Johnnie Moore's Weblog: Bruised guide to facilitation
I love contact improvisation, and I love facilitation. Who knew that lessons from one could inform the other?! (Amy, where are you? You'll love this, too!)
This is why I run this blog: to find interesting intersections that inform our work!
In this piece, the writers strongly recommend starting with what is known about teams and teamwork (regardless of the technology) and being sure to acknowledge and address these things as you build, support and sustain a virtual team.
I'd like to see more of this kind of analysis about technology adoption inside of organizations. Great work!
I have, in large part, followed a few of my colleagues' footsteps, trying to tread carefully into the impressions they've left in the sand... thanks and appreciation are due to Nancy White and Beth Kanter and Marnie Webb for leading the way for me.
What I am struggling with is how to describe how best to integrate all this activity into one's online publishing and online presence. Let's start with what I did...
So... after hours of this, I can only hope that the investment of time and frustration and learning was worth it. I am going to trust that it was as I see so many of my colleagues using this technology well and powerfully and satisfyingly.
But I will say that I cannot possibly encourage my nonprofit clients to invest their limited time into this endeavor until the tools are MUCH simpler, much more integrated with each other, and there is a demonstrated benefit to such an investment.
Lastly, I tried putting this in the margin of my blog, but I thought it messed things up visually and didn't look professional (although I think it looks great on Marnie Webb's blog). [update: I managed to figure out how to make it look okay in the margin.] So I'm sticking it here instead; blogger claims it won't accept the SCRIPT tag, but it does...
And his "edge" is particularly evident in his insistence that nonprofits shift their attention from the almighty DOLLAR long enough to think about the DONOR. See in particular:
Amy's also great at pointing out dangerous pitfalls especially new nonprofits can make in their efforts to raise funds.
In order for choices about and investments in IT initiatives to be successful...
#1: IT initiatives and their managers must be driven by organizational objectives.
Too often, IT is placed in a "silo" as a support function. As a result, most technology options are then examined as a solution to some problem, not as an investment in accomplishing the mission of the organization. Ideally, priorities and decisions about technology are made from a shared understanding of the general priorities of the organization.#2: The responsibility for the success of IT in the organization lies with organizational and program directors.
In a 2003 study (4), MQ found that while 90% of directors expect their program directors to:
Many organizational directors delegate IT policymaking to a committee system. But without authority, such systems are "like a vehicle without an engine," leading to IT investments that generate only marginal returns. In addition, if the make-up of the committee is too junior, the group risks missing key issues such as:
But what would this look like? To enable program directors to think about the role technology can play to achieve their desired programmatic outcomes, they must:
In such an environment, IT is no longer a "support" function; it "spans business unites and functions and connects organizations to partners and customers... and fosters improvements and competitive advantage." Therefore, its role is fundamental to an organization's success. Without such involvement, IT will have "only a limited sense of what the [program] wants, inevitably suppl[ying] it with a product that is less functional than it expects or even needs."
#3: Investments in Building Technology Capacity Should be Paired with Investments in Building Management Capacity.
Several articles about managing technology are not free from the McKinsey Quarterly web site. One of them, shared with me by a colleague, summarized research conducted by McKinsey & Company on the benefits of investments made in technology capacity.In the manufacturing sector, at least, investments in technology capacity produced far fewer increases in productivity than investments in management capacity, but investments in both significantly increased both productivity and financial returns on investment.
The researchers recommended that before a company makes a significant investment in technology, it should invest first in building the capacity of its management.
MQ found that companies that adopt these practices "are improving their return on investment and managing their IT costs more successfully."Links to original McKinsey Quarterly articles:
(Note McKinsey Quarterly requires a free registration to access its free articles. You will also find there links to their “premium” articles which requires a paid subscription.)
In his examination of companies that went from good to GREAT, Collins found that the great companies are hedgehogs-- "Hedgehogs see what is essential, and ignore the rest... Those who led the comparison companies tended to be foxes, never gaining the clarifying advantage... being instead scattered, diffused, and inconsistent."
I have subsequently taken Jim Collins' three circles of focus that together form an organization's "hedgehog concept" and used this in strategic planning with nonprofits:
Undergoing a "hedgehog analysis" helps re-align an organization's staff and board with what they really, truly care about, and grounds them firmly in what they know they can be excellent at. Coming from that place, organizations will be much better positioned to make choices about new initiatives and how best to use technology to get them there.
When you get your Hedgehog Concept right, Collins writes, "it has the quiet ping of truth, like a single, clear, perfectly struck note hanging in the air in the hushed silence of a full auditorium at the end of a quiet movement of a Mozart piano concerto."
Wouldn't you love your organization to have that?
I see this blog as a place to address this intersection of expertise. I intend to post and discuss resources and tools from a variety of disciplines. I am interested in exploring how we can apply tools from one field to that of another, leading towards a more wholistic (and I misspell that word intentionally) approach to both our practice as consultants & service providers as well as the work done inside of organizations.
