to go to your leader and express that instead of sweeping it under the rug. A lot of this is having those conversations. That is a culture piece. If you don’t have that culture in place where you can do that, you will have some difficulties.
Also what you were talking about is what I would call the solid foundation, which is step one of the four steps of building a high-performance nonprofit. That is the process I will work with people in corporations through that I am still fine-tuning. Building that foundation is looking at what you have and what you need and being able to establish that communication, culture, and ground rules. It’s easier when you start. But you are probably used to going in and finding stuff in every state of operation, being a change management consultant. It’s tricky, and it’s a lot of fun when you ask a lot of questions and you generally bring people to a place where they figure out they don’t know what they don’t know. Nobody likes to be told there is something wrong with them. But I ask enough questions that people after a while are dropping these gems on themselves. Once they come to that point, you can continue that conversation and move forward. But it’s tough to get there sometimes. There is a lot of conflict. When you walk into some situations, you are going to find a massive amount of conflict because things have gone the way they have gone. How do you start off when you walk into these situations where you have some strong personalities and a lot bubbling under the surface because you have let this strong personality dominate?
Stephen: There are a couple things. There is a soft approach. It’s all about winning the war, not the battle, right? We all know that. One principle that guides us is people don’t argue with their own data. The magic of what you all are teaching with asking the better questions is you are helping people realize that when they make it their own and identify it, they solve their own problems, as we talked about earlier.
I do behavioral styles training. For years, I have been using Tony Alexander’s Platinum Rule. There are four quadrants. It’s a simpler, cleaner version of Myers Briggs. The concept is I start with understanding: Did you know there are four statistically proven, research-based styles? Did you know those four styles each have a deep driving need, a way they see the world and what they value in that world, and the one thing that is the risk or the weakness? The real principle for me there is teaching people any strength taken too far can become a weakness. The overuse of a strength, as this group Strength Scope, which is a brilliant group, they are taking what Gallop did with Strengths Finder- The concept is that the overuse of a strength is the overuse of a skill. That is the soft approach.
If I were to leave this fine earth tomorrow, what I am about to say is the tool I hope people would embrace. There is a very simple one, and there is a complex one that has a process that is not that complex. All these tools are in the book Success from the Inside Out, which I’d like to offer your group access to the PDF version as a way to give back. It was written as an action guide format. There is a chapter called “What Makes the Disney Difference?” There is a chapter talking about behavioral standards. And there is this chapter that I am talking about here.
Very quickly, this is the concept. This is the single most powerful exercise I have ever done. If I need to level an organization, or if a CEO hires me and says, “I need to reach into the belly of this beast and wake my executives up,” this is what we do. You get people together, get an outside facilitator, and collect feedback in writing, not public discussion, but individually on pieces of paper, and what they are doing is opening up their head and heart and answering the questions: What are you mad about? What are you sad about? What are you glad about? Working here as part of this board. When you think about coming here every month, with the way this board works, what are you mad about? Or what are you mad about with the way the chairman interacts with us? Or what are you mad about, sad about, or glad about? You make them think about those things.
What you do is have them all write it down on a piece of paper. The outside person collects all those pieces of paper, types it all up, and looks at the trends. The concept is no one else sees the handwriting of the participants. It’s anonymous.
Mad, glad, and sad is only the emotional side, but it’s the way to start. It’s what opens the door. Here is where the $150,000 of free consulting comes in. When you ask the people these questions, “We can identify the things that frustrate us, but now let’s talk about solutions.” You have them take out another piece of paper, and write down when you think about the chairman of the board or the committee leaders or all of us as a group collectively, what do we as mature, grown adult members of this board need to stop doing, start doing, and continue doing? The brain science magic on this is when you ask a human being who has now emotively unloaded and are feeling good about getting that off their chest… By the way, about 10% of the data you gather from the sad/mad/glad will be surprises to the chairman. If they are really an ostrich with their head buried in the sand, 25% of the data will be a surprise to them. They will say, “I didn’t know that they were that upset.” We have only been talking about that every single meeting when we wait until you leave and get in your car and then complain about it behind your back.
Russell: Break room, yes.
Stephen: Stop/start/continue is where you transform the organization, to answer your question, Russ. If you could simply get organizations, even if it was just the C-suite group, the top senior leaders, to simply sit twice a year and go, “What do you and I start doing, stop doing, and continue doing to make this a better place?” If you want to go and really transform the nonprofit organization, go ask your volunteers, “What do the leaders of this nonprofit need to stop doing, start doing, and continue doing? They are not going to see your handwriting. They are not going to see your name. Just tell us.” When that data comes pouring in and you look at it, what I do is type it up into PowerPoint slides. You can see that 18/34 said, “We don’t start meetings on time.” 27/34 people said, “There is no accountability here, and there are three people who have so much favoritism and nepotism that they get away with murder.” Okay. Now you have people surfacing a difficult issue.
Just like anything, as you talked about with process, you need a safety net. You don’t want people to get hurt and stir up and trigger events. There is a best practice on how to do it. Here is where I am going with this. Anybody listening, if you could do this in your marriage, what do I need to stop doing, start doing, or continue doing to be a better husband? What do I need to stop doing or start doing this summer to be a better father to my 13-year-old boy who is really thriving and doing exceptionally well with tae-kwon-do? How can I better support him? I need to start making more time to go to tae-kwon-do practices with him. I need to start more consistently practicing with him at home. Great example. The other day, I bought a 70-pound body bag to hang from the ceiling. How many months do you think I have ben thinking about buying that body bag for my son? When you do stop/start, that is where you get off your duff, drive your car to Target, and buy the bag. The interesting thing is that today, body bags are only $60 now.
How many times do boards complain about how expensive it is… I am using this as a metaphor. You go to your local Goodwill store, and somebody will have already donated their body bag back to the local Goodwill store. It will be hanging in a corner. You ask Goodwill if you can buy it for $10. One of the principles I try to help organizations with is there is always a way.
The other thing is that N-O = O-N. No=On. When you say no to things, it keeps what matters most on. You stay focused on the things that matter. The one thing is the one thing is a great principle. I am going back to both of your questions. Safety, courtesy, show, and efficiency was a way of trying to figure out the language, which everybody is picking up now. A lot of what you are hearing from me tonight is about language. I know this is huge for the two of you as well. It’s really about language.
Hugh: It is. Underneath communications is relationships. You have covered a lot of territory here, and you have answered the questions we posted. Except I’d like to hear on this meeting thing. There is a fifth unposted question out there. I like this mad/glad/sad/stop/start/continue. This is similar to tools we use, but it is distinctively different. Pretty brilliant. Will you give us the link for that free book?
Stephen: Go to talkwithstephen.com, and what they can do is go in as if they were scheduling an appointment, and put in the comment box they would like a copy of the book and I will send them the books of Jumpstart Your Creativity and Success from the Inside Out. They won’t be enrolled in any email list or any autoresponder messages from me. I don’t do that. I don’t even have opt-in boxes on my websites. Just go to talkwithstephen.com. Book the appointment, we can cancel it later. Simply make a note that they want the book. If they want to ask a question, that’s great. I will get back to them. But they can also just say, “Send me the book,” and I will send those two.
Hugh: This last one is a real zinger. I wish you lived closer so we could have coffee and talk more. There is this thing about meetings and making decisions together. One of my e-books out there is Conducting Power Impact Meetings. I approach it like a conductor builds ensemble, so meetings in my world are the number one killer of high-functioning teams. But they are the number one empowerment vehicle for high-performing teams. We can go either way. The difference is how the leader builds the culture through the DNA of rehearsal together. We rehearse for excellence, or we rehearse for mediocrity or even less. Give us the Stephen snapshot of decision-making. What are some of the things that are important in meetings to you?
Stephen: Delivering a promise I made a minute ago: If mad/sad/glad/stop/start/continue is a process piece, the one I want to give everybody as a gift that you can share with your loved ones but also with yourself is a mini version. Hugh, let me ask you a question. If you could change any one thing immediately about the way you are spending your private time—say you used to have a hobby but no longer—what would you change? That question is a really powerful question. I use that to answer your question because one of the best practices in meetings for me is being able to facilitatively know when to ask that question. “Okay, I hear everybody complaining about the payroll system and the clocking in system and that you are frustrated about the accuracy of paychecks. If we could change any one thing immediately, what would we change?” That is an example of a powerful facilitative question.
Number two: I believe that standing meetings, no chairs, no food, and no meetings longer than an hour unless justified by the seniors. There are some process pieces, too. But the one I would share that is critically important—this is my life work and John Connor’s life work, the Harvard professor—he wrote a book called Urgency—John Connor is one of the really sage experts in change management. In his original books around change, he identified the nine key principles that you have to press in order to have lasting successful change.