If you are interested in this intersection as well, please join me here. Expert bloggers: you know what to do to keep informed of updates to this blog; for those like me who are inconsistent bloggers, but want to stay informed, contact me and I'll add you to the informal alerts system I'm establishing.
I look forward to your comments.
What If? suggests incorporating "outside-in" visioning by brainstorming several possible futures or scenarios-- "provocative and plausible stories about diverse ways in which relevant issues outside of organizations might evolve." For example (and I made these up; they're not from the book), what if...
Why do this? GBN authors say that this kind of thinking builds a deeper understanding of the world in which your organization operates, helps you anticipate and prepare. "The reliability of the scenarios’ content is less important than the types of conversations and decisions that they spark... The test of a good set of scenarios is whether it enables an organization to learn, adapt and take effective action." The theory is that an organization that is more able to learn, and change its way of working based on what it learns is stronger, more adaptable, more likely to succeed no matter what scenario comes into existence.
Scenario thinking can be practiced at various levels of strategy development-- whether you’re engaging in a full-blown, multi-month strategic planning effort, you need to make a decision about a specific issue, or you want to test the sustainability of your current status quo. The publication also includes many case stories that illustrate how real organizations have applied scenario thinking.
I’m looking forward to incorporating scenario thinking into my own practice, and would love to hear from both consultants who are using it in their work with clients, and from nonprofits who have engaged in it. What works and doesn't about it?
One of my inspirations was the late great Janel Radtke and her excellent book, Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations: Seven Steps to Creating a Successful Plan. It’s still a great book (and still available), but it was published in 1999, early in the evolution of Internet use by nonprofits. And while a lot continues to be written about the Internet, such writing tends to focus on the technology more than how an organization should think about the Internet as part of its overall strategy for reaching its audience, for achieving its mission.
Well, there’s a new kid in town who has done a great job of pulling Internet communications into a strategic communications planning guide. Cause Communications, a nonprofit marketing firm, has recently published the Communications Toolkit: A guide to navigating communications for the nonprofit world.
I like this new toolkit because it very excellently incorporates different Internet tactics into a larger communications strategy.
The hard copy version is well designed and attractive -- in a nice, matte-finish, spiral-bound, hard-cover notebook format. It is easy to follow, with great advice and specific steps for implementing a communications planning process with, as I said, Internet activities built in. I also like the "on-the-road" metaphor used throughout:
Available for free, their web site indicates they’ve already run out of hard copies and are publishing more. I recommend getting on their list for hard copies, but in the meantime, you can download a PDF of the entire 134-page document.
Working with Marty Kearns of Green Media Toolshed and Allison Fine formerly of the E-Volve Foundation and Innonet, I interviewed many great folks, read a lot of excellent articles, and examined a number of online efforts. It was a most interesting exploration and you can read the results here:
Power to the Edges: Trends and Opportunities in Online Civic Engagement
The report also includes a companion discussion blog.
The biggest take-away for me was that in large part due to the Internet and other new digital technologies, citizens are participating in democracy and civic life in entirely new ways and that the old organizational models of engaging them are increasingly ineffective. And... that if nonprofits and their supporting foundations don't "get it," they are likely to continue to be throwing time and money down the drain and experiencing lackluster results at best.
The partners in this report-- PACE and the E-Volve Foundation-- are committed to this document being a first edition of a projected annual report or otherwise evolving document. Their intent is to engage a broad community of individuals -- mostly through web logs (blogs)-- and update the report over time-- especially given that uses of new technologies for civic engagement are changing rapidly.
I found Susan Scott's Fierce Conversations (Viking/The Penguin Group, 2002) incredibly useful for encouraging me to have those conversations I keep putting off and for improving the conversations I do have-- personal or professional. I wish I’d had this book when I was managing a team of young staff.
Scott says that fierce conversations help us "interrogate reality, provoke learning, become mobilized to tackle tough challenges and enrich our relationships." In a fierce conversation, you, as instigator of the conversation, ask questions and listen to the responses. I find this demands of me a qualitatively different level of engagement, that I truly hear my discussion partner, leading to greater understanding, an increased sense of partnership, and a shift from focusing on the problem to focusing on solutions.
So how do you do it? Whether with a romantic or business partner, a client or an employee, you can start the discussion with "What do you feel most deserves our attention?" Then proceed to listen, not interrupt, not react, not defend, not solve. Just listen. And only, Scott insists, ask questions. Like these:
When I practice this approach with clients, I have been amazed at the energy shift from the beginning of the conversation (where the client's energy was very low) to a much more hopeful and up-beat tone; the client left the conversation empowered to act on things that before had seemed so STUCK.
If you try this, please let me know how it goes.