People don’t argue with their own data. When you ask great questions, and when you ask that above question, now you start to get a group moving forward. What are the secret tools in the toolbox? If your group does not have a crystal clear understanding of the urgency of addressing this issue or the urgency of the need for change, if they do not understand the pain of continuing to do the status quo, then you are, according to John Connor’s life work—and I have experienced it myself after 20 years of change management—missing the single most powerful lever for success that is research-based and proven. If the leaders do not establish amongst themselves the urgency, the why is it so urgent we have to fix the payroll system, why is it that paychecks have to get mailed out on time. If they cannot get together about the urgency and the why behind that urgency, they are missing the fundamental, most powerful lever you can start with to effectively drive change.
I will wrap up with this. In meetings, one of the most powerful tools I have come across over the years is the three D’s. I want to hear your thoughts on this, too because you all have dedicated time to this. One little tool is three D’s. It could be a part of a meeting, the first twenty minutes, and the last forty minutes is another topic. Or you could have one meeting with just one D. There are Discovery meetings, which is where last month, seven different people left with topics to research. They come back and you will dedicate 20 minutes. Each person will have two minutes to discover or talk about what they discovered out there in the universe.
Another example would be Distribution, which is okay, you went out and gathered this, but now let’s distribute amongst ourselves what we need to do, leveraging the experts in the room, to take all the discovery information, distribute amongst ourselves to move this forward, to get to what, a decision. What I have found is whether it’s for profit or a nonprofit, I believe personally the reason meetings suck is nobody wants to make a decision because if we don’t make a decision, then I don’t have to be held accountable for any expectation after the meeting is over. If we can subconsciously keep this ball bouncing… I know we are doing dinner next month with the board, but what I would like to have you do is come in 20 minutes early and have a meeting about the meeting we had last time and then we will talk about what meeting we need to book for that meeting because nobody wants to make a decision.
So discovery, you focus everybody. What do you all know? What do we need to distribute amongst each other now that we have done that discovery process? The last one is time to make a Decision. The decision piece hopefully is not the first time the group is bringing up the urgency conversation. To help everybody with a concrete technique, what happens if we do nothing? I love this question. If you want to see silence in a board room, they will surface an issue and are fuming, ask them that. What you will see in that moment is people will either come fighting for their cause or people will look back and say honestly,” I think we have bigger fish to fry. Rome is burning. I don’t think we need to worry about that. You are talking about golf course issues and the grass on the green.” Boom. Thank you. By simply asking that one question, if we do nothing, what happens? It helps people stop and pause. People don’t let boards sit and quiet.
Hugh: You hit that a minute ago. The silence piece. It’s powerful.
Russell: I am a big fan of silence. It’s part of my meditative routine in the morning. Instead of using something guided, it’s silence a lot of times. It’s really powerful. I have sat in meetings, and silence makes people uncomfortable. They are not used to being. They are used to doing. They feel like they have to do something. I consider silence a power tool.
There is one question, and I think you may have covered it. David Dunworth posed a question. He said, “We used a similar process with employees in large organizations we call the 360-degree feedback system.” He posed a question about a smaller organization, and he says, “How can smaller social enterprises instill that spirit you are discussing into a tiny nonprofit that is struggling to find effective board members?”
Stephen: The first part of that question is how they can instill which spirit? Which piece of it are they talking about?
Russell: We were talking about motivating board members. That was at the point we were talking about motivating board members.
Stephen: Okay. What I would do is do you know the why? If you look at your most successful, invigorated, excited people who are supporting you, whether it’s donors, community leaders, influencers, or board members, do you know the why for each of them, and are you looking for the distinctions of the patterns? Here is what it could sound like. If they do that homework as a small nonprofit, they could say, if you are at lunch with someone and you want to plug someone in: “You might find it interesting that 40% of our raving fans, the people most committed to this organization, the thing they are really drawn by is what we are doing with policy-makers to change the healthcare code as it relates to geriatric patients. That is what is driving them.” The fact that you know 40% of the people who are most engaged are most excited about this one thing, at least you are now putting a voice, safety, concern, show, efficiency, you are putting a language to those fundamental building blocks.
Number two, quickly off the cuff on that, is do you have your own story clear enough? This is the piece I would talk about. I’ll do it this way. I will do two things simultaneously quickly here. Imagine if at the beginning of our talk today, instead of me talking about my past and what I did with Disney and all of that, imagine if we had started this talk tonight this way. “Stephen, where are you headed, and what are you most passionate about when it comes to nonprofit boards?” Well now I will share with you what Dennis, the drama-free teams expert, would say: He is on a mission between now and 2020 to create 10,000 drama-free teams in healthcare in hospitals. He is about to launch drama-free nursing, and he wants to help nurses, the largest department in hospitals, eliminate their drama.
What I would share is this. Imagine if we could focus on where we are headed. What is the goal? What are we trying to do? What is the result? Bring that story forward along with consistently seeking out guest contact, safety, courtesy, show, and efficiency. Now we have something more compelling, and you are drawing people to it.
One other thing I want to take a moment to say is that “imagine” is a very powerful word. It’s called an imagine statement. Imagine in just three short years we eradicate polio from the continent. Think about that. Everybody uses the JFK example of going to the moon. Why was that so profound? He cast a vision that was so profound it almost… How are we going to do that?
I used to run mastermind groups for small business owners in home services, plumbing, electrical, and maid services. I need everybody to hear this. I am not selling this service. I am not doing that. This is an Imagine statement. People would say, “Stephen, what do you do? I understand you work with small business owners.” I am translating what I am about to say as a framework for you. You are a small business owner, and I respond, “Imagine doubling your sales, tripling your net profit, and retiring in 3-5 years, guaranteed. Imagine doubling your sales, tripling your net profit, and retiring in 3-5 years, guaranteed.” Here is what happened. I interviewed 1,700 business owners in plumbing, electrical, and maid service in 2004, and what I discovered was that they worked hard but didn’t make any money, they worked hard but didn’t have a growing company, they wanted to retire, they wanted to turn over their business to their kids. If you translate that into what you are trying to do in the future and figure out what your imagine statement is… Think about the Gates foundation with mosquitoes and mosquito nets. Imagine eradicating malaria by 2020.
The other thing I have modeled for everybody was the power of a pause. That is that moment for leaders. Next time you run a meeting, folks, let me ask you a question. *pause* All you do is sit at that board table, look down, and break eye contact with them. If you could change what we are doing immediately about this golf tournament, is this really the best way for us to make money this year? Is there another way? If we could change anything immediately about how we are raising money for this organization this year, what would it be? All of a sudden, you will have the audience in the palm of your hand. I turn it over to you, Hugh. I’d love to get your reaction to some of this.
Hugh: This is profound stuff. We could talk the rest of the night. I want to do a wrap here. I will come back to you in the end, Stephen. I was trying to capture that. That is one of the most useful things you said all night. That one is an eye-opener. I want to let you think for a minute as a parting wish, thought, tip for people. Russ, do you have any closing comments you want to make? I want to make a couple announcements.
Russell: No, I don’t have anything to add, except my thanks. I want to make sure we get his question. I took copious notes. I have learned a lot from you. I look forward to talking with you again in the future. It has been marvelous. Thank you so much.
Stephen: Thank you. An honor.
Hugh: It’s a gift to have you with us, Stephen. Russ shows me up all the time. I have to be careful. He has taken really good notes here. He has a way of summarizing key points and putting them in. David Dunworth who asked the question was on this series a while back, and he had one of our great interviews as well. Thank you for being on here, David, and others.
What parting thought would you like to leave with people?
Stephen: Folks, life is short. I just turned 50 years old, and I have a 13-year-old son, an 8-year-old dog, a puppy, and a 52-year-old wife. What I would invite everybody to think about beyond all the clichés of why we are here, what we are doing, what is the meaning of life, beyond all of that, I would make it a little bit simpler. It’s 2017. In 2027, ten years from now, summer of 2027, if you are still with us here on this earth, God willing, as true as day, you will be standing there. You will be alive and living your life. Here is my simple question. Between now and then, how do you want to spend it? How do you want to spend it? Do you want to spend it as the person who gets consumed by all the things in the media, the news, and the press, with everything that is wrong with the country and the world? Or do you want to be that light of hope and be a role model for others? Even beyond that, live the best life you can live?
My question for you is: Between now and next summer, one year from now, how do you want to spend it? Hugh will have this podcast next June, and you will be here next June after a year’s worth of podcasts. Give yourself the gift today or tomorrow and simply think about how do you want to spend it? If you do that, that is time well worth spending.
Hugh: Good words, sir.
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